Unbroken Chain

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Ilvani waved the shadows away from Ashok, and he could breathe again.

“You shouldn’t pay them so much attention,” she said. “They’ll stay if you do.”

Ashok looked at his family, but his father and brothers had been rendered mute by Ilvani’s sudden appearance. They stared at her as if she were a beacon they were afraid to touch.

“This is the end, isn’t it?” Ashok said. “I’m going to the shadows. My soul will be gone.”

“This is the unknown,” Ilvani said. “Domain of fear. Will I die bravely? Will my god find me among the shadows? Will I lose my soul? That’s where you are now. You’ve always been here, all your life. Why should you be afraid of it now that it has a face?”

“Is this the fate of all shadar-kai?” Ashok said.

“This is their fate,” Ilvani said, pointing without looking at Reltnar and Ashok’s family, who cowered from her. “Are you with them, or didn’t you make another choice?”

“I tried to,” Ashok said. “But it all went wrong.”

“Are you certain?” Ilvani said.

“I deceived the companions I trusted,” Ashok said. “I slaughtered the only family I ever knew.”

“So your punishment is to exist here with them in the void,” Ilvani said. “No matter that Ikemmu forgives you, or the gods, because there is no forgiveness in Ashok for himself.”

“Yes. I exist here because I deserve to be here,” Ashok said.

“You have always existed here,” Ilvani said, “in fear. Now you have an excuse to stay.”

“I’m not afraid,” Ashok said. “I accept my fate.”

Ilvani reached up and touched his cheek. “You are selfish. You lay down to fade while others fight for you.”

Ashok felt the warmth of her hand, and a vision of Uwan flashed into his mind.

You are stronger than you know. Tempus believes you can bear this burden, and so do I.

Skagi’s face came next, and Cree’s. Olra in the training yard. Chanoch in his cell.

The gods be with you, my friend.

He blinked the vision away and saw Ilvani again with the court of shadows behind her. “Do their words mean nothing?” she said.

Ashok swallowed his grief. He felt the weight of their acceptance of him, and for the first time he felt warmed by more than Ilvani’s presence. “What of you?” Ashok said. “I was ready to give my life to make it better for you.”

“I am not who you think I am,” Ilvani said. “But if you decide to leave this place, you will see what you need to see.”

Ashok closed his eyes. “I don’t want to be here anymore,” he said. “Please …”

Pain swamped him then, so much at once that he thought he would explode from it. He gasped and opened his eyes.

He was back in his cell, unchained and unhooded, lying on the cold floor. He tried to move, but his joints were so cramped that every muscle in his body screamed.

Fighting to stay conscious, Ashok pushed himself up on his elbows. He saw, on the floor in front of him, a small object. He picked it up and saw that it was a small box made of velvet-covered wood. He recognized it as one of Ilvani’s many containers she’d spilled out of her bag that day he’d gone to see her.

The lock was open. He raised the lid and saw within a pile of ashes. He scooped them out with a finger. A few of the blackened scraps had unburned edges, scraps of parchment. He recognized his own writing on them, the evidence Vedoran had taken from him while he was unconscious.

“Ashok box,” Ashok said. “Full of ashes.” He closed the lid and held the box in his hands.

“I wondered what she’d done with them,” said a voice that Ashok knew well. He looked up and saw Vedoran standing outside his cell.

“Are you real?” Ashok said. It was the first thought that came to his mind.

Vedoran laughed without humor. “I can see why you’d ask that. No one thought you’d survive the tenday, but I told them you were strong.”

“Has it been that long?” Ashok said.

“You wouldn’t have felt the passage of time, after a while,” Vedoran said. “You still look faint, like you’re not truly present in the world. I wonder if that will make you easier or harder to kill.”

“Is that why you’ve come?” Ashok said. He didn’t feel surprise or betrayal, only a sense of pervading calm that grew stronger by the breath. He’d survived the worst of it. He wasn’t afraid. There were no shadows here.

Vedoran unlocked the door to his cell and tossed the keys aside. There was blood on them. “We won’t be disturbed,” he said.

“You know I’m too weak to fight you,” Ashok said. He was too weary even to stand before Vedoran.

“I told you, if I kill you, I kill Tempus,” Vedoran said. “It doesn’t matter what Ikemmu thinks anymore.” He drew his sword and came forward, his movements methodical, with none of the grace Ashok had once seen in him. That was all gone. He positioned his blade for a strike that would take off Ashok’s head.

“Vedoran!”

Ashok and Vedoran both jumped at the shout. Vedoran turned, giving Ashok a view of Uwan standing in the dungeon doorway, the bodies of the guards at his feet.

“What have you done, Vedoran?” Uwan cried.

“I have become everything I was made to be,” Vedoran said. “A Blite on Ikemmu.”

Uwan stared at him in disbelief. “This bloodshed is not you,” he said. “The Beshabans have poisoned your mind, taken away your honor.”

Vedoran laughed. “No, my Lord,” he said. “My mind was a foul place before the Beshabans found it. I have you to thank for that. When I kill your emissary”-he swept a hand at Ashok-“you will have no one but yourself to blame.”

Uwan drew his sword, but he did not enter the cell. There was no room to fight there, and Vedoran was dangerous in close combat. Ashok remembered his skill in the tunnels when he’d been hounded by enemies from all sides.

“I didn’t think Vedoran would allow himself to be ruled by envy,” Uwan said. He paced outside the cage bars.

“You think that’s what this is?” Vedoran said. He took a step away from Ashok. He’d not fully grasped Uwan’s bait, but he was distracted.

Ashok tried to get up. He made it to his knees and fell hard on the stone floor. He cursed his weakness, but his faint voice was drowned out by Vedoran’s laughter.

“Stay still, little one,” Vedoran taunted him. “I’ll come back for you soon.” He turned his attention to Uwan. “Did you ever see the vistas of the empire, Uwan?”

“Netheril has no place here,” Uwan said. He backed up to let Vedoran exit the cell and took up a defensive stance.

“Now who speaks with envy in his voice?” Vedoran said as he struck his sword off Uwan’s. But the leader did not flinch. “Isn’t that what you would create here-an empire of your own, with shrines to Tempus in every hall?”

“We can’t forsake the gods entirely, Vedoran,” Uwan said. “The shadar-kai need guidance.”

“Tempus’s guidance, and everyone else be damned,” Vedoran said. “That was the law you made, and that is the law that will break you as it broke Natan.”

He surged forward, and steel rang off steel. Uwan absorbed Vedoran’s slash off the edge of his blade, and the bitter shriek hurt Ashok’s ears. Uwan countered with a low thrust aimed to hamstring Vedoran. Ashok knew the blow would never land, and he marveled anew at Vedoran’s speed as he leaped back, pushed himself off the wall, and came into the fray again.

Ashok dragged himself to his cell door and used the bars to lever himself up. He had to put weight on his feet and get the blood moving through his dead limbs. Pain shot up his arms as he strained to climb the bars. He finally got his feet under him and let his weight drop. The pain was excruciating. He gripped the bars and shook.

The pain-he hadn’t inflicted so much on himself in over a month, but his body remembered what it was, and his mind cleared of every thought but staying on his feet. He would endure the pain, use it, and then go after Vedoran.

Outside the cell, Uwan’s fight continued. The leader had worked Vedoran around into a corner. With his back to the wall, Vedoran teleported in a blur of shadows that flew around Uwan and coalesced behind him into a wraithlike image of Vedoran.

Uwan turned and thrust automatically. The weapon was an extension of his instincts, and when it passed through Vedoran’s shadowy form, Uwan lost his balance. Fortunately, in his incorporeal form, Vedoran couldn’t take physical advantage of the misstep. He laughed at Uwan instead.

“You wanted to end this quickly,” Vedoran said. “I can see it in your movements. But this isn’t that kind of fight. You’ve forgotten I didn’t start out training with your military. I was trained by the sellswords of Pyton. We don’t fight with fever in our minds.”

“True,” Uwan said. He eased back to catch his breath. “But I’ve seen the fighters of Pyton and Hevalor. They fight with grace, but it’s a soulless dance. That’s what holds you back from being a truly great warrior, Vedoran. You don’t fight for anything but your own survival.”

“Survival isn’t enough,” Ashok said. Speaking was a chore, but he could feel his quivering muscles beginning to balance him again. He didn’t dare let go of the bars yet, but he was gaining strength.

Ashok caught Uwan looking at him, assessing his condition. He gave the leader a quick shake of his head, a warning to keep his head in the fight.

Vedoran’s shadows fled, his body solidified, and Uwan waded back into the fight as if it had never ceased. They drove each other round and round, into corners, trapping blades, and just when it seemed one would take the other, someone would teleport to escape death.

Ashok couldn’t count how many times they repeated the duel cycle, nor did he know how long they could maintain their pace. Both showed signs of fatigue. Uwan’s hair stuck to his face in soaking ropes, and Vedoran’s breath came fast and loud in the quiet chamber.

“Would it make any difference, Vedoran, if I told you I was wrong?” Uwan said when he’d taken on his own wraith shape for a brief respite. “I wronged you and the other warriors who do not stand for Tempus. If you would let me, I would make amends.”

Necrotic energy sizzled in the air around him. So much shadar-kai magic in one place seemed to draw the energy of the Shadowfell to them.

Ashok thought of the living shadows pulling at his body and shuddered. He flexed his muscles and released the bars, testing himself. The room tilted and spun. He grabbed the bars before he fell, ramming his palm against the metal in frustration.

Meanwhile, Vedoran regarded Uwan in amusement. “You don’t have Natan to whisper in your ear anymore. If I’d have known his death would bring about such clarity, I’d have killed him long ago.”

Uwan shook his head, refusing to take the bait. “It was never Natan. He wouldn’t punish anyone for not sharing his beliefs. I made the choice, because I thought it was best for Ikemmu to be united, and what better banner of strength could we have to stand under? I thought the rest of the city would see it my way eventually.”

“Netheril thought much the same,” Vedoran said.

“Yes,” Uwan said. “But you always make your choices with the best intentions. You tell yourself you won’t let it end that way, not this time. Isn’t that what you told yourself, Vedoran, when you swore your oath to Beshaba?”

“But your crime was worse,” Ashok said. When Vedoran glared at him, he said, “You had no faith to give them, only the show of it. It isn’t too late. You can retain your honor.”

As he spoke, Uwan became corporeal. Vedoran didn’t see it, and Uwan raised his sword. He came in sharply at the left before Vedoran could get up a defense. The leader put his blade at Vedoran’s throat, but he held the strike.

“Yield,” Uwan said. “Do as Ashok says: keep your honor, redeem yourself.”

“In Tempus’s eyes?” Vedoran spat. “Work your blade, Uwan. Your god will never save me.”

“Not Tempus,” Ashok said. He met Uwan’s eyes over the raised steel. “Earn forgiveness from Natan, from yourself.”

“From Uwan,” Vedoran said.

Uwan shook his head. “There’s no need-”

The words ended in a choked gurgle. Uwan stumbled back and dropped his sword. It clattered on the stone amid Ashok’s cries of fury.

Vedoran released the hilt of the dagger he’d been holding, the blade now buried in Uwan’s chest. The leader grasped the hilt and pulled the blade free before he collapsed on the ground.

“Now you can forgive me,” Vedoran said as he kicked Uwan’s greatsword across the room and turned to face Ashok. “You’re next,” he said.

“You bastard,” Ashok said. “You worthless, twisted creature.” He released the bars. His muscles trembled, but now it was pure rage, a longing for the release that came with killing. Vedoran had done more to invigorate him, to call back the nightmare’s master, than he would ever know.

Ashok stepped to the door of the cell. He had no weapon, no armor, just the visceral rage to guide him. Vedoran raised his sword to keep him at a distance, but he looked pleased.

“Almost,” he said. “What you need is … ah.” He went to Uwan and retrieved his bloody dagger from the leader’s slack fingers. He tossed it to Ashok, who caught it without thinking, letting the blood smear his palm. “Now we’re ready.”

“You shouldn’t be so smug,” Ashok said. He fell into a crouch. “I’ve killed brothers with blades smaller than this.”

“They were weak, just like you,” Vedoran said.

He came at Ashok hard and fast with an overhand strike that couldn’t be blocked. Ashok dodged, but his reflexes hadn’t nearly recovered enough to keep pace with his emotions. He over-compensated and fell on his stomach. Vedoran’s sword hissed through the air. Ashok gritted his teeth and teleported. Vedoran’s blade rang off the stone floor with another deafening shriek.

Ashok reappeared inside his cell. He stayed in the far corner in his wraith form-the same place where he’d seen his father and brothers and their emaciated shadows, though he tried not to dwell on these thoughts. He thought instead of how to turn the fight to his advantage. That was the first step.

He stayed inside the cell, forcing Vedoran to come to him. The close quarters favored his dagger heavily, and Vedoran couldn’t make him dance quite so much with so little room to maneuver.

“Where is the warrior who stood on the Span with me?” Ashok asked. He could feel corporeality seeping back into his limbs, but the question burned at him through the bloodlust. “Where is that shadar-kai who guided me through the nightmares?”

“We’re still on that bridge,” Vedoran said. “We’re still falling. But it’s almost over now.” He slashed at Ashok’s wraith body. The blade passed through his chest but caught his arm as it became flesh and laid it open.

Ashok grunted and clutched the wound. Blood soaked his fingers, but he didn’t have time to determine how deep the sword had penetrated, because Vedoran had seen the blood too. He reversed his swing. Ashok blocked feebly with the dagger and tried to twist out of the way.

Vedoran’s blade grazed his collarbone. Ashok felt the hot line where it cut him to the shoulder.

No choice. Ashok teleported again, but it took all his strength and concentration. He didn’t think he’d be able to attempt the escape again until he’d rested, and Vedoran was already crowding him, forcing him to move in his incorporeal form to find a better position.

“You’re tiring quickly,” Vedoran said. “Why are you fighting so hard? You know you won’t win. If Uwan could fall to me, you don’t stand a chance in your current state.”

“Uwan trusted you,” Ashok said. “That was his mistake. I won’t underestimate you or what you’re capable of. Not anymore.”

“I’m doing you a service,” Vedoran said, “killing you now while you’re still full of hope. This city does that to you, gives you hope. But even if you survive, they will never accept you fully. You heard the crowd at your trial. Half of them want you dead. Would they embrace you if you came out of these tunnels? Better to die here and never know that disappointment.”

“Is that what grieves you the most, Vedoran?” said Ashok, gathering himself for the last exchange of blows. “All the people who have disappointed you? Uwan, the city, the gods …”

“You,” Vedoran said. He gripped his sword and put it through Ashok’s phantom chest, swirling it around his heart. “You disappointed me more than all the others. I would have been more than a brother. You were supposed to be with me.”

“I was,” Ashok said, “but this is bigger than you or I. Ikemmu is about more than survival. There are things worth protecting here. The city isn’t perfect, but there’s a future in it. There was no such haven in those caves where I prowled and killed.”

His words came faster as his body faded back into the world. When he could hear his boots scrape on stone, Ashok went on the offensive. He dived in under Vedoran’s guard and nicked his cheek, a light blow to get the graceful warrior backpedaling.

Vedoran teleported away over Ashok’s sudden burst of energy, but he didn’t speak, and as soon as he became solid they went at the fight again. Ashok ducked a sharp slash from Vedoran’s blade, but he stumbled and fell prone with his dagger arm trapped beneath him. Vedoran came after him. Ashok grabbed his leg and twisted, bringing the warrior down beside him.

Ashok heard Vedoran’s sword clatter on the ground. He rolled as Vedoran went for his throat and dug the dagger into Vedoran’s shoulder. Pain spasmed across Vedoran’s face, but he got his hands inside Ashok’s guard and around his throat.

Choking, Ashok tried to pull his dagger out of Vedoran’s flesh, but it was wedged against bone, and his strength was rapidly waning. He couldn’t draw breath. The room started to spin, and Vedoran, through it all, looked half-crazed, his eyes bulging with triumph as he pressed Ashok’s flailing body down and choked the life out of him.

Fading. Ashok felt himself become unmoored from his body, except he was aware of everything. The necrotic energy swirling in the room solidified into reaching shadows, and there was the void again before him, where his father and brothers waited. He wouldn’t look at them, Ashok thought. He looked beyond them into the unknown and tried not to be afraid of what waited there.

Ashok glimpsed it then, behind the rest, the form rising up to fill his vision. It no longer wore Ilvani’s face, but it cut through the shadows straight to Ashok’s heart.

Through his dimming consciousness, Ashok reached up and wrenched the dagger free from Vedoran’s shoulder. Vedoran cried out and loosened his grip. Ashok sucked in a desperate breath of air and brought the blade down nearly parallel between them. Driven by a strength Ashok had thought long gone, the blade disappeared into Vedoran’s chest and pierced his heart.

Ashok felt Vedoran’s whole body stiffen. He flailed, and Ashok caught his hands, holding them as the life drained from the graceful warrior. The breath eased out of Vedoran’s chest slowly, and the crazed look left his eyes. He focused for an instant on Ashok’s face and tried to speak.

“Say it again,” Ashok said, his voice ragged from being strangled. “I couldn’t hear.”

“Forgive …” Vedoran coughed, and there was blood on his lips. “Forgive … yourself. Even … if I can’t.”

Ashok clasped the warrior fiercely to his breast. Vedoran drew his last breath, and Ashok felt the body in his arms go limp.

“You’re in the shadows now, my friend,” he whispered. He hoped that somehow, Vedoran’s soul would find its way out of the void. From there he faced a journey beyond mortal knowledge. But the cares of Ashok’s world could not touch him.

Ashok gently laid Vedoran’s body on the ground. Light-headed with pain and grief, he crawled to Uwan’s side and turned the leader’s body to face him. He put his head against Uwan’s chest and listened for some sign of life. The sign came with the leader’s voice.

“You did well,” Uwan said. His vacant eyes stared past Ashok at the invisible world full of shadows.

“Don’t do this,” Ashok said. “I can get healers here before your next breath. Uwan!” he cried when the leader’s head lolled.

Uwan licked his lips and coughed. “I saw Him, just now. I saw Him, but He wasn’t looking for me. He was watching you. You fought so well … You saw His pride, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what I saw,” Ashok said. “I’m not ready to accept-”

“So … stubborn,” Uwan said. His lips curved in a weak smile. “Always thinking your life means nothing … to the gods. Every life is important.”

“Prove it, then,” Ashok said. “Live, and prove me wrong.”

“I … will try.”

“Don’t look at the shadows,” Ashok said. He stood and ran out of the dungeon, following the scent of the forge fires to the light and Tower Makthar. He prayed, to any and all gods listening, that he would make it in time.