54

Long Shadows

As Candle soared upwards, lightning illuminated the clouds in front of her in vivid, stony brilliance, and she knew the remaining two lightning brothers were airborne and in pursuit. She swerved across a granite cliff face and caught a glimpse of them winging their way through the night with vengeance in their eyes and lightning sparking between their claws. The air sizzled and she careened sideways as an incandescent bolt sliced through the air, narrowly avoiding her body. It smashed into the cliff with thunderous impact, leaving a crater several yards wide while chunks of rock and pebbles rained down on her scales. She shook them off her in some agitation, anger and anxiety feuding in her gut.

Candle had seen the brothers in the air and she was fairly certain she could outfly them. Her wings were swift and powerful, and she had no interest in a prolonged fight. And she particularly did not want to attract the attention of anything or anyone more dangerous, like the dragon she had spotted earlier, or worse. With this in mind, she sped towards her mountains, the mountains she knew as well as the back of her hand, even though it meant doubling back along the path she had trodden hours earlier.

Her wings made short work of the distance and in no time the solid mass of the Night Enchantments rose before her, high and craggy, blocking the luminescence of the spectral galaxy above. The peaks were soaked in clouds and she could just make out the tumbled ruin of Dawn Watch Castle as it floated above the haze. She swung around and dived between the sandstone crags, her shoulders burning as she worked to lengthen the gap between herself and the bird men. When a cloud momentarily hid her from view she spread her wings wide, catching a vigorous updraft up and onto the mountain plateau. She skimmed low across the rocky surface, the mists cool on her scales. She swept as low as she dared, and then in the thickest part of the cloud transformed abruptly into her much smaller, human body. The forward motion of her flight sent her tumbling forwards, and she rolled, the wind knocked from her body. She managed to catch herself heavily on all fours.

She hesitated, looking up and out at the skies, but her eyes and ears were greeted only by a thick, white blanket of silence. Taking care to not to make too much noise she scrambled sideways and tucked herself under one of the night rose shrubs that grew with preponderous beauty between the rocks. The leaves were thick and green and the bush was covered with giant black blooms that pumped a sickly sweet and indolic scent into the night air. She buried her face into her bruised knees, hoping that the shrub was enough to keep her hidden from the air, and trying to breathe through her mouth. Keeping very still, she listened for the crackle of lightning and the swoop of feathers. She did not have to wait long.

The two lightning birds flew by moments later, the fog made restless by their passage. As they sailed by, the air rippled in their wake, whirls of mist forming behind their figures. In an instant they were gone, swallowed by the gloom, and peace returned to the plateau.

Candle remained hidden for long minutes, fearing to show herself, but as the moments passed and they did not return her breathing regulated and calmed. At length, she pulled a sandwich out of her bag and unwrapped it thoughtfully, staring out across the mountaintop. The thick clouds were lifting, leaving behind a thin haze that pooled across the plateau and spilt out and over the flat edge of the precipice like a waterfall in slow, perpetual motion. The cascading mist reflected the starlight as it fell and she watched it for a long while as she finished her meal.

The food made her feel normal, so she ate another sandwich, biding her time until she felt safe enough to leave the cover of the night rose. She glanced in her now deflated bag and saw there was only one packet of food left at the very bottom. It was all very well for Jotham to say she should hunt, but so far she had seen nothing she fancied eating, and she wasn’t about to start hunting bird men. Even if they deserved it.

She crawled out of her bush and peered towards the ruins of the Dawn Watch castle. It looked exactly as they had when Candle's team had first arrived on the mountaintop, so many weeks ago – tumbled down and neglected, and untouched by human hand for many a year. Unable to resist the urge to investigate, she made her way towards the ruin. She passed the hollow dip in the rock where she and her friends had made their first camp, and wandered past the flat bit where the brand new moongate stood in that other Kingdom. She lingered there for a moment, squinting up at the air which seemed to flicker. Was someone using the gate at Dawn Watch? She watched for a long moment but nothing happened, so she turned back towards the ruin and came to an abrupt halt.

It was overrun with spirits of all sizes and shapes. They clung to the walls and drifted in a dense clouds around the boundary. The usual, disturbing many-legged monstrosities were there, fat and evil, weighed down by the density of their bodies. Alongside them drifted shadow people without features or substance – lost souls, Candle realised with a jolt –wandering wraiths who had died without prayer or guidance. Those who had died unloved and unnoticed. It was a melancholic place, and she wondered if the passages below were likewise clogged with the undead, or worse – crawling with wights. She decided she did not want to stick around to find out.

As she turned to go, one of the spirits detached itself from the mass and drifted towards her on slow grey feet. Man-shaped and indistinct, it wavered in the brief wind as if it would dissolve at any moment. A fragile thing, it did not look threatening, but she pulled out her iron dagger just in case. It came towards her, advancing in hesitating steps, stopping and starting as if it was unsure.

As it came closer, some features became visible. Candle's gaze travelled up its tattered, smoke-stained body to ghostly blue eyes that phased in and out of focus. It came to a stop in front of her, and she gazed at its forehead where there was a gaping wound that leaked perpetual darkness. It floated away in the breeze, like drops of black ink in water.

"Rasmus!" she said, swallowing. The ghost wearing her brother's face considered her, the milky blue eyes contemplative, his brow furrowed into deeper shadow. After a long moment it lifted a smudge of a hand to brush her cheek. It left an ethereal trail of soot in the air, that glimmered black-bright, before fading into nothing.

"Candle," Rasmus said. His voice was a mere hiss on the breeze and fingers nothing more than the suggestion of coolness against her skin. Candle took an unsteady step backwards. Slowly, calmly, the thing that was all that remained of her brother reached for her neck. Instinctively, she pulled away, but she need not have bothered. His hands went straight through her skin. He was no more substantial than the shifting mist that billowed around them.

"Why can't I kill you?" he whispered, and his voice was no more than a distant rasp of pain that Candle had to strain to hear. "Belias said I should kill you..."

The thing that had once been her brother started to cry, and Candle looked at it with equal amounts of horror and pity.

Attracted by his name, Belias appeared next to her, as was his habit. He grinned down at the distressed phantasm in abject enjoyment and turned his head, fixing one pitiless eye on Candle.

"This one is of no further use to me," he said. "Let's see what it tastes like, what it's made of."

Candle tried to get away, for whatever fate Belias had in mind for her brother's soul, she didn't want to see it. But she couldn't move. She was pinned fast by the invisible hand of the demon.

"Going somewhere, Mistress? Stay and watch, rather. Watch and learn."

Belias grinned and leaned over the feeble spirit. He plunged his hands through the insubstantial chest and Rasmus, or the shell of Rasmus let out a soft, high pitched groan. It shuddered, flickering in the wind and for a moment Candle thought it was gone. But no, mist swirled and reformed in front of her, and there in his stead was a small boy of perhaps six years of age. His eyes were brown, and his hair sandy. He looked up at Candle with wide eyes and held out a drawing for her to look at. It was remarkably fine work for a child, and she tried to take it carefully with her fingers. It dissolved into the ether before she could get her hands to move.

"Father says I must do better," said young Rasmus, his voice sorrowful. "I will try harder."

The shadows blurred around him, and a slightly older boy appeared, his eyes tense and filled with anguish as he played the harp. The notes fell like silvery drops in the night, echoing across the mountain top in a delicate harmony. The boy paused, to scribble on a scrap of paper, and Candle could see the parchment was covered in music. Rasmus smiled down at it and then touched a finger to the page to set it alight. Candle could see his lips moving as he named his Ancestors in turn, the same names she said in her prayers.

Devotions complete, he sat back in his chair, a look of satisfaction on his young face. But then the smile slipped, and he turned his head in response to something Candle couldn't see or hear, at the edge of the vision. When he turned back, his eyes were full of moisture. The young boy cried hot, bitter tears, scrunching his hands into fists and sobbing. Passionate sadness soon gave way to anger, and he dashed the tears from his eyes. The young boy lifted his hands and directed a plume of energy towards the harp. It melted and warped, instantly, and Rasmus watched it burn with hate-filled eyes, his shirt soaked with his tears.

An indistinct shadow blossomed at his shoulder and Candle gasped as she recognised the shadow of the demon. Her eyes, the only part of herself she could properly move, slipped sideways to look at the real-life demon beside her who was making rasping, horrible noises that might have been laughter. Meanwhile, young Rasmus leaned towards the freshly formed demon, which bent forward to whisper in his ear. He listened, the passion in his eyes turning cold and calculating.

A gust of wind scattered the vision, and when it reformed Candle saw Rasmus, still heartbreakingly young, leaning over a cradle, a blade in his fist. He slipped the weapon into his waistband and picked up the baby, who gurgled and waved her chubby fists at him. The child's eyes were blue and hazy. With a shock, Candle realised she was looking at herself. Rasmus held infant Candle at arm's length, staring up at the little one who giggled – a sweet, baby chortle full of innocent joy. Baby Candle watched her brother, her eyes full of youthful trust, her cheeks rosy with happiness. Rasmus lowered his sister back into the cradle, hanging his head in shame.

"I can't do it," he muttered.

"Yes, you can," came the demon's sibilant hiss. "You can do anything you want. Kill the infant. Give her life to me. No one will ever know, and you will have everything you dream of. You can do it. Be the man you are meant to be. What is this babe? Nothing, she is nothing."

The boy Rasmus hesitated, running his finger over the wicked edge of the blade as he looked down at baby Candle, who was sucking on her fist and making small noises of satisfaction.

"She is nothing," the demon repeated, low into Rasmus' ear. "She has not lived; she will not feel pain. Her life for yours. It isn't worth the hesitation."

"I – can't do it."

"Then you will always be nothing. You have nothing. You do not have the talent to achieve greatness – you know this is true. You will never please them. They will never love you."

Rasmus let out a sob and leaned over the cradle. He sliced the baby's arm open and his little sister screamed in shock, tears of pain tumbling down her cheeks, her eyes scrunched tightly shut.

"Take her soul," he said, his voice rough. "But don't kill her...let her live, at least."

The demon's eyes gleamed.

"It will do, for now," he said, "but you will come to regret it." Belias surged forward with unnatural speed, squishing his body into the crib until it was filled with darkness and the thin, high wail of the baby's fear. Rasmus turned his face away, unable to watch, trying to block out the noise of the demon's feeding from his sister’s veins.

"And he did regret it," said the Belias on the mountain peak. "He should have killed you then. He was weak."

The wraith transformed one last time into the fully grown Rasmus. Rasmus as Candle had last seen him, his eyes wide with shock and a gaping wound in his forehead. The hole she had made when she had killed him. Rasmus crumpled to the ground, and Belias made her watch, hissing in her ear.

"He regretted it, as you will come to regret not doing my bidding. I grow impatient...Mistress. I need to feed on something more substantial than this feeble man-child's essence."

He turned towards the ragged spirit and plunged his fist through its heart. Rasmus flickered, looking down at the demon's arm with one last look of horror. He dissolved into the air with a faint hiss, the outline of his face fading last.

Belias drew back his palm and showed it to Candle. Nestled on the restless shadowy fingers was a hard, black, wrinkled thing, as dense as a piece of coal. It pulsed with a faint light. He smacked his lips and swallowed it in one foul gulp.

The demon grasped Candle by the shoulders and leaned in so that her vision was filled by the ink dark mass of him. His terrifyingly solid hands held her fast. His fingers dug into her flesh, and they stung like iron.

"Until next time, Mistress," he hissed. "Happy hunting."

He vanished into the air, leaving Candle alone with the dead.