Soul Weaver: A Fantasy Novel (5 page)

Shel wanted to look at the others but she felt their eyes on her. Their scrutiny was uncomfortable, and she found herself avoiding their gaze. Instead, she looked straight ahead at the tall, strange man who had rescued her from the dungeon. As she and Kal got close enough to the table, he gestured expansively to the chairs at either side. Kal took a seat to his left; Shel sat down on his right.

“Feeling better, I take it?” asked Rez, looking at her with sharp, penetrating eyes. Now that she saw them in the light, she could tell they were a light, watery blue. She must have been seeing things in the dungeon.

“Much better,” she told him guardedly. “How long was I out?”

“Through the night and half the day,” Kal answered from Rez’s other side. Shel felt a sense of friendship and support emanating from the other woman. She was glad Kal was there, even if Rez sat between them.

“I was starting to think you’d never wake up,” said Rez, leaning forward over the table and turning toward her. “Sanook swore you’d come through.”

“Sanook?”

Rez glanced up, his eyes finding the hooded man across the room. The stooped figure in his heavy robes didn’t look up, though the six men at the other table were still staring openly at the newcomer. Rez sent them a stern glance, and they went back to their drinking and laughing immediately.

“Sanook is our resident Shadowman,” Rez explained in a low tone.

Shel had been reaching for one of the pitchers to fill the goblet at her place, but her hand froze as Rez spoke. She turned to him in disbelief. “Tell me another one,” she said. “I'm not falling for it.”

Rez chuckled. “I'm quite serious,” he assured her.

“That Shadowmen are all dead,” Shel insisted. Everybody knew that. Did Rez think she was an idiot or just a silly child? “He can’t be a Shadowman.”

“Keep it down,” Rez snapped, still in that low voice. “They really don’t like being called that.”

“Oh, really?” Shel gave Rez a sardonic look. “What should I call him, then? How about boogeyman, or will-o-the-wisp?”

Rez’s lips tugged upward at the corners in an indulgent smile. “You could just call him Sanook. That’s his name, after all. Anyway, I'm afraid their name for themselves is…well, I've never been able to pronounce it correctly, anyway.”

He had been about to say something else, but changed his mind. Shel wondered what it had been, but she was far more curious about the hooded figure of the Shadowman. She wasn’t sure she believed Rez. Shadowmen were practically a myth. Everyone knew they were gone – if they had ever really existed. Theirs was a winter tribe, a dark and cold people who couldn’t live in the Long Summer. They were evil. At least, so the legends said.

“You're staring,” whispered Rez. He sounded amused.

Shel rounded on him irritably. She’d had just about enough of his smug attitude. Rez seemed to think everything was a great, big joke. He’d been that way in the dungeon, and it was the same here in the dining hall. Well it wasn’t a joke. Shadowmen! As if.

“Why don’t you tell me what I'm doing here?” she demanded angrily.

If her outburst surprised him, Rez gave no sign of it. He smiled his indulgent smile again and took a leisurely drink from his tankard. Kal leaned forward on his other side, shooting a warning glance that Shel ignored.

“Well?”

“Be easy,” Rez said, setting down his tankard. “You were unconscious. What would you have me do? Leave you behind? The Suncloaks would have you back in the dungeon in no time, and after what happened you’d have been strapped to one of their racks.”

“Yes, about that,” said Shel, snatching on the reminder of the strange magic in the torture chamber. “What did that old man do to me?”

Rez winked at her but said nothing.

“What’s she talking about?” asked Kal.

Rez frowned. “Nothing,” he said quickly. “Nothing to worry about. Our new friend is still a little shaken up, I'm sure.”

“I am
not
shaken up,” Shel started to say, raising her voice. Rez slammed a hand down on the table. The sudden, loud noise startled them all. But Rez acted as if it were a natural movement pressing down on the table to push himself up. His chair scraped back as the leader of the gang stood. He smiled down at Shel.

“Shel, why don’t you come with me?”

“I don’t want to go with you,” she said.

“That’s not what you said in the dungeons.” Turning to her, Rez allowed his stern expression to melt somewhat. “Come along, Shel. You have questions. I'll answer them, but not here. Not in front of all the others.”

“More secretes, Rez?” Kal looked up at the leader skeptically. “We're not supposed to talk to her, she’s not supposed to talk to us. You're going to have to ease up on that sometime.”

“But not today,” Rez answered smoothly. “Please, Shel. Come along.”

***

Rez took her through a smaller door at the back of the enormous dining hall. It was a narrow door and not very tall; Rez had to stoop his head to pass beneath the sharply pointed arch of the doorway. Shel followed him into a short hallway that ended in a narrow staircase. Rez went straight for the stairs and started up.

On the floor above, the stairs opened out into another short hallway with a single door opposite the stair. Rez opened the door and led Shel into a cozy room, much smaller than the dining hall but larger than the bedchamber she had woken up in.

The room was dominated by a large, sturdy desk of heavy oak. Papers, maps, and ancient leather-bound tomes lay scattered atop the desk. The most enormous man Shel had ever seen stood to one side, leaning with both hands on the desk and poring over a map. Seeing them enter, the man hastily rolled up the map and shoved it to one side before turning toward Rez and offering the suggestion of a salute.

“Rez,” the big man rumbled, then turned his large brown eyes to Shel. “She’s awake, then.”

“So she is,” said Rez, leaving Shel standing in the doorway. The leader strode across the room to a large hearth set in the far wall. He made a show of warming his hands before the fire, rubbing the palms together vigorously. As he knelt down in front of the blaze and selected two lengths of cut wood from a basket on the hearth, Shel and the giant observed each other uneasily. Once he had fed the fire, Rez straightened up and brushed his hands off against his hips as he turned back around.

“Oh, yes,” he said, snapping the fingers of one hand as if he had just remembered. Shel knew it was an act, but why? “How silly of me. Shel, this is Maul. Maul, this is Shel.”

“Hello,” said Shel into the silence that followed.

Maul scowled back at her, then turned stiffly to face Rez. “I thought we would go over the plans this afternoon,” he rumbled.

“Yes, of course.” Rez nodded with some enthusiasm. He moved to the desk and half sat on one corner, leaning his weight against the heavy slab of oak and crossing his arms over his chest. Smiling, he waited for Maul to continue.

The hulking tower of muscle and bad temper glanced irritably at Shel, then turned a pointed look back on Rez.

“Is something wrong?” asked the leader.

“I thought we would go over the plans this afternoon,” Maul repeated.

Sighing, Rez turned his attention to Shel. “Maul has no sense of humor,” he said, speaking of the giant as if he were not right there in the room with them. “He’s much too serious.”

“Should I go?” asked Shel, feeling annoyed.

“Not at all,” Rez answered immediately. Springing up from his perch on the desk, he indicated Shel with one hand but spoke to Maul. “Shel here is going to be our newest soldier.”

“She is?”

“I am?”

“She is,” said Rez, grinning. “Her old gang abandoned her.”

Shel opened her mouth, but the angry rejoinder died in her throat. They had, hadn’t they? When the Suncloaks came after her, where was Rickon then? Or West? Or any of them? Shel didn’t know what they could have done – it would have been stupid to go up against the guards. But surely they could have done something. Their jobs always relied on distractions and misdirection; surely they could have distracted the Suncloaks. They hadn’t even tried to save her.

“So you brought her here,” said Maul. His deep voice gave no indication what he thought of that.

“That’s right.” Rez dropped the insufferable grin at last, and for the first time Shel saw a serious expression on his lean, boyish features. “What do you say, Shel? Are you up for joining a new outfit? Before you answer, I should warn you that we're very different from your last gang.”

Watching Rez through narrowed eyes, Shel thought it over. They had abandoned her. She owed them nothing. Besides, if she turned up at the hideout now they would assume she had cut a deal with the Suncloaks. That was assuming they were even there. West was a sharp one. He’d make sure they found a new hiding place; one Shel didn’t know, somewhere she would never find. There was no going back.

That didn’t necessarily mean she wanted to throw in with the first gang she came across, and it certainly didn’t mean she was ready to join up with Rez. She didn’t trust the man. Honestly, she was still a little frightened of him.

Kal seemed to trust him. Though, maybe not entirely. Shel remembered the warning look the honey-haired woman had given her downstairs. And what Kal had said about secrets. Actually, that made her feel better about it. Kal obviously didn’t just follow Rez blindly, but she
did
follow him.

“All right,” Shel made up her mind. “I'm in. But…”

“But?” prompted Rez when Shel trailed off, trying to find the right words.

“But,” Shel continued, holding up a single finger to emphasize her point. “I'm not making any promises, okay? I don’t know much about you lot. Maybe when I get to know you all a little better, I stick around. But maybe I decide to strike out on my own for a bit. Fair?”

Maul’s dark scowl was terrifying, but Rez clapped his hands and broke out in another of his wide, cheerful grins.

“Suits me,” he said.

“Rez…” started Maul, but the leader waved his objection away.

“Of course,” Rez said to Shel, “you will understand if we don’t share
everything
with you before we know if you're planning to stay or go. It wouldn’t be very smart on our part to let you in on all our secrets, would it?”

“Rez…” Maul said again, shooting the much smaller man a heavy glower.

“Aemond passed to her,” said Rez. Maul reacted as if he’d been punched in the gut. The big man stepped back from the massive desk – which looked small beside him – and sat down heavily in an oversized chair pushed back against one wall. The blood drained from his face, and he slowly turned his arrow-shaped head to stare wide-eyed at Shel.

“You're sure?” he asked.

“I'm sure.”

“Sure about what?” demanded Shel, finally stepping forward into the room. “What are you two talking about?”

“Have you told Sanook?” asked Maul.

“Not yet,” said Rez with a shrug. “He'll learn of it soon enough. But now you see why I brought her back.”

Maul nodded, silently pensive. When he looked at Shel again, his entire demeanor had changed.

“Hello?” Shel crossed her arms angrily over her chest and glared at Rez. “Anyone want to fill me in?”

Ignoring her, Rez turned to the desk and took up the rolled map that Maul had shoved aside when they entered the room. He unrolled the large map, spreading it out over the desk and weighing down the corners with candlesticks. Then he leaned over the map. Glancing up, he beckoned Shel closer.

“Come here, come here,” he snapped. She went closer, and Rez stepped back to make room for her at the desk. He pointed to the map. “What do you see?”

Confused, Shel looked down at the map. She doubted it would give any of the answers she wanted. She was right. “It’s just a map of the empire,” she said.

The Great and Glorious Golden Empire of the Long Summer covered a large, irregularly shaped island continent that vaguely resembled a fat, slightly misshapen hourglass. The map Rez had spread over the table showed the entire continent and some of the surrounding sea, though it didn’t show any of the other landmasses. Cities and fortresses were marked on the map with tiny, illustrated castles. The larger the settlement, the more towers on the castle. The map also showed rivers, mountains, and forests as well as the major roads that connected the empire. It was an old map – centuries old, perhaps – but it hadn’t been marked or annotated in any way that she could see. Looking up at Rez, she shrugged.

“Am I missing something?”

“Yes and no,” said Rez with a cryptic smile. “You see what most people would. But tell me, what
is
the Great and Glorious Empire of the Long Summer?”

Shel wasn’t sure what he wanted her to say. She shrugged again. “It’s the empire,” she said. “It’s where we live. It’s the greatest civilization the world has ever known.”

“So they say,” said Rez wryly.

“The land where summer never ends,” rumbled Maul. “Where winter is banished and the cold wind never stirs.”

“What about it?” asked Shel, straightening from the table and placing her hands on her hips. She looked from Rez to Maul and back again.

“Have you never wondered how our benevolent emperor managed such a trick?” asked Rez with a reverence that was patently insincere. He threw up his arms in a mocking gesture of exaltation. “Have you never wondered what makes the Great and Glorious Empire turn?”

“No.” Shel crossed her arms, impatient with his jokes. “But I'm sure you're about to tell me.”

“Stop teasing her, Rez,” said Maul, rolling his eyes. “You're wasting time.”

Scowling, Rez dropped his arms. He liked his jokes, that was obvious, and he didn’t like being told to cut them short. He sighed, nodding his head in surrender. “Fine,” he said.

“You're right. Okay, Shel, here’s the truth. The Empire runs on souls. Our benevolent master is the greatest Soulweaver who ever lived, and he’s been living for quite a while. He may be a thousand years old. No one knows for sure. It’s his magic that keeps the cold wind at bay. But think on this: how many souls must a man possess to exert dominance over the turning seasons? How many lives must be emptied to feed and preserve his power?”