Shoreseeker Read online

  Shoreseeker

  Book One of The Farshores Saga

  Brandon M. Lindsay

  Cover art and design by Jeff Brown

  https://www.jeffbrowngraphics.com/

  Copyright © 2019 Brandon M. Lindsay

  All rights reserved.

  For my family

  My first fans and my biggest supporters

  Table of Contents

  Prologue: Twelve Towers

  Chapter 1: Words in Blood

  Chapter 2: The Lone Knight

  Chapter 3: The Last Night

  Chapter 4: The Face of Naruvieth

  Chapter 5: One of Your Own

  Chapter 6: Eyes of a Predator

  Chapter 7: Sword and Staff

  Chapter 8: The Edge

  Chapter 9: The Fall

  Chapter 10: Bound to the Moon

  Chapter 11: The Fensoria

  Chapter 12: Whorls of Metal

  Chapter 13: The Crossing

  Chapter 14: Knights of the Eye

  Chapter 15: Parting Paths

  Chapter 16: The Road to Falconkeep

  Chapter 17: Traveler

  Chapter 18: Clever Men

  Chapter 19: The Waystation

  Chapter 20: Through the Gates

  Chapter 21: Ritual of Joining

  Chapter 22: The Test

  Chapter 23: The Oath

  Chapter 24: Councilor of the Wall

  Chapter 25: A Little Harmless Mischief

  Chapter 26: The Killing Tool

  Chapter 27: Someday

  Chapter 28: Garoshmir

  Chapter 29: Penellia

  Chapter 30: The Shadow Box

  Chapter 31: The Shadow World

  Chapter 32: The Path to Prophecy

  Chapter 33: Books and Words

  Chapter 34: Analysis

  Chapter 35: The Second Line

  Chapter 36: Hearthsflame

  Chapter 37: The Duel

  Chapter 38: The Wishing Well

  Chapter 39: Flight from Falconkeep

  Chapter 40: Insects

  Chapter 41: Patterns in the Dirt

  Chapter 42: To the Hall

  Chapter 43: The Naruvian

  Chapter 44: Appeal to Reason

  Chapter 45: Third and Fourth Arguments

  Chapter 46: A Presentation of Swords

  Chapter 47: A Flash of Yellow

  Chapter 48: The Search Ends

  Chapter 49: The Visitor

  Chapter 50: To Conquer Fear

  Chapter 51: Minister of Relief

  Chapter 52: A Distant Chime

  Chapter 53: Escape

  Chapter 54: Unwelcome News

  Chapter 55: Attack

  Chapter 56: Lost

  Chapter 57: Run

  Chapter 58: Stronghold

  Chapter 59: Encounter

  Chapter 60: Trappings Discarded

  Chapter 61: Eye to Eye

  Chapter 62: First Taste of Freedom

  Chapter 63: Words and Flame

  Chapter 64: Swords Drawn

  Chapter 65: Piled High

  Chapter 66: The Smoker

  Chapter 67: Raining Bodies

  Chapter 68: Harmony

  Chapter 69: Deception's End

  Chapter 70: Flight

  Chapter 71: Flight II

  Chapter 72: Pattern's Victory

  Chapter 73: Reunion

  Chapter 74: End of the Road

  Chapter 75: Making the Best of It

  Chapter 76: The Dangers of the Night

  Chapter 77: The Caravan

  Chapter 78: Bones

  Chapter 79: The Red Moon

  Chapter 80: Light

  Chapter 81: The Highest Volume

  Chapter 82: Race

  Chapter 83: Intoxication

  Chapter 84: Growth

  Chapter 85: Glimmer

  Chapter 86: A Delicate System

  Chapter 87: Shoreseeker

  Epilogue: Dust and Bones

  Prologue: Councilor of Nothing

  About the Author

  Prologue: Twelve Towers

  Shad Belgrith fell to her knees on the stone balcony. She stretched her arms out to both sides with palms facing skyward, shuddering as the rain trickled down her naked flesh. It wasn't long before her glossy brown hair, at least what remained of it, was plastered to her neck and back in rain-saturated clumps.

  She waited there. For how long she waited, she could not tell, but she waited until she had Matrollis's attention again.

  Lightning flashed, shattering the darkness of the overcast sky.

  "Matrollis. If my actions be unworthy of your sufferance, may you strike me dead where I kneel, bare before you."

  She stared up at the sky, eyes squinting in the rain as she awaited his displeasure. But none came. No bolts struck her. At times like this, when Shad knew she had transgressed against him, she wondered if Matrollis, or any of the apoth, were even real. She didn’t like this feeling of doubt wriggling inside her, though, so she ignored it as best she could. After all, her father had believed in them. She supposed that was reason enough. It would have to be.

  After a while, the sky grumbled softly. Apparently Matrollis would not punish her for the sins she was about to commit.

  It was all the sanction she needed.

  Letting one arm drop to her side, she gestured with her other hand impatiently. Her servant, Erianna, strode forward with a leather bundle tucked under one arm. In her hands, she carried a hammer and pair of pliers. Her hair, normally a wavy, light brown, clung to her scalp, yet even so she didn't look half as much like a drowned rat as most people did in the rain. Most women would have envied Erianna for her beauty, but Shad was the mistress and Erianna was not. As far as Shad was concerned, Erianna had nothing to envy.

  Without a flicker of emotion on her face, Erianna knelt a pace away from her naked mistress, set down the hammer and pliers, and unrolled the leather bundle between them. Strapped to the leather were sharp, needle-like objects, some as long as a finger, some shorter. Some were as thick as carpentry nails, while others would be suitable for the most delicate stitchwork. All of them were made of gleaming steel. Of the one hundred and fifty spikes she had begun with, fewer than half remained.

  The rest of them pierced Shad’s skin.

  Shad closed her eyes and ran her fingers along the spikes before her, letting the feel of them guide her choice. As always, one forced itself upon her awareness as her finger touched it, sending an electric thrill up her arm. She didn't know how, but she could always find the right one.

  She opened her eyes and drew a sharp breath. It was the thickest spike left. She exhaled slowly. "This is the one today."

  With an expression perfectly schooled to show nothing, Erianna drew the spike from its sleeve. "As you will, mistress."

  Shad inspected herself. Eighty-two piercings adorned her flesh from head to toe. Piercings on her arms, piercings on her legs, piercings on her stomach and her back and even the tops of her feet. Over twenty of them were in her face and ears, along her eyebrows, in her nose and lips, even three along her forehead. A strip of scalp down the center of her head had been shaved away to make room for more piercings. She had discovered that keeping that shaved was a chore, but her servants were up for the task.

  She had even tried piercing one of her eyelids. Luckily the blindness passed only a few days after she realized how much of a mistake that had been, but even now, her left eye was slightly milkier than the emerald green of her right one. It had been the only piercing she’d ever removed.

  Shad didn't have many places left to pierce—at least not many that wouldn't irritate her. She did, however, find a spot on the inside of her thigh that wouldn't get in the way of much. She hadn't had a man in quite some
time, after all. "Here."

  "Is … is my mistress certain?"

  "Your mistress is always certain. Now do it."

  Still holding the spike in one hand, Erianna nodded and picked up the hammer. She leaned close.

  Shad pinched the bit of flesh and looked away. Not because she couldn't stand the sight of her own blood, but because she didn't want to know when it would—

  Metal clanged. Steel bit into flesh.

  Blood, diluted with rainwater, streamed out of the new wound in Shad’s thigh and over her fingers.

  "Now," she said between ragged gasps, "the pliers."

  * * *

  Standing in the wavering candlelight of her high-ceilinged dressing chamber, Shad stared at her reflection in the gilt-framed mirror as Erianna dressed her. The skin around the spike, which had been bent with the pliers to form a crude ring like all the others, was swollen and pink and would doubtless ooze rancid-smelling pus before the week was out. She found, though, that she was getting used to the smell.

  Erianna deftly wrapped the strip of satin cloth, green to match Shad's right eye, over her breasts, crossing her back, between her legs, over the shoulders. Shad would be clothed enough to be decent by some standard, but she wanted all of her piercings—especially the new one—to be exposed to the air.

  That was, after all, the point.

  Someone knocked at the door. At a gesture from Shad, Erianna pinned the wrap in place and hurried to the door. Erianna whispered to the unseen servant and shut the door. “The ambassador has arrived.” Erianna immediately resumed clothing her mistress. Shad had heard a faint tremor in her voice.

  “Did he bring anything with him?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Erianna, fingers deft as she cinched and tied the cloth into a belt. Once the ivory clasp that kept her garment from falling open had been fitted into place at the small of Shad’s back, Erianna stood with her head bowed, her task finished. “He brings a gift for you, mistress. A small knife.”

  A thrill of anticipation ran through Shad. "Good,” she said, idly fingering one of the rings on her elbow. “Time to put these to use."

  * * *

  The clicking of her heels on the white marble-tiled floor became muted as Shad stepped onto the carpet in the center of the foyer, toward the sitting room where her guest waited. Shad couldn't help but grin like a fool. How long had it been since anyone south of Andrin's Wall laid eyes on such a …

  Such a what? Man? Creature? She couldn't rightly say what the ambassador was, though of course stories dating back before the construction of Andrin's Wall called them something entirely different.

  Monsters.

  Shad knew such appellations were utterly meaningless. Monster was merely what you called an outside force that thwarted your plans. She had been called a monster herself at times, and she was none the worse for wear as a result. In fact, she found that the title suited her nicely. And so I go to a meeting of monsters.

  As two of her servants pushed back the heavy doors to the sitting room, Shad allowed herself to imagine what he would look like. Of course, the stories that had trickled down through the centuries had likely been exaggerated with each telling, and likely begun by people who had never even seen the sheggam. As the stories told it, the sheggam had nearly annihilated mankind and had driven the few thousand that lived to build the Wall and cloister themselves off from the world, so it was somewhat understandable that every description of the sheggam tried its best to tap into some universal fear of wildness and the unknown. This often led to saying that the sheggam had beast-like attributes—fangs, fur, scales, and whatever else a limited imagination could conjure up.

  Shad believed none of it. The sheggam clearly were not as gruesome and barbaric as the stories painted them; the mere fact that one was here to speak to her, calling himself an ambassador no less, was testament to this.

  But that didn’t mean she trusted him. Until now, Shad had only spoken to the ambassador by proxy. That way, if something went wrong, Shad would only lose a servant, and not her own life. But now that Shad was getting what she wanted, she had decided it was time to meet the ambassador face-to-face.

  A pair of guards holding spears pushed open the twin doors as Shad approached. She nearly missed a step as she entered, fixated on the hulking form standing in the center of the sitting room.

  Shad next noticed what he wore. A fine white cloak trimmed in pale blue silk, adorned with delicate embroidery of deep blue. It was, by most standards, a beautiful thing. She had at times met with governors and councilors from most of the other lands of the Accord, and none would be ashamed to wear such a garment.

  Almost immediately, she realized what the cloak was: a disguise. A mask.

  Indeed, the cloak covered the ambassador entirely. Not even his boots were visible beneath its hem—if he even wore such things. The cloak disguised him well, revealing little of his true shape, only suggesting. Yet while the cloak hid his shape, it did nothing to disguise his size. He was massive, at least two heads taller than Shad, even hunched down as he was. She had expected him to be more … more like the monsters she was used to. More like herself.

  It was odd. With as many lamps as were hanging on the stone walls, she should have been able to see his face clearly from where she now stood. But the hood completely obscured the ambassador’s face, shrouding it in unnatural shadow. Not even a glimmer escaped the darkness there. Shad tried to smile to take the edge off her nerves, but only succeeded in stretching her lips into a thin line.

  "Ambassador Orthkalu," Shad said, "welcome to Twelve Towers. I'm glad to finally meet you in person. I apologize if you've been waiting long." When he said nothing in reply, her eyes flicked to the small knife lying on the wooden side table. It was a gorgeous piece. Light danced off the jewels in the hilt. She licked her lips, and silently chided herself for such a wanton and careless display. But the truth was that knife awakened something in her, a hunger, like she had never known.

  She knew that the knife itself was not the gift, but rather the means to receiving it.

  "I see you want it," came Orthkalu's voice. Shad had expected a voice harsher or rougher. Not quite so … refined. "Go on," he continued. "Pick it up."

  The seductiveness of his offer nearly overwhelmed her. Nearly, but not entirely. A lifetime of politics had inured her to such easy trust. "Are you sure there's nothing you want for all that you and your people have given us? Not only for your expertise in building the Runeway, but …" She gestured faintly to the knife. "This."

  The ambassador spread his massive gloved hands wide. "Your friendship is all we ask."

  Shad knew that those words, whenever uttered, were lies, no matter who was doing the uttering. No one merely wants friendship, especially not at such a price as what Orthkalu had given her. Not knowing what he truly wanted made her uneasy.

  "Well," said Orthkalu, "there is perhaps one thing."

  Ah. She smiled and gave the hulking monster a slight bow, more than she had ever given anyone in her life. "You have but to name it." Making a promise wasn't the same as keeping it.

  Orthkalu studied her, though whether to determine her sincerity or merely unnerve her, she didn't know. But he was definitely doing the latter. "A trifling thing. Arrange a meeting with the land's rulers."

  "You wish to speak to the Council of the Wall." Shad frowned, which was little more than a tightening of the skin around her brow piercings. "Consider it done. What would you like me to say to them on your behalf, Ambassador?"

  "You won't be speaking on my behalf, Governor. You will be there to make my introduction."

  Shad paused to consider the request. It was possible, she knew. But she would have to be careful. Merely harboring a sheggam would cause an uproar throughout the Accord. Superstitious mobs would form with the aim of seeing her hang from a tree, her remains burned and buried to keep her soul from reaching Farshores. She would have to keep Orthkalu’s identity a secret until she got him in front of the Council, and
once they decided to deal with him, he would all but have their sanction. And so would Shad. She would be just as untouchable as they were.

  Briefly, she wondered what her father would think of her speaking to a sheggam like this, like an equal. Her gaze drifted back to the knife.

  "Go on,” Orthkalu said again, gesturing to it. “For all the hospitality you've shown me, and for what you do for both of our peoples.”

  Shad paused a moment before crossing the floor to the table where the knife lay. All that existed in the moment was the knife. She ran her fingers along its cool silver surface. It was worth a fortune, she knew—but the true value lay in what it would give her.

  Power.

  She picked up the knife, gripping it firmly, and stepped back from the table, eyes fixed on Orthkalu. “I am ready.”

  And she was. The sensitive flesh around her piercings tingled with anticipation.

  Though she couldn’t see his face, she could sense a smile form under that hood as the cloak parted to reveal silk-gloved hands.

  With unexpected deftness, Orthkalu plucked at the fingers of his glove, loosening them, before removing the glove. A hand twice the size of her own was revealed, skin pale like that of a corpse. The stories had been right about one thing: heavy black talons tipped each finger. Orthkalu could shred her just as easily as crush her skull with that hand.

  Instead, he raised his bare hand, exposing the palm to her.

  Before she lost her nerve, Shad slashed at his palm with the knife, then hurriedly set it back on the table.

  As far as she could tell, Orthkalu hadn’t even flinched as the blade bit into his flesh. Blood trickled from the gash in his palm, spoiling the pristine lace at his wrist. Still she waited.

  Then her gift came.

  White mist, as thick and heavy as smoke, oozed out of the wound. It wormed through the air towards her like the tentacles of some sea beast. She took another step back, then hardened herself. No. I wanted this. I want this.

  She spread her arms wide, exposing herself.

  The tentacles of mist brushed along her skin, burning it with a subtle and unseen energy. Then the mist found a piercing.

  The pain made her collapse to the floor, screaming.