A Culling of Shadow (Echoes of the Untold Age Book 3) Read online

  A Culling of Shadow

  Book Three in Echoes of the Untold Age

  JM Guillen

  Irrational Worlds

  Table of Contents

  A Myriad of Worlds

  Spider-Filled Shadow

  Wide, Uncanny Sky

  Telling and Tapestry

  Dust and Dross

  Thornton Gore

  Riddle, Unanswered

  Beckoned

  Babble

  Erelong, Gilead

  A Canny Snare

  Schism

  Defilement

  Come the Reap

  A Name Anew

  Boon, Forgotten

  Boon Companions

  Next Book

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  About the Author

  A M

  yriad of Worlds…

  This story regards the adventures and trials of Tommy Maple, a young man who is far more than he seems. It is a story of a shadowed world, a world where the glamours and hidden mysteries of the World-That-Was are fading away.

  Tommy and his kin live in the Untold Age.

  This story is itself a bent strand in a multi-genre, universe-spanning array of tales. Some of the strands of this work are science fiction, some fantasy, and some Lovecraftian, but they share the same horrific universe. They weft and weave together, leaving breadcrumbs of clues for the next story.

  Each tale echoes a beating heart of darkness that cackles quietly in the shadows of existence.

  These stories traverse space and time itself. They may be enjoyed as individual series or as part of the author’s works in their proper order. Either option is designed to drive you irrevocably insane. Some may wish to peruse only a few of these strange works, finding themselves haunted by mere contact with these unnatural tales.

  But others will find themselves to be the kind of reader who cannot rest until every terrible secret is found. For these, genre is unimportant. They will travel a wide and vast multiverse to learn uncanny things man was not meant to know.

  If you are among them…

  Welcome, wayward wanderer.

  This was written for you.

  Books in the Paean of Sundered Dreams

  The Dossiers of Asset 108 series:

  Rationality Zero

  The Primary Protocol

  Aberrant Vectors

  Cascading Error: Critical

  Judicar’s Oath series:

  On the Matter of the Red Hand

  Concerning Catacombs and the Restless Dead (Coming soon!)

  Echoes of the Untold Age series:

  The Herald of Autumn

  The Harrowing of Twilight

  A Culling of Shadow

  Other works:

  Handmaiden’s Fury

  Slave of the Sky Captain

  The Wormwood Event

  An Oath of Wintersteel

  Wind Slinger

  Spider-Filled Shadow

  Time Unknown

  The Village of Unterfels, the Thornèd Hedge

  “Because I am the wisest person you’ve ever met, Tommy Maple,” Ciaran rasped as she pushed her midnight braids back from her face. “You need someone around to help you choose well.”

  “You sound quite wise.” I wrinkled my nose at her.

  “Do I?” she croaked.

  “Like a wise old woman,” I mimicked her creaky voice and gestured to my throat. Not four days ago, a sorcerer clad in elken-dread had nearly strangled Ciaran to death. Her neck still bore the marks of the dead thing’s fingers.

  She narrowed her eyes.

  I smiled.

  “You’re absolutely maddening.” She hastened her dizzying pace.

  The cerulean moon sang overhead, drizzling azure-cast light across the Daledrop Path. Every now and again it flickered across her fair features, and I saw the star-scattering of freckles across her face.

  “Reminding me of your wisdom does not provide an explanation.” I adjusted the leather strapping at my waist. Two sickles hung heavy at my sides. “Why must we go?”

  “Greatmother knew exactly how to care for you, after you fell.” She reached up to touch an oak bough as she passed beneath. “She wrought elixirs for you; you might at least show your thanks.” She coughed. “Politeness, Herald.”

  “The Canny Man languishes,” I reminded her. “Time tarries not.”

  “Oh, I understand.” She bent and picked up a smooth stone, studying it before walking on. “The heroic Herald of Autumn is ready to face darkness dire. He yearns to charge after Ryker Carrows, slay that dread madling, and then away.” Gentle mockery sang quietly in her words.

  “Well, in troth, yes.” I pushed a strand of red hair from my face. Again, I wore the trousers Ciaran gave me, a black cloak, and a newly stitched, pine-green shirt. Aler Esbyn gifted me the latter the moment he met me.

  I’d proceeded to allow misbegotten mongrels to shred the cloth and me beneath it.

  “In troth,” she sang back at me, “the Herald of Autumn understands the longer he remains within fair Unterfels, the more of her people he shall meet.” She raised an eyebrow.

  “I don’t see your point.” My words danced into frost on the shadowed wind.

  “Oh!” She threw her own hand over her brow, dramatic. “Ever must I wander.” A gusty sigh. “Where the autumn wind goes, none may say.”

  I scowled at her.

  “You stood tense as your bow string when you first spoke with Aler,” she chided, her voice burring low. “Then, after all was well and done, you chose to pass out rather than speak with any who dwelt within the steads.”

  “I did not choose to pass out,” I grumbled.

  “I understand, O’ Herald.” She gave me a sideward smile. “I don’t much care for other people’s yammerings myself. It’s why I slipped through the Thorns so, as a child.”

  “You’re still not much more than a child,” I muttered. I glanced at the iron sword which hung on her back. The thing made my teeth grind. “I resent the implication that I’m some wild-fae,” I responded, louder. “Unable to speak civilly with strangers.”

  “Well, that remains to be seen.” I heard laughter burble beneath her words. “Regardless, we’ve arrived.”

  Up the hill, a strand of oaks swayed in October’s wind. A narrow path meandered between, through vines of pumpkin and squash.

  A single squat building loomed at the top.

  It looked nothing like the simple stone and wood structures of Ciaran’s home in Unterfels. From where I stood, it appeared to be a great mound of stones with branches and sticks laid against it. The top resembled more a slanted dome than a proper roof, and a black metal chimney poked up out of it, smoking merrily. A single window shone with a ruddy, sunset glow and a round, black door sat in the center.

  “Careful,” Ciaran breathed, sending frost dancing into the wind. “The hill is steep.”

  We went on in silence, winding around the cleft of brambled oak. A wind sang through those trees, a song of hidden shadows and dappled secrets.

  “There is still much I don’t know,” I mused. “Is she … your greatmother? Your blood?”

  Ciaran stopped mid-stride. She stared at me as if I’d just swallowed iron.

  I raised my brows.

  “No.” She shook her head, exasperated. “Greatmother isn’t related to any in the steads, as far as we know.”

  “No?” I pulled at a fray in my shirt. “So she’s the… village elder, then?”

  Ciaran let out a long sigh and gazed up at the azure moon, gnawing her lip.

  I waited.

  “She isn’t a ruler, if that’s what you think. Not
some aged wise-woman who leads us through our daily lives.” She waved a hand in the air. “Each family possesses matriarchs and patriarchs in Unterfels. They affect different responsibilities. Greatmother isn’t part of any of that.”

  “I see.” I shook my head, brow furrowed. “So who is she?”

  She took a moment, rolling her words around in her mouth, tasting them.

  Moonlight slanted over her dark hair, granting a ghostly blue cast.

  “We don’t know,” she said simply. Then she continued to walk.

  I followed after, giving the young woman a moment. Wheels spun in her head, I knew. I only needed let her piece together her thoughts.

  “My own grand-mère use to tell us stories about Greatmother: where she came from and how long she’d lived. As my brother, Jasper, and I grew older, however, we realized we’d been fed fairy tales.”

  I smiled at her unconscious phrasing.

  “What kind of stories?” I spied a smooth aspen stick, laid across my path. I picked it up, seeing a face smiling within.

  I smiled back, turning it over in my hands.

  “We’ve no time for a Telling,” she said. “But Greatmother has dwelt in the wilds of Unterfels as long as we have stories to remember. She isn’t one of our kind, some say. Others think she is, only with glamour terrible and fierce.”

  “You don’t know how old she is?”

  “I don’t know what she is.” Ciaran affixed me with slightly narrowed eyes. “She’s not a person, not in the way I am or Warder is. Even if she is, she’s used her art to remain alive long after her time. Maybe so long she’s forgotten what it is to be a person.”

  “Perhaps one of the bygone folke?” I peered up at the oddling house, watching the smoke curl into indigo twilight. “Not the fair-folke, but something from distant lands?”

  “I think not. She didn’t understand the lighting of the baelfyre,” Ciaran uttered darkly. “She held no kenning of what it meant to give her Name. Once the Canny Man took his leave, she couldn’t take his stead.”

  Not one of the aes sídhe, then. I frowned. That sounded…

  Damn odd.

  “Not human, glamour-born. Not one bygone,” I mused out loud.

  “She’s lived with us as long as we can say.” Ciaran stepped into the small garden, past a wall of crumbling stone. “She heals us when Aler finds the end of his art. She tells us what the stars mean and when something terrible comes.”

  “She told a young lady to follow her heart,” I said. “I remember that much; you told Warder Eldyng.”

  “He thinks it a terrible trick.” Ciaran stopped, brushing dust from her trousers. “He is quite wroth. He thinks I might have gotten killed.”

  I thought back to Ciaran, dancing death with that wicked blade in her hand. I thought of the mongrels’ ululating cry when she struck them down.

  Warder underestimated her greatly.

  “So Warder told you of his dreamings, sent by the Canny Man.” I looked at her, only to realize she glared at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  She only eyed my clothing before continuing to dust hers clean.

  I took her hint and began to brush away the dust of the road from my trousers and shirt. “Warder told you to cry off, that you chased only dreams. Therefore, you came here.”

  “Greatmother takes care of the steads, it’s true. Ever has she shown kindness to me.”

  “You’re certain you aren’t blood?” I half-teased. “With the weirdling witch of the wood?”

  “I think it’s because I ever wandered among the Thorn,” she replied, ignoring me loftily. “Greatmother admired that I didn’t sit home and tat lace or darn socks.”

  We stepped through wending pumpkin vine and stopped at the front door.

  It loomed there, a darkened thing of black wood and uncanny sign. Etched within, looping circles and sharpened angles whorled, each perfect and meticulous.

  “What do these mean?” My hunter’s hackles raised, just a bit. I’d felt the exact same way when I first saw Ciaran and her witching line.

  “I haven’t the slightest.” She reached for the small cord that dangled ’neath a silver bell. “Are you ready, O’ Herald?”

  “Not a bit.” I eyed the swirling sigils and glyphs, uneasily.

  “I see.” Ciaran rang the bell.

  2

  With no word or warning, the black door edged open, creaking on untended hinge. Tenebrous shadow lurked within, smelling of sweetspice and other, earthier things.

  The tiniest flicker of orange cut through that darkness, reaching for us with capering fingers.

  “Greatmother!” Ciaran placed one hand on the blackened door, easing it open just a bit. “I’ve brought the Herald at your request; he stands with me now.”

  “She asked you to bring me?” I hissed as she stifled a cough. “Why? What witchery could she—”

  Ciaran rolled her eyes at me, then fully opened the door.

  The darkness that dwelt there felt alive, as if it coursed out over my skin. Within, only a single fire burned, orange and angry on the far side of the room.

  In that light, I saw little.

  The knurly boards of the floor jambled all about, mismatched and crooked, each a different size. They’d been cunningly fitted together, perfectly sealed.

  A spider, crook-legged and scurryful, skittered across the floor and back into the dark.

  “Child,” a woman’s voice croaked from the shadows. Her word sounded spidery but also cold, a voice like crackling ice. “Not that a child could slay the mongrels. Oh, no.” She cackled, then mused, “Perhaps I should not call you such.”

  “No need for that.” Ciaran paced forward, though did not breach the threshold. “My actual age not withstanding.”

  “A young woman usually demands to be called such,” Greatmother tittered.

  “Yet you call me as it pleases you. And regarding the mongrels, I had help, didn’t I?” Ciaran gestured to me. “The Herald of Autumn came to our aid.”

  “As he must, oh aye,” Greatmother said. “Come in, won’t you both? I can offer naught but warm stew. I don’t get guests often, I’m afraid.”

  “So, we are guests then?” I asked, still outside her door. “Guests within your home?”

  “Oh, aye, Herald, to be certain.” She cleared her throat, a sound like dry, grating bones. “My guests. Here under guest-right. So do I oath.”

  I let out a breath I hadn’t known I’d held.

  Ciaran regarded me scathingly, as if I’d spat in the soup.

  I stepped inside after her, the creeping gloom of the place settling around me, a darkened shroud. My hunter’s eyes peered into that dim murk.

  Yellow’d, rune-carved bones hung tangled in red thread all along the left side, close against the wall. They clicked and rattled in the breeze that followed us.

  A rough-wood table, wrought from an old cedar stump, sat under the bones. Just off from center, a giant cleaver gleamed, blade embedded three fingers deep in gnarled wood.

  I marveled at the strength such might take.

  Dark stains ran from the block onto the crooked floor.

  Now I recognized those earthy scents: butchery. Greatmother brought game into her home and dressed it inside.

  I wrinkled my nose.

  Along the other side, a great oaken desk loomed, laden with dozens of glittering small bottles and dusty phials in cabinets swayed askew. Perfect and neat, each jar nestled with others of its kind upon tiny shelves and alcoves. These, too, crafted from crooked boards, wood of all sizes made to fit snug.

  Countless tinctures, salves, and unguents gleamed at me. A brazier, now dark, sat next to a mortar and pestle wrought from hickory and jade.

  I moved closer. Each bottle bore a label, scrawled with meticulous, mysterious symbols.

  “See aught that pleases you, Herald?” Greatmother chortled. Even with my keen eye she remained little more than a seated silhouette, a rattling of bones.

  “Ciaran said
you knew your ’lixirs, Greatmother.” I kept my words even paced, polite. “I experienced a delightful concoction myself recently, syrup of maple and moonlight wrought.”

  I very carefully did not thank her.

  “Oh yes,” she rasped. “Maple and moonlight and autumn-sung wind. All to return us the Herald again.”

  Ciaran smiled, a secret thing.

  “I never encountered the like, Greatmother.” I stared at her, trying to suss out anything aside from shadow.

  No. Nothing. Perhaps a door in the far wall?

  “One hopes you never need again,” she replied. “Yet from what Ciaran tells, I think that unlikely.”

  The young woman shuffled her feet. She avoided my eye.

  “You know more of me than I of you, I fear.” I took a step closer. “I feel as if I stepped into my own story midway through.”

  “We must talk, yes.” She chuckled. “But won’t you both come to my hearth? It won’t do to leave my guests hungry.”

  She stood, casting aside the patchwork blanket that kept her hidden in shadow. She moved to the fire, stirring the large pot hanging there.

  Emaciated. Skeletal. In that orange light, her skin appeared gray, almost azure. Rags hung from gaunt limbs, keeping her scarcely decent.

  I thought of little Johnny Dumpling and the three dire sisters. I thought of gingerbread cottages and ovens filled with screams. My eyes drifted to the cleaver.

  Guest-right, I thought. Whatever this creature, she made her oath.

  “I’m a cold, starveling wretch,” Ciaran huffed, stepping forward. “I sat out in yon wind for three days, waiting for the Herald to awaken.”

  “It’s a friend that does a friend’s duty,” Greatmother croaked. She turned, holding a crude, wooden bowl. Something within steamed in the flicker-cast light.

  Ciaran took it eagerly.

  I followed, still a bit wary.

  “And here.” Greatmother handed her a vial. “To ease your poor, broken throat.”

  As Ciaran took it, I suddenly saw how tall Greatmother loomed, skeletal limbs and flesh hanging all askew.

  And her eyes.