A Realm of Shadows (2 page)

“Life
is but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and
frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is
heard no more.”

--William
Shakespeare,
Macbeth

The captain of
the Royal Guard stood atop his watchtower and looked down at the hundreds of Keepers
below him, all the young soldiers patrolling the Flames under his watchful eye,
and he sighed with resentment. A man worthy of leading battalions, the captain
felt it was a daily insult for him to be stationed here, at the farthest ends
of Escalon, watching over an unruly group of criminals they liked to call soldiers.
These were not soldiers—they were slaves, criminals, boys, old men, the
unwanted of society, all enlisted to watch a wall of flames that had not
changed in a thousand years. It was really just a glorified jail, and he
deserved better. He deserved to be anywhere but here, stationed guarding the
royal gates of Andros.

The captain glanced
down, barely interested, as another scuffle ensued, the third this day. This
one appeared to be between two overgrown boys, fighting over a scrap of meat. A
crowd of shouting boys quickly gathered around them, cheering them on. This was
all they had to look forward to out here. They were all too bored, standing and
watching the Flames day after day, all desperate for bloodlust—and he let them
have their fun. If they killed each other, so much the better—that would be two
fewer boys for him to watch over.

There came a
shout as one of the boys bested the other, plunging a dagger into his heart. The
boy went limp as the others cheered his death, then quickly raided his corpse
for anything they could find. It was, at least, a mercifully fast death, far
better than the slow ones the others would face out here. The victor stepped
forward, shoved the others aside, and reached down and grabbed the morsel of
bread from the dead man’s pocket, stuffing it back into his own.

It was just
another day here at the Flames, and the captain burned with indignity. He did
not deserve this. He had made one mistake, once disobeying a direct order, and as
punishment he had been sent here. It was unfair. What he wouldn’t give to be
able to go back and change that one moment in his past. Life, he thought, could
be too exacting, too absolute, too cruel.

The captain, resigned
to his fate, turned and stared back at the Flames. There was something about
their ever-present crackle, even after all these years, that he found alluring,
hypnotic. It was like staring into the face of God Himself. As he got lost in
the glow, it made him wonder about the nature of life. It all felt so
meaningless. His role here—all these boys’ roles here—felt so meaningless. The
Flames had stood for thousands of years and would never die, and as long as
they burned, the troll nation could never break through. Marda might as well be
across the sea. If it were up to him, he would pick the best of these boys and station
them elsewhere in Escalon, along the coasts, where they really needed them, and
he would put all the criminals amongst them to death.

The captain lost
track of time, as he often did, getting lost in the glow of the Flames, and it
wasn’t until late in the day that he suddenly squinted, alert. He had seen something,
something he could not quite process, and he rubbed his eyes, knowing he must
be seeing things. Yet as he watched, slowly he realized he was not seeing
things. The world was changing before his eyes.

Slowly, the ever-present
crackle, the one he had lived by for every waking moment since he had arrived
here, fell silent. The heat that had been pouring off the Flames suddenly
vanished, leaving him feeling a chill, a real chill, for the first time since
he had been here. And then, as he watched, the column of bright red and orange
flames, the one that had burned his eyes, had lit up the day and night incessantly,
for the first time, was gone.

It disappeared.

The captain
rubbed his eyes again, wondering. Was he dreaming? Before him, as he watched, the
Flames were lowering, down to the ground, like a curtain being dropped. And a
second later, there was nothing there at all.

Nothing.

The captain’s
breath stopped, panic and disbelief slowly welling up inside him. He found
himself looking out, for the first time, to what lay on the other side: Marda. He
had a clear and unobstructed view. It was a land filled with black—black,
barren mountains, black craggy rocks, black earth, dead, black trees. It was a
land he was never meant to see. A land that no one in Escalon was ever meant to
see.

There came a
stunned silence as the boys below, for the first time, stopped fighting amongst
themselves. All of them, frozen in shock, turned and gaped. The wall of flame was
gone, and standing there, on the other side, facing them greedily, was an army
of trolls, filling the land, filling the horizon.

A nation.

The captain’s heart
fell. There, just feet away, stood a nation of the most disgusting beasts he
had ever seen, overgrown, grotesque, misshapen, all wielding huge halberds, and
all patiently awaiting their moment. Millions of them stared back, seemingly
equally stunned, as it clearly dawned on them that there was now nothing
separating them from Escalon.

The two nations
stood there, facing off, looking at each other, the trolls beaming with
victory, the humans with panic. After all, there stood merely hundreds of humans
here, against a million trolls.

Breaking the
silence there arose a shout. It came from the troll side, a shout of triumph, and
it was followed by a great thunder, as the trolls charged. They rumbled through
like a herd of buffalo, raising their halberds and chopping off the heads of
panic-stricken boys who could not even muster the courage to run. It was a wave
of death, a wave of destruction.

The captain
himself stood there on his tower, too terrified to do anything, to even draw
his sword, as the trolls raced for him. A moment later he felt himself falling,
as the angry mob knocked down his tower. He felt himself landing in the trolls’
arms, and he shrieked as he felt himself grabbed by their claws, torn to pieces.

And as he lay
there dying, knowing what was coming for Escalon, a final thought crossed his
mind: the boy who was stabbed, who had died for the morsel of bread, was the
luckiest of all.

Dierdre felt her
lungs being crushed as she tumbled end over end, deep underwater, desperate for
air. She tried to get her bearings but was unable, thrown around by the massive
waves of water, her world turning upside down again and again. She wanted more
than anything to take a deep breath, her entire body screaming for oxygen, yet
she knew that to do so would certainly mean her death.

She closed her
eyes and cried, her tears merging with the water, wondering if this hell would
ever end. Her only solace came in thinking of Marco. She had seen him, with
her, tumbling in the waters, had felt him holding her hand, and she turned and
searched for him. Yet as she looked, she saw nothing, nothing but blackness and
waves of foaming, crushing water driving her down. Marco, she assumed, was long
dead.

Dierdre wanted
to cry, yet the pain knocked any thoughts of self-pity from her mind, made her
think only of survival. For just when she thought the wave could not get any stronger,
it smashed her down into the ground, again and again, pinning her down with
such force that she felt as if the entire weight of the world were atop her. She
knew she would not survive.

How ironic, she
thought, to die here, in her home city, crushed beneath a tidal wave created by
Pandesians’ cannon fire. She would rather have died any other way. She could,
she thought, handle almost any form of death—except for drowning. She couldn’t
take this awful pain, the flailing, being unable to open her mouth and take that
one breath that every ounce of her body so desperately craved.

She felt herself
getting weaker, giving in to the pain—and then, just as she felt her eyes about
to close, just as she knew she could not stand it one second longer, she suddenly
felt herself turning, spinning rapidly upward, the wave shooting her up with
the same force that it had used to crush her. She rose upward with the momentum
of a catapult, racing for the surface, the sunlight visible, the pressure
killing her ears.

To her shock, a
moment later she surfaced. She gasped, taking huge gulps of air, more grateful than
she had ever been in her life. She gasped, sucking it in, and then a moment
later, to her terror, she was sucked back down underwater. This time, though, she
had enough oxygen to survive a little longer, and this time the water didn’t
push her down as far.

She soon rose
back up again, surfacing, taking another gasp of air, before being driven down yet
again. It was different each time, the wave weakening, and as she surfaced
again, she sensed the wave was reaching the end of the city and petering out.

Dierdre soon found
herself past the city limits, past all the great buildings, all of them now underwater.
She was driven back underwater, yet slow enough to be able to finally open her
eyes underwater and see all the grand buildings beneath that had once stood. She
saw scores of corpses floating in the water past her, like fish, bodies whose death
expressions she already tried to drive from her mind.

Finally, she did
not know how much later, Dierdre surfaced, this time for good. She was strong
enough to fight the final, weak wave as it tried to suck her back down, and
with one last kick, she stayed afloat. The water from the harbor had traveled too
far inland, and there was nowhere left for it to go, and Dierdre soon felt
herself washed up onto a grassy field somewhere as the waters receded, rushing
back out to sea, leaving her alone.

Dierdre lay
there on her stomach, face planted in the soggy grass, moaning from the pain.
She was still gasping, her lungs aching, breathing deep and savoring every
breath. She managed to turn her head weakly, to look back over her shoulder,
and she was horrified to see that what had once been a great city was now
nothing but sea. She spotted only the highest part of the bell tower, sticking
out a few feet, and marveled that it once stood hundreds of feet in the air.

Beyond exhausted,
Dierdre finally let herself go. Her face fell to the ground as she lay there, letting
the pain of what had happened overcome her. She couldn’t move if she tried.

Moments later
she was fast asleep, barely alive on a remote field in a corner of the world.
Yet somehow, she was alive.

*

“Dierdre,” came
a voice, and a gentle nudge.

Dierdre peeled
open her eyes, dazed to see it was sunset. Icy cold, her clothes still wet, she
tried to get her bearings, wondering how long she had been lying here, wondering
if she were alive or dead. Then the hand came again, nudging her shoulder.

Dierdre looked up
and there, to her immense relief, was Marco. He was alive, she was overjoyed to
see. He looked beaten up, haggard, too pale, and he looked as if he had aged a
hundred years. Yet he was alive. Somehow, he had managed to survive.

Marco knelt
beside her, smiling yet looking down at her with sad eyes, eyes not shining with
the life they once held.

“Marco,” she answered
weakly, startled at how raspy her own voice was.

She noticed a
gash on the side of his face and, concerned, reached out to touch it.

“You look as bad
as I feel,” she said.

He helped her up
and she rose to her feet, her body wracked with pain from all the aches and
bruises, scratches and cuts all up and down her arms and legs. Yet as she
tested each limb, at least nothing was broken.

Dierdre took a
deep breath and steeled herself as she turned and looked behind her. As she
feared, it was a nightmare: her beloved city was gone, now nothing but a part
of the sea, the only thing sticking up a small part of the bell tower. On the
horizon beyond it she saw a fleet of black Pandesian ships, making their way deeper
and deeper inland.

“We can’t stay
here,” Marco said with urgency. “They’re coming.”

“Where can we go?”
she asked, feeling hopeless.

Marco stared
back, blank, clearly not knowing either.

Dierdre stared out
at the sunset, trying to think, blood pounding in her ears. Everyone she knew and
loved was dead. She felt she had nothing left to live for, nowhere left to go.
Where could you go when your home city was destroyed? When the weight of the
world was bearing down on you?

Dierdre closed
her eyes and shook her head in grief, wishing it all away. Her father, she
knew, was back there, dead. His soldiers were all dead. People she had known
and loved all her life, all of them dead, all thanks to these Pandesian monsters.
Now there was no one left to stop them. What cause was there to go on?

Dierdre, despite
herself, broke down weeping. Thinking of her father, she dropped to her knees,
feeling devastated. She wept and wept, wanting to die here herself, wishing she
had
died, cursing the heavens for allowing her to live. Why couldn’t she
have just drowned in that wave? Why couldn’t she just have been killed with the
others? Why had she been cursed with life?

She felt a soothing
hand on her shoulder.

“It’s okay,
Dierdre,” Marco said softly.

Dierdre flinched,
embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” she
finally said, weeping. “It’s just that… my father… Now I have nothing.”

“You’ve lost everything,”
Marco said, his voice heavy, too. “I have, too. I don’t want to go on, either.
But we
have
to. We can’t lie here and die. It would dishonor them. It
would dishonor everything they lived and fought for.”

In the long silence
that followed, Dierdre slowly pulled herself upright, realizing he was right.
Besides, as she looked up at Marco’s brown eyes, staring back at her with
compassion, she realized she
did
have someone. She had Marco. She also
had the spirit of her father, looking down, watching over her, wishing her to
be strong.

She forced
herself to shake out of it. She had to be strong. Her father would want her to
be strong. Self-pity, she realized, would help no one. And neither would her
death.

She stared back
at Marco, and she could see more than compassion—she could also see the love in
his eyes for her.

Not even fully
aware of what she was doing, Dierdre, her heart pounding, leaned in and met
Marco’s lips in an unexpected kiss. For a moment, she felt herself transported
to another world, and all her worries disappeared.

She slowly pulled
back, staring at him, shocked. Marco looked equally surprised. He took her
hand.

As he did,
encouraged, filled with hope, she was able to think clearly again—and a thought
came to her. There was someone else, a place to go, a person to turn to.

Kyra.

Dierdre felt a sudden
rush of hope.

“I know where we
must go,” she said excitedly, in a rush.

Marco looked at
her, wondering.

“Kyra,” she said.
“We can find her. She will help us. Wherever she is, she is fighting. We can join
her.”

“But how do you
know she is alive?” he asked.

Dierdre shook
her head.

“I don’t,” she
replied. “But Kyra always survives. She is the strongest person I have ever
met.”

“Where is she?”
he asked.

Dierdre thought,
and she recalled the last time she had seen Kyra, forking north, for the Tower.

“The Tower of Ur,” she said.

Marco looked
back, surprised; then a glimmer of optimism crossed his eyes.

“The Watchers
are there,” he said. “As are other warriors. Men who can fight with us.” He
nodded, excited. “A good choice,” he added. “We can be safe in that tower. And
if your friend is there, then all the better. It’s a day’s hike from here. Let
us go. We must move quickly.”

He took her hand,
and without another word the two of them took off, Dierdre filled with a new
sense of optimism as they headed into the forest, and somewhere, on the
horizon, for the Tower of Ur.