A Song of Shadow Read online

  “Lay eyes upon Barliona?” the spirit echoed. “Is that possible?”

  “In theory. This would be the first time I summon a soul from the Gray Lands to the world of the living,” I confessed.

  Salamander got up to his feet, bowed ceremoniously and offered me his hand, helping me up in turn:

  “In that case, it would be an honor to accept your offer. And don’t worry about failing. You can’t make my situation any worse.”

  “You sure know how to cheer a girl up,” I quipped, and by sheer reflex grabbed his hand to pull myself up.

  Stop. Grabbed his hand? Didn’t I walk through him just a second ago?

  “Hey Eid, why is it that I can touch him all of a sudden?” I asked the instrument’s soul.

  “You have promised to lead him from the Gray Lands, and he has taken his first step on the Way that you are to pave for him. He no longer belongs to this place, temporarily, like you and I.”

  I looked at the Salamander King again, noting the changes taking place. It was like a layer of dust had been blown from the ghost. The grayness of this world was melting from him like the snow on a spring meadow. It was like the setting sun had illuminated his hair, his circlet began to glint with dull gold, and the lizard on his breastplate flushed with crimson. The colors were dull, like on a tapestry that had faded with time, but they already stood out vividly in the colorless world around us.

  “And what must we do now in order to return to Barliona?” I asked Eid without much expectation of an answer.

  This morose instrument is about to tell me that this is what my trial consists of and I have to figure it out on my own...

  “The Gray Lands have several Gates,” Eid began to explain in spite of my misgivings. “Each Gate has its own Gatekeeper whose duty it is to guard the border between the worlds of the living and the dead. You must find the Gate, deal with the Gatekeeper, reach the Intermundis and pave a way back to Barliona.”

  Such clear instructions lifted my spirits, though the many gaps in them, dampened my mood at the same time.

  “And how am I supposed to find the Gate?”

  “You are a Bard,” Eid reminded me. “Think of a suitable way.”

  Music, in other words. I could’ve figured that out on my own. I’m doing a class-based quest and am in an area that is accessible only to bards. Although...Don’t shamans and necromancers also work with souls and spirits? I wonder whether they drop in here as well?

  But away with these unrelated thoughts. I need a guiding song. I looked around, trying to find some hint in the landscape around me. A dull grayness and an oppressive silence. I need to shake up this musty place!

  As soon as my fingers touched the eid’s strings, I recalled a fitting song from the same immortal album as before—Forbidden Reality. Maybe it didn’t fit as perfectly as I wanted it, but for the moment it would be enough. More life! More roar!

  Deafening guitar riffs erupted in the silence of the Gray Lands. The Salamander King started from surprise, whipped out his sword and began spinning in place looking for the source of the clamor. Eid jumped up into the saddle of his steed, which had begun to stomp nervously, and burst into mirthful laughter. He clearly enjoyed the new noise.

  The musty, stale air of the Gray Lands suddenly began to spin in a twister, carrying the dust up to the leaden skies and with a powerful burst struck me in the back. The black steed bucked and reared up on his hind legs, Eid’s black cape began flapping like a pair of wings and I, carried by the wind, couldn’t help but take a step, then another and another until I was hurrying in the direction nature wished me to go.

  I sang of the wind of travels and the wind led us along the lifeless world. Although, I guess it wasn’t quite so lifeless. Souls began to gather around us. Some of them, like the Salamander King earlier, could lift their heads only with great difficulty; others looked quite lively—if this word even applies to bodiless spirits. Humans, trolls, minotaurs, elves, sirens...Dozens, then hundreds of souls drifted to the source of the sound and followed in our steps. The wind, tearing at our capes, tussling our hair, pushing at our backs, passed through the ghosts surrounding us. Not a single burst bothered the shades of the departed.

  When the last sounds of my song had ended, the earlier silence did not return. The wind howled frantically and desperately like some living creature. Perhaps it too was locked in this place like the other souls? There are natural spirits too after all. Perhaps this wind was one of them? It roves about, desperately trying to break out to the world of the living...

  Whatever it was, the wind stubbornly pushed us along a course known to it alone. We walked, no, we almost ran past transparent castles and cities, ruined masterpieces. And the host of souls followed behind us. The sight was both impressive and slightly creepy. Eid’s words about how many of the souls yearn to escape the Gray Lands along the ways that bards open for them, surfaced in my mind. It follows that as soon as I open the Gate, all the souls will try to burst through it?

  These troubling thoughts hounded me until the moment we reached the Gate. Though to be honest, I didn’t see any Gate at all at first. All of my attention had been fixed on the mountain. That’s right. A true mountain, about one and a half kilometers tall, complete with wooded slopes and a plateau where its peak would have been. Its majestic silhouette came gradually into focus as we approached and we soon found ourselves at the foot of this colossus. The wind gave me one last shove in my back as if saying goodbye, rustled the leaves and fell still.

  I stood with my head tipped back looking up and starting to suspect that the mysterious Gate was right there on top of that plateau. Am I really going to have to climb up there? The very thought of climbing that high made me forget all about the retinue of hundreds of souls following our party. They, however, did not forget about me.

  “Take me with you...” said some suspicious lady quietly and mournfully. Her long hair dragged along the gray ground behind her like a forgotten bridal gown.

  Something about her appearance suggested pernicious witchcraft. Considering that in Barliona, the NPC’s appearance almost always corresponded to their character, I was reluctant to take on a companion like this. She’d boil me in a cauldron the first chance she got and then have a nice vegetable broth for supper.

  “You must lead me to Barliona!” demanded an opulent man in a mighty, impatient voice that brooked no objections. With his sable cape and overwrought crown, this one would make Sauron weep in envy. “Lead me from this place and I shall tell you where my riches are buried!”

  Quest available: Return of a King.

  Description: The soul of a deceased ruler wishes you to lead it from the Gray Lands and to Barliona. Quest type: Unique. Reward for completion: Hidden.

  “What do you need riches for when I can offer you secret wisdom!” interrupted a gaunt, sharp-nosed spirit in a long cloak. The winding staff in his bony fingers was crowned with a crystal—in which a face, distorted from suffering, flashed for an instant. The instant passed and the crystal’s surface regained its pristine stillness, yet the icy hand of fear had gripped my heart.

  “Help me pass the Gate,” the warlock went on smoothly, “and I shall teach you a spell of unimaginable power!”

  Quest available: Unlocking the Warlock.

  Description: The warlock’s soul wishes to pass through the Gate from the Gray Lands. Quest type: Unique. Reward for completion: Hidden.

  “Don’t listen to them!” popped up a mighty knight in plate armor. For whatever reason, I realized instantly that I was looking at a paladin. “These are dark creatures who wish to feast on the living, stripping their vitality. If you revere the Blessed Eluna, hallowed be her visage, help her true defender leave this place for a little while to complete a duty I have been charged with. My enemy has not been vanquished and that means the commoners are in peril!”

  Quest available: A Soul’s Debt.

  Description: The paladin’s soul wants you to lead it from the Gray Lands to Barliona to
help it complete a task. Quest type: Unique. Reward for completion: Hidden.

  “Save me!”

  “Take me!”

  “No, me!”

  There were so many voices that they merged into one general clamor. Pleas, threats, promises, orders, exhortations—my head was simply cracking from this din. Kings, emperors, counts and dukes, heroes, villains, saviors and traitors—human memory turned out to be very inventive indeed. I couldn’t see a single peasant or laborer among this crowd. They’re not frequently the subjects of ballads.

  Quest available: ...

  Quest available: ...

  Quest available: ...

  Hah! At this rate, I could start a soul delivery service in Barliona. I’d have it all: treasures, rare spells, ancient wisdoms. I could even start to hold auctions...

  This last reverie was dispelled by the weeping voice of a child that pierced the crowd’s babble.

  “Take me to my mother...”

  The little voice sounded so pitiful that I couldn’t help but start. A girl of about six was smearing her tears down her cheeks with her knuckles.

  “I want to see my mommy! This place is terrible and someone scary keeps calling my name...”

  My heart sank from pity. I told myself that this was only an NPC, a simple script, but the face of the bawling, lost child suppressed every thought. Had I the opportunity, I would stick the dev who’d come up with this scenario here and forced him to listen to this child’s crying all eternity. What kind of sadist places a child’s soul in a place like this?

  “Come here, little one,” I called her, not entirely sure what I had to do.

  The girl approached me haltingly. She looked neither like a princess nor a heroine of legend. She wore simple clothes and had ribbons tied around the little ponytails that stuck out from her hair. Her feet were bare. Most likely she was a peasant child that died recently and was languishing in this place on the strength of her loved ones’ memories. I reached out my hands to hug and console the poor girl, but they merely passed through her ghostly body. What a bunch of bastards, those devs!

  “Will you take me from here? To my mommy?” the girl asked. I could only look at her at a loss.

  What do I say? That I already made a promise to another? That even if I lead her out of this place, it’ll be temporarily? That I doubt I’d be able to locate her mother?

  “Of course she will, darling,” the Salamander King interrupted my futile brainstorm. He squatted down next to the girl and flashed her an encouraging smile. “We can’t leave a little one like you without some kind of supervision. And I just remembered that I have some very important business to take care of here.”

  I watched Salamander silently, understanding that neither one of us could permit ourselves another course of action. I would have started crying, yet Barliona doesn’t have that feature for players. And this amounts to perversity on the part of the developers: The souls of children wander the land of the dead, but a player can’t express her sadness.

  I could kill those devs...

  The soul of the Salamander King looked on me with an approving smile. I think he was even happy to do this kind deed.

  “I’ll take you with me, little one,” I promised, paying no attention to the displeased murmur of the rest of the souls gathered around us. “But I doubt I can bring you to your mother right away. I live very far from her.”

  I could say that again. Without even trying to guess which continent the girl’s mom lived on, I could confidently assume that she wasn’t in the Hidden Forest. And even if I ever make it out beyond the Arras, human settlements are off limits to me. Those who’ve aligned themselves with Shadow have a negative rep with all of the other Empires. They’d kill me before I could explain what I wanted. I wonder what happens to a soul I’ve summoned in that case...

  “Where do you live, lady?” the girl looked up at me with her little, gray, tear-streaked face. Although, it was already not as gray as before. Like the Salamander King, she was regaining her faded colors.

  “In a magical forest,” I smiled, deciding to stay quiet about the blighted beasts, Geranika’s Shadow and the further wonders of our lovely biome. Not right now.

  Now I could even embrace the girl. It was a strange feeling—like touching a hollow plastic doll. A little elastic and pliant, not cold and not warm. Not living. The plague take those devs.

  “Oh, you’re so warm.” The girl shut her eyes blissfully and pressed herself to me tighter. “It’s like I’m back home, asleep in my warm bed.”

  This memory caused her to start weeping again quietly, while I again cursed the sadist who’d come up with this scenario. I’ll never set foot in the Gray Lands again, or I’ll end up spending my entire gaming life pointlessly rescuing little ones from this purgatory. And the system will just generate new ones and new ones...

  Salamander sat beside the girl quietly, stroking her hair in silence. It seemed that Eid was the only one entirely unaffected by what was happening. The instrument soul stood apart, holding his steed and observing the unfolding events with the impassiveness of a theater director who had seen the scene before him hundreds of times. Then again, what else can you expect from a 12-string guitar?

  The other spirits, meanwhile, refused to calm down: some were appealing to my pity, some were talking about the legions of orphans wandering Barliona, others were promising all the world’s riches, and I barely managed to keep up with all the quests I kept having to decline. The reward always remained hidden, so even if the Salamander King and the little girl hadn’t been here, it would’ve been worth it to think well before agreeing to any of these offers.

  “I hope you will be able to make it out without any problems,” said Salamander, ignoring the pleas of the spirits around us. “Let me know if I can be of help somehow. Maybe, I will be able to perform one last good deed.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said mutely, mouthing the words.

  But Salamander understood and smiled happily in reply.

  “I would not have it any other way!”

  Eid snorted contemptuously.

  “You are making a very foolish decision, bard. Giving up the presents, powers and knowledge offered you in order to help some snot-nosed orphan? What kind of help is it anyway? You won’t bring her back to life, Lorelei. That’s not within your power. She will be nothing but a soul, rejected by Barliona, and she will exist solely as a parasite to your own powers. What use is she to you? She cannot help you in battle. She won’t teach you anything. She won’t even be able to reward you for your service.”

  My mind agreed with Eid’s callous but reasonable words. Instead of taking a risk and choosing one of the souls that had offered me something enticing, I was about to play babysitter to an ordinary NPC who was a dime a dozen in any rural village. I could at least write a song about the Salamander King, but what could I do with the little one? No one cares about some banal ‘tearful’ tale about a dead peasant girl—doesn’t matter how you dress it up. There’d be no profit in it.

  The girl began to shift in my arms, she looked up at me with her bright eyes and gave me a look of such limitless trust that all my rationalization dissolved into nothing but a litany of empty arguments. My heart stubbornly repeated that I had to live according to my conscience instead of for gain. If I wanted profit, I’d be better off playing in the stock market instead of a virtual world.

  “I’ll speak with Astilba. I believe she is close to inventing a ritual that returns a soul to its body...”

  “The Sixth won’t waste time and energy on some human child!” Eid cut me off sternly. The Nazgûl guise I had created for him really fit him to a T at the moment. “This girl is no one. Dust under our feet. An empty waste of talent and effort. You have potential, Lorelei. You can achieve great things. You feel music and you know how to weave magic with it. You could reach the heights of Cypro one day, if you had the ambition. But you are throwing it all away for this little girl!”

  The spirit shamelessly jab
bed his finger in the direction of the quiet child.

  “You have no heart!” the Salamander King roared, jumping to his feet.

  “I do not,” Eid agreed. “And I never did. My luthier created me perfectly, without any of the weaknesses that afflict you lot. I am created for true grandeur, not for languishing in the company of the wretched who are unable to realize and nurture their potential. I want you to know, Lorelei, that if you decide to follow the path of pointless pity, then at the end of this journey you won’t be able to pull a single note out of me.”

  I paused to think here. And I thought hard. It would be stupid to decline a legendary instrument. And stupider still to decline the equivalent of my guitar synth, which I so missed here in Barliona. And on top of it all I would throw it all away for a social quest which I probably wouldn’t even be able to complete.

  I cast a long look at the girl and sighed heavily. I’ve lived a fool’s life so I guess I’ll die a fool’s death too.

  “In that case, you’ll just have to go on gathering dust in Astilba’s closet. Master Pirus makes wonderful instruments. I imagine I’ll be able to find something to my liking when I get out of here.”

  Eid’s smirk gave way to utter disappointment. Well...who cares. At least the Salamander King looked at me with evident approval. But of course—senselessly heroic deeds are just his thing. I guess he decided that he’s found a kindred soul in me. How does that proverb go? A fool knows a fool from afar. Or was it something else...?

  My ruminations were interrupted by the hiss of Salamander’s sword leaving its scabbard. I followed the spirit’s eyes—and was struck numb.

  The cause of this hostile and threatening act by Salamander was the appearance of a new individual. Then again, I’m not sure that the eight eyes crowning the thorax of this creature qualified it for the term individual. Due to the nature of the local atmosphere, which permitted the eye to see only up to a certain point, the tarantula’s immense silhouette came into focus only gradually. It was about ten meters tall and just as gray as the surrounding world, yet I could discern a slightly darker pattern on its belly and paws. Spiders have never scared me. One time I’d even held a large bird spider in my hand. But seeing a creature the size of a small townhouse, I experienced an intense spasm of xenophobia mixed with arachnophobia.