“Oh stop fussing, I’m fine, I’m fine,” came one of the voices as it resolved itself into the surprisingly familiar, dry tones of a Hypostatick Philosopher, “let’s just find Ellis and get out of here – we’ve waited around enough already!”
Ellis opened his eyes and sat up.
“But you look so pale,” came the second voice, soft, but determined, “just sit down for five more minutes and-”
“No, that won’t do me any good and we’ll be sitting here all day. Please, let us just get moving!”
The voices were just around the next corner now and Ellis found himself rising to his feet, ready to run.
“Okay, but I don’t know how we’re going to find Ellis in this place. It’s a complete maze, and-”
At that moment Siren and the Former Baron Von Spektr stepped out around the corner and instantly caught sight of their companion.
“-Ellis!”
“You’re both alive!” he called as he began running towards them, “with all the dead Stoneskins I was beginning to worry that I might never see either of you again!”
“Yes, apologies for the mess,” the Former Baron said a little sheepishly, “that’s rather my fault I suppose.”
“What happened? I’ve never seen so much blood!”
“Siren seemed to be measuring him up with her gaze whilst he spoke, and now she commented, “What happened to you? You look like you’ve been dragged through a jungle!”
“No, that was last night,” but he glanced down at himself anyway and saw that she was correct. His clothes were covered in stains and detritus from his trip through the fungal forest beneath the Silverspire. “I suppose I have been on a bit of an adventure.”
“Well then, “ the Former Baron replied, “you can tell us all about it when we get out of here. I assume that flash indicated a trans-aetherick journey back to Shadow, so, with any luck, Sydney will be outside waiting for us still.”
“Would he stick around in the vicinity of a vanishing building all that long?” Siren asked, her tone quite disbelieving.
“He’s a loyal sort. He might do.”
“I hope he has,” Ellis said quietly, “riding in that Skyboat you mentioned might be just what I need to cheer up.”
The Former Baron placed a bony hand on Ellis’ shoulder and said, in a softer tone than usual, “My, oh my, you really have been through the mill haven’t you?”
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to go home,” Siren added, smiling gently at him, “but we’ll find another way.”
“I don’t know, but I’m not really worried about that at the moment. I’m just a bit shaken by the things I’ve seen lately and… I’m worried about Larksborough. Amy… I mean ‘Doctor Barkham’ sent out some flying scouts and they’re still there. Who knows what damage they might do?”
“Slatewings?” the Former Baron asked, intrigued.
“I think so.”
“If it’s just a few flyers then I’m sure your world can handle it,” Siren said confidently, “they’ll be easily outnumbered and when they find that there’s nowhere to return to they’ll probably just get tired and lost.”
“But what if they don’t?”
“You can’t worry about that now,” Von Spektr said, “just put it out of your mind for now. We’ll head back home and get some rest and we’ll see how things look tomorrow.”
Ellis nodded, “Yes, I’d like that.”
It took them the best part of an hour to navigate their way out of the Silverspire, encountering many more Stoneskin corpses and dead ends in the process, but eventually they were greeted by the soft greenish-amber light of a Shadow evening flooding in to the end of a corridor.
“That’s it, we’re free!” Siren exclaimed, before running towards the light with her dark hair trailing behind her.
Seeing her like that, Ellis could almost forget the horrors that the Silverspire had revealed to him. For just a moment he could be young and free, watching a beautiful girl enjoying her life. He felt a smile twisting at the corners of his mouth and, as he glanced at the Former Baron, he could see that he was smiling too. And then they heard Siren yelp in pain and suddenly they were both running after her, the Former Baron labouring a bit.
They skidded to halt at the entrance to the tunnel and surveyed the scene. Outside, the Forest of Blackfeather waited, silent and still as always, but in the courtyard before the Silverspire, where they had left Sydney and where Ellis’ lifeless body had been resurrected by ‘Amy’, were two unfamiliar figures, (tall and slender, with long, wiry, barbed tails) and a single, crouched Siren, clutching her leg with a crossbow bolt stuck out like the bough of a tree.
“Siren!” Ellis called out and made to dash over to her, but the Former Baron’s skeletal fingers clutched his shoulders tightly and held him back as one of the Spiketails raised the weapon in its hand, something that, silhouetted in the sunset, looked like a cross between a crossbow and an axe. Ellis could only hope it was a kind of optical illusion.
Siren was gasping in pain on the ground, but her gaze was fixed on the Spiketail who had shot her and the ice-white fire of his eyes.
“I know you!” Ellis called out suddenly, releasing himself from the Former Baron’s grip, “you’re Frostfire, Doctor Barkham’s lackey!”
“Watch your tongue, human,” Frostfire barked back in his gravely tones as he stepped forward, “I am no one’s lackey! Everything I have done has been for my clan and my mate, not for that human witch!”
“And what a great move that has proven to be,” said Siren, “the blood of your clan is eating away at the stones of the Silverspire as we speak.”
Frostfire’s eyes flickered for a moment as he lowered his head, “I know,” he said in a low, sad rumble, but then he raised his head again and his eyes became intense, like little stars orbiting his lizard-like skull, “but I also know that Doctor Barkham had nothing to do with that.” His fierce gaze settled on the Former Baron and he raised his vicious crossbow to point at the spindly old man.
“I do not like making deals with Daemons,” the Former Baron began after clearing his throat, his voice unwavering in spite of his sudden peril, “as they are notoriously untrustworthy fiends and one risks ones very soul with every encounter, nor does the concept of genocide sit well with my conscience as I try to value all life, each in its own way, and I really only resort to violence out of necessity in life-threatening situations such as when of your Grinders is chasing me up the street or when I have to test a new piece of weaponry (since, under such circumstances, the Grinders I test them on are likely to be chasing me up the street anyway),” he took a deep breath and then his face grew stern and hard and when he spoke again his voice was laden with menace, “but you left me with no choice. I will not sit by and watch you harm my friends, nor will I allow you to invade another world unprepared for your machinations.”
He took another breath and when he continued it was in his usual, pleasant, slightly rambling voice, “Yes, I set in motion a chain of events which led to the death of most of your clan, but my conscience is not troubled one iota. The Daemon would most likely have killed you all, and us too, had I not got to it first anyway. Fire that thing at me if you like, it won’t bring them back, but perhaps it might make me a kind of martyr. I’ve always wondered what that would be like.”
At this moment Frostfire growled and charged forward, holding his crossbow so that the axe blade running along its underside was ready to swing, screaming, “a quick death would be too good for you!”
The Former Baron tensed, his pale face turning even more pale and Ellis froze, unsure what to do, wishing that he had some weapon to hand, but Siren didn’t seem to have any such difficulty. She moved swiftly, drawing a knife from somewhere on her person and rushing to meet Frostfire midway. The knife arced through the air, reflecting amber sunlight and then there was a sharp clang as it clashed against the blade of the Spiketail’s crossbow-axe. For an instant it looked like she could overpower him, but then the brute was ploughing forward, Siren’s arm straining to keep the knife blade between her chest and that fearsome axehead. Ellis realised, in his frozen panic, that it was only a matter of time before Frostfire won. He couldn’t face watching Siren die. The fact that he and the Former Baron would follow shortly afterwards was little comfort.
An then there was a cry of pain and roar of exertion from the other side of the courtyard. All eyes, Frostfire and Siren’s included, darted across to the source where, wreathed in failing sunlight, Sydney stood triumphant. He was holding a gigantic wrench and at his feet lay the unconscious form of Frostfire’s spiketail companion, a small pool of streaming ichor forming near its head.
“Spriggan!” Frostfire roared, pulling out of the fight and stampeding over to his fallen mate.
Sydney moved a lot quicker than his age and bulk would suggest he was capable of and managed to be a considerable distance away from the scene of his crime by the time Frostfire reached it.
“She’s not dead,” he shouted towards Frostfire, “but I don’t fancy your chances against all four of us now. Take her away, tend to her and feel free to try for your revenge another day!”
The white-eyed Spiketail turned his lizard-like face just enough to let out a growl with a fearsome show of teeth, before picking Spriggan up from the weed-broken stone and carrying her over his shoulder in the forest.
As the last sliver of Frostfire’s tail disappeared into the dense foliage, Sydney came pelting over to the shaken group near the entrance to the Silverspire.
“That was quite impressive, Syd,” Siren said, as she stood panting and squinting in the sunlight.
“Well, you weren’t so bad yourself,” he replied, also panting.
“I’m sorry,” Ellis said as he was finally able to move over to the Former Baron, “I just locked up. I couldn’t do anything… I’m… I’m a coward.”
“Oh don’t talk so much rubbish, Evrae, my boy! A Stoneskin was charging towards you wielidng an axe and you’d left your sword behind in my lab a couple of days ago. It was perfectly natural. You didn’t see me doing anything much about it either, which reminds me,” he turned towards his other two companions, “Siren, my dear, Sydney, thank you.”
“Oh, think nothing of it,” Sydney replied, “I’ll just add it to the cost of the fare, shall I? The Missus won’t accept anything less.”
“Uh, yeah, about that,” Siren said, stifling a yawn, “can we maybe head back now? I’m getting a little bored of this forest.”
Ellis nodded forcefully, trying to clear his head of the images of the last two days.
“Well, I’ve been working on the Skyboat since that big old building disappeared, so she’s just about ready to go.”
“Then I say we head to your Skyboat right away!” said the Former Baron enthusiastically, but before anyone could move there was a low groan and rumbling from behind them. Everyone turned just in time to see the Silverspire disappear in a flash of searing white light, leaving Blackfeather exactly the way it had been for ten thousand years.
“It’s like being in the history books,” Von Spektr said, wiping at something in his eye before turning back to face the forest and his companions, “of course, I’ve already been in the history books, thanks to that slight mishap with my Hypostatick Philosophy tutor when I was twelve and the most curious and unstable equation he thought up to test my mathematical mettle. It took them two weeks to clear-” he swayed a little, his words trailing off as he nearly stumbled, before righting himself and shaking his head, “-sorry, to clear the crow corpses off the avenues of the Borough.”
“Come on, you,” Siren said, taking the Former Baron by the arm, “let’s go home. You need that rest more than any of us.”
“For once,” he replied, happily leaning against her, “I won’t argue.”
END OF BOOK ONE
AUTHOR COMMENTARY: The first forty-one episodes of Shadow were all written over two years ago now when I had a different job with a lot of downtime in front of a computer and plenty of time to think out plots and characters. It seemed natural to turn them into web fiction and, as I planned out how that would work, I realised that a long ongoing story like this would need to be broken up into smaller chunks - thus the book format. I knew when I began uploaded Shadow that this would be the end point for book one and that book two would become a work in progress as I finally resumed writing once all the old Shadow was typed up and edited accordingly. For this reason Book One has had a title from the off and Book two is currently listed in the archive as '????'. Rest assured, as the arcs play themselves out a title will appear.
ReplyDeleteI'm also hoping at some point to publish 'The Summoning and the Silverspire' in an ebook format, but just haven't found the write way of going about it yet, so if you have any suggestions, I'll gladly hear them.
I can sort of accept Siren trying to fight with a bolt in her leg, but then she's acting bored and Spektr is leaning on her, it just seems like the bolt was somehow forgotten.
ReplyDeleteYeah,the truth is, it kinda was. My bad. I had it pointed out to me by my wife, actually, after I'd already posted it and as this was part of my original run I still had a fair number of episodes in the backlog after this which made editing it all convincingly a bit awkward. I believe I have added in some retconny references later, but it's still a bit of an idiotic mistake. Sorry. I plan to try and get this volume ship-shape and into an e-book, so I'll do my best to correct it by then.
ReplyDelete