Chapter 5: 4. The Shadow Man

The windows were impossible to replace. The door was gone for good. The tower was eternally drafty and cold, and the wind howled through its ceiling on rainy days. Castles and towers were rarely comfortable, but this was the worst Corvo’s mother had made him stay at so far. Normally their temporary homes were not so remote or lonely; in the past there had always been servants and nurses coming and going or children to talk to and play with. Here there was only Gob, and she smelled like rot.

Mother taught him proper grammar and etiquette when she found the time. They practiced writing together with enchanted ink that erased itself when commanded to.

“You can read your name. But can you write it?” she said.

Of course he could, so slowly he spelled it out: K-ο-ρ-β-ο Κ-ο-ρ-ά-κ-ο-ς, in the Kathar script. But she scolded him for being too messy and made him do it again, and again.

That was nothing compared to the precision she demanded in grammar. He often made mistakes, and rarely was she as severe with him as when he did.

Corvo liked to learn. But when she uttered the words to make the paper clear itself, he put his quill down.

“I don’t want to write,” he said. “I want to learn magic.”

Mother gave him a very sad look. “You will never learn magic,” she said. “It is impossible. But you are a duke. Your destiny is far more important than enchantments and cantrips. Your magic is far more potent anyway; for although you may not be able to conjure lights or erase ink, you will one day command whole armies with your very voice.” She roughed his hair. “Yet I cannot even get my own son to listen to me. Is that not a more potent magic?”

Corvo frowned. Her words meant almost nothing to him. She often said he was a duke, a lord, a leader, but he never felt like more than just Corvo. He didn’t want to be a duke anyway: he wanted to be a sorcerer, like Mother was. If he had possessed magic—that he would have been able to feel. But what good was it to be a noble?

Meanwhile Dorian still played with him, or took him riding through the woods, and the two hunted deer together while Mother worked. Or, Corvo watched as Dorian hunted. He did his best to stay out of the way, but he always insisted on coming along if Mother was busy.

Sometimes Dorian trapped smaller animals, rats and squirrels and rabbits, and brought them up to Mother’s laboratory. Corvo always hoped they were new pets for him.

They never were.

At the start of their third week in the Tower of Keraz, he overhead a conversation between Mother and Dorian through the bedroom walls:

“It is good instruction,” Mother said. “You will bring him with you, so long as you are only gone a few hours.”

“He’s too young. It’s better if he stays with you.”

“I do not want him to stay with me. I—do not want him to see my work. And I cannot watch him all day while sitting idle. That is for your sake, Dorian.” She sighed and groaned. “He is too old for me to look after alone. He needs a dedicated teacher. You are the closest we have.”

“I don’t mind teaching him what I know. But I have work to get done, too. He makes a hunt harder, and it isn’t easy to make sure he’s always around, not running off or getting hurt.”

“Corvo does not run off.”

They were both quiet after that. Corvo crept toward the wall and listened closer.

“He’s old enough to be alone, so long as you’re nearby,” Dorian said, eventually.

“You know he becomes afraid.”

“He’ll get over it eventually. He’ll have to.”

“I—he’s still young. He—we—do not need to leave him alone. Not yet. Night is different, and there is no choice when you have to be with me for an experiment. We are still always both nearby. But—if he were to hurt himself….”

“Have the goblin look after him. It’s not for long. You can always check on him.”

Mother scoffed.

“I tire of this discussion,” she said. “Go to bed.”

But the next day, Mother came to Corvo and said, “Dorian is going hunting, alone. He will be gone until very late. I must work for a while longer in the laboratory, and then we shall study together. You will stay in the library, while Gob watches the front door. If you are frightened—if anything happens—come up the stairs and fetch me at once. Do you understand?”

Corvo nodded.

Mother turned to Gob, who was usually cleaning, and said, “Stand in the ruined doorway. Do not let anyone except Dorian come or go.”

“Yes, mistress,” the goblin croaked, and she went to her purpose.

The forest was vast and lonely beyond the tower. Corvo missed the company of other boys and hated the chill of the wind. The books of the library were his most reliable friends, but they were not suitable for children. He read them anyway.

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Hours passed. The sun set behind the higher cliffs of the mountains. Darkness descended on the Tower of Keraz. Mother had left a magelight at the top of the library, but it was shadowy still, and pitch black past the stairs. Dorian was not back. Mother did not emerge.

Corvo found the brightest place and sat with his back to the wall. But the minutes seemed eternal. A crack of thunder shook the whole tower. A patter of rain leaked in through the broken window, and beyond was pitch darkness. Screaming wind attacked the books around him. He became so afraid that he ran to the stairs, to wait outside the laboratory door, but there he found pitch darkness.

That was when he saw the man.

Creeping up the steps, coming around the tower’s curve. A man of pure darkness. A silhouette stalking toward him. It moved by throwing its shoulders forward and taking long, heavy, deliberate steps, swaying like something undead.

It was a humanoid figure. Broad and distinct, with a head and four limbs. It came very slowly. Inching closer.

When it paused, it seemed to disappear; yet when it moved he could see its body defined again, black against black, like a whirlpool atop the sea.

Two red eyes appeared on its head.

Corvo screamed. He scrambled backward up the stairs, tripping twice, before he finally came to the sealed door of the library. It was huge and oaken, preserved perfectly, and he pounded on it while he cried. His face was soaked with tears by the time it swung open.

Mother scooped him into her arms. She cradled him and tried to find his eyes.

“What is it? What is wrong?”

Corvo cried into her breast. He snorted and sobbed and smeared snot across her robes. All he could say was, “The shadow man was there!”

Mother placed him down and grabbed her staff. She cast a radiant light: an orb, but this time as blinding as the sun. It slowly drifted down the stairs, into the library, then toward the bedrooms.

In that moment, Corvo caught his first glimpse of the laboratory.

It was a room of gleaming white. The windows there were intact. Everything was spotlessly clean. A rainbow-painted conduit ran down from the ceiling and to a workstation. Vials filled with red, blue, and green substances lined the walls. Glowing lights hung from the ceiling. Three cages held a rabbit, a squirrel, and a rat each. The squirrel seemed content, but the rabbit and rat both lay limp.

Red veins crisscrossed the rabbit. The rat’s ears had turned green. Both were covered in pustules and tumors.

Corvo closed his eyes and grabbed Mother’s legs.

“What did he look like?” she asked. “Tell me precisely.”

Corvo was too afraid to say anything. But he whispered, “Tall. Coming up the stairs. He had red eyes.”

Mother hesitated. She pulled Corvo forward, shut the door to the laboratory, and began down the stairs.

“Come. We will check everywhere to make sure he is gone.”

They did. Together they checked every room, every closet, and every inch of the tower. At the kitchen, Gob still stood watch at the ruined door.

“Have you let anything pass?” she asked.

“No, mistress.”

“Have you seen anyone?”

“No, mistress.”

The spell of light went out. It became dark again, except for those few magelights Mother sustained throughout the floors.

Corvo couldn’t be convinced that things were safe. His tears didn’t stop. Mother did not scold him, but brought him to the library and sat with him on the floor, keeping him in her lap. She put her staff aside and held him until Dorian returned.

At some point he fell asleep. But he woke up to his mother’s voice.

“He does not hallucinate,” she whispered.

“He’s a child. You told me yourself the imagination that children have.” It was Dorian, whispering back. Corvo opened his eyes, but he saw only darkness. “He told me how he’s afraid of the shadow. Any child would be, with goblins and gnolls and demons lurking about Esenia. That doesn’t make it real.”

“He has never been afraid of the dark until we came to this place,” Mother said.

“You’ve never made him sleep alone. That’s all it is.”

Mother stroked Corvo’s hair gently. She still held him tightly.

“Stay with him,” she said. “I will search this place—thoroughly—with mage sight.”

“You have already.”

“I will do it again!” she nearly shouted.

Corvo stirred and looked at her face in the dark. She smiled at him sadly.

“I will check for the shadow man one last time,” she said. “You must stay with Dorian now.”

Corvo shook his head and hugged her tightly. “Mama stay,” he said.

She sighed. “I will be back. Do not fret, my little crow. You are safe with him.”

She put him down and picked up her staff. As the blue veins of mana on the haft began to glow, so did her eyes. Then she stepped away.

Dorian sat with Corvo on the ground. But this time they both stayed silent.

Mother checked the books of the library. She went up to the laboratory and back down to the lower floors. She spent an hour in the basement. But when she was finished, she returned to Corvo with a look of defeat.

“There is nothing here,” she said. “Nothing arcane, beyond my things and what I have found already. It could be an Old Spirit, whose Essence is invisible to the Aether. Or perhaps a very secretive shade…”

“Eris,” Dorian interrupted her. “It was a shadow. I know you want to believe your son. But he’s just a boy. He didn’t see anything.”

“And what do you know about children, old man? I do not believe you have had a family whom you did not abandon pre-partum.”

Dorian grimaced and nodded. But he said, “I was a boy once, unlike you. And I’ve known a fair few more in my time, in retinues and parties. And I’ve known mothers, too. Seeing him afraid is painful. But it’s all part of growing up.”

“Do not pretend your years lend you wisdom,” Mother spat. “They are just as liable to bequeath you with dementia. I am smarter than you, and I know my son far better than you do. He would not lie.”

“You know magic better than me, too, yet you have no answer.” When Mother didn’t reply, he added, “A trick of the imagination isn’t a lie.”

“I also like my son far better than I like you, so if you value intestines on the inside of your body, you would do best to agree with me more often.” But she seemed deflated. She sat down at the library’s desk. “Perhaps it would be best if we left.”

“Left?”

“This tower is a ruin anyway. It is no place to raise a child.”

“You’re almost done. Aren’t you? You’ve nearly found the cure.”

“I may be,” she said. “But I rather like you uncured, for it compels you to speak your mind.”

Corvo had no idea what this meant. He crawled back to the wall. He hated it when Mother argued with his fathers, which was mostly all the time.

“But I like you less when you aren’t working,” Dorian said. “And if you stop, I won’t stay.”

“Then go. You are replaceable. There are other men. More obedient ones, also. Who are younger, and have more hair. But there is only one Corvo.”

Their argument stopped there. But no one left the library. Eventually Dorian said, “If you think it’s so serious—we can leave. But your love for your son has your mind clouded. He would be saying the same thing in Skane or Verarszag, or in your keep in Katharos. All children are afraid of the dark.”

Mother didn’t answer. Instead she stood. She took Corvo by the hand.

“Come. I will let you sleep with me tonight,” she said. “Would you like that?” Corvo nodded. Mother looked over her shoulder. “As for you: you may sleep with the goblin. Do not bother us.”

They left Dorian in the library. And that night, although Corvo was still afraid of what might be under the bed, he at least felt safe at Mother’s side.