Lord of Darkness and Shadow: Chronicles of the Shadow Book One is out now - www.RDBooks.org.uk

By Darren Reid

In addition to the main books in the series, a short story from the Chronicles of the shadow freely available here.  Darren Reid (c)2006

Prophets of the Shadow

(From the Chronicles of the Shadow)

by Darren Reid

(c)2006 Darren Reid - Do not redistribute this story without the express written consent of the author

Had it not been for the light rain that had begun only a few moments before Alamin would have called the night more or less perfect. Even the light shower of rain coming down was not enough to altogether make the evening unpleasant, merely not perfect. Relaxing back on his haunches, in spite of the unpleasant turn the weather had taken, Alamin allowed his mind to drift over the nights preceding events. No, the haul had not been a particularly bad one tonight, and considering the problems they had had in the past; the all too recent past, it was better than he could have hoped. Absently Alamin began calculating the share to be split between himself and his two accomplices.

Accomplice was perhaps too good a word to use for the two women that were sitting on the damp grass at either side of him. Alamin preferred whore, although he would never call the girls that to their faces. And technically they didn't sleep with the men they swindled. But still, whore seemed quite good enough for him to use. Sitting to his left, Alieice allowed her head to lull back and embrace the gently falling rain which, in turn, caressed its self over her strangely pale skin and deep red lips. She was beautiful alright, but not in a conventional way. The way her nose, too prominent for her own good, seemed to meld seamlessly into her overly high cheek bones. Her long black hair which fell ruggedly away from her face as she leaned further back, bathing in the soft autumn shower. In her there was something…unique and evasive; utterly captivating.

To Alamin's other side he could hear Beth exhaling air in what he had no doubt was a pout. She hated the forest; could not see the necessity of escaping from the city after their weekly business trips. What was worse, in Alamin's eyes at least, was that she didn't get what it meant to be out here. Free of the twisted and hypocritical city life he was otherwise forced to live. The constant stench of over crowded streets, the mingling of human sweat and odours; even the thought made Alamin's stomach crawl.

The forest, if the small stretch of trees to the east of the Sapphire Coast could be called that, was not a great deal better than the city in many respects. There was not a single place on this whole dammed planet anyone could run to escape the always half present smell of old sulphur in the air. Even the light shower that was issuing down around Alamin and his party did little to relieve the ever-present smell. At the very least, Alamin no longer noticed the smell as much as he had when he first found himself on Enthura. Although he supposed he would never truly get used to it, certainly not in the same way those born on this planet seemed to. At least it was not mingling with the stench of the city, not out here.

To one side, Alamin's second accomplice Beth let out another long sigh, exaggerated and loud to be heard over the gentle shower that threatened, but never succeeded in moving Enthura's natural odour from Alamin's nostrils. There were days where he thought he could throttle Beth for her petulance, but what could he do?

Certainly he could not get rid of her. Glancing out of the corner of his eye, he watched as the rain, now a bit heavier, was caressing its self over Beth's obvious and stunning curves. Like Alieice, she was beautiful. Unlike the other, her beauty was far more obvious, skin deep rather than a challenge for a man to unravel. Still, it mattered little, really. So long as the job got done, that was all that mattered in the end. Alamin had made a great deal of money from these two women but he needed a great deal more if he was to ever afford the voyage off of Enthura.

Crushing the thought as soon as it appeared, Alamin launched himself to his feet. No point on pondering the future until he had the money to afford such luxuries. But once he had made his money…then his imagination would be set loose.

From the small clearing in which Alamin and his accomplices now rested the distant sounds of Sapphire Coast could be heard with not a little effort. The sound was that of distant machinery that never slept, the movement of pistons and motors; those in transport modules as well as in the massive factories that dominated the skyline of Sapphire Coast . Even here, in this small oasis, it was impossible to escape the ever present sound of machinery and industrialisation that marked Enthura so well. And the ever present smell, lest that be forgotten.

Once on his feet, Alamin spared a hasty glance around himself. The clearing was hemmed in by trees in all directions. Alamin had heard somewhere, he could not remember where, that this forest had been terra-formed with original trees from Earth. Alamin could hardly imagine it; especially considering the aggressiveness of the plant life indigenous to Enthura. And yet, here he stood, surrounded by a copse of narrow trees covered in thick, luscious green leaves only starting to grow brown for the encroaching winter. No tanglewood here, no sir. Not a single moving branch or blood red leaf to be found. Yes, Alamin had found himself a little piece of Earth. Absently he began to consider how few actual examples of what Earth had been like must still exist. Most plant life, and humans themselves for that matter, were changed by the new worlds they lived upon. Maybe not physically, at least in the case of humans, but mentally there was no doubt. No one who had met an Amaralian or an Enthurian could dispute their fundamentally different attitudes and outlook upon all things.

And yet, what did it matter, really? Earth was long gone, the shadow of a memory. Except here, in this little corner of Enthura, Earth lived, if only among these few trees. And not forgetting the two whores relaxing on the rain soaked grass and their pimp. Without thought, Alamin clasped a hand over his mouth, suppressing a burst of laughter he felt down to the bottom of his gut; what better analogy existed for humanity?

“Alamin!” a perfectly effeminate voice picked up behind him, “I'm talking to you!”

Running a hand through his long, brown hair as he turned, Alamin favoured Beth with curt smile. He would use her to make his money but he wouldn't like it.

“Beth my dear, what ever can be the problem on a night as perfect as this one?” His tone was pleasant, even his face displayed good humour, but Alamin made certain there was at least a hint of displeasure and exasperation in his words.

“I'm freezing is what the problem is! I hate this place and want to go back to my apartment!”

“Beth, Beth, Beth, we've been over this a million times…”

Before Alamin could continue Alieice began to bubble over with laughter, her head still thrown back in wild abandon, her face looking upwards invitingly towards the night's sky and the rain pouring down upon her.

“Fuck you,” Beth spat, the word and tone contrasting clearly with her otherwise perfect appearance. The curse only served to increase the hilarity of the situation for Alieice however. Poor Alieice.

“And this bitch,” Beth ranted, “is so doped out of her eye balls most of the time that when you can get any sound out of her at all, it's this God dammed laughter!”

Alamin spared Alieice a glance. Well, she was doped out of her eye balls, no denying it, but if that's how she chose to spend her hard earned cash, then so be it. It mattered not to Alamin.

“Star light,” Alieice began to sing tunelessly under her breath, “makes me alright.” Definitely tuneless, although Alamin had no doubt that in Alieice's head the music was blasting out in unbelievable layers of complexity. Poor Alieice indeed.

“Calm down Beth,” Alamin tried to begin. Before he had finished uttering those words Beth had pulled herself to her feet roughly, cold fury painted on her face.

“To hell with your ‘calm down'!”

Without warning Alamin threw an open hand at Beth, slapping her painfully across the face. The cold snapping sound the action caused echoed dully around the small clearing, merging with and enhancing the sound of Alieice's continued laughter.

Looking hurt, Beth raised a shaking hand to her recently slapped cheek and rubbed it. Her mouth was opening, the half formed word she had been about to say when Alamin slapped her still on her lips. Her wide, blue eyes looked up and into Alamin's grey ones. A rush of emotions covered Beth's face; anger, hurt, but all faded away to quiet acquiescence. Good. Alamin had feared another outburst at the slap; quite unintentional as it was, but it appeared to have worked. Perfect.

Beth regarded Alamin through a mixture of tears and cold hearted fury. How dare he slap her! No, he didn't just slap her, he made her degrade herself, wait out in this freezing forest where, if it was possible, the planet's smell was stronger! Take her back to Sapphire Coast , let the stinking, oozing pollution that poured from that place cover this planet's stench!

With no small amount of effort Beth suppressed the urge to burst into tears. She would not give him that satisfaction. Alamin was standing perfectly still before her. His chubby, sun reddened face framed by hair that was long over due a cut. His pale grey eyes seemed to glow in the light thrown off by Enthura's distant moons. A long moment drew out between the pair as Beth continued to throw daggers at Alamin with her tear swelled eyes. Finally a sudden reenergised burst of laughter from Alieice broke the moment, drawing Alamin's empty grey eyes away from her own.

“Moons and stars, stars and moons!” Alieice cried out with delirious abandon. His face set in a mask of determination, Alamin stepped directly over to where Alieice lay. Pausing when he reached her, Alamin spared a moment to take in all of Alieice's enchanting figure. The skin tight white jump suit she wore reflected vividly in the moons light, perfectly highlighting her long legs and full hips. The moment of adoration completed, Alamin turned his darkly angered face upon Alieice.

“Shut the hell up you crazy, crazy bitch.”

“Moons and stars! Don't you see them?” Alieice asked with childlike naivety.

“I said, shut the hell up.” Alamin spoke slow and deliberately, taking great care to form every word he spoke and keep an even tone. It mattered little, as far as Alieice was concerned he may have just told her to continue.

“But the moons…the stars!”

Suddenly and without warning Alamin lunged downwards, wrapping a fist around a loose stretch of material under Alieice's neck. With a single, violent pull, Alamin had dragged Alieice to her feet. Head lulling without control from side to side, it took Alieice a moment to comprehend what was happening to her. Even when her eyes did finally focus upon Alamin's own, she still seemed not to know what was actually happening.

“Oh,” she said in falsely sugar-sweet tones, “hello Alamin.”

Reacting as much to the anger Beth had instilled in him as to Alieice's own intolerably delirious state, Alamin raised his free arm above his head, hand spread for a readied slap. Beth watched this unfold in a kind of disbelieving haze. Who was he to slap Alieice? The thought embarrassed Beth as soon as it entered her head; she had slapped Alieice enough times when she was high on stardust before. But this was different. Without thought, or at least, without much thought, Beth made to stop Alamin before he struck Alieice. When Alieice finally sobered up she would know she had been slapped, from the bruise on her face if nothing else, but in her present state she would have no memory of how it had happened.

Before Beth could take a step, before Alamin had had a chance to fully raise his hand, a strong gust of wind blew through the small clearing. Usually nothing that Beth would have noticed normally, but tonight her head snapped quickly to the direction from which it had come.

The trees she could see now were mostly hidden behind a curtain of darkness. Only those closest to her were visible in the pale moons' light, and even those were half obscured in their own shadows. Twisting branches reached out towards her like gnarled fingers; once the trees of Earth, or so her father had told her when they had moved here in her childhood, the trees had become twisted and grotesque. At least that was what Beth had always hoped. She prayed that this was not the best Earth had had to offer.

Between two of the trees a strange prick of light had appeared, glowing brighter and becoming more visible. Not distant or deep into the forest, but small and drifting weightlessly between the trees. And it was growing.

Beth was captivated by the light, a strange greenish glow the size of a coin. Now the size of a fist, it illuminated the twisted descendents of oak trees at either of its sides. Somewhere at the back of her awareness Beth heard Alamin slap Alieice. It was a hollow, primal sound that echoed through the clearing. In answer Alieice howled more laughter and gibberish about the stars, always about the stars.

It didn't matter what that crazy bitch was babbling about, or what Alamin was doing to her, not to Beth, not anymore. The light was utterly captivating.

Only it wasn't light, not really. It had been, or at least it had looked like a glowing ball but now it looked unmistakable in the night sky; it was a tear. A tear in what, Beth could never have guessed but, none-the-less, she knew it for what it was. Before her a tear had appeared in…in what? The air? The world she supposed. Only it was more than that, more by far and Beth knew it.

What had begun as a small glowing ball of light had now began to alter its shape. Something was protruding out of the no-space between the two oak tree descendents, something bestial. Only the shape wasn't that vague, was it? No, not after a moment. After a moment Beth could clearly make out the shape of a horses head emerging from the tear, from the no-space. Only it didn't take on any features of a horse, instead it was as if what should have been there; the view of trees and darkness and old blowing leaves, had become its skin. The view of the forest appeared to have wrapped its self around the emerging figure of the horse. When the horse moved further out of the no-space between the trees the view which had attached its self moved with it, like a skin it fitted quite naturally around the horse-like creature.

The horse, painted with the scenery of the forest, had moved its head and front legs out of the tear before Beth registered the true horror of the sight before her. All at once Beth felt her legs begin to give way beneath her. They didn't, but it took all Beth had not to collapse on the floor of the forest clearing. A scream got caught in the back of her throat. All that escaped was a single, muffled cry, barely audible even to her.

But the image still kept on coming.

The horse, or whatever it was, was not exiting where-ever it was coming from of its own accord. No, as the horse moved outwards a second image, this one mounted upon the best began to resolve it's self in front of Beth. Where the horse had taken the scenery around it for a skin, its rider required no such concession. Sitting atop the horse was a figure, clad from the neck down in armour. Metal disks overlapped one another and as the rider made even the slightest movement, the disks slid over and under one another, eliciting a sound like sharpening knives.

Most terrifying of all, at least to Beth, was the helmet the rider wore. Carved or moulded, Beth could not tell which, was the head of a wolf, caught snarling. Its eyes were wide and hollow, revealing the rider, the true rider's eyes somewhere behind the mask. Opaque black opals shined from somewhere behind that awful mask. Black pearls that never moved their sight from Beth.

For the first time in the long moment since the horse and rider had emerged from the darkness Beth became aware of Alamin and Alieice. Alieice's laughter had stopped and instead she was taking large, panicked gasps of air. Was Alamin choking her? Did it matter if he was? The answer to both of these she already knew to be no. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Alamin still watching Alieice, the look of anger on his face being replaced by exasperation. With no small amount of effort, Beth was sure, Alieice raised a single shaking hand into the air and pointed outwards with one long finger towards the Wolf-rider that had just emerged from the darkness of the trees.

Alamin pivoted on his heel, eager for the business of the night to be done. The sight laid out before him gave pause to any thoughts he may have been entertaining. The rider gave his horse a gentle kick, urging it a few steps forward. Locked behind its helmet, two black eyes stared out at Alamin and his associates. Without warning, the wolf shaped helmet shifted slightly to one side and then the other, its snout sniffing the air. Between the moulded steel teeth a long metallic tongue licked its salivating chops. The eyes behind the helmet never moved. Even as the wolf helmet looked around its self, those black opals never lost sight of the Alamin, never lost sight of the girls. Alamin could feel the pit of his stomach dropping out from beneath him.

Cold sweats broke out over Alieice's face. This couldn't be happening. Of course not! Stardust! But even as the thought occurred to her she dismissed it. This wasn't stardust and she'd be dammed if Alamin and Beth weren't looking at exactly the same sight she was.

“What the hell is this?” Alamin finally got out, his words tripping over each other and not spoken with any real conviction. A cold shiver was passing through his spine. Beth raised both her hands to her cheeks, not feeling how hot one of them had become since Alamin struck her. She tried to scream, tried to scream loud, but nothing escaped her mouth.

To her left Alamin took a few steps forward, his eyes wide and mouth hanging open. The snarling mask worn by the rider turned its full attention to him, black opal eyes and everything. Even by the pale moons light Beth could see that the colour had drained from Alamin's face, imagined she would not likely look much better at the present moment. But there was something about the look Alamin wore, twisted by fear as it was. Determination, maybe anger. Maybe both? Beth turned to her associate, mouth wide she tried to scream, tried to tell him no, leave the creature be, but nothing came out but the smallest of squeaks followed by tears she made no effort to hide.

“I said…” Alamin seemed to struggle with his own words and thoughts, wrestling with them to make sense, “…what the hell are you?”

No response from the rider. Just an empty huff from the horse.

“Well?” Alamin finally struggled out, now only a few feet from the rider, “No answer? You want our money is that it? Trying to scare us into handing it over? I don't give a fuck what…”

With lightning speed, the rider leaned forward on his mount, the helmet atop his head instinctively opening its jaws, clamping them around Alamin's head. With a single jerk, from the helmet, not the rider, Alamin's head was torn clean from his body. For a moment the rider stayed hunched forward with Alamin's head trapped between his jaws. A moment passed before Alamin's decapitated body dropped to the soft, rain soaked floor of the forest clearing. This time Beth, and Alieice with her, had no trouble in sounding the screams they felt welling in every inch of themselves.

The rider remained hunched forward as the body fell, only moving again when it finally came to rest by the hooves of his mount. In a single, fluid motion the rider sat up straight in his saddle, the helmet he wore almost absently turning to one side and spitting out the head it had carried. Beth and Alieice screamed until they could scream no more, the rider before them content to wait them out.

It was Alieice who was last to stop screaming. Long lines of mascara were now smeared down her cheeks where she had begun to cry. When finally the clearing had fallen silent, the rider before then kicked his mount a few steps further forward.

Only a few feet away now, Beth could smell a bland mix of damp and grass emanating from the rider. Its eyes, those terrible black pearls, seemed to shift in the recess of the helmet looking first from Beth to Alieice and back again. Beth couldn't be sure, but the corners of the helmet's mouth seemed to twitch slightly at the two women. Was it smiling?

Long moments of silence passed as the masked rider looked both women up and down. The wait, the silence, was torturous most of all; terrible to the point that Beth could feel her lungs filling up, ready to ask…what? She hadn't a clue, but anything to break the unearthly silence this rider brought with him!

“Speak not,” the rider said before Beth could even consider the words to say, “Move not. Listen only to me.”

The voice was that of a man, deep and husky with just a hint of a growl behind it. At once Beth let out the air she had been holding in her lungs, any thought of speaking having long since left her.

“I bring you tidings…and good fortune.” The last was spoken as the black eyes of the rider glanced to one side, through his helmet, towards to the head of Alamin. Beth could feel an urge to scream again building up in her. He had ripped Alamin's head clean off! Well, not exactly clean, but the head was undeniably and irreversibly removed from its former body. Eyes turning back to the two women before him, the rider continued.

“The Shadow has returned, the tower that eats souls has its master and humanity will no longer burn. You two I charge with spreading these tidings, I charge with being the fore bearers of the Shadow's truth. Spread the word of the Lord of the Shadow, spread the truth of the Master of Darkness.”

It was a long moment before Beth could work enough moisture into her mouth to speak. The rider's nearly incomprehensible babble was washing over her. Who the fuck was the Master of Darkness? More to the point why should she care?

“We…”Beth began, her throat croaking and breaking as she tried to continue, “We do not know any…Lord of the Shadow…we don't understand.” To her side Alieice was nodding in panicked agreement.

From deep in the wolf moulded helmet the creature that wore it began a sickening, twisted laugh.

“Of course you don't, which is why I have come to teach you. You will learn the word and you will spread it, messengers of the Shadow, prophets of the force that now binds all of humanity together. I bring good tidings.” Beth couldn't be sure but the last sounded more of a question than a comment. Not the sort of question anyone would want answered, rather a way of phrasing matters of undeniable fact. He did bring good tidings is what such a question meant.

Darkness and shadow, shadow and darkness. Surely these weren't good tidings. Brought by a messenger that decapitated Alamin no less!

“You fret over the dead one? The one who assaulted you this very night and you think the darkness I speak of is anything less than a light too bright to be gazed upon by mortal eyes.”

The breath caught in Beth's mouth. She hadn't spoken, had she? Of course not! Alieice was now staring at her, her eyes a mix of stardust high and sober consciousness, fear painted her normally beautiful features. Beth looked first at Alieice's shocked and horrified features and then back at the rider. The wolf mask was now staring at her and there was no denying that it was smiling now.

“We hear much and see further,” the voice from inside the helmet spoke in commanding but not entirely aggressive tones. “Let that be your first lesson. Your second lesson you should pay the most heed to.”

Beth stared up into the empty blackness of the rider's eyes, locked behind his grotesque mask of fear and terror. She was utterly captivated, or at least as captivated as she could be considering how terrified she was. There was simply nothing else for it.

“And what is the second lesson?” Beth eventually struggled out, a cold sweat now pouring down her face. Vaguely she realized that it had stopped raining. When had that been? Minutes seemed to drag into hours and she had no idea how true that feeling was in the presence of one of these riders.

“We will be watching. Spread the word of the return, as I tell you how and you will have learned that lesson well.”

Beth and Alieice could feel their hearts drop at the command, issued by a figure as terrifying as that which sat before them, sitting upon a horse wrapped in a skin made of the forest. Beth tried to utter a response but could get nothing out of her dry and cracked throat. This could not be happening! Darkness and shadow, shadow and darkness. How could she serve that? Admittedly she was neither innocent nor even what most people would call good at heart but could she serve someone that called himself the Master of Darkness? The thought made Beth feel sick in her stomach. Perhaps it would be better to die now, lest this creature watched her her whole life.

Somewhere behind the rider a sparkle of light caught Beth's eye. Greenish and glowing she immediately remembered the light that had preceded this rider. Beth stared at the glowing orb, hanging back somewhere in the forest for some time. Neither Alieice nor the rider talked, although Beth suspected that Alieice was beyond talking at this point. Nor did the greenish glow in the forest change, certainly not in the same way the first one she had seen. But there was something coming from it, albeit not a physical form that could be seen.

The sound of the music was so faint at first that Beth doubted she was really hearing what she thought she heard. A soft glowing sound gradually worked its way into her mind, soothing it and releasing the previous minutes built up tension and fear. A choir had began to sing, though not in words but in notes and emotion and feeling. Nearly impossible to describe, but none-the-less true, Beth could feel the choir, feel the music reverberating through her body, through her mind and through her soul.

A single note hung in the air and Beth was able to tear her face away from the distant glowing orb. Turning her head she looked towards Alieice who was now staring intently into the orb, her tears having stopped but the long lines of mascara remained. A vague smile now crept across her face, so soft, so beautiful, so…content.

The single note that hung in the air was more than just that. Listening closely Beth could hear a thousand voices…no that wasn't right…tens of thousands, millions of voices, each singing a different note and each voice perfect, each note culminating in the sound that now filled her.

The voices wavered and the note changed. Harmonies, disharmonies, all collided together, voices rose and fell, and the song began anew filling Beth's being with perfection. Pulling her gaze away from Alieice's face she turned back towards the faint glowing orb that hung in the darkness of the forest. Only, when Beth turned back, the forest had changed beyond recognition. The trees and the smells and plants were all still there but they seemed pushed to the background, as if viewed through pane of reflective glass. What filled Beth's vision was not the sights and sounds of the forest, not any more, but an endless field of reeds, each swaying in an invisible, sensation-less wind. It was the reeds that were singing…no that wasn't right, it was the lights!

Perched above each individual reed was a single shining, glowing light that flickered and hummed. An infinite number of reeds moved in an infinite number of directions singing an infinite number of notes to a song that would never end.

In front of both Beth and Alieice, the rider with the Wolf's helmet stared down upon them from his mount. The smile that had appeared upon his helmet had gone but the sentiment remained in his heart. He looked down upon the content faces of the two women before him, both staring into the distance, both hearing the song for the first time. He knew he had them.

Beth did not see the intent way the rider watched the two women as they stared at the sight before them, but she knew none the less. It had all become so clear. Before her stretched an endless field, bathed in night's darkness, but it was not upon the darkness she focused but the pin prick glows emanating from the top of every reed, the light that illuminated all of the dark. After all, what was darkness without light? The thought made her smile.

From somewhere behind her the voice of the rider spoke with absolute clarity and conviction. His voice was discordant from the song but what did that matter, so long as the song kept playing, forever, through all of time and space, that was all that mattered.

“Come back to me,” the rider commanded, “I have much to say and you much to learn and the night grows short.”

Beth felt herself jump in shock. Leave the song? No, how could she!

“Take heart, for I bring good tidings.”

Reluctantly, Beth tore herself away from the sight before her. Even as she did the vision of the field was already beginning to fade, expect for one detail, something she had not seen before. At the edge of the field, at the edge of infinity, sat a tall citadel; a tower half collapsing that was illuminated by the light from a single window at its highest level. She could see nothing in the window for in truth she could barely see the tower, but she knew, even as the vision faded, that someone was watching her from that towering citadel.

As the last of the vision faded Beth found herself upon her knees before the rider. The only thing more surprising than this was that Alieice sat in exactly the same way by her side. More tears were leaking down her cheeks, but her face betrayed not the smallest amount of sorrow, only absolute joy.

Minutes passed as hours would have for the three prophets who sat in the clearing. It was a long time until morning came. By the time the orange sun of Enthura rose above the horizon line both Beth and Alieice knew all they had to. Even as the rider faded back to where he had come his voice echoed through the heads of the two women, as it ever would in the long years that were to follow.

“Take heart, I bring good tidings.”

Lord of Darkness and Shadow is out in March