A Song of Shadow Read online

  The attack did not have any effect: the invincible dagger continued on its way and landed right in Astilba’s hand. Fresia rushed to her in an attempt to disarm her, but Kodiak stepped in the way. Meanwhile, the Sixth used her ghostly fetters to immobilize Salamander who had also rushed to help.

  Suddenly, a blurry gray shadow darted to intercept the Sixth, seeking to snatch the weapon of Shadow from her hands. A moment was all that was lacking. Geranika waved his hand and an invisible force threw the creature away, pressing it into the interlacing of the stalks near the First. I recognized the Master of Kartoss only by his characteristic attire, now rather battered and more reminiscent of rags. His hood had slipped down, exposing the vagren’s fur-covered face.

  “What an honor!” smiled Geranika, flattered. “The son of the Emperor of Malabar and the brother of the Lord of Kartoss in person. You would make a good addition to my host.”

  The wounded vagren snarled something angrily in a language unfamiliar to me. His HP dropped into the red and his attempt to rise to his feet ended in failure.

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Geranika clicked his tongue condescendingly. “Words like that are unbecoming of your exalted station, sire.”

  The Sixth did not participate in the conversation. She moved forward inexorably, stifling all resistance. When it came to Bogart and me, she cast us an apathetic, blank look. We were not even worthy of her recognition, it seemed.

  Too bad that.

  Asus2 gave way to Asus#4 again and Eid reappeared in Barliona. Due to the increased levels, his summon had cooled down a lot faster.

  “Stop Kodiak,” I commanded, not wanting the spirit to encounter the same fate as Salamander.

  He nodded and rushed forward, distracting the pirq of Shadow from the Third, who had managed to suffer a serious wound. As for me, not thinking of anything better than to keep playing, I began to summon another soul from the Gray Lands and watched the battle in the meantime...

  Geranika’s dagger cut through the stems and branches protecting Nigella like a hot knife through butter. Slowly and inevitably, the necromancer advanced towards her goal, in the process destroying the protective barriers. And when the last one fell, time seemed to stop.

  The First and Sixth looked at each other in silence and there was no fear in the eyes of the head of the Council. Having lived many millennia, Nigella looked at her sister with sympathy and inexplicable tenderness. Even now, the First did not cancel the Arras spell, maintaining Geranika at arm’s length from the battle and us.

  Astilba raised the dagger over the defenseless First and froze as Fresia’s hand gently alighted on her shoulder. The wounded paladin, whose right arm sagged like a limp whip, spoke a prayer to Sylvyn and a warm greenish glow emanated from her palm. It forced the fog out of the Sixth’s eyes and a look of recognition washed over the necromancer’s face.

  “You...shall...do...as...I...command...” Geranika spat haltingly and a chill ran down my back from the tone of his voice.

  Clouds of fog exploded around the Sixth. Tendrils of the stuff wrapped around her arm, driving it down to strike the fatal blow. The eyes of the necromancer glittered, her lips twisted for an instant into an evil grin, and the hand holding the dagger obediently sank, plunging an obsidian-black blade into the body. Her own body. Within a moment, the mighty weapon of Shadow sucked the life from the Sixth, but she managed to look me in the eyes and, quietly, mouth two words...

  “You just can’t find competent help these days,” Geranika deadpanned and turned to the Fifth: “Portulac, will you kill the First finally.”

  Obeying the order, the Shadow biota let off tormenting what remained of the embassy and headed straight for us.

  “Now I understand how the Roman legionnaires felt when Hannibal sicced his elephants on them,” Bogart remarked and added hopefully: “You don’t have a 2x4 and some nails lying around, do you? We could toss it under his hooves to slow him down like a little.” He shouldered his crossbow—useless against an enemy of such a level—and took aim.

  I didn’t have a board with nails, but there was something better. Ignoring another notification about my level loss, I completed my next summons. The Paladin General’s ghostly foot stepped into Barliona. Obviously he wouldn’t slay the Fifth or anything but he could buy us some time.

  You have summoned the soul of a paladin general (Level 372).

  Skill increase:

  +5 to Summoner. Total: 12.

  “In the name of Eluna, I shall punish you, spawn of Shadow!” the paladin hollered and brought his shining sword down on my head.

  I even jumped from surprise. A notification popped up explaining that a materia shade had absorbed the lethal dose of damage.

  “Have you lost your damn mind?!” I hollered back, reflexively shielding myself from the next blow, again absorbed by another materia shade—my last one.

  “Minions of Shadow shall be swept from Barliona’s blessed visage!” the holy warrior yelled dramatically and again swung his sword at me.

  This time Bogart took the blow, pushing me aside. His avatar blinked and vanished—Bogart had been sent to the Gray Lands. And it looked like I would be following hot on his heels.

  “Well, why don’t you go and kill the actual foe himself. He’s standing right there—in the flesh!” Without much hope, I pointed my finger in the direction of Geranika—who, by the way, looked like he was having a ball.

  “He shall be next,” the paladin promised and again raised his sword to strike.

  I no longer had any protection, so I involuntarily closed my eyes, waiting for the notification that I had died. But it failed to appear and finally, I carefully opened my eyes. Fresia loomed over me, her blade crossed with the paladin-general’s. Their eyes met and Sylvyn’s champion shook her head. I got the impression that the divine warriors were having a chat that no one else could hear. After a few long moments, Eluna’s zealot bowed his head and withdrew his sword.

  I could not believe what happened next. The paladins brought their blades together again and they began to shine. Fresia’s sword glowed with spring verdure and its ghostly fellow with the gold of the summer sun. The light born of the two twined, formed a beam and struck the chest of the oncoming Portulac. The Shadow biota staggered from this blow, barely keeping his feet. He tried to spawn his shadow tentacles with which he had practically wiped out the Kartossian embassy earlier, but they disintegrated in the divine beam cast by the paladins. The Fifth’s HP dropped into the yellow and kept going until it hit the red.

  I hastily regenerated the health that the summoned souls were draining from me, while absent-mindedly strumming the eid. Astilba remained in my mind’s eye, standing as she died. Though she had died, she had not succumbed to another’s will. Her moving lips, emitting no sound, had uttered her last request. And I intended on fulfilling it.

  My fingers found the frets I wanted and a new melody sounded amid the cacophony of battle.

  Chaos reigned all around me and if it were not for the Salamander King’s protection, I would have been trampled into the landfill forming underfoot. I sang and watched Eid fall and dissolve into the air. I watched Kodiak rush forward with a triumphant roar and send my ghostly paladin back to the Gray Lands. I watched the Fifth, no longer constrained, reach his shadow tentacles for Nigella. I watched the First scream from her pain as the tentacles touched her. I watched the Arras fall. I sang and understood that I would not have time to complete what I had begun.

  “HOW DARRE YOU ENTER MY FORREST?”

  I almost went deaf from the monstrous roar that rolled over the battleground. Had it not been for my wealth of experience playing shows where all kinds of things could happen, the noise would have interrupted my playing. But by some miracle I maintained my composure and continued to play, looking around for the source of the infernal voice. A familiar, infernal voice.

  At the very edge of the blighted ground, stood a colorful couple. Against the background of the colossal, ebony black Guardian, snow-white Ch
ip seemed quite small and inconspicuous, like a bear cub next to his Grizzly dad.

  Seeing me, he raised his paw in greeting, and then turned to smash a demon that had scurried up on the skull with his halberd. It did absolutely nothing, since the demon had a hundred levels on him, but I had already studied my friend well enough to understand that standing around and letting someone else take care of the problem was not Pasha’s style.

  “HOW DARRE YOU DEFILE MY LANDS?!”

  A familiar sphere appeared in the Guardian’s paw, with a shard of white stone inside of it, and the Guardian squashed the demon Chip had attacked with one paw while slamming the shard into the ground with the other. Foggy tendrils emanating from the blight that permeated the soil reached for the inconspicuous shard, swirled in a whirlpool around it and began to flow into the artifact. The blighted ground began to dissolve, revealing scorched, but quite ordinary soil. The artifact that was supposed to spread Shadow was now absorbing it, clearing the ground.

  Having received this unexpected bit of help and finding their debuffs dispelled, the players exulted. At once, the weakened minions of Shadow began to lose ground, and the outcome of the battle no longer seemed so obvious. But contrary to my expectations, the appearance of the Guardian did not frighten Geranika. He gave him a mocking look and asked:

  “Do you really think this little trick will save your forest? You have managed to temporarily redirect the currents of power in my artifact and now you’ve decided that you’ve won? What naïveté...”

  Obeying the will of Geranika, the artifact soared into the air and moved to the open palm of the Fifth. The fifth squeezed his fingers, crushing the protective sphere like an eggshell, and the white shard entered his inky flesh. But instead of absorbing Shadow from Portulac, the artifact released all its accumulated power into him.

  “Behold the true power of Shadow!” It sounded like Geranika’s voice resounded throughout the forest, echoing even from the mountain range at its limits.

  A grim aura enveloped the Shadow biota until Portulac resembled some malevolent deity. The life bar above his head instantly recovered and hundreds of shadow tentacles burst from him and reached for the players and NPCs. They wrapped around their targets, depriving them of the opportunity to resist, and leeching their vitality to Portulac. The Sixth’s max HP began to soar, turning the already-formidable raid boss into a completely unkillable monster.

  Even the Guardian, with all his might, was powerless against such an alien force. Wrapped head to toe in the tendrils of fog, he was slowly dying, unable to do anything. Judging by the fact that everyone’s health bars diminished at the same speed, the spell caused damage as a percentage of maximum hit points. At this rate, in a minute or two, only the minions of Shadow would remain standing. And I among them. Feeling a kindred power, the spell of the Fifth ignored me, allowing me to finish my ballad.

  “Soon the Hidden Forest will become part of the Empire of Shadow,” said Geranika with a satisfied smile. “And it is all thanks to you, Lorelei. You returned the Fifth to Barliona, furnishing my host with a worthy general.”

  “And she shall take him from you too!” said a woman’s wrathful voice.

  Beside me stood another soul summoned from the Gray Lands, while the system notified me that another +5 had been added to my Summoner trait.

  “You?!”

  Geranika stared in disbelief at the incorporeal, but no less formidable Astilba. Inspired by her love and revenge, the ballad allowed the soul of the necromancer to return, fulfilling her last request: “Summon me.”

  “That’s right, love, it’s me again,” the soul smirked, approaching the Fifth and plunging her disembodied hand directly into his body.

  The Shadow biota shuddered, convulsed and collapsed to the scorched earth.

  The Fifth was dead.

  “Impossible!” Anger and surprise sounded in Geranika’s voice. “He was invincible!”

  Seeing his beloved’s altered, lifeless body, the Sixth looked up at the Lord of Shadow.

  “You forgot that it was I who bound his summoned soul to its new body. And I know how to break that bond. Portulac is now free from your power, traitor! I have redeemed my guilt.”

  “NOW IT IS YOUR TURRN TO PAY YOUR DEBTS!” rumbled the Guardian, unchained.

  Waves of heat emanated from him, quickly restoring health to all those who were still alive and were not infected by Shadow. “YOU SHALL DIE FOR YOUR CRRIMES, GERRANIKA!”

  There was little doubting his words. The balance of power has changed and it no longer favored the Lord of Shadow. The Guardian, the First, the Third, the Seventh, Conquolor, the spirit of the Sixth and by some miracle the still-alive Master of Kartoss with a lone magister stepped forth to face Geranika, a wounded Kodiak and the Second.

  Geranika was no fool and quickly oriented himself in the situation. Threads of Shadow weaved towards him from the bodies of the fallen renegades, restoring the power he had loaned them. And as Shadow fled the dead, they changed right there where they had fallen, returning to their original appearance. And now it was impossible to tell who of the deceased was an ally and who an enemy. The glade had turned into a mass grave. Only the body of Portulac crumbled to ashes, immediately carried away by a gust of wind erupting from somewhere deep in the forest.

  The returned shadows surrounded Geranika with a shield, and the new hazy threads reached out to him from the surviving blighted biota. A sharp splinter twitched somewhere in my chest and I rejoiced that my sensory filter only allowed a faint glimmer of the true pain to reach my brain. My body was paralyzed as an unknown force lifted me and other blighted biota around me above the ground, suspending us like marionettes.

  “The time has come for you to solve a delicate conundrum,” Geranika smiled politely at the First. “If you insist on continuing this battle, then I will be forced to reclaim my powers from these sentients. Unfortunately, doing so will kill them. The alternative is allowing me to depart with my new vassals here,” he nodded at the surviving Shadow pirqs, “in which case your brethren will retain their lives and freedom of will.”

  “You shall release all our brethren,” the First said in a steely voice. “And you shall be banished forever from the Hidden Forest.”

  “Alas, this is beyond my powers. Pirqs of Shadow cannot be returned to their original state. They are devoted to me and will become part of my empire. Or die. I am powerless to change anything. But they...” A slight motion from his brows caused the blighted biota, including myself, to levitate even higher. “They will keep their will and will be able to choose on their own. What do you decide, Nigella? Shall you earn your revenge through the sacrifice of those you can save?”

  Nigella exchanged glances with the other Council members and then said slowly:

  “We must save our brothers. But this does not mean that Geranika shall escape justice. We shall march to the walls of his castle with the army of Kartoss and we shall raze them. We shall wipe his damned empire from the face of Barliona and before his death he will hear the name of everyone he has killed today.”

  All of the members of the Council bowed their heads in agreement, and the First appealed to the Guardian:

  “Do you agree with the decision of the Council, oh Ancient One?”

  The immense, black pirq looked at the imperturbable Geranika and hate smoldered in his eyes. The Guardian was silent for a long time before making his decision.

  “YOU ARE RRIGHT. WE WILL HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO TAKE THIS TRRAITOR’S LIFE AT A LATER DATE. NO ONE CAN RETURRN THE FALLEN. BUT AS THE RRENEGADES STILL BEARR SHADOW WITHIN THEMSELVES, THERE SHALL BE NO PLACE FOR THEM IN MY FORREST. MY FORREST SHALL BE FRREE OF ALL THE BLIGHT.”

  The First sighed heavily but did not argue with this decision. Instead, she turned again to Geranika.

  “We will grant you and the pirqs of Shadow free passage to the Arras, but here and now you will swear on the spirit of Barliona that you will not subvert the will of these blighted biota ever again. Nor will you
intentionally harm them.”

  “Unless they force me into doing so by attacking me,” added Geranika and nodded, “I swear on the spirit of Barliona.”

  A bright glow surrounded the Lord of Shadow. The spirit of Barliona had confirmed his oath.

  “Go now,” the First spat and I felt the invisible hand that had gripped my heart unclench itself.

  I collapsed but, contrary to expectations, I didn’t hit the ground. Instead, I found myself in the arms of Chip who had appeared out of nowhere beside me.

  “Look, I found the magical glade where girls rain from the sky!” the clown quipped, cradling me comfortably.

  Geranika winked at me slyly, turned away, and strode leisurely toward the border of the Hidden Forest, surrounded by fifty or so Shadow pirqs. He was followed by more than one unkind look.

  The current scenario has completed and your level has been restored to its base value.

  Your current level is Level 26.

  You have gained a level!

  ...

  Your current level is Level 37.

  Unallocated stat points: 75.

  Training points: 9.

  Oh boy. I sure did earn a lot of XP with this raiding party.

  “Listen, are there any more girls? Up there, I mean...” Qupip approached us and gawked at the sky above us.

  “Lemme check,” Chip tossed me up in his arms: “You see anyone of the fair sex up there, Kiera? There are people down here who want to know. They’re taking numbers and forming queues.”

  “Stop that. Stop that. I’m not a flapjack in a pan! There aren’t any other chicks up here!”

  “Throw her a little higher so she gets a better look, you flea-bitten cat,” the jolly priest advised.

  “I don’t have any fleas,” Chip replied defensively. “I’ve gassed them all...”

  And the bastard tossed me up again, much higher now.

  “Put me down where I grew!” I demanded and seeing no sympathy on the pirq’s face, I decided to bribe him. “I’ll write you a song about some legendary beauty and summon her spirit.”