Baron Emos Olivio Guivardo deZors looked uneasily at the guest sitting across from him. The last spy he had commissioned, the so-called "Shadowmaster", had never returned. An embarrassment, if anyone had known about it.
Even more embarrassing, he had gone on that mad chase into the Lady Tower. And both Elora, his daughter, and Todo knew about that, not to mention his sons and troops.
So he had waited -- given himself time. The Abbot had suspected nothing -- had gotten no whiff of his previous attempt to infiltrate the abbey, and knew next to nothing of the Lady Tower incident. Now, with Elora married and gone, was the time to try again.
This guest, this spy, unnerved him. He was far more worthy of the title of Shadowmaster. The Shadowmaster had been nothing more or less than a man, after all. But this ... thing ... it was a shadow. A solid, roughly humanoid shaped blackness.
"You come highly recommended," he said.
The thing didn't answer with words. Instead, there was a thrumming inside his own head.
I do not come recommended at all, it said. I make a point of preventing my presence from being known here. You had found my hiding place in Rivertown, and so I must now hide somewhere else.
"Yet you came when I asked," the Baron said.
Because you said you have a use for my services, it replied.
"I do," he agreed. "I need you to sneak into the Abbey. Firstly, I need to know its defenses. Secondly, I need to know if the rumors I've heard are true. The Abbot is up to something. I need to find out what."
You know my price.
"Yes," the Baron said. "I will aid you in your passage to the Mountains of Night; and where you go from there is your own business."
The silhouette seemed to shift forward, perhaps in a gesture of agreement. I shall enter the Abbey this very night.
I watched the Baron critically. Would he honor his bargain? I cannot read minds, despite my means of communication. Certainly I could not tell him of my true fears; that the Custodians would discover my existence and come hunting for me. I couldn't even tell if he knew of the Custodians or not, and was not about to ask.
I came to this planet against my will, a fugitive from my own kind. My ship ran out of fuel and I was forced to crash land. Fortunately, there was a minor nuclear explosion just off the mainland that same day, and so no one noted the fall of my ship into the atmosphere.
I wanted to be left alone, but the Baron was not the first to find me, despite my abilities to hide myself.
It was the one they called the Heretic who first found me.
I found out that was what the Custodians called him--the Heretic--from the man himself. I cannot read minds, but he told me that much. He told me much indeed. He helped me, at first. But he wanted to use me -- for his own ends.
Draco had not seen the fall of the ship; had not been in the region anyway. The Mountains of Night were not a place to travel; and only the creature's dark shadow form had saved it.
Draco had been much more interested in the nuclear blast, and of course the discs. The discs were a long-term issue; the blast was more relevant. But because he knew what it was, he also knew that going towards a radioactive "hot zone" was a very bad idea.
So it was that not very long after the creature had come out of the Mountains of Night, that Draco witnessed a shadow that was cast ... by no one.
Mara was not with him at the moment, though she wasn't far away. But he didn't call her; he didn't want to scare that living shadow away.
"Can you understand me?" he whispered.
After a moment, it did.
Draco sheltered me for a few days, and told me much. I worked out, without too much difficulty, that there was enough old technology left on the planet for me to rebuild my ship -- if I could only get to it. Draco's former brethren, the Custodians, would make that difficult, if not impossible.
Draco would've helped me, but he wanted me to expose the technology to the world, to let the people know. To "liberate" them, as he put it. I had no interest in the politics of the planet, one way or the other, and refused. Mara, his disciple, might have helped me without cost. But I knew her first loyalty was to the Heretic, and that made it a risk I could not venture.
So, with some reluctance, I left them behind with thanks. I would have to risk the Custodians; I would have to sneak into a city to get to that technology.
After considering the options, I decided on Fiorenza.
I had been in the city a few weeks before the Baron found me. I had set up base in Rivertown, quietly. I would have been found the first day, if not for another of my abilities. My people's natural form is that of a walking shadow, but we have others. We can literally appear like other races and peoples, a form of shape-shifting, if we so choose. But we must have the consent of the person involved. Failing to get that consent was one of the reasons I was on the run in the first place.
But it was a relatively simple matter for me to slip into to Fiorenza at night, and find my way to Rivertown, a place of lost souls like myself. It didn't take me long to find a miserable beggar in the street, whom no one knew, and no one would miss. So I slipped over him.
Yes, over him. We don't ask consent from the people whose form we take just to be polite; we do it because it's a bit more intimate than just looking at them.
I don't have telepathy, never have. Never will. But to take someone's form, I literally have to enter his mind and body. I have to, in a very literal sense, become him. It's almost like becoming someone's twin brother.
The beggar was asleep; he never knew I was there. Had he been awake, he would have screamed, for the procedure is not without discomfort and a little pain. As it was he probably just thought it was a wine-induced nightmare.
So, after about twenty minutes, an exact replica of Leorc Wulasi walked out of an alley in Rivertown, got himself some menial work (often coming uncomfortably close to Todo in the course of such hard labor), and began plotting ways to get into the Abbey.
As I said, I can't read minds. So while I had the feel for the personality and views of Leorc, I wasn't aware that he had been one of the Baron's soldiers, who had deserted. One of Leorc's former soldiers, on a patrol through Rivertown, noticed his "old friend," and before long I found myself hauled up in front of the Baron. Knowing I had no other choice, I changed form before his eyes. After his initial shock, he seemed less surprised than I thought he would be. I asked him why.
He shooed his guards out, and told me that Leorc was never one for hard work, which made my industriousness odd. Also, some events in a Lady Tower had helped prepare the Baron for strange things.
Then he asked for my help. Didn't command; asked. Something unusual for one such as him, I think. So we agreed. I would go into the Abbey, find out what the Abbot's defenses and plans were, then steal such technology as I needed, giving other to the Baron to decipher. In return, he would see my safe passage back to the Mountains of Night, where my ship awaited.
So it was that, on this night, I slipped into the darkness of the Abbey, a shadow within shadows. What I learned did not please me. I doubted the Baron would be wild about it, either.
First, while the monks are not warriors, they are very cunning...but then, you already know this. The Baron does not, however. The fortress-style construction of the Abbey aside, the clever maze of hallways and traps that every initiate is taught would confound the plodding foot soldiers the Baron employs. I doubt the Baron wants to invade -- the subtle politics of the city indicate otherwise--but information is power. I wonder if the Baron hasn't tried to employ spies to infiltrate the Abbey as postulants. Probably he's tried, and the Abbot, or Todo, or both, can spot them.
Otherwise he wouldn't need me.
For myself, I verged on despair this night. The monks esentially worship these machines, having no idea of how they work--and most of them don't work very well. I've been up and down the Abbey, all through it. I've seen many interesting bits of technology, many strange things. But as I said, few things work, and those few that do are not the sort of things I could use to repair my ship. In addition to being old and malfuctioning--when they work at all--the technology is of a different type. My race is more into chemical/organic science. And there are no ship components in any case.
I get the impression that the island where the nuclear blast occured might have had such equipment; but the blast itself would've seen to them. And even if that was not the case, the radiation would kill me even faster than your kind.
I could search other citadels, other ruins, for such components; this Lady Tower the Baron visited some time ago seems promising. But I found something else tonight. Something I've never had.
The monks, as I've said, are not aware of the technology's implications. But they are ... happy. Content. Serene.
Have you any idea how foreign an emotional state that is to me? A fugitive for most of my life, a malcontent and iconoclast before that. I've never known the simple peace of this life. Never know what it's like to have faith in a higher power, or a network of friends and allies to trust.
And even if I could find the necessary components, repair my ship, I'd just be on the run again, as I've been before. I've had enough running, enough fear. If I stay here, I can be safe. I can live a life in peace.
I originally entered your mind planning to become you, take your form and walk around this abbey, being a simple monk. But each of you knows each other too well; and another thing I'm tired of is causing more pain. I've never enjoyed doing it; every time save the first it's been out of necessity for survival. Even that first time, it certainly wasn't out of malice.
I will certainly understand if you wish the privacy of your own mind; having an alien voice in your head can't be pleasant. If you ask me to leave, I will. I'll see to it that you'll forget I was ever here. I will seek another host, probably not telling that one, just being a passenger. Or I might search for the technology and seek another planet to hide on. Or maybe I'll just explore. Or maybe I'll accept Draco's offer, and reveal myself to your people, changing the paradigms here forever.
But I won't do any of that, if you let me stay. I ask because, while I can't read minds, I get the feeling you don't want to be alone.
What do you say?
The young monk sat shivering in his bed, listening to the voice of the shadow in his head, to it's tale, and it's offer.
He had been scared at first, to be sure. Terrified into immobility, thinking he'd gone mad. But the voice had soothed, the voice had reasoned, the voice had pleaded.
And it was right, he *was* alone. Even the fellowship of the monks, the quiet study of their way of life, had not cured his loneliness. It had helped, but it had not been enough.
"For a while, at least," he answered, whispering into the darkness. "For a while. Then perhaps after some time, you can leave and find another. You won't have to make me forget; no one would believe me anyway."
"Draco would; so would Todo,"it answered.
"Yes, but I really wouldn't want either of them in my life. I don't want to be a Custodian, or worse be responsible for destroying the way of life I hold dear."
"Then we are agreed?"
"What about the Baron?"
"The Baron cannot help me anymore; you can. I will not be the first spy who didn't report back to him."
"One condition."
"Yes?"
"Tell me your name."
There was a vague stirring of amusement from the thing inside him. "You couldn't pronounce my name, even in your mind. Co'soruc is close enough."
"Co'soruc, my name is Lentel. I hope we shall ... travel ... well together, and I hope you have found what you were looking for."
"Oh indeed, Lentel, yes. For me, The Finding has borne fruit." END