Bjarheim's Shadow, Part VIII

If you missed it, check out the earlier chapters of Bjarheim's Shadow:
Part I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII

BJARHEIM’S SHADOW - PART VIII

Aiar rolled his eyes. “Oh, a prophecy! How quaint. And what precisely is it supposed to mean?”

The Brandrinn jerked his head up. “Do not presume to question our prophecies, scum.”

“I question all forms of nonsense. Prophecies especially. This—”

“What prophecy?” Erik interrupted. Aiar might not think much of the Brandrinn, but Erik had finally met one, and he wasn’t about to allow Aiar to run roughshod over him.

“Yes, do tell,” the fae said anyway.

The woodsman picked up his staff and slowly rose to his feet. “I will tell the boy in detail. Not you.” He gestured away from the group, meaning for Erik to follow.

“Now hang on there,” Sannfred Fray said, coming up. “I ain’t about to let you take Erik off into the woods all on his own.”

In a flash, the Brandrinn’s staff came to rest against Sannfred’s throat. He froze, eyes wide.

“You could not stop me,” the Brandrinn said. “Trespassers, the lot of you. I ought to crush your windpipe and make a lesson of you.”

“No!” Erik said, leaping up and batting the staff away.

The Brandrinn made no move to replace it. “I will not harm the boy. I swear upon my bark and branches. Come.” He strode off, his footfalls making no sound.

Erik started to follow, but a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. He turned and met Sannfred’s eyes. “I’ll be all right, I swear.”

“Don’t go far. Your… your Da won’t forgive me if I lose you.”

Erik nodded, pushing back sudden tears at the mention of his father… but there was a Brandrinn here, and he knew something. Erik followed the woodsman away through the trees.

The Brandrinn had already gone a hundred yards. Somehow Erik could pick him out easily among the trunks, even though his woodsy clothes and his very skin seemed to blend in among them. “How can I see you so well?” he called out as he drew close.

“The prophecy,” the woodsman said, meeting Erik’s eyes and thoroughly ignoring his question, “has been passed down for generations. What do you know of the Brandrinn?”

“Just, you know… rumors, the kind kids spread. You protect the forest, I guess?”

“More than that, but yes. And we work alone. The prophecy says that you will bring us together to save us, and then destroy us.”

“I don’t want to destroy you! And how d’you know I’m the… the one it means?”

“A child of two magics,” the woodsman said, crouching down against a tree. He dug in the soil with the tip of his staff, drawing a ragged star shape on the one hand, and a leaf on the other. “No one learns two magics. But you are learning fae magic, and you could see right through my cloak.”

“You haven’t got a cloak,” Erik pointed out.

“A cloak of shade, of leaves and pollen and dust. It is our magic. It conceals us from all but one another. But you can already pierce it, because you have the Seed within you.”

“The seed of what?”

“The Seed of true-seeing. Brandrinn cannot hide from one another, because we—you—are as one.”

“I suppose next you’ll tell me I’m Odinson walking the earth.”

The woodsman was stone-faced. “That is the second part of the prophecy.”

Erik laughed. When the Brandrinn did not join in, the laughter died in Erik’s throat. “Are you serious?”

“You have our magic, but not our history. Come. I already feel a pull toward the Vângr.” He gazed off into the woods.

“‘Vângr’? You damn well better explain that! I’m damn tired of gettin’ pompous mumbo-jumbo thrown at me left and right. I get enough of that from Aiar! And I ain’t leaving my friends here. And what in the hells is your name, anyway?”

The Brandrinn was quiet for a stretch, as if struggling to decide whether he owed Erik his name. “Ollemar of Three Dawns.” He bowed at the waist. “And you are Erik.”

“How did you—oh, right, Sannfred said my name. Erik Rain.” He held out a hand to shake.

Ollemar stared at the hand for a moment, then gently pushed it away with the tip of his staff. “Your friends are of no use. The Shadow has come, and we must make for the Vângr—it is a gathering of the Brandrinn, in times of dire need. We must leave at once. The others know what I know. They will be waiting.”

“I’m not going bloody anywhere without the others. Especially Aiar. And Kari,” he added, embarrassed that she had been an afterthought to the fae.

Ollemar’s face scrunched up. It was a hard face to describe; plain, almost bland in its featurelessness. Sure, there was a nose, two eyes, all the usual parts, but he was so unremarkable that he might as well have been a crude drawing in a children’s book. His hair was a nondescript brown, the exact same shade as the bark beside him. Even as ordinary as he was, he still looked quite unsettled when he frowned like this. “A fae at the Vângr would be a grave insult to the forest. They are seekers of the arcane, not of nature’s order. I will not have it.”

Erik crossed his arms. “Then I’m not going. And to the hells with your prophecy.” He made himself turn around and walk away.

He couldn’t believe it; he’d come all the way out here to find a Brandrinn, and here he was, telling the first one he met to go stuff himself. But how could he leave Kari and the Frays, and Ludwin and Cesja and… and even Thora behind? They were all he had left of Bjarheim. He couldn’t sever that connection.

He didn’t hear footfalls behind him, but somehow he sensed that Ollemar was there. Erik glanced back. The Brandrinn was following him, no more than five feet away. He looked pained. “Perhaps the prophecy is flexible on whether you may bring… companions… to the Vângr. But that stinking fae may not enter. He can wait beyond the trees.”

“Why do you hate the fae so much?”

“They do not glorify nature, that which sustains us. Instead they squander their magic looking inward, hiding in their caves. It is despicable.”

“Well, try to be nice. Aiar’s been protecting us. And teachin’ me magic. So lay off.”

“As you wish,” Ollemar grumbled.

---

They returned to the rest of the group, who were relieved that Erik had come back unharmed. “This is Ollemar. He’ll guide us to… a place in the forest, where… something will happen.” He shrugged. “We’ll be safe.”

“What if whoever attacked us comes back?” Kari said. She kept a clear, wary eye on the Brandrinn.

“What sort of attack?” Ollemar said, suddenly interested. Erik and the others described the decaying grass in the meadow, and how it had trapped and killed poor Florr.

Ollemar grew visibly agitated as the story wore on, and when it was finished, he bellowed with rage and whipped his staff down onto the dirt. “Dark magic, used to murder green life! If I meet whoever has done that, I will tear them to pieces! Their blood will feed new growth!”

Aiar cleared this throat. “If you are done with your homicidal tantrum, may we proceed? The Vângr will not wait.”

Ollemar glared at the fae. “How do you know of the Vângr?”

“We fae scum know much, not that you had bothered to ask.”

Ollemar looked at Erik instead. “Certain folk should not sully the Vângr by letting their tongues touch its name. Come.” He stalked away.

Erik quickly tried to explain that they had to follow Ollemar. “It’ll be safe, I swear. If the Brandrinn come together, they can stop the Shadow, and save Bjarheim,” he pleaded, hoping to soothe the visible doubts on his companions’ faces.

Aiar nodded. “He is right. A Vângr does not happen often. We can only hope the other Brandrinn are not quite so irretrievably rude.”

“Boy, this is madness you’re gettin’ wrapped up in,” Sannfred Fray said.

Gaelle Fray swatted him on the shoulder. “Hush. He’s got to make this decision for himself. You were the one what always said what luck it was for a man to be able to use magic! How can you try to stop him at a time like this?”

“He has already begun learning from me,” Aiar said, looming over the Frays. “Even if that leaf-blooded Brandrinn is capable of teaching him magic, it will be mere forest tricks, not proper arcana.” He set his gaze on Erik. “Be wary. The Brandrinn have no care but for themselves and their trees. If they help Bjarheim, it will be to serve their own ends.”

Erik glanced around the group. They all stared at him, some with awe, some with worry. Ludwin and his wife Cesja watched him with wide eyes. Thora seemed to appraise him, as if he might have some value after all. The young mother, Ilvha, had already stood up, clutching her baby to her chest as if ready to follow Erik wherever he might go. Thurgald, the man who Ollemar had shot, was sitting up, woozily rubbing his neck and looking disgruntled.

The Fray twins looked bored as they always did, Jarno tying Kjesten’s hair into knots while she pelted him with clods of dirt, utterly ignoring the drama around them. Sannfred wrung his hands; perhaps he really did feel responsible for Erik. Gaelle watched him evenly.

And Kari. She stood at arm’s length, hands on her hips, looking impatient. Erik sensed something and glanced over his shoulder; Ollemar stood just at the edge of sight, probably annoyed at being made to wait, but Erik could not rush this. He turned back to Kari, and walked over to her. She flinched a little. Erik swallowed, trying to moisten his dry throat, and took her hands. “What do you think I should do?”

“I—” Kari glanced around at the others, but Erik took her chin and made her look at him.

“No. Tell me.”

She closed her eyes, spilling tears down her cheeks. Erik still didn’t understand how Kari—tough, rough, tree-climbing, no-nonsense Kari—had become so distraught. You weren’t supposed to leave, she’d said.

“Tell me,” he whispered, drawing closer. The others were all staring, but to the hells with them.

“I—I had a… Mikal was—”

“Kari, no!” Sannfred shouted suddenly. “We do not speak of that!”

“Let her talk, you fool,” Aiar said. “Can you not see how important this is to her, whatever it is?” Sannfred glared daggers at the fae, then huffed and crossed his arms. Aiar gestured impatiently at Kari. “Continue, girl.”

“When I was… very little, I had an older brother. Mikal. He was… my best friend. And… there was an accident. He fell…” The tears came again, but Kari’s expression was one of anger, not sorrow. “He told me he’d never leave, but he did.” She clutched Erik’s hand tightly in hers. “You have to promise you’ll never leave.”

“I swear,” Erik said. “But I can’t see the future.”

Kari was squeezing his hands so hard it hurt. Suddenly she released him, and nodded once. “Then let’s go.” She strode away toward Ollemar.

The others began to follow. Sannfred, before he went, came over to Erik. “You had best not hurt my girl.” Then he followed the rest of them.

Erik found himself bringing up the rear, and realized that Aiar walked slowly beside him. “You humans are insane,” the fae said.

Erik nodded. “I agree completely.”

---

“The first thing is to take a leaf and hold it against your forehead,” Ollemar said, plucking a veined, dark-green specimen from a nearby shrub to demonstrate. “Keep it there until you can feel it. Not feel it with your skin, but with your soul.” He handed the leaf to Erik.

Aiar sighed dramatically from several yards away as Erik did as Ollemar instructed. “Like this?”

The Brandrinn nodded. “The leaf is a surrogate for the life of the forest. It is a small part, as you or I are a small part. But the forest is made of nothing but small parts, all joined together in a great linked circle. Understanding begins by learning to see oneself as part of that circle.”

“Magic exists independent of lifeforms,” Aiar declared, apparently having become fed up with Ollemar’s teaching methods. He stalked over to Erik. “We are in its flow, and we sense it. Yes, life is all well and good. Being alive myself, I can hardly criticize it. But magic is not linked to life any more than a bird is linked to the wind.”

“The wind guides the bird just as life guides magic,” Ollemar countered, coming to his feet and staring up at the fae. Ollemar was not tall, but you couldn’t tell it by the fierceness of his gaze.

Erik stepped between them. “I said I’d learn from both of you, and I will. One at a time. Please?”

The fae threw his hands up and strode off into the trees, muttering. “Never find the methar at this rate…”

Ollemar stared smugly after him. Erik shoved a finger into the Brandrinn’s face. “And you, cut that out. I just want to save Bjarheim. All this magic mumbo-jumbo means nothing to me, d’you hear?”

“It means a great deal to the world, whether or not you like it. Now come. Sense the life around you.”

Much as Erik hadn’t been able to sense the methar, he could not feel the ebb and flow of life as Ollemar insisted he would. He still sensed power radiating from Ollemar’s staff; and when the Frays made a campfire again, he could see the little orange spark of energy, floating there, waiting to be tapped by the whirling sticks. But it was all vague and incomprehensible. After an hour of trying, he finally gave up and insisted on being let alone.

Ollemar seemed just as put out as Aiar had been, and disappeared into the woods for a while. He returned with a deer slung over his shoulders. Gingerly he set it upon the ground and knelt before it, putting his hands on it and performing some sort of silent prayer ritual. Finally he drew a knife from the folds of his tunic and began rapidly dissecting the carcass. In minutes, a haunch had been spitted over the fire, and Ollemar himself stood there, turning it.

“Doesn’t it bother you to kill a deer?” Erik asked. “You got so upset about all that other stuff.”

“Killing an animal for food is not the same as mindlessly eradicating life. And the ritual I performed sanctified the deer. It is part of the cycle of life now, feeding me as it might feed a wolf or a warg or a bear.” He gazed out into the darkness. “Whoever was following you is still following you, but they are not near enough to be a concern. They have just now crossed the spot where I found you this morning, and they are on our trail. Your companions are leaving signs as they walk that a blind man could see. There is no hope of eluding them. With my presence, they will think twice about attacking again.”

“Aiar put up wards around our camp, the night after they attacked us. Can you do that too?”

Ollemar grimaced at the fae’s name. “I have no need. The forest itself warns me.”

“You can fight them all yourself?”

The Brandrinn was silent for a while, watching the deer haunch turn over the fire. “The magic you described was very powerful. I would gladly give my life to stop them, but then you would be unprotected. Go now, and rest. There will be food soon, and then you must sleep. Tomorrow we will reach the Vângr.”

Erik did as the Brandrinn told him. He found a mossy spot in a hollow, and was surprised when Kari crawled in to join him. She said nothing, but nestled her head against his shoulder. He wondered what Sannfred would think if he saw them like that. A week ago we were just kids, Erik thought. You wish that were still true, don’t you?

---

Erik dreamed of flying that night, soaring high over the fields beyond Bjarheim, then gliding down toward his home. The city was unsullied, its towers touching the sky, the slate roofs of its houses glowing in the sunset. But the longer he flew, the harder it became, until it took all his willpower just to stay aloft. He looked back and the Shadow had come out of nowhere; it was gaining on him. It touched his foot, an unexpectedly chill grip, and the land all around him turned to snow and ice. The north, said a voice, sounding as if it came from the glistening white that blanketed the landscape. Go.

He jerked awake. He was vaguely aware of Kari by his side, but his attention was on something floating before him in the darkness. It was a sparkle of violet light, pulsating in counterpoint with an orb of faint green energy. He tried to reach for it, but it wasn’t there; he realized, elated, that he was seeing these things inside his own mind.

“Aiar!” he shouted, heedless of the pervading quiet of the forest. Kari started, sitting up, as Erik pulled his numb arm out from under her and scrambled to his feet. “Aiar, where are you?”

The fae was sitting on a stump, waving his hands through the air, trailing some sort of frail webbing of violet light between them. He shook it away and glanced at Erik. “What?”

“I think… I think I can see the methar.”

CONTINUED in Part IX

Bjarheim's Shadow, Part VII

If you missed it, check out the earlier chapters of Bjarheim's Shadow:
Part I, II, III, IV, V, VI

BJARHEIM’S SHADOW - PART VII

When the sun rose high, they broke for lunch and finished off the hares. Sannfred led them to one of the caches he’d mentioned: a barrel coated in pitch, nailed shut, and sunk waist-deep in the ground. Concealed as it was amidst shrubs and rocks, Erik realized he would’ve strolled right past it if Sannfred hadn’t pointed it out.

It was crammed full of salt beef, nuts, and dried fruit. Everyone wanted to gorge themselves, but Sannfred—and, surprisingly, Aiar—sternly told them all that they were on rationing until they reached the forest. “You will die here if you waste your resources,” Aiar said.

“You’re bigger than us all,” Thora retorted. “You just want more for yourself!”

Aiar glowered, picked up a single black walnut, and popped it into his mouth. “That is the sum total of my sustenance for today, nitwit. Fae have other resources.”

In the end it was Thora who ended up trying to hoard more than she should. Erik noticed that she’d stuffed a pouch of salt beef under her shirt; when he pointed it out to Sannfred, Thora glared daggers at him. Erik wanted to keep an eye on her, but the looks she gave him were so vicious that he was afraid to stay close.

The Frays weren’t about to abandon a fellow Bjarnheimer out in the wilderness, but they made her walk in the front of the group so they could watch her. Of course she started dragging her feet, slowing the whole party. Finally Aiar came back and shouted at her until she got up to a reasonable pace.

By midafternoon, they’d all begun to fall prey to fatigue. Even Aiar drooped in the heat. Erik looked back when they stopped in a meadow, but Bjarheim was lost behind the hills. He fretted about Da again. Da had been out in the city when the Shadow came. He’d have seen it and escaped. Erik gritted his teeth and wiped away incipient tears. He couldn’t start thinking about it, or he’d never be able to keep going.

As they prepared to get moving again, Erik noticed a spot of ground near him that seemed to have gone sickly and dead, as if the grass had simply decided to give up the ghost. In fact the longer he watched it, the faster it withered. It had started out no larger than his fist, hadn’t it? Now it was half a pace across, and growing.

“Hey!” he shouted, backing away from it. An uneasy instinct made him turn around. Another dead spot, perfectly round, expanded toward his feet. The grass turned brown and then black with horrifying speed. “Look out!”

All over the meadow the circles appeared, withering the once-vibrant grass in seconds. One of the two other men who’d gone hunting with Sannfred, a tall bony fellow named Florr, yelped and tried to stomp one of the spots with his foot, as if he could somehow stop its spread. But then he couldn’t pick his foot up off the ground. “Help! It’s got me!”

Sannfred rushed over and grabbed Florr’s arm, but no matter how hard he pulled, Florr’s foot wouldn’t come loose. The deadness began to creep up Florr’s leg. The color drained from it, the threads of his trousers disintegrated and flaked off, and within seconds the man’s flesh had begun to turn black. He screamed.

Sannfred, cursing, let him go and backed away. The dead spots were everywhere; a dozen or more, no, at least twenty—Erik ran between them, aiming for the edge of the meadow, hoping for safety in the trees. He jerked to a halt as blackened deadness sprouted anew before him. He teetered forward, losing his balance—

Something yanked him upright. He twirled around to find himself face to face with Kari. There was terror in her face that Erik was sure mirrored his; but determination, too, and that gave him heart. Hand in hand, they ran another way.

Erik saw Aiar gesture violently. A streak of violet light appeared, spearing one of the expanding dead spots right in its center. The decay halted at once, but did not reverse. Other spots continued to appear and grow. The fae shouted, “There are too many! Run!”

Kari and Erik made it to a copse at the edge of the meadow. There were no dead spots there, to Erik’s immense relief. “It’s safe in the trees!” he shouted back. The others had avoided stepping in any of the decay, except poor Florr, whose screams had already stopped. He was now no more than a pile of rotting flesh amidst a field of black. The circles of decay had joined together, forming one large corroded morass. At last they stopped growing.

“We should go,” Sannfred said, refusing to look back, and herding the rest along through the trees.

Erik stared out over the meadow, and just as he turned, he saw something moving. Shapes, beyond the meadow. Men. Then Sannfred was in his way. When Erik dodged around the bulky Fray patriarch and looked again, he saw nothing.

---

The way became steeper the farther they went. These hills, which had always looked small compared to the great Skarstands to the east, now seemed to be pushing up against the very sky.

Erik told Aiar about the men he thought he’d seen. He expected dismissiveness from the fae, but Aiar merely nodded and grumbled. “We are followed. I suspected it yesterday. Whoever they are, they are too few to assault us directly. Hence that awful magic that ambushed us.”

“What was it?” Erik said.

Aiar pressed his lips together. “I have not encountered it before. It is magic of darkness, to be sure. My counterattack was barely able to stop it. There were too many.” He glared down at Erik. “You should be practicing sensing the methar.”

“While we’re bein’ attacked? How’m I supposed to do that?”

“A fool ignores the tools he has available,” Aiar snapped, and loped on ahead, leaving Erik feeling very sure that he was the fool in question.

By sundown, they were all exhausted. Aiar announced that he would place wards around their camp, to notify them if anyone approached.

Erik watched intently as Aiar worked, but he could not tell what the fae was doing. “I can… I can see you doing something. It’s like weaving. But it… it don’t make sense to me.”

“Nor will it, until you have mastered sensing the methar. Now sit down and focus!” He shooed Erik away and went back to his magic.

“I told you we should have gone south!” Thora said, tugging her shawl tight around her. “Whoever it was that attacked us—”

“Shut your damn face,” said a voice Erik hadn’t heard before. How’m I supposed to focus, when everyone’s yelling all the damn time? He realized it was the young mother, who had trouped along with them without a word’s complaint. Her baby barely made any sound either, though Erik supposed that might be because it was constantly suckling at her breast. She hadn’t any spare cloths with her, but the baby seemed content to tinkle into the grass now and again.

And he certainly never would’ve guessed her for fierce. She looked like she’d fall over if a kitten said boo. But Thora, startled by the unexpected verbal assault, irritably clamped her mouth shut and strode away from the campfire that Sanfred and Gaelle were working at building.

It wasn’t going well. The wood here was all damp, thanks to a rainstorm earlier that had just missed them. Erik thought about offering to help, but the elder Frays would probably just yell at him. Instead he looked at the piece of wood that Sannfred was furiously rolling between his hands, trying to encourage some heat.

Oddly, the point of contact between the two pieces of wood seemed… somehow interesting. He’d seen fires made like this before, but now he noticed a tiny orange nodule sitting right at the junction, like a firefly. He crept closer, taking care not to raise the Frays’ ire. The little orange spot ebbed and flowed with Sannfred’s exertions. It was going to take him hours to bring up a fire at this rate.

Instinctively, Erik reached out to the orange nub and pulled.

A bright flash dazzled him, and a flare of intense heat on his face made him cry out and fall back. Sannfred shouted and stumbled back. The elder Fray’s entire arm had caught fire.

Maintaining a presence of mind that Erik envied, Sannfred dove to the ground and rolled his arm under himself. The flames went out quickly, as Gaelle stood over her husband, gobsmacked. “Dear! Are you all right?”

“I don’t get it,” Sannfred said a minute later, once he’d calmed. He gingerly rolled up the charred remnants of his sleeve, wincing at every motion. The skin underneath was red and blistered already. Not an awful burn; he’d gotten the fire out quick. But his arm would be tender for days. “Th’ fire just blew up, like somethin’ spooked it.”

Gaelle straightened up and glanced around, startled. “Is it… the ones who attacked us? Are they back?”

“No,” Aiar said. He’d just come back over from the edge of their camp. “The wards were already in place before that happened, and—” He glanced at the fire, and froze. His jaw dropped open, and after a moment he stared in awe at Erik. “How did you do that?” For once, there was no hostility in his voice. Just… amazement.

“I—I don’t know. I saw somethin’, and I pulled it.” What the hell had he done? He still hadn’t even caught a glimpse of the methar. Had he done magic somehow without realizing it?

Aiar’s skepticism returned at once. “Do not do anything like that again, you imbecile! You could have killed him!”

“But I don’t even know what I did!” Erik protested. “I just—”

“It—it shouldn’t be possible. To manipulate—without the methar—” He glared at Erik as if this was all his fault. As if Erik had been the one to decide he was capable of learning fae magic!

The fae sighed and rubbed his nose. “Be cautious. You must learn to sense the methar, before you kill someone.”

---

Erik couldn’t help but look back over his shoulder as they walked. Whoever was after them wasn’t going to give up. Erik could feel it.

He tried asking Aiar about the fire, and what Erik had done, but Aiar would not speak of it. “Sense the methar. You must do nothing else until you sense the methar.” There was more than the usual disdain in his voice. He was… worried. And that worried Erik.

So he tried to sense the methar, whatever it was. He tried to look inward as he walked, to see what lay within his mind; but inevitably his thoughts drifted, and he would realize with a jerk that he was thinking about Da, or Bjarheim, or Kari, or just watching over his shoulder, trying to decide if the shadow beside that pine was innocent or not…

Only when they stopped could he focus, because only then could he close his eyes. He rummaged around in his mind, trying to find the methar. He saw shapes and colors; odd geometric patterns flared in his vision when he rubbed his eyes. But it was all ordinary. Frustrated, he punched his palm and decided to give it a rest.

He went to find Sannfred. Mister Fray was talking to Kari in low tones, while the twins raced around in circles, ignoring their mother’s admonishments to sit still. Kari nodded and slunk away, as if in contemplation. She’d been more conciliatory since the night Aiar had shown up, but Erik really hadn’t had a chance to talk to her. At least she wasn’t glaring at him any more.

Erik stopped before Sannfred. “So, erm… do we know where we’ll find a woodsman?”

“The fae says there’s one near, off that way.” He gestured halfheartedly to the north. The hills had begun to descend and flatten a little, and there were more and more trees. Not quite forest yet, but almost.

Erik realized that Sannfred was eyeing him. “Sir?”

“Whatever the fae’s doin’ with you… you be careful, boy, you hear? I know your father. He wouldn’t approve o’ this.”

“I have to,” Erik argued. “My… my mama was part fae, Da said. I have to do this.” He paused. “’Sides, no one listens to me. If I can do magic…”

Sannfred grumbled. “You best be careful with that line o’ thinkin’, boy. If’n the only reason you get respect is ’cause folk are scared of you…” He shook his head, unwilling to finish the thought.

He doesn’t know how it feels. Learning magic would mean that grown-ups would finally have to listen. Erik wasn’t going to threaten them with it, if that’s what Sannfred was thinking! He’d only ever use his magic for good reasons, he swore to himself. Wouldn’t that make others respect him just as much?

---

The trees got thick enough to become a constant nuisance. Erik saw no signs of pursuit, and no more evil pools of decaying grass sprang upon them. They were in true forest now; but where were the woodsmen?

“We’ll be lucky t’ find even one,” Sannfred grumbled when Erik asked, “let alone several together.”

They’d broken for lunch, not anywhere in particular; clearings were few and far between, so they spread out among the trees, leaning up against the trunks for support. Erik took a risk and went to sit by Kari. He didn’t say anything, and she didn’t either, but she did favor him with a smile. A tiny smile, lost within the obvious despair on her face. It nearly broke his heart.

Everyone ate quietly, even Thora, who had taken up her complaining again, if a bit less forcefully. Thurgald, the other man in the group, sat at the edge, staring out into the trees beyond. He said he’d been a carpenter in Bjarheim, but somehow he also knew a lot about hunting and surviving in the wilderness. He wouldn’t say how or why he acquired those skills. Rather than being evasive, he simply stared at Erik until he changed the subject.

Erik was startled when a thin black line sprouted from Thurgald’s neck, and the man toppled silently over. Ilvha, the young mother, sat near him, nursing her babe. She shrieked and tumbled backward, somehow keeping her child clasped to her breast.

Everyone else lurched to their feet, reaching for whatever primitive weapons they had at hand. Mostly they’d amassed a collection of thick branches to use as clubs, although Gaelle Fray had for some reason brought her kitchen knife, and held it out before her in steady hands.

Erik scrambled over to Thurgald, realizing belatedly that whoever had shot Thurgald would probably now have a clear line of sight to Erik. He pushed that thought away and looked at the dart. It was a narrow reed of some kind, with a heavy, bulbous tip and a tapering rear. It hadn’t gone far into Thurgald’s neck, but the tip was coated with some sort of greenish slime.

But Thurgald was still breathing. Whatever it was, it hadn’t killed him. Erik looked down at the carpenter’s hand. In it he gripped a hunting knife, the most substantial weapon their entire group carried. Except Aiar’s magic, right?

Something tickled Erik’s neck. For a terrifying moment, he thought another dart had found him, but it wasn’t that sort of sensation. He could feel something—up there. He looked up into the branches overhead; clouds of pine needles obscured all but fragments of the blue sky above. Then, inexplicably, one of those clouds resolved into the shape of a man, perched perfectly still atop a branch.

“You up there!” Erik shouted. The man, whoever it was, jerked in surprise. There was something else Erik could see, some sort of—

The man put something to his mouth, some sort of hollow tube. Suddenly Aiar was standing before Erik. The fae’s hands stretched upward. Something flew through the air, clattered, and fell softly onto the earth. Another dart, just like the one that had felled Thurgald.

But it had stopped harmlessly in midair, right before Aiar’s neck. “Come down, you dolt,” the fae shouted up at the man. “We’re not your enemies!”

The man in the branches hesitated, considering, and then leapt down from branch to branch as lightly as a feather. He somersaulted into a crouch on the forest floor.

“Yes, very impressive,” Aiar said. “You are Brandrinn, and we are in need of your assistance.”

“Must be pretty awful,” the man drawled, “if they’re sendin’ filthy fae out to look for help.” He’d put away his dart-shooter, whatever it was, and instead drew a thick quarterstaff from his back. It was inscribed end-to-end with runes of some sort. Erik could, without being able to explain how, feel power radiating from it.

Aiar snarled, the first time Erik had ever heard him make such a noise. “The Shadow has come to Bjarheim,” he said. “We need your help to defeat it.”

The Brandrinn ignored him. “You, boy.” He levelled the staff at Erik. “How did you see me up there?”

“I—I just looked, and there you were.”

The Brandrinn frowned. “Have you trained with my brethren, then? No other could detect me so easily.”

“I’ve never even seen a woodsman before,” Erik said, his heart racing. Did this man mean them harm? Why had he shot Thurgald? “I’m learning fae magic from him.”

The woodsman’s jaw dropped open. The staff slipped from his fingers, and he fell to his knees. “By all the gods… it cannot be now…”

“What are you blathering about?” Aiar demanded.

The Brandrinn’s eyes drifted between Erik and the fae. His mouth worked for a moment. “He… he is our destruction, and our salvation.”

CONTINUED in Part VIII

Bjarheim's Shadow, Part VI

If you missed it, check out the earlier chapters of Bjarheim's Shadow:
Part I, II, III, IV, V

BJARHEIM’S SHADOW - PART VI

By sunset, the corruption of Bjarheim had completed. Erik sat watching on the edge of an uncomfortable rock, his knees drawn up before him. The black shadow enveloping Bjarheim writhed in the distance, like something alive and malevolent.

He’d wanted to get away from it, but he kept feeling himself drawn back. Sannfred Fray and two other men had disappeared off into the hills in the late morning, returning hours later with a brace of hares. “We’ll need food t’ keep our strength up,” he’d declared. “There’s caches of packed dry goods off in th’ hills here an’ there, but we’d be fools t’ rely on ’em.”

Erik had wanted to go with them, but Sannfred had told him in no uncertain terms that he was too young and must stay behind with the others. “I’m fourteen now, I’m a man!” Erik had insisted, to no avail. This was no lark, they’d said; this was serious.

When he did manage to draw his eyes away from the city, he kept himself busy playing with the twins, or scouting around the edges of the ridge. Missus Fray scolded him when she caught him at it, though, claiming he’d get lost and eaten by wolves. “I escaped the Shadow,” he argued. “Wolves’re nothin’ compared to that.” It did him no good; she grabbed his arm and dragged him back to the rest of the group.

A few more folk had straggled in by noon, but there the flow stopped. Aside from the Frays, there were seven others: the two men who had gone off hunting with Sannfred; a young, terrified woman, carrying her mewling baby; an older woman with a shawl who glared at the others as if the Shadow were their doing; and a young couple who had, they blushingly revealed, been enjoying a late-night romp in the fields when the Shadow had come.

In the afternoon, they sat around a rudimentary campfire, gnawing on blackened hare. “The woodsmen are our only hope,” Sannfred told them. “It’s clear that… that no help’ll come from the city. If the ironspeakers or th’ priests had any warnin’, they weren’t able t’ stop it in time. And who knows what even happened to th’ fae! We’ll have t’ go find the woodsmen ourselves.”

“Pish,” the shawl-wearing woman—named Thora—said. She hadn’t touched her hare. “Those leaf-eaters are hardly better than animals, hiding in the forest.”

“None of that,” Sannfred growled, but the woman was unfazed.

“Do you have another idea?” Erik asked.

“We should go south, to Belj. My sister lives there.”

“But th’ woodsmen are north, in th’ forest.”

“And that’s why I’m going south, to where I know it’s safe.” She glanced around the circle, a challenge in her eyes. “Anyone who has any sense will come with me.”

“You’re mad to head there yourself!” Erik said. “It’s a hundred miles if it were an inch, an’ you’ve got no horse, an’ no supplies.”

“Hmf.” Thora stood up, glaring at him. “We will survive. The land will provide. Your feet may be too weak to make the journey, but I assure you that mine are not.”

“Enough,” Gaelle Fray said, standing up and meeting Thora’s eyes. “We’re all tired and in need of rest. No one’s going anywhere before tomorrow. Now let’s wait and see if anyone else comes, and in the morning we’ll start out, whichever way we end up going.”

There was no arguing with her firm tone. Thora harrumphed again and strode away, to sit by herself on the grass. She eyed Erik as she went. He had no idea who she was, but he was getting sick of people glaring at him.

---

Erik watched as the sun’s last glimmer dropped below the horizon. Bjarheim was a shadow on the land now. He felt cold tendrils encircling his heart. How were they ever going to free Bjarheim? Would the woodsmen be able to help? Finding one could be difficult, if he didn’t want to be found; they were said to blend into the very trees themselves. And everyone always said that woodsmen lived and worked alone; would a single Brandrinn be able to do anything against the vast Shadow?

Erik glanced around the ridge. Most of the others had found shade and managed to doze. The young, nervous couple were still awake, sitting a little apart, glancing about glumly. Erik looked at them, then noticed Kari sitting on the grass not far beyond them, staring out toward Bjarheim.

She could hardly flee from him now; but if she really wanted nothing to do with him, then what good would it do to approach her? No. I ain’t gonna lose her with no explanation!

He put Bjarheim at his back and walked over to her. She saw him coming, and her eyes narrowed a bit, but she did not make any move to escape. He sat down at twice arm’s length. If they both reached out, they could just brush fingers. The memory of her hand in his still clawed at him, even all these weeks later.

“How are you?” he asked, after a few moments of awkward silence.

“How d’you think?” she snapped.

He didn’t want to let her get to him; he didn’t want to argue. But he could feel his hackles rising. “Aiar came to see me, a couple weeks ago,” he said, trying to sound conversational. “He said I might be able to learn fae magic, if you can believe it.”

“I don’t.”

He boiled over. That was fast. “What on earth did I do to you?”

“You—” She bit her lip and looked away. She was trembling. With rage? Fear?

“Tell me,” he insisted.

“You could have died,” Kari said at last.

Erik blinked, bemused. “What? When?”

“When you let the fae use you for—for whatever that magic was. In the street.” She looked at him again now. Tears brimmed in her eyes, but her voice remained just as harsh. “You fell, and I thought you were dead.”

“Let him!” he squawked. “He dragged me into it! I didn’t have a choice.”

“You… you weren’t supposed to leave.”

“I didn’t,” Erik said. “I’m right here.” Tentatively, he reached out a hand. He hoped beyond hope that she would—

“YOU!” came a shout, and Erik turned toward it, startled. A shape lurched upward, a stone’s throw away. Erik took a moment to realize that it was bursting from the ground, sending clods of dirt and grass flying into the air. He leapt to his feet, and before he’d even thought about it, put himself between Kari and… whatever it was.

After a moment he placed the voice. The dirt fell away, and a seven-foot fae stood before him: Aiar.

“What in the hells?” Erik said, stepping forward. “Where did you come from?”

“I have spent the last day burrowing through the earth like a kjeldausk!” Aiar shouted. Sannfred Fray sat up groggily, staring around at the noise. “All to escape the Shadow, whose arrival was your fault!”

“What? I had nothing to do with it! You refused to teach me—”

“When I was under the earth, I felt the nexus of it right where your home stands, as I was passing beneath it. You must have done something! Did you attempt to tap into your methar without training, you foolish dolt?”

“I haven’t done anything! I don’t know how to use the methar. I don’t know the first thing about it!”

“What in blazes are you yelling about? Why’s a fae here?” Sannfred had gotten up and stepped between them, holding out his hands as if they’d been about to leap at each other’s throats.

Aiar stood clenching and unclenching his fists, blinking rapidly. The sky was faintest purple now, and soon only the stars and half a moon would remain. “The Shadow came, and I could not go aboveground. The rest of the fae are trapped in our warrens, using all their might to hold back the Shadow from entering. Only one could be spared to go seek help.” He paused, emitted a great sigh, and fell to one knee, as if fatigued. Erik rushed forward, but Sannfred blocked him.

Aiar met his eyes again. “I have used all my strength… it takes much magic to… move the earth as I did. Now that I am here…” He wobbled, and then fell onto his side.

Erik, alarmed, broke from Sannfred’s grasp and went to Aiar’s side. The fae was still breathing, his eyes fluttering faintly. “Aiar! Wake up!” he shouted. “Is he going to die?” he asked the others; everyone had come awake and gathered around, even bitter old Thora.

“I can’t say I know much ’bout a fae’s limits,” Sannfred said.

“He’ll be fine,” Gaelle stated flatly. “Let him rest.” Sannfred looked up at her, startled, but she offered no more.

Erik sat down next to Aiar and waited. The fae’s eyes had closed, but he breathed regularly, as if asleep. Kari came over and sat down on Aiar’s other side. Out of my reach. Again.

An hour passed as the sky darkened completely. Sannfred and the other men built up the fire again; by its light, Erik watched the ancient fae—eight hundred and seventy years!—breathing calmly. Erik’s eyes had begun to droop, when abruptly Aiar coughed and sat up.

“Ah. Hm. That was restful.” He crossed his legs and looked down at Erik.

“Are you all right?”

“Fae recover quickly. Do not concern yourself with my health. If you did not meddle with the methar, then why did I sense a locus of magic at your house?”

“I don’t—Remy!” Erik said, almost startling himself. “He came to my house just before the Shadow arrived! He tried to attack me.”

“The ever-maligned Remy Thurain,” Aiar mused. “You,” he addressed Sannfred. “You are of the Conclave, yes?”

“I am,” Kari’s father said, crossing his arms firmly. “What of it?”

“Do you fools still believe that this Remy fellow had nothing to do with the siktar? Or do you accuse Erik Rain of lies and deceit?”

Sannfred glowered, his beard bristling like quills. “I ain’t in a position to speak for the Conclave.”

Aiar snorted. “Well observe the evidence before you. Remy Thurain is accused of using dark magics, and then he disappears for weeks, only to resurface right as Bjarheim is enveloped by the Shadow. You, sir, are an idiot.” He turned back to Erik, ignoring Sannfred’s sputtering. “Have you a plan for the morning?”

Erik stared at him. “I, uh… we’re… we’re going to find the woodsm—the Brandrinn,” he said, using the proper term. The idea of joining the Brandrinn had appealed to him all these weeks, but the knowledge that he could learn fae magic… He saw two murky paths before him, and hadn’t the faintest clue what lay along either of them.

As if reading his mind, Aiar spoke. “If you were to learn fae magic, you could not join the Brandrinn. A man may only learn one form of magic, and then all others become closed to him.”

Erik looked up sharply. “Are you offering to teach me fae magic?”

Aiar snorted. “You would be the worst student I have ever had. With your utter lack of discipline—”

“So you are a teacher.”

Aiar shrugged. “I teach those who can learn. I do not waste my time with the unteachable.”

“Yeah,” Erik said, trying to sound disappointed. “You probably couldn’t teach a human if you tried.”

Aiar reached out and slapped Erik on the side of the head. Not hard enough to hurt, but it stung. “Do you think I am unfamiliar with that gambit? As if you—you!—might wound my pride.” But he did not snort or sigh. “It would be unwise to let an untrained whelp such as you run wild, though. And it would be a fascinating experiment. I am not aware of any fae ever agreeing to teach a human. Not that there have been many candidates. Only those with fae ancestry would have the methar, and—”

“Wait, so now you’re completely fine with me havin’ fae blood?” Erik said. “You nearly lost your wits when you realized it before!”

“Because I did not know it was possible. Now I have had time to think, and study. There have been other cases before, but very few. Fae and humans do not mate, because even though there are many humans with the disgusting predilection for engaging in relations with fae, the reverse is, thankfully, extremely rare.” He grinned, and not pleasantly. “Virtually all fae find humans repulsive.”

“Wait, what?” Kari said, speaking for the first time since Aiar had arrived. “You’re part fae?”

“Apparently,” Erik said, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. Kari’s disapproval wounded him in some way that all of Aiar’s insults couldn’t. “It’s not my fault!”

“The usual human denial of responsibility,” Aiar snarked.

“As if I went back in time to force my great-gran or whoever to mate with a fae? I’d slap you upside the head if I had long enough arms,” Erik shot back.

“I would be amazed to see you try. Now, tomorrow we will journey to find the nearest Brandrinn, and I will begin to teach you to use the methar.”

Erik stared. There was something missing here. “And what do you want in return?”

Aiar pressed his lips into something that might charitably be called a smile. “You are wise to ask. I will require something of you later, and you must agree to it.”

“Without knowing what it is? Not a chance.”

“Then you may test your luck finding another fae who will teach you.” Aiar sprung up to his feet and began to walk away. “I can find my own way to the Brandrinn.”

“Wait!” Erik scrambled after him. “What kind of thing’re you gonna ask of me?”

“I cannot tell you, because I do not know yet. It is merely a debt that must be paid off later.” He was still walking; Erik had to nearly run to keep up.

“Argh—fine! I’ll do it.”

This brought the fae to a stop. Aiar swung around and grabbed Erik by the chin. “Swear.”

“I—I swear on my life,” Erik said. He hoped he wasn’t going to regret this.

---

Dawn found them trudging through the hills; even Thora, who had not managed to convince anyone to go south with her. It seemed she was not quite so determined to go off alone. This did not keep her from incessantly muttering that they should forget about the woodsmen and head south.

Erik was excited to learn something about magic, something real. His whole life, magic had just been something mysterious that certain grown-ups did, and here he was, about to learn it!

Aiar hadn’t said anything about it all morning, and finally Erik’s curiosity got the better of him. “What’ll I learn first?” he asked Aiar. The fae strode briskly onward, stopping occasionally to sniff the air and, after Erik insisted, let the others catch up with his longer strides.

“A fae spends his first century learning the basics of magic,” Aiar said. “You humans with your puny lifespans will not have so long. Yet it would be unwise to rush things, lest you overreach and destroy yourself. Or worse, me.”

“I promise I’ll be careful,” Erik said.

“Human promises! What a valuable currency.” He snorted. “Your intended caution has nothing to do with it. Using the methar can wreak havoc even under the best of conditions.” He waved irritably at their surroundings. “This falls far short of ideal. But time is short. Normally, for a fae, the first step is learning to sense the methar, and such training usually lasts at least a decade. For you, I suppose we must compress things a bit. A year should suffice.”

“A year?” Erik squawked. “A year just to learn to sense magic?”

“Not magic. The methar.” Aiar sighed and came to a halt again. The rest of the party was a hundred yards back; Erik’s legs ached from keeping up with Aiar, but he wasn’t about to let the fae hear him complain about that. “It appears differently to different people. Some see it as a candle’s flame; others a bright star.”

“How do I see it? Where do I look?”

“You look within. Now contemplate that silently for a while. Your incessant questions grind upon my nerves.” He strode off, and Erik took the hint to leave Aiar alone for a time.

He let himself fall back to the rest of the group. They all gave him odd looks, but no one said anything for a bit—well, Thora was muttering something about foolish children—until a man’s voice spoke up. It was the husband of the young couple who’d been caught outside of Bjarheim; his name was Ludwin. “He seems a bit of a prat, eh?”

“Not the nicest fellow I ever met,” Erik agreed.

“Never met a fae ’fore,” Ludwin said. “Think he’ll really take us t’ find a woodsman?”

“I hope. What good one woodsman—one Brandrinn’ll do against the Shadow, though…” He caught Sannfred Fray’s eye. “D’you know anything ’bout what the Brandrinn can do, sir?”

“Th’ Shadow’s death,” Sannfred huffed. His cheeks were red with exertion. “Woodsmen guard th’ forest; so they’re all about life. Like fire an’ water, if they mix. That’s the theory, anyhow. Never seen a woodsman in action, meself.”

“Will we find one?” Erik asked. “They must know what to do about the Shadow.”

“They’d better,” Sannfred said. “If not… then th’ city may be lost forever.”

CONTINUED in Part VII

Bjarheim's Shadow, Part V

If you missed it, check out earlier chapters of Bjarheim's Shadow: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV

BJARHEIM’S SHADOW - PART V

“That’s ominous, but not very helpful,” Erik said.

“The details are not important! What is important is how to fight it.” Aiar glanced uneasily at the fire crackling in the hearth. “Em Salkatar is old enough that even we fae do not remember its origins. The aged among us pontificate about its philosophical significance, but the more sensible busy ourselves with ensuring that it does not destroy all.”

Erik smirked at the fae. “So you’re a sensible one, huh?”

Aiar scowled. “It would be foolish to argue otherwise. Do you know how long Bjarheim has been here?”

“I dunno. Ages?”

“Six hundred and forty-nine years since the first men erected the first structures. Our tunnels were already present. I still remember how astonished they were when we popped out of the ground to ask them what precisely they thought they were doing on our land.”

“You remember? You’re six hundred and forty-nine years old?” Erik had known fae lived longer than men, but this was absurd.

Aiar sniffed disdainfully. “I am eight hundred and seventy years old,” he declared. “I was merely a child when your forebears showed up.”

“So what are you now? If you’re not one of the, uh, ’elders…’”

“Do not concern yourself with the fae. You wanted answers about the Shadow, and those I have gladly provided.”

“If this is ’gladly’ then I’d hate to see you put out,” Erik said. Somehow, he wasn’t afraid of Aiar any more, even thought he felt like he should be. He wanted Kari to be here, to see how he was boldly confronting this arrogant creature.

“We are getting far afield. Is there any other information you desire, or are you finished holding my inspection of your mind hostage to your curiosity?”

“How do I fight the Shadow?”

“You do not fight the Shadow, because you are an empty-headed child. When I am done with you, then you may go off and learn your inane human magics. Only then will you change from completely useless to only mostly useless.”

Erik was of a mind to try and throw Aiar out, bargain or no. If all fae were so rude, then it was a miracle they’d ever survived this long. “So is there anything of use you can tell me?”

“I shall reiterate. Go learn magic, preferably from the Brandrinn. They are the least useless of your magic-wielding folk. If you want to fight the Shadow, you will learn best from them.” He stood up. “I am tired of questions. You will let me inspect your mind now.”

The arrogance in Aiar’s voice almost made Erik resist again, but he had to give in sooner or later. “This had better not hurt,” he growled, trying to sound threatening.

Aiar waved it away. “It should not hurt. I cannot promise. Even if so, it will be temporary. You humans cannot even look ahead a few minutes to when things might be different.” He came over to Erik and put his hand atop Erik’s head. “Hold still.”

Erik didn’t know what to expect; some manner of violet light playing in intricate patterns in his mind, or maybe a mystical droning sound.

What actually happened was, as far as he could tell, precisely nothing. For a few minutes Aiar stood there, squinting and blinking bemusedly. He muttered once in a while, but Erik couldn’t make it out. If the lads could see me now, a fae in my house, poking around in my head…

Suddenly Aiar gasped and leapt back. “What!”

“What? What what?” Erik blinked. He’d felt nothing at all.

“You… you have the methar!”

“Have I even got to ask what that is?”

“It…” Aiar gulped. “Could I have some water?”

This unexpected politeness startled Erik. He fetched Aiar a cup and waited until the fae drained it. Aiar still looked shocked. “The methar is… it is the essence of our magic. It is the seed, the kernel, the thing that lets fae-folk use magic. But you are human!”

“So… I could learn to use fae magic?” Erik said. “How’s that possible?”

“It isn’t!” Aiar wailed. “This is… this… absurd!” He barrelled toward the door.

“Wait! Where are you going? I want to know more!”

Aiar said nothing and sprinted out into the night.

Erik tried to run after him, but the long-legged fae was just too fast. By the time Erik reached the end of his lane, Aiar had disappeared down the next street, and in seconds he was out of sight. Erik stopped, gasping for air, and wishing for certainty. He’d been happy, running the streets with his friends, with Kari… just a child, with a child’s worries, a child’s wants…

He went back home and waited for Da to return. He practiced what he wanted to say, but when Finnar finally came in, his father looked exhausted. No different than he’d looked on any other of a hundred nights, but somehow it impressed upon Erik as it never had before. He knew what it was: Finnar was beaten down by all this magical nonsense. He had no magic, Erik was sure; Finnar was no ironspeaker, or priest of the Order, or woodsman. It was probably all Da could do just to keep up.

“Da… are you all right?” Erik said, once Finnar had settled into his chair by the fire, and had a bit of wine and some hard bread.

Finnar looked at him. “Son… you’ve never asked me that before.”

Erik was affronted. “Yes I have.”

“No. Not like that.” He leaned forward, taking Erik’s arm, but not roughly, not like when Erik had done something bad and Da had meant to stripe his hide. “What happened?”

Erik was afraid to tell the truth, to tell that a fae had come to visit, had said such terrible things about him… but he saw the worry in Finnar’s eyes, and he understood.

He recounted Aiar’s visit, shaking his own head in wonder when he told about the methar. Erik expected Finnar to grow angry, but he didn’t. Instead, his face went pale.

“By the gods…” Finnar whispered. “I hoped… I never wanted…”

Erik wanted desperately to know what Da was thinking, but with a titanic effort of will he made himself wait. Da would work this out in his own time. Don’t leave me in the dark, father.

“Your… your mother was… I never believed her, but…” Finnar stopped, calming himself with measured breaths. “She said she was part fae.”

Erik blinked back sudden tears. He remembered his Mama, her fair hair draped around her face as she leaned down to pick him up, to hold and sing. Faint memories, like the mayflies of spring, lasting only a moment in the face of the harsher seasons to come.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I never thought it was important!” Finnar roared. “I thought she was puttin’ me on. Or that it was some family legend, some nonsense that her gran or grand-da passed down. But none o’ them were fae, that’s for damn certain. How could it be anything but a nonsense legend?”

“Well a fae told me to my face that I’ve got fae magic!” Erik shouted. “How’m I supposed to take that?”

“I don’t know!” Finnar stood up again. “Yer still my boy. Nothin’ changes that.”

Erik clenched his hands, trying to stop himself from attacking his father—and failed. He lurched forward, flailing his fists, wanting badly to do some kind of damage, to get some kind of revenge on his father for surviving, for not leaving like mother had—

Finnar fended off the blows, not fighting back. Erik punched and kicked and made a minor nuisance of himself until his strength gave out, and with the last of his blind rage he flung himself up the stairs and into his room.

To the hells with it all! He slammed his fist against the wall, again and again, until the pain broke through. He sat on his bed, holding his bloodied knuckles. I should clean that, some distant part of him said. Instead he lay down on the bed, and had visions of Bjarheim burning until he fell asleep.

---

He had to tell Kari. She had to know. But he still couldn’t get to her. Missus Fray lost her patience and came after him with a broom, after the third time in a day he knocked on their door.

Erik tried using his friend Jak as a go-between to carry a message to Kari, but Missus Fray saw through that ruse and beat Jak about the head and shoulders with her broom until he ran off into the night.

Erik thought about going into the fae tunnels again, to find Aiar and demand some kind of explanation. But going in there alone felt wrong. Maybe Aiar would talk to the other fae and figure something out, and come back again.

He didn’t, at least not for the next couple of weeks. Erik waited each night, hoping for a knock on the door, but when he heard footsteps outside, it was always Da. Erik always asked after the fae, or the Shadow, or any of it. Finnar reluctantly parted with a few tidbits of information, but rarely anything useful. The only thing he consistently reported was that there’d still been no sign of Remy Thurain since the day the siktar had come. That should have been enough to damn Remy, but Da claimed that the rest of the Conclave wanted to hear Remy’s side of the story first.

Erik had grown used to it, his hopes dwindling. On a night three weeks after Aiar’s visit, well past the midnight bell, he heard footsteps outside, and went to greet his Da at the door.

When he opened it, Remy Thurain stood there grinning.

What came next Erik remembered only as bits and pieces: he backed away, banged against something, ran up the stairs, Remy’s cackle trailing after him, its fingers tripping Erik up as he reached the landing. Stumble, splinter, into the bedroom, out the window, have to get away—a curse, a shout, and finally a glance back and the realization that he was out in the street, in the cold, the moonlight a silent sentinel, its light drowning out the mild hearthfires glowing dully behind curtains.

Kari, he thought, one last bitter time, and sprinted toward her house. No matter what magic Remy might have, there was no way he could catch Erik at a dead run.

The moon and stars sparkled above—hadn’t they? Erik stared upward as he rounded the corner onto Kari’s street. The moon had dimmed, somehow. It was just as fat as before, but subdued, and the stars that sparkled all around it, ordinarily drowned in its silver majesty, were completely invisible. Clouds? No, clouds didn’t look like this.

He pounded on the Frays’ door, glancing back constantly in case Remy had followed him. There were thumps inside, and the peephole swung open. It was Missus Fray, looking livid. “What on earth are you doing?” she demanded.

“Something—something’s wrong! Remy Thurain just came to my house. And look!” Erik pointed up at the moon, hoping beyond hope that someone would just listen for once.

Gaelle Fray sighed and opened the door, rubbing her eyes still. She looked up at the sky, rubbed some more. “No,” she breathed, and tore back inside, far faster than Erik would have thought possible.

He went in after and shut the door, on the off chance Remy had tracked him here. Within a minute, the other Frays were all awake: Sannfred, Kari’s father, lumbered down the stairs in his nightdress, cursing and bumping into things and demanding to know what in the seven hells he’d been woken up for. Kari’s little brother and sister, the twins, came silently down as well, their mother hurriedly pushing them into their boots and fetching their big winter coats from a closet.

Kari came last, looking as unhappy to see Erik as she’d been the last few times. Erik forced himself not to speak to her, and instead tried to stop Missus Fray in her mad careening about the house. “What is it? What did you see?”

“Oh! Goodness!” she squeaked, as if she’d forgotten his presence. “We have to leave the city at once!”

“What? Why?”

“Why?” She grabbed Erik by the shoulders. “The Shadow!”

---

They shouted to warn the neighbors, but Sannfred Fray would not let them hesitate for a moment once they were prepared for travel. “You ain’t got a thing but what you’re wearin’, so that’ll have to do,” the burly man said to Erik, bewildered that somehow Erik hadn’t anticipated this emergency and made up a rucksack. They rushed past darkened houses, shouting all the while that the Shadow had come to Bjarheim, and casting fearful looks at the sky.

“Where are we going? Is there somewhere safe in the city center?” Erik asked, puffing to keep up. The Frays were a hardy lot; even the twins, Jarno and Kjesten, kept up their speed without complaining.

“No. West. The Shadow is in the east, so we’re to head west, to a gathering place in the hills. Now save your breath and be quiet!”

Erik did as he was told, stealing glances at Kari as they ran along the edge of Bjarheim, toward the western gate. That was the nearest place they could pierce the fae wall—it glowed happily, Erik was pleased to see—but the gate would never be open at this hour, would it?

Some other folk had joined their pack, sickeningly few in number; Erik couldn’t believe that they weren’t going house to house, waking and warning everyone. By the time Erik and the Frays reached the west gate, there were maybe another half-dozen folk racing along with them.

They stopped to catch their breath, casting wary glances skyward. The moon had shifted along the sky a bit, and if anything seemed even dimmer than before. Erik wondered what the Shadow would be like, if it came upon them; was it like the siktar, a creeping dimness that struck men down on contact? Or did it have some other nature entirely? Would they all go mad at once, or slowly?

After a few minutes, when they’d caught their breath, Sannfred Fray approached the fae wall where it met the actual wooden gate itself. Just beside the gate, he pushed his hand into the fae wall, and for a moment nothing happened. Erik wondered if Sannfred was doing some magic. He wasn’t an ironspeaker, or—“It’ll only be open a moment, so rush through or we’ll have t’ go through this again,” he growled at them.

“Go through what—” Erik blurted, before Sannfred grabbed him by the arm and hurled him at the fae wall. Erik expected to bounce off it as usual, but instead it caught him like slow molasses. He drifted through it, trying to breathe through the strange violet force that pressed in on all sides. In seconds, he was outside of Bjarheim, and fell heavily onto the thick grass beyond the fae wall.

All the Frays except Sannfred and Kari made it through before the fae wall emitted a strange snapping sound. Sannfred yanked his hand away, cursing, and then put his hand on the fae wall again. In another few moments, Kari pushed through, followed by Sannfred himself and three more folk. Then the fae wall snapped once more, leaving a double-handful of other folk trapped inside the city.

“What about them?” Erik asked, pained to see them left behind.

“There’ll be someone who can open the hole just as I did. It’s a one-way passage, lets you escape the city even when th’ gate’s closed. No way back in now.” There was a note of melancholy in his voice. Erik tried not to dwell on what it might mean.

The road west from Bjarheim was packed dirt, and straight as an arrow. The Frays, Erik, and the other three folk set out upon it at once. His feet were starting to hurt, his stomach growled, and his throat felt parched. Kari, stepping close to him for the first time all night—in weeks—offered him her bottle. He drank gratefully, but was careful not to take too much. She said nothing else, though, leaving Erik as perplexed as ever. What in the hells was this? Did she hate him now? Was this about Remy?

By the time dawn cracked the sky behind them, the road had sloped upward into the Fohrvast, the grassy hills that led to the coast. Sannfred and Gaelle Fray led them all to a ridge that looked out back over the city.

The sun was just now coming up on the other side of Bjarheim. The city looked so vast and incomprehensible from here, yet so small, nestled among the green fields. Erik saw the towers in the middle of the city: the Cathedral, the ironspeakers’ guild hall, the vast merchant halls and palaces of the wealthy. He watched as the dim malaise that hovered above Bjarheim began to spew forth a roiling miasma of darkness. It left a spreading cloud of black embers floating in the sky, and swooped down onto the city, flowing from house to house faster than any man could run, crawling up and down the towers, tainting them with a hideous, visible decay, like watching the corpse of an animal succumb to flies and maggots, stripped down to its bones. The city was not changed, but the Shadow overlay it like a death shroud, showing the deadness within.

The city of Bjarheim fell under shadow’s dominion, and Erik Rain could do nothing but scream despair into the ash-choked sky.

CONTINUED in Part VI

Toothless Child (Slight Delay)

The next installment of Bjarheim's Shadow will be a bit late, owing to my son having face-planted onto a brick wall and knocked out a tooth, necessitating an emergency room visit. He's fine, but alas, time was lost.

Bjarheim's Shadow, Part IV

If you missed it, check out Part I, Part II, and Part III of Bjarheim's Shadow!

BJARHEIM’S SHADOW - PART IV

A dream of light, violet and painful, caressing his eyes…

Erik blinked away sand and looked up. This wasn’t home; the crack in the ceiling wasn’t there, the one that he’d fallen asleep staring at so many times.

He tried to sit up but a stern hand pushed him back down. He followed the arm up past the shoulder and saw his Da’s face. Unexpectedly, Finnar Rain was smiling. “You’re awake.”

Eric couldn’t speak. He glanced around and brought other shapes into focus. Magnus, thank heavens above, stood by the window. Outside, the light had gone twilight-purple. Father Bernhard loitered at Erik’s feet—was this a bed? “Let me up,” he said, and weakly tried to push his Da’s hand away.

For whatever reason, Finnar let go, and Eric struggled upright. The white stone walls, the tiny window, the simple door… Am I in the Cathedral? This must be the upper chambers. Why did they bring him here? Had… had his home been destroyed? “What happened?”

“You stopped the shadow,” Kari said. Eric swiveled to the other side and realized with a start that she’d been sitting by his side the whole time. Holding his hand, in fact, which explained its warmth. Embarrassed, he almost jerked it away, but instead gripped tighter. He’d never been happier to see someone.

I stopped the shadow… The memories came back piecemeal. They’d been following the ironspeakers… the shadow attacked them… the fae showed up… Aiar… “Where’s the fae?”

“He left,” Magnus said, “as soon as the shadow did. Even though you were still collapsed on the ground, or so Master Halgrin said.” Erik noticed him grinding his fist into his palm. “I’d like to tell that overgrown fae what I think of him for makin’ use of you like that.”

“I—I don’t understand. What did I do?”

Father Bernhard ahemmed. “We don’t understand fae magic very well. They’re so secretive.” He shifted his gaze to Finnar. “What does he know? Did you tell him…” He nodded meaningfully.

“Yeah,” Finnar said. “He’ll be old enough to learn proper soon, anyway. Figured he had a right to know.”

Bernhard harrumphed. “Yes, well, this is why you were not elected Voice.” Finnar glowered silently. “Voice?” What else in the hells don’t I know about? Erik thought.

Father Bernhard sighed and turned his eye upon Erik. “All you need to know, my boy, is that you helped the fae fight off this shadow, this siktar, as they call it. You seem to have suffered no ill effects. So if you will, Sar Rain, please take your son home. It is most irregular to have anyone up here who is not of the Order, let alone the whole lot of you.”

“Give him a bit to recover, man,” Magnus demanded. “He don’t deserve that kind of rudeness.”

“Now see here—” Bernhard began.

“Excuse me,” Erik spoke up, as loudly as he could. It was enough; the others stopped and looked at him. “If I reckon it right, I just had my life put on the line, mainly without my say-so, to help stop some kind of evil I didn’t even know existed until yesterday.”

“Boy,” Finnar said, with a warning tone, and a wary eye toward Bernhard.

Erik ignored him and sat up straighter. “I want to know what in the black bloody hells is going on here! Every ten minutes there’s some monster or magic or other nonsense popping up, and I’ve had it! Someone get to explainin’ or I swear I’ll get a brickbat and lay into the lot of you.” He paused, and glanced at Kari. “Except you.” She grinned, and flushed a little, too.

Finnar’s face had gone all thundery, and Father Bernhard looked terribly affronted. Magnus covered his mouth with his hand and appeared to be shaking—with laughter. It made Erik’s blood rise, but Magnus noticed Erik’s glare, and coughed once politely. “I think my little brother’s right. There’s even some of this I don’t get, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him get into danger without the courtesy of a few words.”

Father Bernhard swiveled his gaze between the two Rain boys, then threw his hands up. “Fine! But let us at least repair to the dining hall. Brother Erglen graciously loaned us his chamber for your recovery, and he is no doubt eager to reclaim it.”

---

Erik felt a bit wobbly on his feet, but Kari was right at his side to help him hold steady. She didn’t meet his eyes, though; she seemed far away. He wondered where her mother was, and if she’d gotten away from the shadow in time. Well, Kari’d tell him if there was something wrong. Probably.

Down in the Cathedral’s long, narrow, drafty dining hall, Erik propped himself up in the middle of one of the wooden tables. Kari stayed at his right hand, Magnus at his left. Finnar and Father Bernhard sat down opposite. One of the other priests laid out a tray of bread and soup for Erik. He looked put out to be serving someone who wasn’t part of the Order, let alone someone so young, but Erik felt grateful anyway. He ate and drank and listened.

“Sar Finnar and your brother have told me what they told you, about the Shadow and the Conclave,” Father Bernhard began. “Although I gather there were many details omitted. Those can be saved for later, when you are of a more appropriate age.”

“What about the fae, and the ironspeakers? What happened with the shadow, when they tried to fight it? And why did Aiar need me?”

Bernhard grimaced. “That fae… the worst of the lot. Insufferable. The ironspeakers, as you might know, do use a kind of magic in their work. The siktar should have been easy for them to overcome, but it was booby-trapped, somehow. There was some extra twist to it. The ironspeaker’s magic turned back on him, and so did the fae’s, even though their magic is different. You’d have to ask him why he couldn’t manage it without your help.” He snorted, just to show what he thought of the fae’s magical prowess. “Perhaps the Brandrinn could have done it; their magic is altogether unusual.”

“The who?”

“The woodsmen. Surely you’ve heard of them,” Bernhard said.

“Oh. Yes.” Erik had at least seen ironspeakers before, but the woodsmen—the Brandrinn—were practically legendary. Wilders, rangers, men who were not at home around others. They lived and hunted in the forests, ensuring that Bjarheim’s lumbermen didn’t take down too many trees. City folk had an insatiable appetite for wood, and without the woodsmen, the forests would be stripped bare in a generation.

The woodsmen were silent as shadows, quick as snakes, fighters unparalleled. Supposedly. Erik was beginning to suspect that all legends were exaggerations at best, if not outright fabrications.

“The magic that we in the Order use is, again, different. Yet they all spring from a common source. This crawling darkness is from that same source, but twisted, polluted. Just as every man has his good side and his bad, so does magic have a side that seeks only to destroy and plague.”

“But why did Remy bring it here?”

If anyone had been in the habit of dropping pins, Erik could have heard it now. Bernhard and Da both stared at him, open-mouthed. Magnus blinked, confused. Erik turned to Kari. “Didn’t you tell them?”

“They weren’t int’rested,” she muttered.

’Cause you’re a girl, Erik almost said. He’d noticed that. A lot of men didn’t pay attention when womenfolk talked, even when they made good sense. But he’d also seen fathers and husbands cowed by a glare from their wives… Everyone’s insane, he decided.

“Who?” Father Bernhard said at last.

“Remy Thurain,” Erik said. “It was him and his cronies what brought that shadow. I went to Kari’s house and saw that the fae wall was gone—hey, did they fix it?”

“Yeah. Not long after what happened with you and that fae, the fae wall itself came back, like nothing’d ever been wrong.” Magnus shook his head. “I dunno what they did.”

“Where were you?” Erik realized that he was getting off-track, but he had so many different questions.

“I was in the house when the shadow came, but I dropped everything and ran the instant I saw it. Barely made it out.”

“He must have gone another way,” Kari said, “else we would’ve seen him.”

“Yes, yes, enough—” Father Bernhard interrupted. “What did you say about Remy Thurain?”

Erik recounted his visit to Kari’s house: noticing the missing fae wall, seeing Remy and his mates doing whatever it was. “He waved his hands like some kind of spell, and then this spot of black appeared, and the shadow spilled out of it.” He shrugged. “I knew he was no good.” Kari’s hand tightened on his; she was scowling at him. Why? Was it his fault Remy was a no-good traitor?

Bernhard and Da looked at each other. “Remy’s in the Conclave,” Finnar said. “He’d never try to hurt the city.”

“Well we know what we saw!” Erik said, annoyed.

“Perhaps you did not see what you think you saw,” Bernhard said.

“Are you calling me a liar?” Erik planted his fists on the table and began to stand up.

Bernhard held up conciliatory hands. “There must be some misunderstanding. Remy was probably trying to repair the fae wall, or stop whatever created the shadow. We must find him and ask him.” Finnar nodded, looking—scared? How could Da ever look scared? Da was a mountain, imperturbable. Erik would as soon expect the ground itself to look scared.

“Fine. What happened to the shadow? What did that fae do to me?”

“I kin tell ya,” said what sounded like a chunk of gravel. Erik looked up and saw a wide man with a leather apron standing at the end of the table. The apron was inscribed with a circle pierced by an arrow. An ironspeaker! Erik thought he recognized him from the street.

“Master Halgrin,” Father Bernhard said, rising and bowing slightly. Finnar and Magnus followed suit.

The ironspeaker slid onto the bench next to Bernhard. “Fae magic’s got what ye call resonance. Makes nearby folk ring like bells, magically speakin’. But if ye use magic regular, like we do, ye’re all clogged up with it. Ye won’t ring like ye should. A lad like ye who ain’t ever touched magic, well, he’ll be clean’s a whistle. The resonance purifies a fae’s magic.”

“What happened to the ironspeaker, the first one who tried to stop it?” Erik said. “I saw him… collapse.”

Master Halgrin’s face closed up. “That’s Oddr. He ain’t well. Was gibberin’ mad last I saw him.” The ironspeaker shook his head. “Had ta see to him first, ’fore I came here.” His eyes, black and beady, focused on Erik. “I ain’t never seen a resonance clean as yours. Ye blasted that shadow clear out o’ Bjarheim, like it’d never even been. Rolled up on itself an’ vanished.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Erik insisted. “That fae just grabbed me, and there was light, and then I was here.”

Halgrin cackled. “Ha! No braggin’ there. Got more sense than a lot o’ grown men.”

“Don’t be too quick to praise him,” Bernhard said. “He accused Remy Thurain of summoning the shadow.”

Halgrin shrugged. “Stranger things.”

“Not you too!”

“I dinnae Remy from me arse,” Halgrin said. “All I know’s his family’s from off south. Belj.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Bernhard countered. “Remy’s father and grandfather were both born in Bjarheim.”

Halgrin waved dismissively. “Afore that. Thurains’re from Belj. Old family. Look it up.” He stood. “Got too much t’do. Good work, lad.” He gave Erik a curt, possibly approving nod, and tromped away.

Bernhard seemed as flustered as Halgrin had been calm. “Enough!” He gestured irritably at Finnar. “Take your boy home. See that he stays out of trouble.”

“I’ll be fourteen in two months,” Erik said. “Magnus said that’s when men can join the Conclave.”

“If you have half the sense Master Halgrin thinks you do, you’ll wait until you’re quite a bit older than that. Fourteen. Rubbish.” He stood and chivvied the lot of them to the entry. “The Conclave meets at second bell tomorrow,” he said to Finnar. “Someone had best find Remy Thurain before that.” He slammed the Cathedral’s door.

Finnar grumbled and stared up at the sky. Magnus took Erik by the shoulder and steered him away. “He’s right. You’re too young for this, even if you did deserve some answers. Let’s go home.” When Kari made to follow, Magnus put a hand up. “You run on home, make sure your family’s all right. I’ll take care of little brother.”

Erik wanted to argue, but Magnus had put on his Grown-Up Voice. He’d be stubborner than a donkey, and might even resort to physically carrying Erik off. Erik wanted to give Kari’s hand one last squeeze, but Magnus was already hustling him away. The adventure, for the moment, was over.

---

Two weeks passed. Erik wandered about in a stupor. He couldn’t shake the memories: that violet light; seeing Remy ripping a black hole in the air; the black siktar overcoming that poor ironspeaker. No one would tell him if the man was all right. It wasn’t his concern, they all said. To the hells with them! I’m old enough.

And Kari. She’d been avoiding him, never home when he went to find her, except late at night. Missus Fray always chased him off, saying he should be home in bed just as Kari was. He crawled up to her window, but it was dark inside, and he couldn’t bring himself to knock.

He found her one day at the stalls in Parnir Square, browsing cheap jewelry. She barely said a word, and ran off. Once he saw her from a distance, outside Master Annarson’s; the old trader handed her a package and sent her running. Erik asked Annarson where he’d sent her, but the old man waved him away and said to mind his own business.

Magnus left for the mines again. Finnar was gone every night, seeing to Conclave business. The Shadow wasn’t coming, Finnar said. They’d studied the augurs, and things were calm now. So why is Da off with them so much?

---

Ten nights after Magnus left, Erik sat in front of the fire, chewing on day-old bread. Da hadn’t come back yet. Erik hadn’t had the energy to make a real dinner.

He considered trying to find Kari again. She was the only one he could talk to, now that Magnus was gone, but she wouldn’t—

A rapid knock on the door startled Erik. “Who’s there?”

“It is I,” came an imperious voice. When he recognized it, a moment later, Erik’s jaw went slack. “Aiar?” He went to the door and pulled it open a crack.

The tall fae glared impatiently. “Will you admit me?” he asked in something approaching politeness—or perhaps just polite in comparison to his usual disdain.

“Uh… my Da’s not here…”

“I care not. I am here to speak with you.”

“Oh. Uh, come in.” He’d barely pulled the door open before Aiar shoved through it. The fae hissed at the fire, and stayed away from it. Erik shut the door and took a moment to examine the fae; he’d never really had the chance before. Aiar had hair like pale sand, flowing around his ears and tied back with a leather strap. His clothes were plain and patched. Where he walked, the claws on his feet added their own distinctive grooves to the countless scratches on the floorboards.

It seemed impolite to sit while Aiar still stood, so Erik stayed on his feet. “What do you want?”

“When I used you to dispel the siktar, I sensed that you had in you a great capacity for magic. It was fortunate that you have not been trained. I cannot imagine why the vapid priests of the Order have not claimed you, but their loss is my gain.”

“Um. Okay.”

“I wish to study you, before you are tainted by the magics of the Order, or those useless ironspeakers. Perhaps you might join the Brandrinn someday. That might be a worthy fate.”

Erik tensed. “’Study?’”

Aiar sighed elaborately. “I will do you no harm. I will merely probe your mind with mine. You will feel nothing.”

“My Da won’t like it if he finds you here. He’s never said much good about the fae,” Erik said, realizing too late that maybe it wasn’t a bright idea to insult Aiar to his face.

He didn’t seem to care. “If your father has a tenth the sense he should, he will not object. Now, let us begin. I do not have all night.”

Something snapped, and all Erik’s deference vanished in an instant. “What do I get in return?”

Aiar looked as if Erik had spat in his face. “What?”

“You poke around in my skull, you pay for it.”

“We don’t deal in your coin!”

“I don’t want coin. Hardly done me good before. I want information.”

Aiar gritted his teeth. They looked like human teeth, but the canines were needle-sharp. “I have had more than enough of being questioned by menfolk in my long, long life,” Aiar said.

Erik crossed his arms. “Take it or leave it.”

“Agh!” Aiar slapped his hands together in frustration. “Enough delay! Tell me what you want to know.”

“Down in the cave, you said you could sense the Shadow. The big one, not the siktar. So I figure, if anyone would know, you would. What is the Shadow?”

Aiar narrowed his eyes. “Do not ask questions to which you would rather not know the answers.”

“I’ll take my chances.” Erik stared, defiant.

“Fine.” Aiar paused, and then, to Erik’s surprise, sat down. “The Shadow. Em Salkatar, we call it. It is the infernal union of madness and death itself.”

CONTINUED in Part V

Bjarheim's Shadow, Part III

If you missed it, check out Part I and Part II of Bjarheim's Shadow!

BJARHEIM’S SHADOW - PART III

Erik sprinted away from the spreading shadow, but after a few steps he jerked to a halt. Kari! What am I doing? He turned back, then flinched as she shot past him.

“Why’re you stopping?” she shouted.

“I—wait—” He cursed and followed, sparing a glance backward. Missus Fray galumphed down the street after them, not making a patch on their speed, but clearly staying ahead of the shadow. “Go!” she called. The shadow had already spread over the first houses at the end of the lane, as if some giant had blotted out the sun, despite the cloudless blue sky.

A stream of folk began to drain away from the edge of the city as shouts went up. Erik nimbly danced between them, keeping Kari in his sights. Thankfully, she glanced back and slowed a little when she saw how far behind he was. When he came abreast, he clamped his hand in hers. She shot him a surprised glance, but did not pull away.

They made for Erik’s house. It was further into the city, but if the shadow kept spreading, his home would be engulfed in minutes.

When they rounded the corner into the lane, Erik stopped short. His house, and those on either side of it, were already covered in a deep shadow. “No… Magnus!” He blindly ran forward, but something twisted his arm back.

Kari, of course. She still held tight to his hand. Magnus… He must have gotten out…

“It’s coming from everywhere,” Kari said, just as Erik began to think the same thing. “Where’s your Da?”

“The Conclave. At the Cathedral.” He glanced at the shadow again. It had spread into the street and was closing on them at an alarming rate. My home… Magnus… “Let’s go,” he choked out, and turned his back on it. The markets, the Cathedral, Riverwatch… Someone there would know what to do.

The Shadow had come without warning. And with Remy’s help! Why in all the hells there were would Remy ever do such a thing? Why would he want to destroy Bjarheim?

Erik and Kari ran, leaving the shadow behind. They came to a street clogged with people; there was no getting through. Kari leapt up on the tall base of a fae lamp and peered over their heads. “Flipped cart or something. People arguing. I can’t tell.” She hopped down. “Gotta be another way.”

“Maybe Thorn Street,” Erik said, uncertain. He knew the city well, but he’d never had to find a different route from his home to the Cathedral. Not that he couldn’t, but what if those streets were clogged too? What if they had to find a way… another way…

“The fae tunnels,” he said, grabbing Kari’s hand.

“What? We can’t!”

“Got a better plan?” he shouted as they ran from the clog. On the next lane, he stopped between two old houses. A small shack stood between them, with a rickety door that groaned when he yanked it open. There was no floor, just a ragged hole, with a terrifyingly ancient ladder descending into darkness.

“This is bad,” Kari said. “The fae don’t like trespassers.”

“It’s an emergency,” Erik said. “And it’s their magic what failed! They better fix this.”

“Oh, sure. Lecture ’em while they eat our bones,” Kari said, only half in jest.

Erik carefully swung onto the ladder. It creaked, making his stomach lurch, but held. He went down as fast as he dared, and sighed relief when his foot landed on hard dirt. Kari followed, cursing when she bumped into him in the dimness.

The only light leaked from the hole above; twenty feet into the tunnel, they were in near blackness. Erik felt along the wall with one hand, keeping Kari’s hand tight in his other. That tingle came back whenever they touched. He felt his heart racing in his chest; was it the fear, or her?

“Hello?” he shouted. There was no reply. The tunnel floor dipped and weaved so much that he had no idea which way he was facing now. He’d been here once before, on a dare, and hadn’t made it fifty feet before chickening out and turning back. Of course, he’d told everyone he’d had tea with the fae. “They ain’t scary at all,” he’d lied.

Well, he was going to meet them now. Then what? Were the stories true? The fae couldn’t be some sort of violent cannibal race; they treated with menfolk all the time, Erik knew that much. It was their magic that kept the city safe, as much to protect themselves as the humans living above. But even allies might not take kindly to unexpected visitors. Even if the Shadow really was in Bjarheim.

Erik began to notice thin violet striations in the tunnel walls, giving light so faint that at first he thought he was imagining it. “It’s like the fae wall,” Kari said, and stepped away for a moment to touch the purple lines glowing in the wall. “They’re cold.”

Erik didn’t want to touch them. He just wanted Kari’s hand back. “Come on. If there’s light here, we must be getting close to… something.”

The violet lines grew brighter as they went. Abruptly they came around a sharp bend, and the tunnel opened onto a vast cavern. The floor dropped away before them. There seemed to be nowhere to go.

Kari leaned out over the abyss, heedless of the drop. Erik wasn’t afraid of heights, but a sensible person should be more cautious. “Somethin’ down there,” Kari said. Erik gulped and looked down. Figures moved, and he could make out something like voices. It was hard to tell.

“Look! A path.” Kari pointed. Sure enough, the tunnel floor angled around a protruding rock face and curved away down the side of the cavern. It was narrow enough to walk safely. Barely.

Before Erik could object, Kari began sidling along the precipice. Erik licked dry lips and went after her. Keep your eyes on her, he told himself. At least that part was easy.

The path stayed gratifyingly even. About halfway down, he heard shouts, and looked down again. The floor was a lot closer now, and his nerves settled a bit. The shapes below were pointing up at them. “We shoulda knocked,” he said.

Whoever they were, they didn’t start throwing rocks or casting spells at Erik and Kari. The path widened, much to Erik’s relief, as they descended the last few feet to the cavern floor.

And there, at the foot of the path, Erik at last met the fae.

---

They were men, as a child’s fancy might invent them: tall and spindly, their skin a pale, bluish-gray; their noses sharp and their eyes large. Their irises coruscated like oil floating on water. They wore clothes, like any ordinary men and women might: shirts, vests, trousers, blouses, dresses. No boots, though; their feet were scaly and clawed, like lizards’. Their mouths were wide, wrapping almost all the way around their faces.

And to a one, they were greatly agitated. A crowd of ten or twelve had gathered, while others stood farther off, hopping from foot to foot and wringing their hands.

“Um, hello,” Erik said. “Sorry to intrude, but, um, your wall—the fae wall, up above? It’s vanished.” He paused; none of the fae before him said anything. They just stared, blinking periodically. “And, um, there’s this sort of shadow—”

“We felt nothing. I felt nothing,” the tallest of the fae said, his voice booming and echoing across the chamber. It was surprisingly deep, given how thin-chested the fae man was. He glanced accusatorily at his fellows. One of them shrugged; another, with long, glassy white hair, growled and yanked a knife from his belt, shouting incoherently—no, wait, it was some kind of language. Is that what fae-speech sounded like?

The tall fae who’d spoken first made a curt chopping motion at the knife-wielding fae, who grunted and put his knife away, then rudely shoved off through the crowd.

“What was that?” Kari whispered to Erik.

“Thiktim is always angry,” the tall fae said, startling them both. Erik hadn’t thought he’d be able to hear Kari, and apparently Kari hadn’t either; her hand squeezed his so hard it began to hurt. “Hah. He will demand things later.” The tall fae swiveled his eyes back to the human intruders. “The isnikt wall is my only concern. We would feel it, if it had been harmed.”

“Well it’s gone, I promise you,” Erik said. Why would they doubt him? “And then these blokes came and did some kind of magic, and the Shadow, it’s here now—”

“The Shadow is not here.” The tall fae glanced up at the ceiling, but Erik thought he meant to look at the sky. “It is still far to the east. I feel it there.”

“We saw a shadow, I swear,” Kari said, stepping forward. Bravely, Erik thought. “It came from this—this hole of darkness that Rem—that they conjured up. Spreading along the ground like someone spilled a barrel of hot tar.”

The tall fae looked affronted, then laughed. Rudely. “That is not the Shadow. That is a siktar. Of minor concern. If you are not lying.” He sniffed the air. “You smell deceitful.”

“She’s no such thing!” Erik said. He quailed a little when the tall fae raised an eyebrow at him, but stood his ground.

“The siktar is poisonous but not deadly,” the tall fae said. The other fae around him seemed to thrum agreement. “It would not do to let it drift down here. I do not suppose your ironspeakers are handling it?” At their blank looks, he sighed. “Fine. We will deal with it. And we will investigate your claim about the isnikt wall, as well.” He addressed the other fae. “Do you see? The Bargain was a mistake.”

Some of the other fae adopted looks of concern, embarrassment, or outrage. “What bargain?” Erik whispered to Kari. She shook her head.

The tall fae spun back around. “What Bargain?” he shouted. “You have the effrontery to—to—” He began shouting at them incoherently; but no, it was that fae-speech again. Erik eyed the pathway, considering a run for the surface. Even that shadow, that—siktar? Whatever it was, it couldn’t be as bizarre as this.

“We’re sorry,” Kari said over the fae’s rant. “We’re just kids. We don’t know about any bargain.” She still squeezed Erik’s hand so hard he thought it might break. He prayed she wouldn’t let go.

“Go. You are not welcome here.” The tall fae barely contained his fury. Erik started backing up; Kari stood firm for a moment. “Wait,” she said. “Will you tell us your name?”

“NO!” the tall fae shouted. “GET OUT!”

---

The climb upward was not nearly as terrifying to Erik, mainly because he was so disoriented from whatever the tall fae had been talking about. Bargain, siktar, isnikt… everything was multiplying. When had Da been planning to tell him about all this? Why hadn’t Magnus? I hope that big lump is all right, Erik thought, even as angry as he was.

Well, if the fae was telling the truth, then this siktar wasn’t going to kill them all… but Erik still didn’t like the looks of it.

They reached the top of the cavern and returned to the tunnels, passing from the faint violet glow and into darkness again. Much sooner than Erik expected, they saw light ahead, and the ladder.

But when they emerged into daylight, he realized that they were in a very different part of the city. “We’re close to the Cathedral,” Kari said, having come to the same conclusion. There were no crowds here blocking the way.

“And to Da. He’d better explain all this. Come on.” Da was going to explain, or Erik would… would… Would what? You going to make him? With those skinny arms? Erik grumbled at the sensible voice.

They raced along. Even if he couldn’t find Da, the priests at the Cathedral would be able to explain, wouldn’t they? Father Bernhard or one of the others…

Erik stumbled to a halt when he saw a crowd of men striding down the street toward them. Bulky men, all wearing identical leather aprons, inscribed with an arrow-pierced black circle—“Ironspeakers!” Kari said, breathing hard. She’d let go of his hand while they’d been running, but now her fingers laced into his again. Even amidst all the confusion and fear, Erik felt that tingle return. Maybe everything about Remy had been a bad dream, something Kari already regretted—She must, after what Remy did with that shadow, right?

Erik focused on the group of ironspeakers; a dozen or so of them, it looked like. Anything made of metal came from the ironspeakers; they could craft the most intricate metalwork using just their hands and voice. It was some sort of magic, anyway. They didn’t let outsiders watch them work. But every runner in Bjarheim had, one time or another, huddled up against the warm wall of an ironspeaker’s forge, listening in the quiet dark for the deep songs that rumbled from within. Songs you could never forget, that you could never duplicate, no matter how hard you tried. Whatever they did in there, they did sing. “Maybe they’re gonna fight that shadow,” Erik said.

Kari shrugged. “With what? They got no weapons. Or even tools.”

“I dunno, but let’s see. I’m dead sick of bein’ in the dark.”

---

The group of ironspeakers was halfway to the edge of the city when they came to a stop. Erik’s stomach lurched when he saw the shadow, the siktar, roiling toward them again.

One of the ironspeakers grunted something at his mates, then walked off alone to meet the spreading shadow. He knelt down, and began to sing.

It was just as Erik remembered: the bass hum flowed through his bones, but somehow here it was louder, purer, even though the ironspeaker was a hundred yards off. Kari climbed up onto a fae lamp-post to get a better look; Erik followed.

The shadow continued its slow crawl, and as it came up to the ironspeaker, he put his hand out to touch it.

The shadow recoiled from the ironspeaker’s hand, then struck like a viper at his face.

The ironspeaker’s song cut off with a cruel disharmony, like a music-box smashed with a hammer. The man collapsed to the ground. The shadow flowed over him, unimpeded.

Kari gasped. Erik clung to the fae lamp, riveted.

The other ironspeakers shouted with alarm and spread out into a line. They began to sing, and their hum filled the air, making Erik’s whole being vibrate. He thought he was going to burst.

The shadow spilled onward, and for a moment Erik thought they would defeat it—

“Stop!” someone bellowed. Erik looked across the road at a group of fae standing there. Leading them, his arm outstretched, stood the tall fae they’d met down below.

The ironspeakers faltered. A few of them took tentative steps back from the shadow. “It is a trap,” the tall fae said, striding forward. “Your magic will poison you.” He brushed past the ironspeakers and gazed down at the shadow. It seemed to have slowed at his approach. “Hm,” he said, and pointed a finger at it.

The shadow recoiled again, but this time it did not strike. It hovered there, waiting. Then, with a loud pop, it sprayed a stream of black liquid into the air.

The tall fae jerked aside, barely dodging it. Some of the liquid splashed on the boots of one of the ironspeakers behind him, and the leather began to sizzle and smoke. The ironspeaker shrieked, flailing to kick his boots off.

The fae ignored him. “I see now. It cannot be stopped with normal means! I need one who is untainted by magic…” He turned, scanning the street, and his eyes landed upon Erik, high up on the pole. The fae’s eyes wrinkled in satisfaction, then widened suddenly in alarm. “You!”

Erik hopped down from the pole. “What does he want?” Kari asked, following him down.

“Of course it would be you,” the tall fae hissed, having covered the distance between them in seconds. He blatted something in fae-speech that sounded like a curse. “Come.” He grabbed Erik’s arm and dragged him over toward the shadow.

“Stop!” Kari shouted. “What are you doing to him?”

The tall fae ignored her. He stopped at the edge of the shadow and spun Erik to face him. “You will see a purple ball of light before you. Direct it into the shadow.”

“What? How?” Erik said, perplexed. He hadn’t the faintest idea what the fae meant.

“It will be obvious!” the fae shouted. “Now hurry!” He pointed at the shadow again, which had begun to creep forward once more.

Erik stood paralyzed. He watched as a ball of light coalesced out of the air before him. “Now!” the tall fae said.

Erik reached out tentatively, then stopped. He swiveled to look up at the fae. “No. Tell me your name first.”

“Now is not the time!” the fae shouted at him.

Erik crossed his arms. He’d been bullied enough by people he knew. He wasn’t about to let this idiot… thing order him around.

The tall fae glared daggers. “Fine. My name is Aiar. Now do as I told you!”

Erik turned back to the violet light. He reached out and, for lack of a better idea, stuck his finger into the ball. It pulsed brightly, sending waves of ice cascading up his arm. He shivered, but held still. Direct it into the shadow, Aiar had said.

Erik had no idea what that meant. He glared at the ball. Well? Move!

Without warning, the ball lurched forward and down, colliding with the shadow. A tremendous flash of light blinded Erik; he threw his arm over his eyes as a colossal blast hurled him to the paving stones, and into darkness.

CONTINUED in Part IV