Shadowless Read online

  Table Of Contents

  Contact The Author

  Prologue

  Chapter I The Dark Storm of Arpherius

  Chapter II The Twelve Deaths of Lauterbur Hess

  Chapter III The Cold Kiss of Kayan Faelström

  Chapter IV The Last Stand of Tundra Evergreen

  Chapter V The Ballad of Santhom Dar

  Chapter VI The Final Assassination of Valan D’Arakis

  Chapter VII The Deafening Silence of Willow Fairthrác

  Chapter VIII The Violent Imprisonment of Kurt Dorn

  Chapter IX The Botanical Misdemeanours of Dorrin Brethil

  Chapter X The Ninth Deathstrike of Ermithdin Ulroch

  Chapter XI The Treacherous Traits of Pandimonia Toŕl

  Chapter XII The Prophetic Vision of Brother Amrodan

  Chapter XIII The Fatal Exchange of Fürisyn Vandinmeíer

  Chapter XIV The Ever-Changing Face of Trisidulous Glarr

  Chapter XV The Liberation of Yana Dorn

  Chapter XVI The Missing Piece of Lórkrond Nox

  Chapter XVII The Malevolent Moods of Tabitha Treegle

  Chapter XVIII The Infectious Charm of Clanitâr Novastus

  Chapter XIX The Magnetic Personality of Keltarä Brandark

  Chapter XX The Ascension of Kröm

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Shadowless

  Copyright © 2017 by Randall McNally All rights reserved.

  First Edition: November 2017

  Cover Art: Mon Macairap

  Formatting: Streetlight Graphics

  Print ISBN: 978-1-9998824-1-9

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-9998824-0-2

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Contact The Author

  If you have any questions about the book or would simply like to offer your thoughts then feel free to contact me at my e-mail address. I make a point of answering everyone who contacts me but please understand that, although I will do my utmost to respond to you in a timely fashion, it may take a while depending on my workload, so please be patient.

  Twitter: http://twitter.com/RandallMcNally9

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  Email Address: [email protected]

  Prologue

  The black-robed figure stood motionless at the edge of the pool, staring attentively into the faintly glowing dark-red liquid. What little light it emitted illuminated the granite walls of the chamber, casting an oppressive hue on to the pillars. Torches, fixed to the walls by wrought-iron holders, flickered briefly causing shadows to dance across the floor. Shadows that were cast from everything in the room, except the figure.

  Slowly he moved his shoulders, stretching his neck muscles. His robes shifted and tightened across his back. The figure reached for his cowl, pulling it halfway down over his face, shielding his eyes from the light of the torches, but not from the light of the pool.

  Crossing his arms, he settled his hands back into the opposite sleeves. He dropped his head and gazed intently into the vast circular basin. Concentrating on the magma-like liquid he watched as the deep red colour unexpectedly started to lighten. A patch of bright crimson formed in the middle of the pool. It widened and began enveloping the darker red.

  A glowing pink sphere rose to the surface at the right edge of the pool. It sat glistening for a second before bursting, spilling forth its aqueous contents. The pink solution seeped steadily throughout the pool. As quickly as the pink colour had appeared, a fiery orange formed around the periphery. It fought its way through the other colours, pushing them back and lapping over the surface in a slow, viscous surge.

  Squinting, and with brows furrowed, the figure stared as the colours battled for supremacy. He was being told something – but what? Was it a warning? He had been the pool’s keeper and guardian for over five centuries, feeding off its power and being guided by its arcane sorcery in the form of dreams. He had carried out the pool’s bidding and concealed its existence from those who would seek to destroy it, and yet, in all that time, he had never seen such activity as he was currently witnessing. He ran his eyes over the coalescing colours once more and felt his usually slow, steady heartbeat begin to rise.

  The pool’s activity was increasing. Reds, purples, pinks and oranges were shifting from within its different sections in a sluggish, silent crescendo. Sections of its gloopy mass began to swell and slump, rise and fall, before once again being swallowed by the main body of the pool. Stalagmite extensions over two foot high rose up from the surface: bulbous polyps trying to escape capture.

  The robed figure dropped his arms to his sides, before edging slightly backwards from the turmoil unfolding before him. Confusion and concern were quickly giving way to panic. In five centuries he had never seen the pool act like this.

  And then it stopped.

  All movement in the liquid ceased. The surface calmed and settled, and the bright colours coalesced and darkened back to deep red.

  Bewildered, a wave of relief passed over him.

  The figure rubbed his grey goatee beard and then wiped the sweat from his hairline with his thumb and forefinger. He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, trying to make sense of the events that had just played out before him. As he delved into his thoughts, running through everything that had happened, he muttered a litany to calm his pounding heart. His concentration was broken by a dull thud from outside the temple.

  The room filled with the sound of stone grinding on stone as the huge doors slowly opened inwards. Moonlight crept into the cavernous room, filling it with a pale glow.

  The robed figure showed no visible reaction. Behind him he could hear the distant crashing of waves against the rocks of the cliffs below and could even taste the salty sea air carried in by the cool night breeze. But these were things that did not concern him. What did concern him, what he had waited for with eager anticipation for the last month, was the information about to be brought to him by the gigantic black dragon that had just opened the doors of the temple.

  After rearing up on its hind legs to put its weight against the heavy stone doors, the dragon returned to all fours. It folded its huge leathery wings, carefully tucking the membrane tight against its axillaries, and moved forward. Its claws scattered the loose dirt that covered the steps at the temple’s entrance, sending it spiralling into the wind.

  Keeping its head level and pushing its neck forward, it squeezed its frame through the double doors of the temple. As it walked slowly between the columns, its movement was more cat-like than reptilian. Its shoulders oscillated up and down with every step, its tail swayed slowly like a pendulum, only flicking at the end and never touching the ground.

  Its eyes were fixed on one thing; the robed figure in front of the pool.

  The figure stood motionless as the dragon approached. The beast stopped behind him and lowered its head, level with the man’s. The robed figure could see the dragon’s black scales in his peripheral vision and could feel its hot breath. Its green glassy eyes shone brightly, its convex pupils narrowing as they reacted to the light in the room.

  Both gaze
d into the pool until the dragon broke the silence.

  ‘The visions were correct, the child has been born in the South,’ said the dragon in a low, rasping voice.

  As it spoke, it revealed an array of razor-sharp teeth, some as long as broadswords.

  ‘Does it bear the curse?’ the robed figure queried in a whisper. Still unnerved by the earlier events, his voice caught in his throat, making his question barely audible.

  ‘It casts no shadow.’

  ‘And its mother?’

  ‘Dead. Perished in the act of birthing it,’ the dragon growled.

  The dark-robed figure walked slowly to the edge of the pool. Taking one last look into it, he turned to face the dragon with a wry smile.

  ‘This is the child we have been waiting for, the child foretold by the prophecy. Finally, the Shadowmancer is born.’

  Chapter I

  The Dark Storm of Arpherius

  Arpherius lay on his back, looking up at the sky. It was mid-summer and he could feel the warm sea breeze pushing the loose sand from the beach gently against his feet, abrading his bare skin. Cupping a handful he lifted it and cast it over his legs and body before putting the remainder on his chest. He had been running, and the sheen of sweat glued the sand to him like a second skin. He often pondered what it would be like to have a hard outer skin made completely of sand or wood or rock or dragon scales.

  I wonder what it would be like to be a dragon, he thought.

  Arpherius folded his hands underneath his head and daydreamed about dragons, knights and far-away lands; such were the dreams of young boys. After a while, he sat up, just in time to see the setting sun touch the horizon. As the waves rippled against the shore they broke up the long orange shaft of the sun’s reflection that made it look like the sea was reaching up to touch it.

  Lying back down on the soft sand, Arpherius watched as the first star appeared to the north against the dark blue sky and listened contentedly to the calls of the hunting falcons returning to their nests high on the cliff face.

  It will be getting dark soon, he thought. I had better get back.

  He sighed and sat upright. Brushing the sand from his neck and hair he turned and glanced to his right; his uncle Barranos’s tower stood like a needle against the skyline.

  High on the ridge, the tower, which had once served as a signal to ships that strayed too close to the rocks, overlooked the sea and could be seen from all around. Not that there was anyone to see it. No travellers had ever come their way; no ships had ever passed by. He had never seen another person, save for his uncle. The only contact he had with the outside world was from his books, and most of them were old, musty and worn. Arpherius had often wondered, but never dared ask, why it was that he and his uncle lived miles from anywhere.

  He put on his tunic and slipped his feet into his sandals, buckling them before slowly getting to his feet.

  ‘Time to go, Mistbeam.’

  Mistbeam, which he took everywhere he went when he was out of the tower, was a roughly carved ‘sword’ made from a piece of driftwood that had washed up on the shore long ago. He had wrapped a strand of red, sun-bleached leather around the bottom end as a makeshift hilt and whittled the sides to semi-straight parallel edges using razor shells. A rusted tin cup from his uncle’s cellar, bent and flattened at the bottom using rocks, proved a more than capable cross-guard.

  To the untrained eye it was no more than a pile of junk, but to Arpherius it was the finest weapon ever to be crafted by the greatest smiths in the realm of Narquiss.

  Off he went, up the well-worn path that led from the beach to his uncle’s tower, stopping now and then to use Mistbeam to cut the heads off the wild flowers and plants that he may have missed on his way down the path earlier. He envisaged them as evil spirits and monsters attacking him, and swung at them wildly, spinning on the spot and parrying imagined counter-attacks before cleaving them in half.

  He reached a large sand dune that lay near to the front of the tower he called home. Lifting his sword above his head with both hands, he braced himself and sprinted through the sand, wincing as the sharp tips of the marram grass stung him all over. At the top of the dune he crept clockwise around the rim until he found a small hole tunnelled into the sand by some long-dead creature.

  Carefully edging his way down, he dug his feet into the compact sand walls for support and slipped his sword into the hole, taking great care to cover the entrance with loose sand. Taking five bone-white cockle shells from his belt pouch he pushed them, one at a time, into the sand around the entrance to mark the now-covered hole.

  ‘Night-night, Mistbeam, see you tomorrow,’ he whispered, and scuttled up and over the dune.

  His uncle did not approve of weapons, even crudely made wooden ones. Braving the stinging marram grass once again, he ran down the outside of the sand dune and made his way up the path to the tower.

  As he approached the large iron-bound oak door to the tower he could smell the freshly caught fish cooking inside. The door creaked as he turned the handle and put his shoulder to it, swinging it open. Hopping inside he slammed it shut behind him and slid the metal bolt into its catch. He ran across the tiled floor and bounded up the stone steps to the first floor just in time to see his uncle carrying a bowl of sea bass and mussel broth to the table. The steam curling up from it told him it was still piping hot.

  ‘How was your day, young man?’ Barranos asked, as he put the bowl on the rough-hewn table beside a spoon and a clay mug full of water.

  ‘Not bad. I read my books till around noon and then went down to the beach,’ Arpherius replied.

  ‘I hope you didn’t—’

  ‘Go near the water?’ Arpherius interrupted, looking his uncle in the eye.

  Barranos smiled and gave him a nod while expelling a puff of air through his nose. He patted the boy on the head and then went to the pot over the fire to get his own supper. Even with his back turned he suspected that Arpherius somehow knew he was smiling.

  The two ate their meal in silence, as they usually did. Barranos was a simple fisherman who rarely showed his emotions and prized a full larder and calm seas above all else. He set sail with his weights and nets before dawn most mornings while Arpherius was still asleep, and did not return until the day was nearly at an end. He taught the boy what he could, but there was only so much about fishing he could teach when he would not let him near the sea.

  He read to Arpherius at night, books about masonry and animal handling, but when he looked up, Arpherius would invariably be scratching something into a thin piece of slate; usually a sword or a knight. Barranos had known for a long time that the boy was not destined to be a fisherman.

  ‘Uncle Barranos?’ Arpherius said. ‘When will I be allowed to come out in the boat with you and help you fish?’

  Barranos knew what was on the child’s mind; his real question was ‘Why am I not allowed to go near the sea?’ It was one he had asked many times before, each time in a different way. It was a question Barranos did not want to answer, not yet.

  ‘The sea is no place for a boy. Monsters live in it and if they sense you coming, they’ll swim after you, catch you and drag you to a watery grave,’ he replied, hoping the fear factor would bring an abrupt end to the present line of questioning. No such luck.

  ‘But you spend most of your days at sea, fishing, and yet you tell me not to go near it, not even to dip my toe in the water or play in the rock pools. Why do the monsters never come after you?’ Arpherius demanded.

  Barranos slurped his broth and looked the boy in the eye.

  ‘What are the rules, Arpherius?’

  Barranos hoped that the sharpness of his tone would convey the fact that the mood of the conversation had changed and things had become more serious.

  ‘I never, ever go near the water. If I see people, I run and hide. Weapons are dangerous,’ Arpherius said sheepi
shly, avoiding eye contact with his uncle.

  Barranos had made the boy recite the rules until they were ingrained in him. Arpherius had to repeat them every time he asked why they never had visitors, every time he asked about swords or spears or shields or armour. And now every time he asked about the sea. It was always about the rules.

  ‘Good. Now, let’s not hear any more talk about the sea, eh?’ said Barranos, the sternness in his voice unmistakeable.

  Arpherius knew that it was not a request. Barranos was not much of a talker, but when he did speak it was generally with purpose. Conversations revolved around fishing or the weather or sometimes even stretched to the repairs that were needed to his boat, but rarely anything else. They ate the rest of their meagre dinner in silence.

  With the food eaten and the table cleared, Barranos and Arpherius washed up before the boy trudged off to bed. As he climbed the steps, his candle illuminated the dark grey walls of the staircase that ran anti-clockwise upwards through the inside of the tower.

  Stopping at a landing halfway up he peered out through a narrow rectangular window to see the last glow of sunlight disappearing from the sky. He yawned as he walked into his small room. After getting undressed, he climbed under the thin, threadbare quilt that lay on his single bed. A few minutes later he heard his uncle coming up the stone stairs.

  Arpherius wondered what book Barranos would read to him tonight; Horticulture: The Farming Compendium, or perhaps Soil Irrigation, the Do’s and Don’ts.

  Barranos came into the room with a brown leather-bound book in his hand. He bent down and picked up the stool that had been used to keep the door open. Walking over to Arpherius, he set it beside the bed and sat down.

  ‘What is tonight’s story about?’ Arpherius asked.

  Barranos opened the book, held the title page up to the boy and smiled.

  The Essential Guide to Saddle Repair

  Arpherius sank back into his pillow and stared out the window. He could hear the high-pitched squeaking of bats setting out for their nightly flight as his eyes glazed over during his uncle’s commentary on ‘re-sowing billet straps’ and ‘damaged cantles’.