Antithesis, Of Darkness and Light
#7 of Antithesis
Alrighty, part seven of the trade between myself and Lady Shalendrea Kit-ranth. For anybody curious, I have been working on finishing the trade for the last eight months or so, and it is finally done. This will be the first of ten chapters that I will submit in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out for them.
As always comments are appreciated and requested.
Continued from 'Words between Knight and Lady...'
Shaden sat in his ever-dark chamber, the darkness hiding his nudity, his legs crossed, the illusion spells hiding his body long gone, his wings furled close to his back once more. His red eyes were staring at the stone floor before him, his hands tracing a symbol upon the stones, the coppery tinge of blood suffusing the air. Shaden whispered words of power as he scribed arcane sigils around the edge of the perfect circle his hand had already made. This was an ancient spell, a dark spell, one of the first he had mastered when he found the tome of forbidden powers. That first time had been difficult, his inexperience forcing him to constantly check the book, reading the incantation again and again to make sure he had it right. But now, the stone was his canvas, the freshly drawn blood his paint, and his hands drew the symbols that bound the magic in place almost without his input. Or they should have. Shaking his head, Shaden frowned down upon the characters he had drawn. Something was missing, forcing him to reread the runes once more. He had almost missed one again, the third time today. Growling, the young nobleman read the sequence of runes to himself once more, then added in the missing letter, casting the last bit of the spell as he did so, taking care to pronounce every syllable of the ancient words with perfection.
As the last word left his lips, the bloody circle and the arcane runes that encircled it lit with a fel crimson light, adding an odd sheen to its creator's black furred features, shining dully from his brilliant white teeth, bared in a snarl. The snarl, a look Shaden wasn't able to suppress when in private, was one that had decorated his face for the last week. Even now, after all that time, he still couldn't believe it. The vampire had failed. Not only failed, but he had been killed, a feat that even the powerful magi of House Kit'ranth hadn't been able to accomplish. Shaden's grimace deepened. He had miscalculated. He, Shaden, who had pulled off so many political maneuvers with ease, never failing, he who held more power and influence than his father, than anyone in fact. He, who had even lured the closest allies of their main rival over to his family's control. For the first time, he had failed.
With a growl, he focused his mind upon the two who had so handily ripped his plan to shreds. And, in the middle of the arcane circle, a picture swam into view, a picture that was so bright it seared Shaden's eyes, making him hiss in pain, but he didn't look away. A circle of bright sunshine seemed to be shining through his floor, as if it were a portal to the outside world. And within the sunshine, stood his sister, the young woman having had much more backbone that he had expected. His first mistake was underestimating her; he hadn't thought that she would fight back like she had. All that he had observed of her, her reluctance to practice combat skills, her choice of magics to study, had made her seem unwilling to fight, but she had proven that perception wrong very quickly. In the silent vision of the seeing spell before him, the same spell by which he had observed the vampire's failure, Shandi was practicing with her whip, lashing at unseen targets just beyond the border of the spell's view, something she had been doing more often than usual lately. And there, near to the edge of the circle, seated with his back to a stone wall, was the Knight, clad once more in his shining plate armor, the reflection upon its mirrored surface nearly as blinding as the sun itself. That had been Shaden's second mistake, a mistake more crucial than the first.
Shaden had watched with disbelief as the Knight had woken from what appeared to be a sound, deep sleep when the assassin's blade had pierced his flesh, drawing his sword and cutting the attacker in half in the space of a heartbeat, the deep wound not even troubling him. Then the wolf had proven himself to be a much more dangerous foe than even Shaden had expected, easily dispatching the assassins, and fighting the vampire to a standstill, even that creature's unnatural powers only barely a match for his speed and skill; and all the while, the Knight had shown not an ounce of fear. And now, he was always there, never far from his sister, ever watchful, ever ready to protect her at a moment's notice. And that was the price Shaden had paid for his miscalculation. Lord Nael'eth had even had the knight's quarters moved closer to her chambers, further impeding his private plans. When Shaden took power within the family, an event towards which he had been planning for years, he would make Shandi his mate, that much he knew. But he also knew that she would take much convincing before she would let that happen. And for him to even get close to her now, he would have to go through her guardian. And that was one task to which Shaden did not look forward to.
Growling, Shaden flicked through his ancient tome, which sat beside his scrying circle, searching for some way by which he might gain an advantage over the Knight, and at the same time, knowing that it wasn't there. There was no magic within the book that would get rid of the knight, nor in any book he had studied. Which in turn left more mundane methods of removing him as an obstacle. Poison might have been effective if the knight was on his own, but with Shaden's sister nearby, it would be an exercise in futility. And that left killing the knight with a weapon of some sort, a prospect that seemed impossible, since the Knight's martial skills far surpassed that of anyone that Shaden knew. And what was more, the Knight's sword, like its owner, had no equal in the house's arsenal. Frustrated, Shaden flicked the book negligently with his fingertips, sending dozens of pages flying across the open face of the tome. And then, quite by chance, the pages of the book settled, revealing an illustration drawn with magic ink. The picture was part of a narrative, detailing an example of a magic seal of some sort, the illustration moving around as if the page were a window. Shaden hadn't paid much attention to it before, having no need to seal anything away, but now, as his eyes scanned the page before him, he began to heed the narration at last. Not the words, but the picture itself.
Illustrated on the page was a door, carved of stone and engraved with many arcane runes that glowed in the darkness, lit by the magic in the ink, spelling out elements of the seal that closed the doors forever. But, inset in the floor before the doors, as if driven into the bones of the earth by great force, was a sword. It had not caught his eye before, for it was simply a part of a spell he had no intention of using, but now he gazed at it in wonder. The narration said that only a weapon of great power could be used to bind the seal in place, a weapon that perhaps might equal that of the Knight's rune blade. Then, a cruel smile twisted his lips as the young magus realized he knew where the blade rested. The beginnings of a plan taking shape in his mind, Shaden looked back at the image in the circle, his smile turning into a snarl.
Shaden glared at the white wolf as he made some comment that Shaden could not make out, his sister nodding and resetting in fighting stance, a slight shift in her posture. Then, she lashed out with the whip, moving faster than she had before. Grumbling, Shaden whispered to the picture before him.
"That is all I need...a warrior like him teaching her tricks." He said, watching as the knight applauded her, his sister smiling a smile that kindled Shaden's burning desire once more, even viewed as it was, slightly distorted through the spell. The young master magus smiled again and allowed the magic vision to fade away. The smile upon his black furred face, invisible even to him, was unpleasant in the extreme, and, as the circle of blood boiled before him, consumed by the dark magic that fueled the vision, he whispered once more to himself, another plan already formed within his mind. "I will not make the mistake of underestimating you two again..."
***
The tip of Shandi's whip sliced the air, whistling as its owner whirled it back behind where she was standing in a graceful arc, the brilliant sunshine of the gardens cascading down on her, its warmth providing a wonderful heat within her that kept the brooding thoughts that swirled within her mind from chilling her. Focusing on the candles she had set up once more, she lashed out with her arm, the clawed tip of her weapon snuffing a candle flame from existence. This was the best practice for a whip, teaching precision and accuracy, and Shandi found that it helped her to focus her thoughts as well, providing an unusual clarity. And that clarity was exactly what she needed, more than anything else right now. The Kit'ranth family had learned to recover from assassination attempts quickly, and by two days after the attack, the family had gotten back to business as if nothing had happened. But, even that short span of time was enough for House Kirinus to make great strides in advancing their own power. It was for this reason that the family sword master, the snow leopard who had trained their troops for many long years had taken Nael'an's place as the head of the House's army, though he was not a member of their family and things had returned, more or less, to normal. But not for Shandi, and not for her new protector.
Shifting her thoughts to the young knight that was her guardian for a few moments, Shandi wondered at what she had learned about him in the week since the attack. Soon after the death of her uncle, Lord Nael'eth had moved the knight's quarters to a set of larger rooms almost right next to hers, in the far western wing of the manor as a 'reward' for his actions on that night, though Shandi knew it was more to remove him from the main house than to reward him, the western wing being mostly empty. Her father still distrusted Kael, even though he had almost singlehandedly foiled the assassins while the rest of the family was still asleep. And, even more confusing than the distrust itself, though she had no proof, the young woman suspected that it came more from Shaden's subtle machinations than from her father. That her brother was the source made sense to her, since no one was closer to her father than Shaden was, but she knew that no one else in the family would believe her if she were to mention it. Since the attack and Shaden's revelation of Nael'an's duplicity, no one would say so much as a word against him.
Shandi knew, from the rare glimpses into her twin's mind that she had garnered when his thoughts were unguarded, that Shaden didn't just dislike the Knight, he HATED him. It was a hatred so hot it almost hurt her to feel it. And that in itself had been fairly illuminating, though it still confused her. Turning back toward the candles, Shandi flicked her whip three times in rapid succession, snapping out three more flames. Yesterday, while she had been studying a new spellbook, an odd, unsettling feeling had crawled across her, and she had found her thoughts running back over the events of that horrible night. As she had thought it out, she found a terrible idea coming to her mind. When the attack was over, Shaden had seemed disappointed that the assassins had failed to kill anyone in her family. At first, she had thought that it was simply because he might have been able to take more power within the house if they had succeeded, but then, she had remembered how her uncle had been looking at him, just before he went berserk.
He had looked as if her twin had betrayed him. That had bothered her for a while, because it didn't seem that Shaden accusing him would have been enough to make him feel that way, twisted though his thinking had obviously become. And, the day before, she had made the connection between the two unanswered questions. Maybe the reason Shaden had been angry that the assassins had failed, maybe the reason why Nael'an had felt betrayed, was because Shaden had been behind the attack, not he. The idea was almost unthinkable, but to someone who knew her twin like she did, it made a frightening kind of sense. The one thing that Shandi knew for sure about her brother was that he had a great thirst for power. Be it in magic, or even in politics, he always wanted more power. No achievement had ever been enough for him.
But not even the members of house Kirinus, their primary rival, would risk weakening their own family with such a scheme. Would her brother really have dared to risk ruining their family, all to satisfy his greed for power? She honestly didn't know the answer. Drawing in a deep breath, Shandi tried once again to let go of her brooding thoughts and snapped the whip once more, the clawed tip slashing the top inch of the last two candles in the first row right off their bases. Shandi frowned at the guttering flames and sundered wax; she hadn't meant to do that.
"If I may, my lady..." Kael began and she looked back at him. "If you shift your stance a few degrees to the right, it will be more stable, and provide more control." Shandi nodded her thanks and shifted her stance as he had suggested, then lashed out with the same motion she had used before, the tip slashing two flames from the back row, a far harder strike to make than the one before it. Smiling, she looked back at the knight as he politely applauded her strike, finding him giving the small smile that he only seemed to display for her. But beneath the smile, she caught something else, an odd tightness to his features.
"What is it Kael?" She asked and he stood up slowly.
"You seem distracted," He commented, pushing back the black cloak bearing the Kit'ranth coat of arms from his shoulder, allowing his brilliant plate armor to shine brightly in the sunshine. "Is there something on your mind?"
"Unfortunately." She replied, coiling her whip. Reluctantly turning her thoughts back to the uneasy feeling that had been her companion for several nights, growing stronger with each passing day, Shandi tried not to let her worry show, but one look told her that the knight had seen it anyway.
That was another thing she had learned about the Knight. He was very perceptive, seeming to have a knack for reading people. Sighing, she looked down at the green grass at her feet to cover her discomfort. It was odd. She had only known Kael for a few days, but it was a great comfort just knowing that he was nearby. When her father had summoned her the day after the attack and she had left the Knight behind, she had felt...not exactly afraid, but more uncertain without the brave wolf at her side. Ever since, she had asked him to accompany her everywhere she went, a task that he performed willingly. Simply knowing he was there gave her confidence. But her long habit of keeping her most troubling thoughts to herself had kept her from confiding in him, though she knew that he was probably the one person in the household who was worthy of her trust.
"Forgive me for inquiring, my lady," Kael began, walking to her side. "I did not intend to cause you difficulty."
"Thank you Kael, but it is just something that always brings difficulty, no matter who brings it up." She said, brushing back the hair from her eyes. What she wanted above all was to tell someone about her suspicions and her worries, if only to get another perspective, and if anyone could be counted on to keep it secret, it would be Kael. And yet, she hadn't even told Kaia, the handmaiden she had known for years, so how could she confide in this near-stranger that she had known for such a short time? Shaking her head, she laid a hand upon the bright vambrace that covered the knight's left forearm. "Please don't take this the wrong way sir knight, but I don't think that even you can help me with this."
"As you wish, my lady." He replied, giving a slight bow, his armor clinking. Shandi smiled once more, and then began leading the way back towards the manor house, leaving the remaining candles to burn down to their bases. The real trouble with all of this, at least as far as her brother was concerned, was that there was no way to prove anything. The bodies of the assassins had been burned, and with nothing left to identify them, it would be impossible to know where they had come from. Shandi shivered, suddenly cold even in the sunshine. As far as she could tell, burning the assassins had been done without the order of her father, or even of her brother. In fact, though she had asked all of the servants that had disposed of the fallen warriors, none of them could tell her where the order had come from. But her father hadn't even wanted to hear about her suspicions. He trusted Shaden, almost blindly in her opinion. And though she loved her brother, she did not trust him, not wholly. And that still didn't explain the uneasy feeling that her instincts brought to her every time she was idle.
Shaking her head once again, she looked up, finding that her brooding had carried them to the door to her chambers. Shaking off the dark cloud that had collected within her mind, she pushed open the door and walked into her chambers. Kaia was seated on a chair within, neatly mending a blanket that had been torn during the attack. Kaia always looked exhausted these days, as if she wasn't able to sleep at night, and nothing that Shandi tried had seemed to alleviate her distress. That was something else that bothered her. If she didn't know better, she would have sworn that Kaia was staying up late at night doing something that obviously left her exhausted, though the other servants of the family swore that she did nothing, remaining in her quarters the entire time. Shaking off those thoughts once more, she nodded to her handmaiden and went to where she had left her spell book. Whatever it was that was coming, she needed to prepare to face it as best she could...
***
Shaden walked slowly onward, taking care not to make too much noise in the silent night that surrounded him. This world was supposedly abandoned, the inhabitants having left it to the ravages of time millennia ago, long before the establishment of the monarchy. The ruins in which he was walking were unique, to be sure. All the other remnants of the people who had once lived here were long gone, worn by the wind and rain until they were indistinguishable from the earth on which they were built. And indeed, within the ruin, nothing remained to mark who had lived here all those years ago. No tapestry or owner's mark could be found, only ruined buildings constructed of white marble, stabbing up to the sky on the top of a plateau like so many old bones, bleached white by endless years of sun and the slow march of time. And yet, for all the years that had passed, for all the decay that had scoured the rest of the civilization from this place, this complex stubbornly remained. This place might once have been magnificent to look upon, a cathedral perhaps, many stories high and gilded in gold and stained glass, but now all was ruin. It was the perfect place to conduct secret business, and Shaden had been here on several occasions, usually to purchase components for spells that were of a more unsettling nature than the norm. And all the time, he had never known that something far more valuable slept under his nose, undiscovered and long forgotten. Smiling to himself once more, he walked on through the ruined buildings, looking for something in particular.
And there, ahead of him, just as he remembered it, there was a ruined stair, spiraling down into utter darkness like a gateway to the underworld. With a last look around to ensure that he was not observed, the black leopard put his foot on the top step and slowly settled his weight upon it. The stone let out a long, low creak, like the groan of a dying beast and Shaden pulled his foot back just in the time, the stone stairs crumbling into rubble even as he stepped back. Grimacing in annoyance, Shaden spread his leathery wings and stepped out into the void, curling his wings in close. With the silence of one of the great predators of the night, the young magus glided down into darkness, settling lightly onto the pile of crumbled white marble that had once been a stairway, a sudden cold draft of air making him shiver as it caressed his body. Furling his wings once more, Lord Shaden walked into the darkness, needing no torch to light his path. He knew where he was going despite never having been down here before, the faint echoes of long forgotten magic beckoning him onward like a siren song.
He had gone only a short distance down a passage of stone when he heard the voices for the first time. Like the faintest of breezes, they came out of the darkness to his ears. They spoke words he did not understand, so quietly he did not even catch all the syllables. With a grunt of annoyance, Shaden walked resolutely onward, the voices growing louder with every step. When Shaden was sure he was far out under the plain upon which the ruined citadel crumbled, he could at last understand at least the meaning of the voices, if not their words. They were warning him, urging him to go no further, plying him with pleas to go back, warning of dark magics ahead. With a slight smile, Shaden picked up his pace; he was definitely going in the right direction.
Then, without any warning, Shaden felt himself come out of the dark passage he walked in into a towering chamber, as black as pitch even to his eyes. Magic flared about his hands as he summoned fey lights, the weightless globes of magic illuminating the chamber and Shaden's eyes went wide. Here, just as the narrative in the tome had said, were the doors, towering over even him, carved with endless runes that seemed to shift if one looked at them, carved in stone and yet insubstantial, as if they were only figments of imagination, written over a symbol carved long ago into the door. It might once have been a coat of arms, but it was long faded by time, only a faint outline remaining, though something about it stuck in Shaden's mind, as if he had seen it somewhere before. Something about it kindled a flash of faint anger in his heart, as if it were a symbol that he hated, though he knew not why. And there, before the doors, stuck in the middle of the remnants of a long faded magic ward, gleamed the hilt of the weapon he sought, the black tinted hilt guard miraculously untouched by time. And even as he approached, Shaden could feel the power pulsing from where it stabbed into the stone, unfaded, untouched by time, as powerful as when it had been set there. But, before he came within a spear's length of the sword, a towering figure materialized before it, blocking his way.
'Come no further,' The figure seemed to say, though no sound echoed in the room. Rather, it was as if it spoke within the realms of thought alone. Shaden paused, looking up at the figure, considering whether it might be a threat, some guardian left behind to protect the sword and the seal it guarded. It was wholly transparent, like a ghost or a spirit, and it seemed to be a feline, perhaps much like to a leopard, though it lacked the wings of his family. It was clothed in a robe bearing the marks of an arch magus, as well as the runes known only to dark magi. It held a hand out towards Shaden, as if warding him off. 'Come no further.' It repeated, its mental voice weary as if fresh from some great trial.
"I will do as I please," Shaden said in reply, his voice echoing strangely in the chamber, rebounding infinitely back to his ears, though the walls of the chamber were not nearly smooth enough for that. Stepping forward, Shaden walked right through the nonexistent legs of the towering shade and finally stood before the gleaming sword. As he reached out to touch its leather wrapped hilt, he could feel the power of the blade all the more keenly. If he didn't miss his guess, it would indeed prove the equal of the Knight's enchanted blade. But as he grasped the hilt, the shade spoke again.
'Do not disturb this sacred blade,' The shade said, and Shaden looked up at it with a skeptical look on his face. Powerful? Undoubtibly, but sacred? He doubted it. 'You meddle with powers beyond your comprehension. If you take the sword from its warding place, the fate that befalls you is your own doing.'
"Go bother someone else with your cryptic warnings." Shaden ordered, turning his back on the spirit. Then, seizing the blade in both hands, Shaden yanked upward. With a startlingly smooth motion, the sword dragged itself free of the stone of the floor, the trough it had riven in the stone vanishing as its tip left it, almost hissing as it left its stony prison. As Shaden brought the sword up to ready position, he found that it fit his hands perfectly, as if it had been made for him alone, the hilt growing warm in his hands and he smiled, his soul thrilling with the touch of the sword's dark enchantments, spelled out in crimson runes along its silvery length. Then, with a superior glance upward at the forever silent shade, Shaden turned to go. But, as the dark magus walked back to the entrance to the chamber, ignoring the quiet voices that seemed to follow him, he heard the last words of the spirit as it faded into nothing, speaking its last sentence as a whisper that curled to the ear like a strand of spider's silk.
'Remember,' It said, the word echoing in Shaden's ears, 'You choose your own fate, Lord Shaden...' Shaden turned quickly, the rebuke on his lips dying when he saw that nothing remained of the shade. With a shrug, Shaden turned back once more and made his way out, heading back to the open space in a courtyard where he could work the portal magic without worrying about interference.
But, unnoticed by the triumphant magus, even as he removed the sword from its earthen prison, the white marble of the doors began to darken, becoming leaden grey as clouds heavy with rain, then swiftly to black, as if night itself were spreading through its surface with every passing moment. And, as Shaden picked his way from within the cathedral, the marble began to crumble, decaying as it was touched by the power that had been sealed away with the long forgotten sword...