Shadows & Sorcery #159

Well it’s about damn time, I say!

Something happened this week and it’s a triple bill of knights! Not wizards! Not theurges! Or cult members or any of that other nonsense I peddle here! Well, a little of that nonsense. I have a brand to maintain. Also, the first part of what became an impromptu three-part adventure!

But aside from that, my friends, if you just got here, or you missed last week’s edition, or you wanna re-read because it was very cool (it was actually very cool) then you can do so right HERE

Also, I’m still toying with ideas for print versions of Shadows & Sorcery. Just for fun. Got an edition you really like? Or a series of stories or a character you enjoy? Hell, just a collection of random stuff you want in one place? Let me know! Ideas are in the works.

Lastly, please don’t forget to tell the stories you enjoyed them with a quick like!

This week, we meet with the result of a Knight’s Sorcery, we venture into the outer spheres with a Celestial Knight, and an inn of bandits meet their match against a Pilgrim Knight…

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Knight's Sorcery

Each crash of the waves far below the house had made her eyes heavier and heavier, and it was only the great, resounding clang that rushed through the benighted hallways that drew her back from slumber. She started, and it took a few seconds for her surroundings to return to her. The large curving table. The fireplace going low. The dusty shadows of the bookshelves. Dad's study. And the grimoire lying before her, still fastened. Then the heaviness returned to her shoulders as she recalled her task. Someone had to sort through this stuff, and the court had thought of no one better than the lady who hadn't even formally inherited the title. Maybe it was some ridiculous test. And what to do with that grimoire? That was a curious find. As she understood it, there wasn't a knight in the realm who hadn't cobbled together a book of spells on their travels—practicality will always outweigh any contradictory notions—but this was a decently hefty specimen. It spoke not only to the powers within, but experiences, places, people, the owner's skills and temperament. She rubbed her eyes. There was no way she could continue tonight. Best get to bed.

Then the clang came again.

Her head whipped about, and happened to pass by the thick, misty-paned window. It was dark out. Heavens, it was probably the middle of the night. Was that the knocker at the entrance hall? She swore almost out loud that whatever fastidious, officious little bureaucrat it was, looking for some scrap to salvage or some impression to make, would be lucky to leave with every limb intact, calling at such a monstrous hour. She tied her sword belt about her waist only lightly. You want to meet a knight, well you'll get the whole package, damn your eyes. She straightened herself up, hearing the dull droning rhythm of the waves outside. That sea was never quiet, in her youth she had done everything she could block it out, now each whoosh of water on the shore and the cliffs made stepping away from the numbness of sleep more and more difficult.

The clang sounded once again.

She took a deep breath and strode from the study, taking a tall torch-candle with her. The house had not a single shred of illumination to be seen aside from the bubble of light which passed through it. The entire structure was a hodge-podge of styles and forms, in some places it had modern hallways, in others it had the old communal head passage which connected bundles of rooms, in others had it the even more antique connecting chambers. There were a few rooms without any of these, the oldest in the house by a good thousand years. It had been, by turns, somewhat humbling, somewhat comforting. Now it was something else, and she couldn't quite place it. Something to do with the hour, and the event, she assured herself.

There had always been an entrance or reception hall since the manor had come into being, and this was, apparently, the seventh iteration of such a feature. A border of lattice-work windows surrounded the arched doors, which in some curious way seemed blacker than the rest of the lightless house, even as she approached the tall doorway. Doubly odd was the lack of illumination from whoever was outside. She undid the heavy iron latch and stood back as the door swung inward.

Outside in the blustery sea air was a figure of so singular an aspect, it felt like a blow to the diaphragm. He was tall, dressed in a lightly faded and exceedingly antique finery of half the world away: high strapped boots, breeches, a long coat with drooping, oversized lapels and flaring cuffs, a single steel-lined leather gauntlet, the other hand regularly gloved, and a brimmed high fur cap over a face she quite plainly found horrible. His face was long, drawn, with loose skin that was pale, sickly, wet, and, she swore, almost grey. His eyes were deep set, dark and without lustre, but they stared from their pits. It was, to her embarrassment, some several seconds before she could even muster words.
"How...may I help you, sir? What is it that brings you to my house at such an hour?" she entreated.
"I seek the old knight," the visitor's rasping voice droned, each word drawn out as if spoken with great difficulty.
"Then you had, ah, you had better come in then, sir. I'm afraid I have bad news."
The visitor barely waited for her to move aside before he stepped forward and into the darkened house.

She brought him to the study, and planned to have words with him, but quite honestly found her resolve waning with each step through the darkness. She felt profoundly uncomfortable with him at her back, unable to think of anything but the way his eyes looked, and the way every few breaths wheezed loudly only to fade away after a few huffs, in a way that made her think, and it sounded ridiculous, like he had been forgetting to breathe. To keep up appearances. If he had saw her fight the urge to hunch and shiver, he didn't say so. She felt marginally better when they were in the study, and she could stoke the fire whose light kept him in view, but never quite reached the eyes. They seemed, she thought, to have an illumination of their own. She stood by her desk, as he did not even acknowledge her offer of a seat.

"Have you come far, sir?"
"Far," he sighed raggedly.
"I don't recognize you, I must apologize. You must have known my father before I was born."
"Where," the visitor rasped, "is the castellan?"
"Right. That." She looked down, biting her lip. "I regret to inform you that he, my father is...dead. It happened some weeks ago."
The eyes which had been fixed on her from within their pits did not move, but, she knew, no longer saw her. His hands audibly clenched.
"Who..." he breathed, "will send me back?"
"Come again, sir?"
"SEND ME BACK!" he roared, his hands reaching out, jerking forward as if pulled on invisible wires, his voice loud enough to hurt her ears—she staggered back towards the desk, her hand slipping on the piled papers there, and it was in that second where she righted herself that the eyes which had been fixed on her since the second she had opened that door moved, and gazed at the desk. She tried following his gaze. What was he—the grimoire? Her head then turned slowly to him, where he continued to stare soundlessly, like a man in pain. That she had been walking and conversing with a spirit this entire time suddenly seemed so obvious, and the realization was followed by a profound chill down her back. She slowly drew forth the battered old volume, and sure enough, his eyes followed it. "Send me back..." he whimpered.
"How?" she asked, standing up straight, but tensed, ready to do what, she didn't know.
"The old knight...called me up. His sorcery...can call me down," croaked the ghost.
"Where..." she asked as she began to unclasp and turn the grimoire's leaves nervously.
"NO," barked the ghost, "not there, not here."
She looked up at him.
"There." A crooked finger in the gauntlet pointed back as he turned, to study entrance, but, she knew, in reality somewhere far beyond. "My grave."

"And where...is your grave?"

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Celestial Knight

The starless knight touched the hollow in his breastplate, where no light dwelt. He traced his mailled fingers, for a second, over the lines, curves, indents, and graven celestial map which spread itself across every inch of steel. He removed then from a small pouch a silver disk, in whose center was an oval space. The knight cursed under his breath as the pallid light inside it still pointed ahead. A quiet sigh of profound weariness escaped him as he rose, and gazed forward. In the distance, beyond a soundless, smooth, grey vastness, thin clouds of ashen dust parted to reveal the colossal pale green spired towers of the portal set starkly against the pitch black of the void, peopled by ten thousand stars which hung suspended, each one the nexus of a great web of gulf-spanning starbridges.

His footsteps echoed back only faintly, so vast was the gulf of the starbridge interior around him, one small space lit merely by the ancient scraps of palestar that showed the way. Naught but a thin tendril of radiance reached out, staining the one strange wall he could see in an illumination both soft and harsh in equal proportion, with the merest hint of green in its filthy grey, staring stark, and the shadows closing in almost as a mist, the point where darkness took over imperceptible until sight was engulfed in it. It was difficult to believe there was a time the entire web-way was bustled under iridescent brilliance with the hallowed step of knights and sages who wandered from star to star, peering into the depths of order, working the skein of fate for the good of mankind, and carrying that power upon their very hearts. His hand came away from the lightless hollow in his breastplate with a pang of something like shame.

The distances between stars were of distances so vast they were hard to wrap one's mind around. The starbridges that spanned them were the product of a primordial golden age, and something about the spaces within them was quickened, so that passage was expedited. Once it had been out of convenience, now those who walked these halls were thankful in their desperation, especially in a universe whose age was measured in the amount of dead stars—and there were many. Far too many. The knight had passed over several already, long having turned into thin shells of dust. Light from stars persisted long after their bodies had died, which made physically visiting the outer spheres a necessity when such a one arose.

Some clans lost their guiding stars. Some never found new ones. Some were never lucky enough to be absorbed into other families. That final few with a shred of dignity were given provisional palestars and sent into the heavens to conquer as of old. Of that sad lot, the starless knight knew, most did not return. But neither had he come upon graves, or bodies. As he sent out the disk into the darkness, letting the palestar light reach just a little further out, he was suddenly shown why.

He barely had time to register what scrabbled towards him from out of the hazy shadow and chalky light, the old plate metal adorning its form scraping across the dust-strewn floor. It was crawling in a manner only its distorted human form could achieve, so long spurned by the governance of any ordering star. Or lost here long enough that its light ran out.

"Palestar..." is all it would sigh, following the starless knight as he fell back, tripping over itself to reach out with straining fingers. The starless knight unhooked from his side his star-headed mace and brought it down with a dull clunk on the lost one's head. A heavy black ichor fell from the face plate, slopping to the floor and smoking. The thing groaned, trembling, and still yet reached for the palestar.

The only sounds in that starbridge then were the starless knight's gasps, his clanking footfalls, and the metallic scrape of some several dozen lost ones which groped from the darkness.

What remnants of venerable blood, what last memories of ancient clans, what relics of elder times now forgotten that pursued him, he could only guess, and though some depth of him mourned, his flesh ran, knowing he was mere steps away from their state. The starbridge had to end soon. He would rather the lonely vastlands of a dead star to these haunted halls. And still yet he would rather the sickly light he spied at its absolute farthest end to anything else in the cosmos. Little else mattered in the seconds after the feeling fully flooded his being, not his clan, not his light, not the clawing limbs of the lost ones, not even the creeping dread which lurked on the hinterlands of thought, that no living star could really dwell just beyond if so many lost ones gathered here. But better a ghost than nothing at all. Guidance still yet dwelt, it seemed, in the core of his self, of this is what it felt like.

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Pilgrim Knight

With a gentle push, the stranger opened the inn's door, the bell above it tinkled, and the roars and laughter within ceased. It was a great big dining and sitting room, with long balconies above where rooms resided along short corridors. From under the broad traveller's cap and from within the tight hood, a smiling face with copper skin and azure eyes asked the serving girl whether or not any rooms were available. She went—almost—to turn her head, but stopped, and replied that, no, she was very sorry, but the inn was full, and that the stranger should try another inn down the valley, they were sure to have something. Not to worry, came his calm voice, he would have some elderflower wine and dumplings instead, if that was no problem, throwing a single glance into the inn's large dining room. He was a knight, he said, parting his blue cloak to show the distinctive and unmistakable sword at his side, and he was on pilgrimage. Her master wouldn't dare object to him having a meal.

The terse silence of the dining room was peopled by a meagre waiting staff and groups of rough warriors in red and brown, with tables covered in the mess of half-devoured meals and spilled drink. They wore their swords and maces openly—some of the more vicious specimens lay upon the tables: broad heavy sabres, straight flat-topped cleavers, round-headed hammers, and maces with wicked curving flanges. The knight walked by them all, and took a seat at one of the few small unoccupied tables. He leaned back, and removed a dark oak pipe from within his dim white robes and sought in some pouch a match to light it with, when a figure in clinking maille appeared beside him. The inn, came the barely disguised threat, was full. The knight should, said the gravel voice, take the girl's advice and leave. This table, replied the knight, not looking at the warrior, was free, and besides, he wouldn't be very long, and all those who aided his progress would, as per the ancient laws, be remembered in his demigod's benedictions. We, the gravel-voiced brute stressed, have more friends coming, and they would need seats. The knight sighed.

And then, the brute placed a hand none too gently on the knight's shoulder.

The knight rose slowly, slowly pushing away the warrior's hand. He removed his cap, and pulled down his hood, revealing his bound copper hair to match his skin, and his azure eyes all but flared. As a pilgrim, he said, you do me a blasphemy, and do not think I do not see what you are doing to this inn. As a knight, you do me an injustice, as you do this land with your banditry. It was the duty, said the pilgrim knight, of the whole of his being to right these wrongs.

The bandit's fang-shaped blade suddenly fell in a savage arc with a roar, only to be met with a swift strike of the knight's bronze-ringed scabbard, sending the vicious blade flying from the bandit's hand, and in a flash, the bronze-tipped sheathe was sent with such lightning fast force in a thrust to the bandit's chest that the bone audibly cracked, and with, everyone present swore they saw, a shockwave in the air, the bandit was sent skidding across the tiled floor.

With a short flourish, the knight brought his sheathed blade above his head, his heavily braced arm out ready to parry.

Of the dozen bandits in that room, three rushed him within seconds—the first one's scimitar was met by the knight's gilded bracer and sent aside, the scabbard flown first to the bandit's knee, and then swung up into his chin. Two hammers came at him in the blink of an eye, one's flat head met with the bronze rings of the sheathe, the other overstepped himself and stumbled forward, not having anticipated the ease with which his comrade was stopped. Wrenching the blocked hammer to the side, the knight took the scabbard in both hands and rammed the pommel and his shoulder into the attacker, sending him crashing into a table—and with both hands, swinging the scabbard in a one broad upwards slash into the handle of the flanged mace, the shock of their meeting tearing it from the bandit's hand with a yelp, silenced a second later a crushing downward blow in his head.

Scared to use that sword, roared the bandit lord's challenge, brandishing a crescent-headed axe. As a knight, said he, he was bound to carry the blade of his station, but as a pilgrim of Vengaunt, he was forbidden to spill blood—unless, he added, it was a mortal necessity. With a low laugh like the hull of a ship under strain, the bandit fell upon the pilgrim knight, raining down blows with frightful speed, each one clanging and scraping off the bronze-ringed scabbard like a wailing dirge. The knight ducked under the attacker, but a swift, half-handed swipe backwards missed by only a hair's breadth, and the knight land in a low pose, spinning to meet his opponent. The bandit lord shot his arm out, the axe sliding down his grip to its full length—this fraction of a second might have been the only moment the knight had, and he knew it.

In two heartbeats, the platinum-shining sword was out of its sheathe and singing through the air, not to meet the heavy axe's blade, but its handle, the keen edge cutting right through it, sailing over the bandit's head to be brought down out, then low, and then in with a terrific thrust to the chest, the knight using the flat of his palm to send the sword through the bandit to the hilt, finally ripping it free with a kick, the bandit lord falling in a crumpled heap to the floor.

Blazing azure eyes met the glances of every remaining bandit, but only for so long that the body could be removed. With that, the pilgrim knight lay the bloodied sword on the ground, held the scabbard between his clasped hands in prayer, bade the demigod Vengaunt to either bless or administer an extra labour for this act, and then sat down to a meal, on the house, which he still paid for.

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