The innkeeper’s son didn’t like that glint in the storytelling cadet’s eyes. He didn’t mind the other members of the Light Brigade, even if they could brave the Shadow outside the domes and survive when no one else could. The storyteller was the only one who dredged up memories of Marion.
She didn’t resemble Marion, or any of the villagers for that matter. Her skin was dark and golden and her eyes were pale blue, and numerous other peculiar foreign features all members of the Light Brigade bore graced her features. However, while most other soldiers’ hair was black and sleek, the untamable curls that escaped from her beret were a fiery dark red that just barely missed clashing with the yellow uniform. A cross-breed, from some soldier’s dalliance with a village maiden.
But the glint in the eye… and the stories she wove….
“I snuck out of the dome, I saw it. I saw the Shadow.”
Marion once had the same glint and spoke of similar stories, but as much as he hated that glint and those stories, he could not help but stare with the rest of the children surrounding the cadet as her graceful fingers wove intricate webs of light to illustrate her tale.
Several adults were watching too. After all, their domed city was isolated from the rest of the world, and the only people that ever passed through their gates were the Light Brigade regiments. However, the town wasn’t situated in an area that required much surveillance, and the only reason the regiment was here now was that the domes had been growing thin and the Shadow was creeping in. Many of the villagers had never seen the Light Brigade before; many would not live to see them again. The news the Light Brigade brought with them — mythical as well as current — was the only news the village ever heard of the outside world. When the gates were opened to allow the Light Brigade through, everyday was a festival until they left. Maidens flirted with soldiers at the bar, while others conversed with the commanders, prying from them every sliver of fact. It was not surprising that adults were also hanging onto the storyteller’s every word.
“… and so the Watcher blessed her golden children with the powers to conquer the darkness, and wove out of these powers a City of Light.”
“It’s too awful, the Shadow. There has to be something else out there.”
Here the heroic figures the cadet had woven melded together into one sphere from which she began to shape walls.
“The streets of this city,” the cadet continued, “were laid with stepping stones that glowed like candle flames, and the parks were filled with flowers that glowed like fireflies, and the walls of this city were formed out of threads of light woven together so thickly none of the darkness in the outside world could penetrate it. It was said these walls rose so high they pierced the clouds that covered the land and found more light in the sky above. Some say the light was from the Watcher’s looking glass, but the wind would chip away at it each month and scatter its shards across the sky. Others say the light above the clouds is the Watcher herself, and that she is golden and beautiful, and that she awakens each day to smile upon her children in the City of Light.”
The intricacy of the city growing beneath the cadet’s fingers was hidden by the glow of the light, but the children could make out the silhouettes of towers and spired domes; it was still impressive.
“Have you ever been there?” a child asked, wide eyes staring at the still developing city in the cadet’s hands.
“No.” The cadet’s first word was hardly a whisper, but her voice grew stronger as she continued the story. “When the great war started, our city sent out the Light Brigade to aid our allies, but a great disaster struck. The City of Light disappeared. Our people have forgotten the way home, and have been searching hundreds of years to find it again.”
“They say the Light Brigade came from beyond the Shadow. Someday, I’ll sneak out again, and I’ll find it.”
“Will you find it?” asked the same child, her dark eyes filled with awe.
The cadet smiled, but before she could answer, the innkeeper’s son interrupted.
“Of course not. There is no City of Light. There is no Watcher. There is no light beyond the Shadow. They’re all just Brigade faery tales to make them feel important.”
The cadet clenched her fist, causing the light to dissipate with a flash. The sound of the cadet’s chair scraping against the wooden floor fell harshly in the now silent inn as even the raucous drunks stopped to stare at the scene.
“It is real! What would you know about it, brat?”
No one realized the immaturity of her outburst more clearly than the cadet; she turned her back on the boy’s sullen glare and retreated to a table hidden in the back. A horse-like laugh broke the silence and the inn resumed its normal level of noise and joviality, most of it at her expense.
It wasn’t long before her commanding officer pulled up a chair beside her and slid a heavy tankard across the table. She accepted it, but didn’t drink. She only clenched it with both hands and stared into the cup.
“You know, Cadet,” the commander began, “I don’t regret accepting you. It’s rare to have someone with your talent, especially….”
“Especially when you have a mother like mine.”
“That wasn’t going to be my point. You’re talented. You have a lot of skill and you’re still improving. But I think you’ve been obsessed with these stories long enough.”
“They’re not just stories though!” She looked up from the cup, eyes pleading.
“That’s debatable, and I’m sure you have as good of an argument as anyone else. However, I don’t think you should be chasing these stories. Your true duty is to protect people, to help others when they can’t help themselves.”
“But sir! I’m on to something! I think I may be able to find the city!”
“Even if it did exist, what good would it do to find the city after all these years?”
“Don’t you want to find our homeland? Don’t you want to know where we came from?” She released the tankard and clasped her hands. “Please sir, all I’m asking is that you assign me patrol. Give me a few men to command — or give me none! I’ll find it by myself, I’ll find it!”
“I’m sorry, but…” the commander sighed. “I think you need to forget these stories and get your priorities straight. I’m assigning you to the guard here. The main regiment will march on, while you’ll join the guard in rebuilding the domes. Good night, Cadet.”
The commander left the storyteller staring into her untouched drink.
When the innkeeper’s son, watching and sulking by the stairs, was sure nothing else interesting was going to happen, he turned and headed up to bed.
The innkeeper’s son didn’t usually mind having the room above the kitchen. Because the floor was thin, the heat from the stove crept through the boards and kept his room cozy in winter. Occasionally though, he would be awakened by a rustling in the kitchen — some mouse or cat sneaking into the pantry — and he would have to fetch his candle and chase it out.
Tonight he didn’t find any small animals; instead, the red-haired, storytelling cadet was illuminated by his candle as she filled a rucksack with food from the cupboards.
“Thief!” he hissed, and she glanced up. “Thief!” he said again, a little louder as he regained his courage. But before he could call for his parents, the cadet shut the cupboard and slung the sack over her shoulder, her pale eyes icily staring him down.
“I’m paying for it,” she said, sliding a small pouch of coins across the table to the boy. He hesitated, and then emptied out its contents, the mixture of bronze and silver coins attesting to the small pay awarded to soldiers.
“I assure you it’s not faery gold,” she added as he began to examine the strange currency. The boy turned as she brushed by him through the doorway.
“What are you doing with that?” he asked, but she didn’t answer and kept walking to the inn’s entrance. “Where are you going?”
“Where do you think?”
“I’m going to find my homeland.” Her gaze as she turned around challenged him to say something. It held hurt and anger, but there was also that glint, as if the reflected candlelight danced in her eyes.
“You’re going crazy,” the boy said. He caught the door before it closed behind her. “You’re leaving in the middle of the night?!”
She kept walking, the sack swinging from side to side. The dome surrounding the town had dimmed considerably from its normal level of daytime brightness, but the gray light provided intense, eerie shadows that urged the boy out of the inn and after the storyteller.
“How are you getting through the gate? The gatekeepers are asleep, and you don’t have a key!”
“I’m not going out that way.”
She still didn’t look back. The boy found his mouth forming the stingingly familiar words “You’ll die if you go out into the Shadow alone!”
Her step didn’t falter, and its rhythm was identical to the one whose echoes flittered through his mind.
“You could come with me.” That’s what her eyes had said, when Marion had glanced back.
The last time he had said those words, he had turned and ran back to the inn, back under the blankets that kept him in the safe, warm darkness.
Then she had looked away as if to say, “No, you’re still a child.”
This time his legs wouldn’t let him turn around.
He followed her down the path to the gate, and off the path. They cut a trail through the long grass, and they came so close to the dome the boy could see the individual threads of light pulsing with energy.
Before the boy could ask anything else, the cadet strode straight to the dome and reached out with her hands. The pulsings froze, beads quivering on the threads. The whole wall seemed distorted, seemed to shiver, and then the threads snapped and flew out to coil around the cadet’s fingers. With subtle, graceful twists of her wrist and flicks of her fingers the threads danced and hung in the air, and the dome began to unravel until there was a hole large enough for a small woman — or a tall boy — to climb through.
It was at this moment that the boy saw the night for the first time. The outside world was dark — that was the only way to describe it. The land was barren and brown; the earth jutted out roughly, and its uneven surface threw threatening shadows as it drew close to the light of the dome; a path forked and wove nearby, as tangled as the threads of the dome, disappearing into the distant shadow, and the boy could only guess that it stretched for miles where he could not see.
And the sky! The sky was as jutted and rocky as the earth, filled with black clouds that turned brown-gray near the dome. The clouds roiled and tumbled, constantly moving with some strong and unfelt wind, but never disappearing or thinning. They grew thicker if anything, and seemed to bear down on the land, pushing the breath out of his fragile lungs.
He had never before wondered about the sky; the sky for him had always been the curved top of the dome, golden-bright in day and misty grey at night. He had never felt the urge to find out what the sky should look like. But now, as he looked upon the dismal outside world that was the Shadow, as he looked upon the cloud-filled sky, he could feel the presence of it, a presence that was too forceful to belong. He knew there was something beyond those clouds, and now he felt the urge to tear them into shreds, to rip them away and see what lay beyond. The mystery was so great he wouldn’t be surprised if he did see the golden-faced Watcher or the silver shards of her looking glass. He would be surprised only if he found nothing at all.
This must have been the feeling that drove Marion outside of the domes and into the wasteland beyond; the same feeling that raged through the cadet as she stared at the clouds above during long marches.
The hole was closing up. The cadet had climbed through to the other side, and now only her hands were poking through, weaving together again the threads she had unraveled, mending the strings she had snapped. With the elegance of a grandmother spider at her knitting, her fingers danced along the web. And then the hole was closed and her twirling fingers were gone, and the Shadow was nothing but a memory.
Once more the boy stood alone on the wrong side of the dome. The candle in his hand flickered lackadaisically, but its glow was dim compared to the dancing twinkle left in the newly mended threads of the dome.
The gates were opened once more for the Light Brigade to leave; patrols split off as the main regiment resumed its march. Nothing was said to the townspeople about the deserter, but some noticed the red-haired storyteller’s absence from both the patrols and the guards left to mend the dome.
Not long after the gates were opened a third time; a patrol entered and reported to the commander. The boy couldn’t hear their whispered conversation, but he saw the limp hand dangling from the bundle and could guess.
The patrol stayed in the inn, and the boy saw his father show the soldiers to their room. He watched from the stairs, and when they went downstairs to fetch the last few packs, the boy glanced through the door and saw the bundle on the bed, the hand now skimming the floor.
Years ago, the boy had not been able to look at Marion when they brought her back. He had only hid in his room and had grieved and cursed every story she had ever told for leading her into the Shadow; for killing her. Now, though, he walked to the bed and uncovered the storyteller’s face.
Decay hadn’t yet set in — the boy had heard somewhere that dead things didn’t rot under the Shadow — but there was a paleness to her that made her almost look like a different person. Her dark skin had lost its golden glow and was now pallid and wan. Her hair had lost its fiery sheen and faded to a dull brown. He set one of her curls behind her ear, examining her frozen features.
At this moment the soldier returned and the boy turned around quickly. But the soldier wasn’t angry. “I guess you want to know what happened,” he said, sitting on the edge of another bed and pulling off his boot.
“We found light remnants that strayed from the path and decided to investigate it. We found her a day’s journey away, and her sack was empty. We know she had a map, but it wasn’t in her things so she must have lost it. She probably wandered for days, hungry and exhausted, but it seemed the farther she went, the stronger the light remnants became.”
The soldier shrugged. “Anyways, where we found her, the remnants were so strong we could still see the outlines of this City of Light she had created. Pretty crazy, how much power she had in her…. Killed her though, using too much of it. It wasn’t hunger, hunger doesn’t drain you like that. Sad thing is,” the soldier had removed his boot and was frowning at the cadet, “we found her just at the gates of her city. She collapsed before she even made it inside, and was stretching her hand out for it and everything.”
He was still a moment longer, and then he lay on the bed and rolled on his side with his back towards the boy. “I’m pretty tired. Tell your father I won’t be eating.” He dismissed the boy with a wave.
The boy glanced one last time at the storyteller; yes, he was certain, the storyteller didn’t need the soldier’s pity. Seeing the city, hallucination or not, had been enough for her.
Perhaps Marion had also seen some glimmer of the city. Perhaps she had also had that same glint of excitement frozen in her glassy eyes.
“You could come with me….”