11 The Shadow Twins

Lorn took a few steps backward from an aggressive looking Yaldo. ‘We’ve lost him,’ she whispered to the shraed.

That was always going to happen, his voice replied in her mind. He was never meant to survive; doomed from the day he was born.

‘I don’t accept that.’ Lorn didn’t like the idea of fate, of one’s destiny being set right from the start. She rebelled against it on instinct.

The souleater lurched towards her, appearing unused to his new body.

‘Yaldo,’ she said, hoping there might be something of the boy’s soul left within the creature. ‘I’m Lorn, remember? Do you remember, Aiyana? She’s fighting for you, Yaldo. Please, remember!’

The souleater paused, seeming uncertain, and then it glanced back at the throne and the writhing presence occupying it. The newborn eater then continued to advance, and its mouths opened wide, its main jaws dislocating as they encompassed the entire face.

Lorn felt herself being torn apart. A tremendous force ripped at her mind and soul, and she knew that this death, if it could be called such, was final.

A billowing darkness left her, and she felt the absence like losing a warm coat on a winter’s day. But Axiom hadn’t abandoned her as she might have expected. Instead, he blocked the souleater’s attack, lunging at what had once been Yaldo.

The shraed managed to partially manifest in solid form, and he collided with the souleater. They fell to the floor in a writhing mass of snarling limbs, dark wings, and vapours.

Lorn collapsed to her knees. That short attack by Yaldo had been enough to weaken her. She couldn’t flee, the voices holding her fast. The battle between souleater and shraed was vicious and close quarter, but she could tell that Axiom would lose.

It was then she spotted something. Those geometric shapes she’d seen before, within Yaldo, were visible again, this time beneath the skin of the souleater. They glowed with power. Axiom managed to hurl the creature into the nearest wall, crushing several of the watching faces, which screamed in agony.

The shraed followed up with a series of powerful attacks, wings fanning into the distance as he grew larger.

What had once been Yaldo, suffered these assaults, but seemed no worse for wear. Was it possible to kill one of these things? Another question she should’ve asked when she’d had the chance.

As the souleater fought back, a script formed along its body, from head to feet. Geometric in form, Lorn realised they were letters of a sort.

Of course, she thought. How could I have been so stupid?

She’d found the List of Souls.

***

LORN LARTHUZ STARED at the writing, and noted it changing form at regular intervals, each glowing shape morphing into another. Yet, it wasn’t chaotic. As she stared at it, she began to see a pattern.

She felt confused; why had she come to steal a list they’d already possessed? Yaldo had not been in the Primordial’s power until ...

She’d been tricked! Maybe they all been. The souleaters had never possessed the List of Souls. Instead, Lorn and the others had brought it right to them.

The Primordial didn’t intervene as shraed and souleater fought. It seemed to be watching, and she guessed the ancient creature wasn’t present in either version of Tharaxis. It was somewhere beyond reach, trying to influence events from a position of safety. It sought to draw Yaldo to it, and the list along with him. This was a trap.

‘You cannot win, thief,’ the Primordial said, its voice soulless, a thousand voices speaking as one. ‘You should flee. My children are hungry, and I do like to feed them.’

The whispers around her intensified, but Lorn sensed there was a second pattern beneath the one the Primordial used in speaking to her. She strained to hear it, and then she realised they were speaking to her separately. The faces on temple walls.

See him! they whispered, their voices unified, and yet different from the Primordial’s. See his soul! Over and over, the same words. Lorn struggled to understand what they meant. She could see Yaldo, and she saw the glowing script that was the list. Then she felt something change in her as her sight focused, the whispers guiding her.

Beneath the thrashing form of the souleater as it fought Axiom, she saw him.

A little boy, terrified, and weeping. What was more, she saw that the list was somehow connected to his little soul, and not the souleater he was becoming. He wasn’t fully one of them, but he was on the brink. His soul did not have long.

Free him! the whispers commanded, and then she heard the Primordial hiss in anger.

The faces on the walls burst into flame, and a cacophony of screams filled her head. Fire consumed the walls of the temple, but they also freed her.

She stumbled forwards, half-eyeing the Primordial who seemed unable or unwilling to interfere in person. She could now see a veil, like a thin sheet of silk, between them. The Primordial had thinned the border between Tharaxis and wherever it resided.

Axiom’s form had become a black writhing nest of snakes, and they bit the souleater incessantly while the shraeds wings, ethereal like smoke, expanded and enveloped the long-limbed creature. The shraed was trying to burn its opponent to ash. In turn, she saw the souleater inhaling Axiom’s essence, and she knew they were destroying each another.

The sound of another battle came from inside the temple behind her. She thought she heard Aiyana shouting orders, and realised her allies were trying to stop the other souleaters from reaching her. The Primordial had summoned her children and Lorn didn’t have long.

She focused on the boy’s soul, instead of the script, and felt a connection. Somehow, she felt his soul, his fear, and could hear his pleas for help.

Then without fully understanding what she was doing, she drew his soul to her, as though drawing him into an embrace.

Axiom was trying to extricate himself from the battle as the souleater fed on him. As Yaldo’s soul left, however, the souleater’s body went limp.

Axiom seized his chance. He formed a large wedge-shaped blade from a dark mist, and clove the creature’s head from its shoulders. He then proceeded to hack it to pieces with apparent glee.

The Primordial’s form enlarged as the battle behind Lorn grew fiercer. The veil was also thinner now, and Lorn realised the ancient creature was trying to cross. She was going to intervene after all.

‘If you’re going to do something,’ Aiyana shouted, ‘now would be a good time.’

Yaldo had been dead before becoming a souleater, but he’d seen real and solid to her, as all the other souls had. Yet, what she had drawn from the souleater’s body was barely visible, so insubstantial she feared it might dissipate.

In his current ghostly form, Yaldo contained the List of Souls. Now the glyphs and shapes appeared more like curls of golden mist within him.

And somehow, Lorn could read the script.

‘Your eyes,’ Yaldo’s voice whispered, almost as ethereal as he had become, ‘they’re glowing ... like the sun. I miss the sun.’

My eyes? she thought. Perhaps only seconds had passed, but it felt like forever, as she stared at the script. It was making more sense to her and she found she could move the glyphs into a different order. The fight grew more intense and she heard someone scream as they were fed upon by a souleater. However, she couldn’t pay them heed. She needed to concentrate. She didn’t know what she was doing, working on instinct, but the list was here, and within reach of the Primordial who was coming for it. There was a tremendous pulsing weight emanating from the throne.

Several more of the glyphs slotted into position, spelling out something she couldn’t read, and yet she understood it. It was a portal. The list in a different order formed a doorway to ... somewhere else. The Primordial had thinned the border enough that this might work. It had to. It was all she had to work with.

The Primordial pierced the veil and the temple on that side disintegrated. On instinct, Lorn formed the axe in her hand, but it faded in seconds. Then, she recalled Yaldo words to her: ‘Pretend only works when you believe in it.’

She stared at her hand, ignoring the dark presence forming on the collapsing half of the temple, the screeching souleaters on the other. The axe formed again, and this time it had a dangerous edge to its blade. An edge so fine, it could slice through reality itself.

Because she believed.

Lorn turned and launched herself at the Primordial. She struck with her axe cutting through that ancient darkness, and was greeted by a screech so inhuman, so ancient and soulless, she knew it would have dropped a living person dead.

The veil began to reform. Lorn stood there staring as the dark form of the Primordial folded in on itself and retreated. She had no illusions that she had killed the creature. Likely, she had wounded it, but it felt good for once to fight back.

A sound caused Lorn to turn, as she let the axe vanish. A bright light burst from the core of Yaldo’s soul, and instead of crying out in pain or fear, he laughed.

For the first time since pulling Yaldo’s soul free, Lorn glanced around the temple chamber. The battle had gotten within mere feet of her. The dead of Tharaxis encircled her, brandishing all sorts of ghostly weapons and implements. Many had fallen, and several were becoming Fragmented, but the souleaters were retreating. The Fragmented went with them.

Lorn saw the faces on the wall had turned to blackened stone, but ethereal wisps had begun to leave many of them, reaching out to the glorious white light.

The souleaters abandoned the temple, fleeing. She’d done it. Not in the way she’d expected, but she’d done it.

But what is it that I have done exactly? she wondered.

The dead of Tharaxis began to appear, as it seemed the souleaters’ version of the city was melding with the original. They came in great numbers entering the temple, some through the walls, those the oldest and most insubstantial, while others came through the great doors. They all seemed animated, chatting, and laughing as they each walked up and entered the bright light. The portal now enveloped half of the chamber, the other half a smouldering ruin.

Lorn turned back to the portal and Yaldo. Within it, he was nothing more than the outline of a boy, further away than he had been. She stepped back from the intensity of the light, and a dangerous pull she was starting to feel. She didn’t want to go through it. Not yet. She could not have given a concrete reason why, but she didn’t want to let go of her former life. Something told her, an instinct perhaps, that she had more to do.

Yaldo gave her a final wave, and then turned away. The last thing she heard from him was a delighted yelp, followed by, ‘Momma, Poppa?’

Then he faded from sight.

Aiyana stepped up beside Lorn and placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘You did well. Thank you.’

Lorn didn’t reply at first, as she stared into the depths of that brightness. The stream of souls entering it seemed endless.

Eventually, she said, ‘I don’t even know what I did.’

‘You freed us.’ Aiyana smiled as Lorn turned to look at her. ‘We won’t forget you, and when your turn comes, we’ll be there waiting for you. Yaldo and I.’

Then Aiyana removed her hand from Lorn’s shoulder and turning almost invisible, she too stepped into the bright light of beyond.

Lorn stumbled back as the last of the souls flooded through the portal, and then it collapsed in an instant, winking into nothingness. Aiyana’s last words echoed in her mind, ‘...when your turn comes...’

‘She is right you know,’ said a familiar voice behind her.

Wincing, Lorn bowed her head and squeezed her eyes shut, though she knew it was a trick of her mind, for in the city of the dead, she had no eyes, no body, and yet ... she whispered, ‘Pretend only works when you believe in it.’

‘Oh, sister,’ said a second voice, this one male, ‘I do despise it when you give your pets credit. It demeans you, and me by association.’

‘Oh, brother dearest, they do so need their encouragement. Without it, they simply wither and die, and then they are of no use whatsoever. You know I do not enjoy disposing of them. A ghastly business.’

‘She’s already dead,’ the male voice pointed out.

‘Is she?’

Lorn groaned, then turned to be greeted by the most infuriating, interfering, oblivious, obnoxious, not to mention arrogant duo she’d ever known. The so-called, Shadow Twins.

Manic wore a flowing robe of red and gold over a silver tunic and breeches, the tunic glistening with gems. As ever, not a hair out of place as he smirked, almost disinterestedly, down at her. Beside him, his sister Mania wore a gold gown, inlaid with silver and bespeckled with infinitesimally tiny rubies by the thousands. Those two always liked to make a statement. All fake of course. She’s seen their true forms, which weren’t pretty.

Shraeds, and yet not. They were unlike others of their kin in the same way Axiom was.

The latter, chose this moment to approach. He must have fled to hide within the shadows at the furthest reaches of the temple chamber to escape the light. She guessed he had been expecting it. This had likely all been according to their plan.

Axiom formed a more human-like presence, though he still could not compete with the other two. She doubted anyone could.

He knelt before them and stared up at Mania. ‘I have completed my task.’

Mania smiled down at him, though there was a touch of coldness to it. Manic stalked around the temple chamber, as though bored, examining this and that. He tapped the nose of one of the stone faces on the wall.

‘I still do not know if your choice is a worthy one,’ said Mania. Lorn decided not to interrupt, though she had questions of her own. She learned that sometimes remaining quiet enabled her to learn more. Those two often liked to boast.

‘He is lost without me,’ said Axiom. ‘I need to return. To guide him.’

‘And why should you care?’ Mania demanded. ‘He is dangerous, and I cannot foresee his role in events to come. You know I do not like the unaligned.’

‘Then surely,’ Axiom argued back, though in a reverential tone, ‘my being with him, guiding him, is the better option. We were one, for so long, and though I was then mindless, he and I are still a part of each other. He is broken, and only I can make him whole.’

Mania shook her head slowly as though disappointed. ‘I don’t know if I like this, but you have done as we asked. You may go. Find Drayl, and watch him ... and Axiom?’

The lesser shraed waited patiently as Mania allowed the pause to linger. ‘Don’t let him get in our way.’

Axiom turned away, and approaching Lorn, formed a face within that dark mass, offering her a farewell smile. It was hideous to behold, but she thought it well meant and so she gave one in return. Then his form fell apart and vanished.

‘That one may yet be trouble, sister,’ said Manic as he returned to her side. ‘Their union was deadly before, but now with Axiom self-aware, it may prove catastrophic.’

Mania ignored her brother as she approached and then, knelt before Lorn. The female shraed took her hands, shocking Lorn. ‘So cold, and dead, and yet so solid and real. You are a conundrum, Lorn Larthuz. I do like those; they make the most interesting of specimens.’

‘You knew about Yaldo, didn’t you? You knew the souleaters didn’t possess the List of Souls. You lied. What I’m trying to figure out, is why?’

‘Oh, my dear, you already know why.’

And in truth, she did. ‘You wanted the List for yourselves. You two never do anything without a price attached.’ They’d manipulated her the entire time, even in death. Likely, they hadn’t known which soul had possessed it to begin with. Sending in Lorn had been their best option to retrieve it.

‘You also knew the Primordial had thinned the veil between worlds, right inside this temple. You just needed to get both me and the list here, so you could ...’

‘Save all those poor souls?’ Mania suggested. A large smouldering scroll formed in the shraed’s hand. She glanced down at it with what looked like affection. Mania then smiled. ‘Hold out your hand, dear.’

Hesitantly, Lorn obeyed. A small roll of parchment materialised in her palm, frayed at the edges, and burning.

‘You might want to smother those embers,’ Mania suggested.

Lorn did so, and then unfurled it to find her name written in a glowing script.

‘Payment for your services,’ said Mania, ‘and to show our sincerity. Your soul is yours, Lorn Larthuz. For now, at least.’

‘You just want to control all of those souls,’ said Lorn, grimacing. Was the List any safer with these two?

Manic seemed disinterested as usual. ‘My dear sister does so like her pets, and she doesn’t share well. We shall be far better guardians of that list than the former.’

‘It was necessary,’ said Mania.

‘Inevitable.’

‘Desirable.’

Lorn threw up her hands. ‘Fine, fine. What does it matter now, anyway. You’ve got what you wanted.’ And Yaldo, and those others souls, if not completely free, were at least beyond the reach of souleaters. Or so, she hoped. What worried her was that if the souls of the Spectrum were not available to the souleaters to hunt, who would they hunt instead?

‘So,’ said Mania with a slight smile at the corner of her mouth.

Lorn felt a sickening dread no soul should have to experience. She let out a groan. ‘What have you got planned for me this time?’ She said the words in a near whisper knowing full well it wasn’t going to be anything she liked.

‘It would be a shame to waste your talents when you have proven so invaluable.’

‘Useful, sister, but taxing at times.’

‘Resourceful.’

‘Insolent. I do detest such disrespect.’

They fell silent, which was unusual for them, and Lorn felt a heavy weight settling on her. ‘Just tell me, and I’ll do it.’ She let out a long weary sigh, fully cognizant of the irony of such an act. ‘It’s not like I’ve got much else to do, and Tharaxis is now empty. I can’t stay here.’

Mania sidled up to her and placed a cold arm across Lorn’s shoulders. ‘We shall be with you every step of the way my dear. It will be delightful.’

‘And dangerous,’ said Manic as he stepped closer, frowning down at Lorn as though she was a specimen he didn’t know how to categorise.

‘An adventure,’ said Mania, shooting him a warning glance for all the good it did.

‘A calamity should you fail, Lorn Larthuz. The end of all things, but then when isn’t it?’

Mania gave her shoulders a sharp squeeze. ‘But you won’t fail us my dear. You haven’t yet.’

‘What is it you want?’ she uttered in a near whisper, as she realised, she was starting to fade. They were sending her somewhere, and she doubted it was to where those other souls had gone.

‘To infiltrate,’ said Mania in her usual cryptic manner. Lorn noticed they had begun fading too, likely going with her. That was something at least. There was nothing worse than being alone.

‘To deceive,’ said her brother.

‘And ultimately to defeat,’ his sister added, ‘the Prince of Darkness.’

The temple vanished from sight, and darkness enveloped Lorn Larthuz, the last soul of Tharaxis.

––––––––

This ends

A Plagueborn Novella