Free, alone, stunned by the sudden lack of input, the shade reeled for an instant in an infinity of nothing. But it had been given taste and thought and sensation, and soon the idea of reward ordered its mind. It stopped tumbling and started to flow, passing through and over the world toward where its god waited patiently in the dark.
Rafe, it shouted, I saw Rafe.
My good shade, a voice said before an instant of time had passed, come to me.
The shade told what it knew and reveled in its god’s praise.
KOSAR RAN TOA’Meer’s side, drawing his sword. The Shantasi had notched another arrow and now she waited, scanning the copse of trees. “I think he was alone,” she said.
“You killed him!” Kosar said. “He only said hello.”
“He asked if we had Rafe.”
Kosar shook his head. A’Meer’s impatience was obvious, yet she did not shift her gaze from the trees and the dead man before them.
“How would he know?” she said. “A shade was in him, just as Alishia had one when we first met. The Mages must have sent out thousands, and they’re waiting for us.”
“But they could be everywhere!”
“They will be. Anywhere and everywhere. Anyone we meet may have one watching for us. Wherever we go, we have to assume the Mages know of our whereabouts.”
“What is it?” Trey said, coming up behind them.
Kosar told him, and Hope heard as well.
“So now we have Red Monks chasing us, and the Mages searching for us as well,” Hope said. “Well, things could be worse. I have no idea how, but I’m sure they could be.”
“One good thing,” Trey said, “they aren’t after the same thing.”
“And that helps us how?” Hope said. “The Monks want to destroy Rafe before the magic can reveal itself. The Mages want to steal the magic away and make it their own. And between the Monks and Mages and Rafe? Us!”
“At least they won’t join forces is what I mean,” Trey said weakly.
“Well, we can’t stay here,” Kosar said. “We have to keep moving.”
“We need to rest,” Hope said. “So the Mages may know exactly where we are… it’s not as if they’ll run down from the Widow’s Peaks to take us. They’re an eternity away from here, not even in Noreela. We’re within a few days of New Shanti, and by the time we get there-”
“By the time we get there Noreela may have changed forever,” A’Meer said. She lowered her bow and approached the dead man, nudging him slightly with her foot. She looked up again, sad. “There’s no saying where the Mages are,” she said. “Perhaps they’ve already landed their armies on The Spine. They may even be in Noreela themselves. A war might have begun, and there’s no way we could know.”
“So,” said Kosar, “we have to keep moving. There’s no time to rest. We owe it to Rafe to travel day and night until we reach New Shanti, then at least there’s a chance whatever he has will be given time to emerge.”
“Why can’t the magic help us?” Trey said. “Fly us there, move us quickly, destroy the Monks or the Mages before they catch us?”
“Magic does not aim itself,” Hope said. “What the Mages did last time is testament to that. It’s the most powerful force there is, but it’s weak in many ways. It makes no allowance for morality. It’s in Rafe now, which probably means it wants to present itself to the land again, make itself available to humanity for a second time. But the Mages will do the same again if they catch Rafe: steal it away, twist it to their own means, drive it out once more. And this time they’ll be aware of the results of their actions… and they’ll be ready. Before magic pulls itself away for the second and last time, they’ll have everything they want. Power. Control. Revenge.”
There was silence for a while, and then Trey spoke up. “You offer a wonderful image.”
Hope shrugged, walked back to Rafe’s horse and checked on him. “Saying what I think,” she said. “This boy here… he’s the future. Life and prosperity for Noreela, or death and pain. All or nothing. It’s the end of an era right now, and we straddle the moment of change.”
“So we keep moving,” Kosar said again, glancing at A’Meer for support. The Shantasi was still looking down at the dead man.
“He was only a shepherd.”
“You had to do it,” Kosar said.
“It probably didn’t make a difference. I saw his eyes when he died-he went from arrogant to afraid the second I let the arrow fly-and when he died, he was only a shepherd.”
“The shade had already left?”
A’Meer looked up at Trey. “We may be doing a lot more killing before we get where we’re going,” she said, her voice strong and sad.
Kosar offered her an encouraging smile but she turned away, walked past the body and approached the copse of trees. “I’ll see if he had anything useful,” she said. “Most shepherds carry weapons. We’ll need them.”
They milled around the body for a few minutes, all of them doing their best to avoid looking. The sun fell below the horizon and the corpse became more shadowed, melding in with the dark ground as if already rotting away. A’Meer found a crossbow and several bolts hidden away between the trees, and a skin of fresh water. No food, no clothing, nothing that indicated that this was any more than a temporary resting place for the dead man.
After dragging the body into the trees they headed off again in the dark. Their way was lit by the shared light of the moons; the life moon fading, the death moon full. Kosar and A’Meer walked together.
“You’re quiet,” Kosar said.
A’Meer made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a snort. “I just killed an innocent man, Kosar. I’m a Shantasi warrior, not a murderer.”
“He wasn’t innocent when you killed him. There was some part of him that threatened us. You did what you had to do, that’s all.”
“That’s all?” she said, but her mocking tone was tempered by the dark.
A shower of shooting stars lit up the sky, spearing across the heavens and burning out before they reached the horizon. Trey gasped, Hope muttered some old spell, and Kosar and A’Meer touched hands briefly. Kosar reveled in the contact.
“Once, just before I left Hess, a falling star struck New Shanti and killed thousands,” A’Meer said. “Some claimed it was because magic had gone and was no longer protecting the land; the Mystics said it was our ancestors, angry at us for not doing more to reclaim magic.”
“They’re the souls of the dead,” Trey muttered in wonder. “As they go into the Black, so they fall from the sky.”
Kosar sighed. “They’re just falling stars,” he said. “Flames in the heavens that burn out quickly. Nothing lasts forever, and you don’t need to find an omen in everything.”
“Everything happens for a reason,” Hope said. She was looking at Rafe, not up into the sky.
A’Meer seemed not to have heard anyone. “My people will be looking skyward, hundreds of miles from here, wondering what it is they’re doing wrong. Our distant ancestors managed to find the truly enlightened path, and they were… not as lucky as we are now. They were used and abused, yet they attained spiritual perfection. We’ve lost that. Almost as if pain and suffering help a soul reach such planes of understanding.”
Kosar did not understand. This was A’Meer’s moment, not his. The idea that he could help her by listening to her woes comforted him and made him feel special.
“The Guiders will be gathering in the halls at Hess, poring over their old texts and trying to see the significance of the shooting stars tonight, the direction, the number. They’ll be agonizing over the inner workings of New Shanti, wondering whether the enlightened path all Shantasi seek has veered from the True, arguing amongst themselves like a flock of birds fighting over a scrap of food.” She smiled, and her expression was almost wistful. “Such minor concerns,” she said. “Such petty worries when the real fate of things rides on the horse behind us.
“But maybe a few will ascribe those stars to magic. Perhaps one or two of the Guiders will try to ally their appearance with something else, some other sign, and read Truth in them. I wonder what a Guider on fledge could see?”
A’Meer fell quiet, but the silence between them was not comfortable. It was waiting to be broken.