A Whisper of Shadows Part 1
A new fantastical tale full of magic and shadows - what happens when the shadows whisper
Chenna snapped her fan open and flicked her wrist to waft a warm breeze over her face. Sweat already sheened her forehead and trickled down her spine. Standing amongst the press of people milling outside the Festival House in their kaleidoscope of holiday wear only made it worse. Like her, they waited for the shadow play to begin.
The House wasn’t really a house. A large octagon, its dark wood sides were carved with figures from local legends, repainted every few years in a rainbow of colours. At this time of year, the shutters stood wide open to the elements, but the clay shingles of the roof would still protect them from frequent rains, not that there were any rains coming soon.
She glanced at the sky — the twin moons of Galen and Jina shone bright, with smaller Galen chasing Jina into the night. Tonight was the key night in the Festival of the Kiss, the rare occasion when Jina and Galen appeared close enough to touch, only to be torn away from each other by the jealous sun and meddling earth. It was still a few hours before the kiss was predicated, leaving people to other amusements like the shadow play. The play needed full dark but Galen was closing the gap, meaning the puppeteer was late.
The bell dancers passed, and she heard her brother’s laugh from the gaggle. She tried to spy Dalin, but he was hidden by the others. She wafted her fan again.
“Ah, Chenna, it’s not that hot.” Siema grabbed her wrist. Her friend’s cheeks flushed red, though Chenna suspected that stemmed more from the day they’d spent enjoying the festival, wandering under the unforgiving sun, eating rich foods and drinking beer, rather than from the heat.
“Easy for you to say, Siema.” She jostled her friend with her shoulder. “You could sit in an oven and be cool as frog.”
“That’s why it’s perfect she’s apprenticing with my mother.” Taki wrapped his arms around both their shoulders. “Also means I don’t have to become a blacksmith.”
“Have you decided what you’re going to do?” Siema asked.
“Shht!” Chenna glared at her friend as Taki’s arms dropped from their shoulders.
“It’s fine,” he said with a resigned chuckle. “You don’t have to tiptoe around the fact that I failed the tests. I won’t be keeping you entertained on the ride to the capital, Chenna.” His elbow nudged her playfully in the side.
As the crowd finally started entering the House, Taki shrugged and continued. “Apothecary Wix is seeking an apprentice. It’s not proper alchemy, but I can learn and earn and study. Maybe I’ll see you next year, Chenna Nara.” He smiled at her, that smile that mad her sad, knowing he hoped for more than she’d ever be able to give him.
“You don’t have to call her Nara yet.” Siema laughed and grabbed their hands to pull them up the stairs.
#
The crowd slowly settled on the benches arrayed around the stage. Their whispers and shuffles faded to a murmur under the airs of the zithara player, whose gnarled fingers still plucked crisp notes from the strings.
As the tune reached a crescendo, the Witch Hunter Adept Racha Visna stepped in front of the puppeteer’s shrouded stage. Her presence drew all eyes: as the final note quivered into silence, a hush blanketed the gathered audience. Despite being only an adept, she was one of the top Imperial representatives in town. When she spoke, people listened. It had nothing to do with her crisp uniform and strapping physique.
Chenna’s cheeks flushed warm, and her heart beat fluttered. She shifted on the hard bench as the Adept glanced at a paper held in her hand.
The woman lifted her dark eyes to scan the crowd, sending a shiver down Chenna’s spin. Then the Adept cleared her throat and started to read.
“Her Exalted Majesty, Sovereign of the Sapphire Seas, Divine Keeper of the Moonlit Lands, August Righteousness of the Celestial Temple, Empress of the Eternal Sun—” Racha paused, either for breath or effect or both, before continuing, her voice deep under the weight of the announcement. “— takes seriously her role as caretaker of the empire and mother to all its citizens. It is her greatest pleasure to announce to all her loyal and dear subjects that, after a long and hard fight, the witches have been eradicated from all the lands under her dominion.”
The words hung heavy in the humid House. The Adept raised her gaze as a suffocating silence descended on the crowd. A few heartbeats later, someone started to clap. It was a hesitant, desultory sound. Gradually, a sprinkling of others joined that clap followed by the rest of the audience. The applause was muted and staccato. Adept Racha frowned.
Chenna slapped her free hand against her thigh in a halfhearted clap, while the other clutched her now closed fan. A memory of her grandfather rose unbidden in her mind: his kind eyes meeting hers one last time, crinkling at the corners, when the Hunters took him away while she clung to her crying father’s leg. Her chest constricted with a flood of remembered emotions. Even at that young age she’d learned witches were evil — but she’d loved her popi.
She wiped a trail of sweat off her forehead and glanced up to find the Adept’s gaze on her. The woman looked away, and Chenna’s face flushed.
Then the House lights went out and the shadow play began.
Chenna snapped her fan open with a flick of her wrist and craned her neck, hoping to catch even a whisper of a breeze. She exhaled, as if expelling the warm breath from her lungs could cool her down. She gave the fan a listless wave which barely stirred the stagnant air. Glancing around, no one else seemed as affected by the heat — and she was even a bakers’ daughter. She blinked as the pinpoint lights speckled over the ceiling swam in her vision like a watery field of stars.
She straightened and refocused on the play. The shadows leapt and danced and loomed. The play was a classic — a good king losing his kingdom to an evil advisor, then finding love and happiness with a woodcutter … who helped him regain the kingdom. The puppeteer’s words were muddled in her ears, like she was underwater, but she was only half listening anyway as she wiped sweat from her face.
“The man’s a murderer.” The woodcutter’s words were crisp against the murmur of the puppeteer’s.
Chenna blinked as the shadow of the puppet stretched, almost as if reaching towards her to pull her into their play.
“He killed his wife,” the ex-king added. His hands, raised in supplication, flapped against the screen.
Her heart raced. Those words weren’t part of the play — she knew it by heart. She cast her gaze left and right. No one else seemed to notice. She caught Witch Hunter Adept Racha watching her from where she leaned against a support post. The woman’s eyes jumped back to the play.
Chenna swallowed and shook her head a smidgen before refocusing on the stage. The woodcutter’s magical ox had appeared on screen. She relaxed — this was part of the story.
The animal lifted a hoof, and its dark form stretched towards her. “You need to put it right.”
Chenna inhaled sharply. She waved her fan to cover the sound.
“You need to set her at peace.” The ex-king aimed a finger at her, or so it seemed.
Chenna coughed, a strangled sound.
Taki leaned over. “You okay?” he whispered.
She jerked her head around to look at him. She nodded too sharply and her head spun. “Just a touch of heat stroke, maybe, combined with too much beer.” She smiled. She lowered her voice at the glare from Taki’s neighbour. “Luckily it’s almost over.”
As she turned more slowly back to the play, her gaze landed on Adept Racha again. Chenna’s eyebrows tugged together. Maybe she should tell the Adept about what the shadows had said? The idea that the puppeteer could be a witch niggled at her brain. She squinted as she returned her focus to the play.
She pressed her lips together and shook her head, dismissing the thought. Even if the Adept didn’t think her crazy, it would stir up a fire ants’ nest of trouble. He’d lived in the town as long as she had. Besides, getting involved in a witch hunt could jeopardize her placement at university, especially since Adept Racha had just announced that witches had been eradicated.
The ex-king wailed. “If you don’t help her spirit sleep, who will?”
“She’s too weak.” The woodcutter’s tone was angry.
“Not brave enough,” the ox added, the words dripping with disappointment. The animal’s head lowered, its haunting horns growing long. Light from behind flared in its eyes. “I’ll give you something to fear.”
Chenna stood and scrambled along the crowded bench, eliciting a wave of disgruntled murmurs from the other audience members.
“Chenna!” Siema’s hiss followed her.
Once outside the Festival House, she gulped deep breaths of air. A slight breeze tickled her skin. The air was still warm but less claustrophobic.
“Are you all right?” a voice said, startling her.
Chenna’s heart leapt, and she turned to see a shadow looming beside her. It didn’t speak or move. Her eyes slid to meet the shadow’s owner.
She swallowed. “Yes, thank you, Adept Racha.” She waved her fan in front of her face. Her lips tingled from a heady combination of nerves and the intensity of Racha’s gaze. “Just a touch too warm.”
In a smooth, languid movement, the Witch Hunter opened her own fan and flicked it sharply, sending a soothing gust over Chenna’s skin. She flushed and cast around for something more to say — how did one make small talk with a Witch Hunter? She jumped when she heard her name.
“Chenna.” Taki came to stand beside her. “You okay?”
Adept Racha jerked her arm back and snapped her fan closed, while Chenna took a step back to open up space for Taki.
“Better now.” She smiled at him, then glanced behind her where the audience tumbled out of the Festival House. The house lights were on, and the puppeteer was putting his puppets away.
“Ready for a ramble by the river? I’m starving.”
“I don’t think you’ll die of hunger,” Siema said, arm around his shoulder. “However, I might perish from thirst.” Her gaze slid from the Adept to Chenna. “Ready to go?”
Chenna started to say yes, then paused as Adept Racha drifted away into the dissipating audience. Her forehead furrowed as she wondered again if she should tell the witch hunter about what she’d seen … what she’d heard. She turned to see Kai Renta, the puppeteer, frowning at her as he picked up his box of puppets.
“Chenna.” Siema’s hand grasped her forearm and jostled it.
“Huh?” She shook her head to clear it. “No, I think I need to go douse myself in some cool water and lie down.” At her friends’ worried expressions, she lay her hand on Siema’s. “I’ll see you tomorrow. We still have a few days before I leave.”
“Fine. Taki and I will consume your share.” With a final moue, Siema linked her arm with Taki’s, and they turned to walk towards the wide river that served as the lifeline of the city. Chenna watched them go, then exhaled as a breeze wafted from that direction.
At a sound behind her, she glanced back. The puppeteer was leaving. She scrunched her lips and wrinkled her nose — she really should go home. She closed her fan and slipped it into her skirt pocket. Then, she rolled her shoulders back and followed the puppeteer.
Everyone was either off revelling or early to bed leaving her to trail the puppeteer through the increasingly quiet streets with cautious steps. Sticking to the edges, she moved from one overhang to the next. When she passed an open doorway, she flinched at the chatter and shied away the elongated shades that tumbled out of the square of light. But these shadows behaved normally and none of them spoke.
As an unsuspecting Kai Renta led her further, it became clear he was heading towards the edge of town, to the Daesun quarter, where the houses and shops started to thin out and the jungle began to intrude. Chenna checked over her shoulder as her pursuit took her further and further from her own home.
Finally, they arrived at a small property at the very edge of the neighbourhood. Dark, murmuring trees surrounded it, and a market garden gone to seed sat on one side. Somewhere a chicken clucked, which only served to deepen the silence. The puppeteer disappeared inside a dark shed beside the small house.
Chenna crept up the path with soft footsteps, listening for any sound of alarm in the night. A minute later, a light flared inside the shed, casting a fiery glow through the open window. Edging closer, she caught glimpses of the puppeteer walking about, his movements casting grotesque shadows on the far wall.
Her breath hitched in her throat as muttering drifted out from inside — she expected the voice of shadows. But it was only Kai Renta. Stretching onto tiptoes, she tried to get a better view of the puppeteer.
The man took a puppet out of his box and hung it on a peg — the ox joined the animals that already hung on the hook. The puppet hung limp and silent. Next, he took out the woodcutter, untangling its strings before placing it on a peg of its own.
Chenna’s stomach clenched as the puppet’s shadow grew on the wall behind it, cast by the bright lantern. But the shadow was listless and lifeless. As quietly as she could, Chenna exhaled, uncoiling the tension in her shoulders.
When Kai Renta finally took out the ex-king, he frowned as he peered at the metal. He turned and picked up a hammer. Chenna’s heart thudded in her ears as he raised the tool. Then he struck the king’s head, the metallic ping resonating through the still night.
“That’s what he used.”
The whisper sliced through the night, and Chenna froze. The rough timbre of the ox’s voice was unmistakable.
“Kai Alma needs justice,” the woodcutter added, its shadow lifting an arm almost as if it pointed at it. “She needs your help, Chenna Nara.”
The ox snorted. “She’ll never be called Nara if this is all the courage she has.”
She inhaled sharply and turned to flee but her foot caught on the uneven pathway.
“Who’s there?” Kai Renta’s voice was high and loud.
Chenna’s heart beat rapidly as she scrambled away, into the shadows by the house.
A moment later, the puppeteer’s backlit figure appeared in the shed’s doorway, hammer in hand. “Who’s here? I heard you, thief.” He stepped out into the night. Chenna held her breath and pressed against the house. Then a squawk sounded from the other side.
“Bloody foxes!” Renta cursed, then took off at a run towards the noise, hammer raised.
Chenna remained motionless for a handful of heartbeats, then she forced herself to break her concealment and flee into the night, the secrets shared the puppets snaking through her mind.
Stay tuned for part 2 next week.