Shadow Hunted Read online

  He realized something else. They were all oriented so that they faced inward, toward the huge one in the middle. They looked like they were beseeching the huge one for something.

  Then the sound started.

  It was an eerie, high-pitched wail that rose and fell. It was not a mindless sound. It was a song. There were words contained in there. Almost he could understand them. He strained for comprehension, but it eluded him. Where the song was coming from he couldn’t tell.

  His gaze traveled to the huge bone sculpture. It was moving too, though its movements were more subdued. Its arms were not raised over its head as the smaller ones’ arms were. Instead, they were lifted only slightly, as if bestowing a benediction. And that was when he realized something else.

  The huge bone figure had four arms.

  Into Karliss’ mind came the memory of the corpse inside the cave. It also had four arms. More pieces slid into place then. He remembered coming here with two others, finding the cave, the mysterious chambers within it, the tablets, the body lying on the bed.

  The blue gem. He remembered taking it from the hand of the dead master. His hand went automatically to the pouch where he carried the gem. It wasn’t there. He patted himself down but could find it nowhere. The loss worried him. Though he couldn’t remember why, he knew the gem was important somehow. He needed to find it.

  The little girl ceased her twirling and singing. The wind died down, and the sculptures went back to lifelessness. She walked over to him. The words she spoke to him sounded like a question.

  “How did you do that?” he asked her.

  She smiled and patted him on the head again, then turned and went running off. She headed for the pond and was soon out of sight.

  Left alone, Karliss looked around again. He looked at the shallow trench he’d crawled out of and shuddered, remembering the darkness and confinement.

  He looked at the high peaks and ridges that enclosed the small valley. Vaguely he remembered flying over them, looking down at them from above. Then his gaze turned to the eagle rock formation and the dark opening at its base. The cave. More memories of what lay within returned. He remembered a glowing yellow crystal and felt again the prickly heat on his skin, the nausea in his stomach. He fought to remember. Something important had happened in there.

  He could sit there no longer. Laboriously, he hauled himself to his feet. He stood there for a moment, wobbling. When he felt stable enough, he took a step. It took all his concentration not to fall. He was a newborn, just learning to walk. He bit his lip, concentrating.

  Another step and another. With each step more returned, his body remembering what it had long known. He looked down at himself. His skin looked oddly smooth, unmarred. Was this really his body? But how would he know, when he couldn’t remember who he really was?

  He continued walking. At some point the ground began to slope upwards sharply. It was covered with loose stones. He stopped and looked upwards. He was at the foot of the scree slope that led up to the eagle rock formation. It looked impossibly far away, but he knew he needed to get up there, that once he was up there, he would learn more.

  He took another step and fell, barking his shin painfully. The pain was distant, belonging to another, and it did not deter him for long. When he stood up again, he only made it a couple of steps before a rock slid underfoot, and he fell again.

  He gave up trying to walk then and crawled. It was slow going, and the sun had moved a long way across the sky by the time he reached the base of the rock formation. He rested there for a time, staring into the dark depths of the cave. Working himself up to entering, he turned and looked down below one last time, like a man about to dive into deep water.

  The small girl was standing at the foot of the scree slope, looking up at him. She twirled in circles, and the wind blew around him. The suddenness of the wind startled him, and he instinctively drew back from it, shielding himself against it.

  He stood up and walked into the cave. He stumbled blindly in the darkness for a time, tripping over the fallen stones which choked the entrance. Whole sections of the ceiling seemed to have fallen in recently. He had a memory of rocks falling on him and bent and touched his ankle. It had been injured, but there was no soreness now.

  He came to a polished, black stone wall with a door set in it. The door was open. On the other side was a room. The ceiling glowed, illuminating the room. There was a table with three metal tablets on it. He stopped, struck by more memories. He remembered copying something from those tablets. His hand went to his shirt, searching for the parchment he’d copied them onto, but it wasn’t there. Another important thing he’d lost, though he couldn’t say why it was important.

  Guided by slowly emerging memories, he walked toward one wall. A section of the wall slid back as he approached, revealing another room, which lit up as he entered. He found himself staring down at a mummified body lying on a bed.

  The master.

  One of the master’s hands was broken off and was lying on the floor. That was where he’d found the blue gem, the gem he’d lost.

  He left the room and went to the other side of the main room. Standing before a blank wall, he tried to remember how to open the door that his memory told him should be there. There was another room beyond this; he was sure of it. But how to get in there? He ran his hands over the wall. Nothing. Finally, in frustration, he banged on the wall.

  A section of the wall slid back. A short corrido led to another room, smaller than the others. On the far side of the small room was a door, standing open. His pulse picked up. He was close now, close to remembering something very important. He was tempted to leave, to flee from the memory. He didn’t want to know. This path led to pain and the weight of responsibility.

  But his feet carried him forward of their own volition, and he passed through the door. Beyond was a pedestal. There was nothing on it. When he saw the pedestal, it all came rushing back.

  The key. There’d been a fragment of the key here, inside this vault. He’d removed it.

  But why?

  And what did the key do?

  He remembered taking the key and leaving the cave. But where was he going with it? And why?

  He retraced his steps and left the cave. He emerged into afternoon sunlight and stood there at the mouth of the cave. More memories were returning with every moment.

  He remembered standing in this spot before, something emerging from the stone to his right.

  Kasai.

  An image of the grim, white-skinned creature appeared in his mind, and his pulse began to pick up. The Shaper had attacked him, trying to get the key fragment. He turned and looked at the spot where he remembered leaving the glowing crystal. Somehow, he’d used it to attack and defeat Kasai. He’d destroyed the creature.

  So how come he didn’t have the key fragment?

  Because there’d been another. A gray-haired man with a badly scarred face. Two others with him. They’d stepped out of a shadow and taken the key fragment from the dying Kasai. Karliss had been so weak from his battle with Kasai that he couldn’t lift a hand to stop them.

  They’d been about to kill him, but he’d let go. He’d let the wind blow through him freely, and he’d dissolved into it.

  He looked down at his hands.

  “My name is Karliss,” he said.

  All the other pieces began to make sense then. He remembered fighting the stone soldiers by the river, then deciding he’d had enough, that he was going to take the key for himself and use it to defeat Kasai.

  The strength drained from him suddenly, and Karliss staggered, too much hitting him at once. He’d been used, manipulated. The scarred Shaper had set him and Kasai against each other so that he could get the fragment.

  So that he could give it to the Devourers.

  Karliss shuddered and went to his knees, as the full import of his mistakes hit him. What had he done? How could he have been so stupid? Had he not been blinded by anger and fear, the key would still be
safe in the vault. Instead, he took it out and all but handed it over to the Devourers. Guilt and fear and remorse rose up inside him in a wave, so big and powerful that it would undoubtedly drown him. Everything was black. His guilt would tear him to pieces.

  Distantly he realized that the wind had begun to blow. Within it he could hear aranti, murmuring in their myriad voices. They raced around him, laughing as they went.

  They weren’t sad. They weren’t burdened by guilt. They were free.

  He dropped his inner barriers, painstakingly built over the past couple of years. Simply let them go.

  Laughing with delight, the aranti blew through him. He offered no resistance, letting them go where they willed. He wanted everything to blow away.

  And it worked. The pain and guilt lifted, debris blown away by the wind. He felt lighter immediately. He could still feel traces of his suffering, but they were distant, unimportant.

  Why should he care about the key? What did it have to do with him anyway? Was he not wind-touched? He was above it all. He was free.

  He caught hold of an aranti and let it carry him away.

  Up they raced, into the sky, the aranti laughing and cavorting. They flew around the highest peaks of the mountains, then down through the thick forests on the north side. Then further north, to a place where there were no trees, only unbroken tundra, dotted with thousands of lakes and ponds, around which fed herds of antlered creatures. Still further, until the tundra gave way to open sea covered in ice. Mountains of ice stuck up from the sea. Huge creatures surfaced, cracking through the ice, blowing water high into the sky.

  He made no attempt to control the aranti. He let it have its head, content with the speed and excitement of the journey and the feeling of freedom. How long he rode the aranti he didn’t know, but at some point he began to feel sick and dizzy. He realized that he had been gone too long, that his body was too weak still to be left alone like that.

  But when he willed the aranti to take him back, nothing happened. The creature ignored him, intent on its play. He pushed harder and still was not able to control the aranti.

  Then, from a great distance, he heard a whistle, sharp and piercing.

  The aranti responded to it instantly, spinning and flying back south at a high speed. The sun was close to setting when he saw familiar terrain down below once again. He saw the eagle rock formation, the blackness of the cave mouth, and his body slumped there. Standing next to him was the little girl.

  The aranti dove for his body, and a moment later Karliss felt the thump as he returned to it. He opened his eyes and saw the girl looking down at him, smiling. She shook her head and wagged her finger at him, remonstrating him.

  “I know,” Karliss said. “I don’t care.”

  He tried to stand, but his body was like wood. He could hardly summon the strength to lift his limbs, and his joints wouldn’t work right. The girl took his hand and helped him to his feet. He stood there, swaying, looking down at his body as if he’d never seen it before.

  Looking at his hands, he noticed something. When he was a child, playing with one of his father’s knives, he’d cut the back of his left hand deeply, and it had scarred. But now the scar was gone. His skin was unmarred. He looked for other scars, the puckered one on his bicep, the one on his stomach. They were all gone.

  Was this actually his body? He’d been scattered to the winds like particles of dust. What did the shaman use when he put him back together? What was he made of now?

  Did it really matter?

  The little girl patted his arm and pointed down the slope. Karliss could see the rest of her tribe gathering down by the pond. Someone was building a fire. Several of them were cleaning rabbits and birds for the evening meal.

  Karliss’ stomach rumbled at the sight. The little girl laughed, and the wind skipped around her ankles.

  She was the one who called the aranti back, he realized. He supposed that he should not be surprised. After all, this was where Unegen, the Sertithians’ first tlacti, had come to learn how to control the wind. These people had dwelled here for who knew how many centuries. It only made sense that they should learn some of the same things during that time.

  He remembered when he and his friends traveled here searching for the words of power. At first these people had attacked them. They’d only left Karliss and his friends alone after Karliss put on a display of power one night. Karliss had assumed they left them alone because they were frightened. Now he saw that the real reason they’d left them alone was because he’d demonstrated to them that he belonged here.

  It was difficult making his way down the scree slope, and the little girl had to help him, but by the time he reached the bottom, his body was starting to feel like his own once again. It was still sluggish, but it answered his commands. It was also terribly hungry. He wondered how long it had been since he’d eaten. The morning that the stone soldiers attacked maybe? No, he’d had no food that morning. The night before, then. And how many days ago was that?

  It angered him that he was hungry. It angered him that he’d had to return to his body at all. He felt so slow and heavy.

  The people paid little attention to him when the little girl led him into the camp. Karliss was given a haunch of rabbit, which he devoured, wishing he had more. He sat there, licking his fingers, and saw the little girl talking to the shaman on the other side of the fire. She pointed at the cave and at Karliss. He wondered what she was telling him.

  The shaman came over and sat down beside him. Karliss looked at him. “I was scattered.” He spread his hands and fluttered his fingers. “You brought me back.” He brought his hands together and made a ball with them.

  The shaman nodded.

  “I’m not sure whether to thank you or curse you.” Now that the worst of his hunger had been sated, Karliss was feeling extreme weariness. He was so tired he wanted only to topple over and go to sleep on the spot.

  The shaman reached into a pouch and pulled out something that Karliss couldn’t quite see at first, something small and round. When he held it up, Karliss saw the sparkle and realized it was the blue gem.

  “That’s mine,” Karliss said, reaching for it. “I thought I lost it.”

  But the man shook his head and pulled the gem away with a frown. He said something and pointed up the slope at the rock formation.

  Karliss pulled his hand back. It occurred to him that these people probably worshipped the masters, that the cave was a shrine to them. Old Henta was right about one thing at least. He’d defiled something sacred, maybe not to the gods, but to these people anyway. He should be glad they hadn’t killed him for it.

  The shaman was saying something else, gesturing with the gem. Karliss struggled to understand, but he could make no sense of it. It was hard to think. His brain felt like it was wrapped in wool. “I don’t know what—”

  He broke off as the shaman thrust the gem at his face. He tried to pull away, but his weary body betrayed him. He wasn’t able to react fast enough.

  The gem touched his forehead.

  Lights sparked behind Karliss’ eyes, and the world around him disappeared, replaced by visions that flitted by him rapidly, so fast as to be nearly undecipherable.

  A red disk with a glowing, yellow corona around it.

  A young man whose skin was a deep, dark red color, like molten rock. The stone underneath him was bucking and heaving.

  A young girl with white-blond hair, standing on a stormy sea. Dimly visible around her was a huge, hulking, bestial form.

  A black-scaled creature rising into the sky, leathery wings flapping, so huge it blotted out the sun. The head turned toward him, black eyes fixing on him. A maw that could swallow mountains opened and from it came a torrent of magenta fire.

  Three beams of intense light shooting into the sky, one emerald green, one sapphire blue, one crimson. The beams intersected in a violent explosion of power.

  The visions ended. The shaman tucked the blue gem away and looked at him expecta
ntly. Karliss sat huddled by the fire while he waited for his thoughts to stop whirling and settle down, for his vision to return to normal. It seemed to take a long time. When he felt somewhat normal again, he looked over at the shaman. “What did you do that for?”

  The shaman said something. Then he picked up a stick and drew something on the ground. It was crude, but Karliss recognized the black, winged creature he’d seen in one of the visions.

  “What is that thing?” Karliss asked. “How do you know about it?”

  The shaman tapped Karliss on the chest, then took Karliss’ hand and wiped the drawing away.

  “Are you saying I’m supposed to wipe out that thing?” Karliss asked.

  The shaman nodded.

  “You’re crazy, you know that? If that thing actually exists, I’m going to be flying away as fast as I can, not fighting it,” Karliss said.

  The shaman laughed and slapped him on the back as if he’d told a particularly funny joke.

  “Yeah, that’s hilarious,” Karliss said. “I’m going to sleep now.”

  ╬ ╬ ╬

  Karliss awakened early the next morning, while it was still dark. He lay there looking up at the stars. What now? Despite the strangeness of the shaman and his people, he felt comfortable here. They put no demands on him. They did not look to him to save them, nor did they condemn him. Amongst others who could also control the wind, he was not an oddity. He liked that.

  But he also knew that he could not stay here. He’d had enough of this valley. It held within it too many bad memories. He needed to leave.

  And go where?

  His first thought was simply to have an aranti carry him far away, to some distant land where no burdens were put on him. Where he could be free.

  But first he should return home. His family would want to know if he was okay. He owed them that much. That was what he would do first. After that…