The Threshold Child (36 page)

He waved a hand disinterestedly. “Send them in.”

The woman that entered was the thin assassin from the fortress.
Her dark hair was also streaked with gray and pulled tightly back, giving her
an even more severe look than before. She was dressed like a servant, but
anyone who looked her in the eye could see that she served no one but herself.

She locked the door behind herself and turned to face the king.
“Greetings, your Majesty. And congratulations on the birth of your son.”

He was surprised to see her. “Why are you here? Are there any
problems with the assignments I have given you?”

She smiled briefly. “No, no problems.”

The monarch frowned. “Well?”

The assassin seated herself without asking permission. “I come
with a
request
from the
fortress.”

Adesina frowned at the woman’s manner of speaking. It was
seemingly passive, but behind
the calm tones it was
clear that she was the one in control rather than the king.

His expression was immediately wary. “What do you want?”

“Children.”

He couldn’t have looked more bewildered. “What?”

The woman was entirely at ease, as if her request was completely
ordinary. “Children, your Majesty. All the orphan children in the realm.”

The ruler was speechless, so the woman continued with her address.

“We want a system put in place so they can be transported to the
fortress undetected, as well as all future orphans. We also want a rumor spread
that impoverished families can turn their children over to the traveling
workers for excellent care and a respectable future.”

“Who are these traveling workers?”

She waved a bony hand. “Artisans who go from village to village
looking for work.”

“Where will we find artisans willing to acquire children for you?”
he asked in confusion.

A patronizing smile appeared on her face. “We already have Shimat
in place to act in that capacity.”

The king looked agitated and uncomfortable. “I wish you would stop
calling yourselves that. The shimat are myths. Demons from old wives’ tales…”

The woman’s eyes gleamed with a manic light. “Oh, but we
are
shadow
demons.
Your
shadow demons, for you created us.”

He shuffled the papers on his desk, avoiding eye contact. “For
what purpose do you want these children?”

“To be raised and trained as Shimat.”

The idea caught the monarch’s attention, and an amazed smile
appeared on his face. “Of course! An entire generation of assassins at my
command!”

The assassin said nothing, keeping her expression neutral. The
feelings of apprehension that the king had been feeling moments ago were
replaced by a greed for power. This lasted for several minutes before the he
became cautious again.

“I will allow it on one condition: the children must be raised
completely loyal to me.”

She smiled slyly. “Of course, your Majesty.”

He still looked distrustful, but nodded. “I will begin gathering
them immediately. What ages would you prefer?”

She leaned back in her chair, interlacing her fingers. “For now we
will take all the children who range from infancy to fifteen years of age. In
the future, when this program is more established, we will lower that cutoff
age.”

They began discussing the details, but Adesina felt herself being
pulled out of the memory. She shuddered as she pulled her hand away from the
man standing in the marble hall.

“How did you witness this without notice?” she asked him.

He sighed with a melodramatic expression on his face. “I was one
of the King’s Counselors, and I wished gain prestige and riches. I was spying
on the king with the hope of learning something
valuable
.”

“You tried to blackmail him?”

He looked offended. “I merely wanted to warn him of his lack of
discretion! He had me executed…”

Adesina wasn’t surprised in the least. The fussy man turned away
from them and went back to his friends in the marble hall. The two L’avan made
their way back to the Garden, where they could discuss what she had seen.

This had been the hardest memory for Adesina to watch. She felt
ill when she thought of all the children who had been manipulated through the
years. More than that, she was angry when she thought about how she herself had
been manipulated.

She thought about her Shi friend, Lanil, who was so sweet and
caring that it was hard to believe that she was also a warrior in training. If
her parents had lived, she probably would have been a lot like Deasa.
Doubtless, Lanil would have married young and been happy to raise her family. Unfortunately,
her parents had died when she was an infant, and she had become a Shar Child—raised
in the Shimat fortress with no option but to be trained as one.

Adesina began pacing back and forth, and E’rian seated herself on
the edge of the fountain, watching her daughter’s agitated movements.

“Why has nothing been done before now? Why are the Shimat not
stopped?”

The older woman clasped her hands together and leaned forward.
“Ma’eve, the Shimat order thrives on secrecy and subtle manipulation. To most
of the world they are nothing but a dark story to get one’s children to behave.
It was not until they approached us about an alliance that the L’avan knew of
their reality.”

Adesina stopped in her tracks. “The Shimat offered an alliance
with the L’avan?”

Her mother nodded. “It was before our isolation from the rest of
the world. The L’avan king of that time had the gift of reading intentions, and
he could see that the Shimat only wanted to manipulate us and have use of our
powers. They thought
vyala
was something
that could be transferred, and they wanted it for their own.”

Her daughter moved to sit next to her. “What happened?”

“The king told them he would not accept their treaty, and then the
persecution began.”

The young woman frowned. “The Shimat began persecuting the
L’avan?”

E’rian smiled sadly. “No, they are much too subtle for that. They
used all of their influences to create fear and distrust of the L’avan among
other people. After that, they just had to sit back and watch. We were driven
from our homes by farmers, merchants and artisans, all of whom thought they
were protecting their families and ways of life from our evil influences.”

Her daughter shook her head, not understanding. “Why would they go
to so much trouble?”

She tilted her head to one side. “For revenge, Ma’eve. We dared to
defy them, and they hate us for it. Also, they did it for protection. We knew
they existed, so they had to destroy any possibility that anyone would believe
us if we exposed their secrets.”

Adesina was speechless. She knew her mother had warned her against
what she would be shown in these memories, but she had still been completely
unprepared for what she had seen. Each memory seemed worse than the last, and
she was afraid of what she would learn next about this order of assassins to
which she had sworn loyalty.

The next night the wooden door took them to a cozy cottage. It was
a place that looked as if many generations had lived there, leaving behind
traces of love and experience. An old man was sitting next to a fire with his
arm around a kindly old woman when they entered.

“G’morrow to ye, lasses! How ken I hep ye?”

E’rian walked over and pressed each of their hands warmly. “Good
morrow to you as well. We are in need of your memories.”

The old man shook his head adamantly. “No, no, ye kennot come to
no good wit dem. Warm fire, good talk, det is all I ken offer ye.”

To Adesina’s surprise, her mother didn’t argue. She seated herself
across from the old couple and indicated that she should do the same. The old
woman looked them over carefully.

“Ye seems ta be da norther’ sort.”

E’rian inclined her head. “Yes, we hail from the north. And you?”

She knew that her mother already knew their answer, and couldn’t
figure out why she was wasting time with small talk.

“Weeell,” said the old man, “We cummot form de sout’.”

The L’avan woman looked delighted by this news. “Oh, the south is
a lovely place! Such beautiful farms.”

The old man straightened proudly. “Yes, yes, I dunno’ deny it. I
had a farm of such.”

She reached over to lay a hand on Adesina’s arm. “My daughter was
raised in the south.”

The aged woman leaned forward with a concerned expression on her
face. “Did ye not raise her yesef?”

Her mother shook her head sadly. “I passed away before I even had
the opportunity to hold her in my arms.”

The woman turned to her husband. “Ach, sech a sad tale!”

He nodded in agreement. “Yes, yes, I dunno’ deny it!”

E’rian fixed her powerful gaze on the old couple. “You see, my
daughter was raised by my enemies, the Shimat.”

Both of them were horrified at this revelation. “Ye dunno’ say!”

She went on in a low voice. “I have been showing her the truth of
the order she formerly served. I want her to know that what the Shimat truly
are.”

The old man could see where she was going with this and started to
shake his head. “Ye be a sly one, lass. Ye know I canno’ deny ye now.”

She didn’t reply, but waited for the man to think things through.
Finally, he held out his hands to Adesina and her mother. “Ye’ll haf ta guide
me a bit’o. I dunno’ know what ye wan’te see.”

E’rian took one hand and gestured that her daughter should take
the other. This time, when the flash of light faded, she stood with them inside
the memory.

Adesina was about to question her mother why she had come along
this time, but mayhem broke out around them. They were standing in the middle
of the main street of a village when a man on a horse came riding into the
middle of the crowd, shouting to the villagers.

“The king has been murdered!”

Shouts erupted everywhere.

“How could this have happened?”

“He was heavily guarded both day and night!”

“What of the queen?”

The man on the horse answered this last question. “She is also
dead!”

“What will become of the monarchy?”

“What of the young prince?”

The man shook his head. “Dead! They are all dead!”

He spurred his horse onward to spread the news to the next
village. The pandemonium continued long after he was gone: shouting, wailing,
people running in all directions.

Off to the side of the street Adesina spotted the woman Shimat who
had stood in the king’s study. She was barely visible, hiding in the shadows. There
was a slight smile on her face as she watched the chaos around her.

The enveloping light took them away from the scene and placed them
in another. E’rian guided Adesina through a myriad of memories all belonging to
the old man. Some of them were short, others took several minutes to view. All
of them showed how the old farmer’s entire life had been affected by the invisible
influences of the Shimat.

Whispers of murder, neighbors blackmailed, children gone missing,
rumors of shadows come to life.

The Shimat were still called old wives’ tales, but the underlying
fear plagued every southern home. Even though the old farmer had not recognized
all the signs of their presence in his life, Adesina did. She saw their hidden
power shape the world around them for their personal gain.

The final memory shown to Adesina was of the old farmer’s death.

He and his aged wife were taken from their home to a dark, unknown
room. Three Shimat began questioning them about a visitor they had had in their
home.

The old man of the memory shook his head in genuine confusion. “I
dunno’ know what ye mean! We be takin’ no visitors!”

The first Shimat smiled unpleasantly. “Do not make this harder on
yourselves. Tell us what we need to know, and you will be spared.”

Adesina knew from his tone of voice that the old couple would not
live no matter what information they gave him.

Still, they tried to convince him that they didn’t know what he
was talking about. The Shimat looked at each other in a twisted sort of
anticipation and began torturing their prisoners.

Adesina couldn’t bring herself to watch the horror before her. She
jerked her hand free in order to stop her ears.

The flash of light returned her to the cottage, where the old
woman was patiently waiting. The abrupt return left the young woman feeling
disoriented, but not enough to drive from her mind what she had seen. She
gripped the armrests of the chair she occupied, feeling nauseated.

She felt her mother’s arms pull her in. “Ma’eve? Are you all
right, love?”

Adesina had noticed that while Dreaming she was much more
emotional. It probably had to do with the connection with her
vyala
. She didn’t know how to handle the
overwhelming feelings washing over her in waves. She struggled to breath,
trying to tame the grief and despair crushing her chest.