Night Angel: Perfect Shadow Part 6

~Acaelus. Mourn later. There is work to be done.~ The voice came from inside his own head. The black ka'kari. It had saved him. It had been a secret gift from Jorsin Alkestes, who had told bull-headed Acaelus Thorne to flee, to live.

But Jorsin hadn't said he meant Acaelus to live forever.

I'll come back and take it off your hands, Jorsin had promised with his roguish grin when he'd given Acaelus the treasure. The liar. He was wan, washed out, but his eyes burned with a fevered intensity. He'd been spending every day fighting and every night with archmage Ezra, making...something. Never sleeping. Working on some last-minute salvation that Acaelus only slowly came to understand wasn't coming.

Jorsin Alkestes: emperor, genius, archmage, tyrant. Jorsin Alkestes was a light so bright he left shadows standing centuries hence. The semblances of men, burned onto granite walls. And one shadow was perfect above all others. A walking, breathing shadow. A shadow as flickering as the ghosts thrown by a candle, as mutable as a king's promises. A shadow who devoured light and life.

Light is, but a shadow undefined becomes simply darkness. And light had been too long denied the man who had been Acaelus Thorne. He was thin, fraying, a bowlful of smoke. He was becoming undifferentiated darkness.

What if the light itself had been a lie?

Mount Tenji is the tallest mountain in Ceura. When I was a kid, people used to make pilgrimages up the mountain. It's been too cold for that for centuries. It's a volcano, but it hasn't erupted in more than a hundred years. Some smoke from time to time is all.

I reach the crater on the sixth day of climbing. I'm buried deep in many layers of coats. The wind is blowing snow everywhere.

You're good for a lot of things, I think at the black ka'kari, but keeping me warm isn't one of them.

~You left off part of Oath of Sa'kage the other day.~ Noticed, did you?

~"Until the king returns, I shall not lay my burden down."~ I pause. Jorsin Alkestes is dead. He's not coming back.

~Gather the ka'kari. Bring them all together. It's time.~ Impossible.

~Impossible? For you?~ And if I'm successful? I have a fraction of Jorsin Alkestes' power, and I'm unstoppable. He was my king, but I'm not sure he wasn't mad at the end.

The ka'kari doesn't answer. It knows me well enough to know when I have to muddle through things on my own.

There is only one question: Does what you do, every day, have meaning? Acaelus had thought his actions did, once. For centuries, he'd put his faith in Jorsin Alkestes. A long dead king. A madman who'd sworn he would return. Even from death. A madman who'd left madness everywhere in his wake.

Acaelus had given his all. He was tired of giving. He was tired of believing. It was too much. It was finished.

~He loved you, you know. More than anyone. Do you trust your old friend?~ I stand on that windblown peak for some time.

"Not to be a G.o.d."

I toss the red ka'kari into the crater.

I strap the schlusses to my feet, and head down the mountain at great speed. Ordinarily, the speed and danger give me a fierce joy. But now I'm a husk. I'm like the great sequoys of Torra's Bend, leaves still green but the heart rotted out, hollow, waiting, just waiting for the storm to come along that will end it all. A mummery of life. More alone than I've ever been.

The volcano won't destroy the red, I don't think. But it does put it beyond reach. Either the red will get caught partway down, but not all the way in the magma, and it will be impossible for anyone to live long muddle grab it, or it will make it all the way down, soak up as much power as it can hold-a huge amount-and then release it. Over and over.

I'm halfway down the mountain when the volcano explodes.

Guess it made it to the magma.

I turn my back on the volcano as I've turned my back on my king. Fire pursues me, but emptiness can't be threatened. Emptiness holds nothing dear. Emptiness knows no fear.

The Nameless is working on his new face in Gwinvere's mirror. It's important that he do this here, so she can see it and have no doubts that the new him is really him still. But body magic hurts like a motherf.u.c.ker, and he doesn't want to show her the pain. He drinks more. He's drunk, and it takes heroic amounts of alcohol to get him drunk. The black ka'kari negates poisons, for the most part-a fact Yvor Vas probably would have liked to know.

"You're not as pretty as Gaelan was," she says, finally, looking at his blond hair, thin blond beard, and pockmarked cheeks. She isn't pleased with his drunkenness, but at least she doesn't seem afraid of his abilities.

"This was my first face. My real face, you could say, if such a thing had any meaning for me." Acaelus Thorne's face. A whimsical choice, perhaps a dangerous choice, but a shadow should bear some resemblance to the shape that cast it.

"Handsome, before the scars. A bit grim, with them," she says.

He grunts. What looks like pockmarks actually came from the acid blood spray of a monster in the last battle, where Jorsin Alkestes died, when Trayeth.e.l.l fell. The mages at the time hadn't been able to heal them. Now, he doesn't want to erase that last memento of the man who might have been his friend.

From downstairs, he can hear little kids shouting, playing. Street kids, guild rats, the slave-born who have no place to go. Gwinvere takes them in sometimes. They call her Momma K. Right now, the wretches are bickering-not exactly what you hope for when you're showing kindness, but often all you get when you show kindness to those who can't return it.

Gwinvere says, "The captain of the city guard has reported you dead, without reporting your name. Anyone who digs will figure out that Gaelan Starfire was killed in a fire in the Warrens. There will be some rumors that Gaelan ran afoul of the previous s.h.i.+nga. Since deceased. A literal dead end."

"Very satisfying," the nameless emptiness says.

"So what's your new name?" Gwinvere asks.

"Durzo," he says into his flagon as he raises it for another drink. "Durzo Flint." He'd often carried surnames that meant something, and it seems to be a tradition among some of the wetboys as well. Flint: sharp, dangerous, brittle. Fair enough.

"Durzo Blint?" she asks, misunderstanding him.

From Flint to Blint. A portmanteau of flint and blunt, perhaps. The sharp and the blunt. A paradox smashed together. Or just smashed. A descent from meaning to meaninglessness. It seems appropriate. He suddenly remembers Polus Merit's prophecy. Polus had said Blint, too, hadn't he? "That's right," he says. "Durzo Blint." He drinks. Here's to you, Polus Merit. You fat pain in the a.s.s.

"Well, Durzo, I've got a job for you," Gwinvere says. "Someone who needs killing."

Gwinvere Kirena is strength incarnate. Perfection in flesh. Utterly flawless, and somehow thereby utterly sterile, impervious. When he looks at Gwinvere, he doesn't see a woman who will ever be caught off her guard. She will never be hanged, or strangled, or have her throat cut, or have her brains beaten out. She's too strong for that, too smart.

Gwinvere doesn't need him, so he can't fail her. She is the cold safety of a lean-to in the rain, not the false comfort of a stone castle that will fall on your head and destroy you utterly. She extends a sc.r.a.p of paper.

Gwinvere likes kids. An odd juxtaposition. A sc.r.a.p of humanity.

This is what I get. This is what I deserve. Sc.r.a.ps.

He doesn't look at the paper. He doesn't take his eyes off of hers, mirroring him. He doesn't care whose name is on the note. He doesn't care what they've done. "I'll take it," he says.

Meet the Author Brent Weeks was born and raised in Montana. After getting his paper keys from Hillsdale College, Brent started writing on bar napkins, then on lesson plans, then full time. Eventually, someone paid him for it. Brent lives in Oregon with his wife, Kristi. He doesn't own cats or wear a ponytail.

Author Brent Weeks. Photo Travis Johnson Photography.

Also by Brent Weeks THE NIGHT ANGEL TRILOGY.

The Way of Shadows Shadow's Edge Beyond the Shadow LIGHTBRINGER.

The Black Prism If you enjoyed PERFECT SHADOW,

look out for

THE BLACK PRISM.

Lightbringer Book One

by Brent Weeks

Chapter 1.

Kip crawled toward the battlefield in the darkness, the mist pressing down, blotting out sound, scattering starlight. Though the adults shunned it and the children were forbidden to come here, he'd played on the open field a hundred times-during the day. Tonight, his purpose was grimmer.

Reaching the top of the hill, Kip stood and hiked up his pants. The river behind him was hissing, or maybe that was the warriors beneath its surface, dead these sixteen years. He squared his shoulders, ignoring his imagination. The mists made him seem suspended, outside of time. But even if there was no evidence of it, the sun was coming. By the time it did, he had to get to the far side of the battlefield. Farther than he'd ever gone searching.

Even Ramir wouldn't come out here at night. Everyone knew Sundered Rock was haunted. But Ram didn't have to feed his family; his mother didn't smoke her wages.

Gripping his little belt knife tightly, Kip started walking. It wasn't just the unquiet dead that might pull him down to the evernight. A pack of giant javelinas had been seen roaming the night, tusks cruel, hooves sharp. They were good eating if you had a matchlock, iron nerves, and good aim, but since the Prisms' War had wiped out all the town's men, there weren't many people who braved death for a little bacon. Rekton was already a sh.e.l.l of what it had once been. The alcaldesa wasn't eager for any of her townspeople to throw their lives away. Besides, Kip didn't have a matchlock.

Nor were javelinas the only creatures that roamed the night. A mountain lion or a golden bear would also probably enjoy a well-marbled Kip.

A low howl cut the mist and the darkness hundreds of paces deeper into the battlefield. Kip froze. Oh, there were wolves too. How'd he forget wolves?

Another wolf answered, farther out. A haunting sound, the very voice of the wilderness. You couldn't help but freeze when you heard it. It was the kind of beauty that made you s.h.i.+t your pants.

Wetting his lips, Kip got moving. He had the distinct sensation of being followed. Stalked. He looked over his shoulder. There was nothing there. Of course. His mother always said he had too much imagination. Just walk, Kip. Places to be. Animals are more scared of you and all that. Besides, that was one of the tricks about a howl, it always sounded much closer than it really was. Those wolves were probably leagues away.

Before the Prisms' War, this had been excellent farmland. Right next to the Umber River, suitable for figs, grapes, pears, dewberries, asparagus-everything grew here. And it had been sixteen years since the final battle-a year before Kip was even born. But the plain was still torn and scarred. A few burnt timbers of old homes and barns poked out of the dirt. Deep furrows and craters remained from cannon sh.e.l.ls. Filled now with swirling mist, those craters looked like lakes, tunnels, traps. Bottomless. Unfathomable.

Most of the magic used in the battle had dissolved sooner or later in the years of sun exposure, but here and there broken green luxin spears still glittered. Shards of solid yellow underfoot would cut through the toughest shoe leather.

Scavengers had long since taken all the valuable arms, mail, and luxin from the battlefield, but as the seasons pa.s.sed and rains fell, more mysteries surfaced each year. That was what Kip was hoping for-and what he was seeking was most visible in the first rays of dawn.

The wolves stopped howling. Nothing was worse than hearing that chilling sound, but at least with the sound he knew where they were. Now... Kip swallowed on the hard knot in his throat.

As he walked in the valley of the shadow of two great unnatural hills-the remnant of two of the great funeral pyres where tens of thousands had burned-Kip saw something in the mist. His heart leapt into his throat. The curve of a mail cowl. A glint of eyes searching the darkness.

Then it was swallowed up in the roiling mists.

A ghost. Dear Orholam. Some spirit keeping watch at its grave.

Look on the bright side. Maybe wolves are scared of ghosts.

Kip realized he'd stopped walking, peering into the darkness. Move, fathead.

He moved, keeping low. He might be big, but he prided himself on being light on his feet. He tore his eyes away from the hill-still no sign of the ghost or man or whatever it was. He had that feeling again that he was being stalked. He looked back. Nothing.

A quick click, like someone dropping a small stone. And something at the corner of his eye. Kip shot a look up the hill. A click, a spark, the striking of flint against steel.

The mists illuminated for that briefest moment, Kip saw few details. Not a ghost-a soldier striking a flint, trying to light a slow-match. It caught fire, casting a red glow on the soldier's face, making his eyes seem to glow. He affixed the slow-match to the match-holder of his matchlock and spun, looking for targets in the darkness.

His night vision must have been ruined by staring at the brief flame on his match, now a smoldering red ember, because his eyes pa.s.sed right over Kip.

The soldier turned again, sharply, paranoid. "The h.e.l.l am I supposed to see out here, anyway? Swivin' wolves."

Very, very carefully, Kip started walking away. He had to get deeper into the mist and darkness before the soldier's night vision recovered, but if he made noise, the man might fire blindly. Kip walked on his toes, silently, his back itching, sure that a lead ball was going to tear through him at any moment.

But he made it. A hundred paces, more, and no one yelled. No shot cracked the night. Farther. Two hundred paces more, and he saw light off to his left, a campfire. It had burned so low it was barely more than coals now. Kip tried not to look directly at it to save his vision. There was no tent, no bedrolls nearby, just the fire.

Kip tried Master Danavis's trick for seeing in darkness. He let his focus relax and tried to view things from the periphery of his vision. Nothing but an irregularity, perhaps. He moved closer.

Two men lay on the cold ground. One was a soldier. Kip had seen his mother unconscious plenty of times; he knew instantly this man wasn't pa.s.sed out. He was sprawled unnaturally, there were no blankets, and his mouth hung open, slack-jawed, eyes staring unblinking at the night. Next to the dead soldier lay another man, bound in chains but alive. He lay on his side, hands manacled behind his back, a black bag over his head and cinched tight around his neck.

The prisoner was alive, trembling. No, weeping. Kip looked around; there was no one else in sight.

"Why don't you just finish it, d.a.m.n you?" the prisoner said.

Kip froze. He thought he'd approached silently.

"Coward," the prisoner said. "Just following your orders, I suppose? Orholam will smite you for what you're about to do to that little town."

Kip had no idea what the man was talking about.

Apparently his silence spoke for him.

"You're not one of them." A note of hope entered the prisoner's voice. "Please, help me!"

Kip stepped forward. The man was suffering. Then he stopped. Looked at the dead soldier. The front of the soldier's s.h.i.+rt was soaked with blood. Had this prisoner killed him? How?

"Please, leave me chained if you must. But please, I don't want to die in darkness."

Kip stayed back, though it felt cruel. "You killed him?"

"I'm supposed to be executed at first light. I got away. He chased me down and got the bag over my head before he died. If dawn's close, his replacement is coming anytime now."