Shadowborn Read Online Free Page B

Shadowlands. Those that returned reported a barren land—previously, magic had been used to alter the weather patterns to bring rain—that was otherwise uninhabited. Those that passed beyond a certain line some two hundred miles in never returned; we do not know why. Shadowborn entered the written record late in the third century, and became an increasing nuisance through the fourth, leading the archduke eventually to withdraw support for campaigns into the Shadowlands.” Which led to the establishment of the Borders baronies, and eventually to the Borders uprising and the war of Borders’ independence, and the order of six twenty-nine that limited the Borders’ standing forces. That history Ishmael had not only had hammered into his thick, juvenile skull, but had personally contended with these past twenty-five years. Stranhorne continued. “But if there are men in the Shadowlands—and I remind you I have no support for this—I might speculate that they are descended of the mages who were involved in the laying of the Curse, though why they should have waited eight hundred years to make themselves known, I can’t say.”
    “Known other than by the Shadowborn and th’Call,” Ish noted. The Call—the Call to the Shadowlands—was Ishmael’s personal curse, a bizarre ensorcellment that was a legacy of his years roaming around the Shadowlands. Nobody knew what made it take hold, but every year, dozens of bordersmen and -women followed the Call, and none was ever heard from again. Stubbornness, distance, trusted guards, and, on occasion, chains had kept Ishmael on the right side of the border. “Lord Vladimer had it in mind for me t’go and find out. He was concerned that there was mischief behind the unnatural quiet of this summer.”
    “He was right, but that was risky for you,” Stranhorne said, which amounted to gushing concern. “You are assuming that the Shadowborn—as we know them—are related to this. Suppose they are not. Suppose they are an entirely separate problem.”
    “From where I sit, th’separation seems academic.”
    The corner of Stranhorne’s mouth quirked at the slight truculence of tone. “Though if there are such mages, their quiescence is still unexpected, given the type of . . . powers attributed to the mages prior to the Curse.”
    “There’s fair magical strength on the Lightborn side,” Ishmael noted. “Maybe the Shadowborn hesitated to tangle with the Lightborn, and we’ve been the beneficiaries.”
    “Which raises two more questions in my mind: first, how much do the Lightborn already know about these occupants of the Shadowlands, assuming they exist.”
    Ishmael spread his gloved hands. Minhorne, as well as being the seats of both governments, was also the headquarters of the Mages’ Temple, which ruled magic on the other side of sunrise, and, effectively, among the Darkborn as well. There were few Darkborn mages whom the Lightborn recognized as strong, the Lightborn having carefully cultivated strength among their lineages while the Darkborn left mages to arise by chance and scrabble for survival when they did. The Temple was not given to advising Darkborn of their doings, much less allowing them a say.
    “You realize,” Stranhorne said, “that that might make sense of the prince’s death, if the Lightborn have formed an alliance with the Shadowborn. Second,” he continued, while Ishmael was still taking that in, “tradition says that the magic that laid the Curse killed all those involved. But am I mistaken that all our experience of present-day magic is that any persistent magical effect—talismanic magic or ensorcellment—depends on the survival of the mage responsible? As the saying goes, magic dies with the mage.”
    “Aye,” growled Ishmael. It was an adage entrenched in law—the legal penalty for sorcery being execution—and the one sure way to free the victim of all influence. Ishmael’s growl was less at the reminder of his own jeopardy than at