* THE VIS REMAINING TRILOGY *

  A SHORT STORY

  HUNTING

  A

  SHADE

  |||||

  H. E. SALIAN

  Copyright © H. E. Salian 2023

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be altered, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including, but not limited to, scanning, duplicating, uploading, hosting, distributing, or reselling, without the express prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of reasonable quotations in features such as reviews, interviews, and certain other non-commercial uses currently permitted by copyright law.

  Disclaimer:

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, locations, and businesses are purely products of the author’s imagination and are entirely fictitious. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, places, or events is completely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-7348004-4-9

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  ♦♦♦

  HID STARED AT THE Oracaede representative with veiled curiosity. The woman was tall and unmoving, with dark hair and deep, predatory eyes. Those eyes looked down on every single person around her with disdain.

  She was what Hid imagined the Aynur chief’s wife, Reb, may have looked like, ten years and at least three broken noses ago.

  Hid ducked his gaze in ostensible respect when the woman, Thacea, glanced in his direction.

  Her gaze skimmed passed him and rested on Aike with a scornful look. Hid was relieved he was not the team leader, though most people who did not know Aike had thought he should be. Guilt followed the relief as he glanced at the hatred directed at his friend.

  “This is not an easy task,” Thacea stated, returning her gaze to the chief, “Are you sure these Wolf kids can actually accomplish it?”

  “Of course,” Reb snapped back with an equally hate-filled sneer, “they’re best.”

  I’m not sure if we can, Reb.

  Hid snuck a glance toward Aike. The usually jovial man was still feigning complete apathy in the presence of their chief, but he caught Hid’s look with a shrug of doubt.

  Thacea purred an amused note. She shifted her tall line of curves until she stood in front of Aike, scowling down at where he knelt.

  Hid tried not to bristle at her proximity to his friend. The woman had a terrifying weight of danger to her presence, like a coiled snake, ready to strike at any moment.

  “The best?” Thacea sounded amused, but not in a way that would be good for the Wolves, “Is that so, Wolf? You’re the best?”

  “As the leader says,” Aike ducked his head.

  Hid tensed to move as the vile woman’s right eye twitched with disgust. She looked like she might try to kill Aike just to irritate the chief.

  Thacea scoffed and relaxed back from her threatening posture with a scoff. She opened the satchel at her side and dumped out a metal box at Aike’s knees.

  Aike ducked his head obediently, picked up the object, and tucked it under his arm without further examination.

  The woman returned to stand in front of Chief Erasyl, though she spoke of the mission Oracaede was hiring them for to Aike.

  “That Aequorian box will suck up and hold a Shade. You need only to get close to one.”

  Hid balked at the very mention of the crazy suicide mission the woman was ordering them to complete.

  Surely the chief, or even insane Reb, must know this mission is crazy and impossible.

  He glanced towards their leaders, but the two were busy scorning Thacea. The three traded insults without a thought for the difficulty the Wolves would have.

  Hid fought to keep from grimacing at the careless way their leaders disregarded their lives and safety.

  We’re the only ones who care if we live. Damn these people.

  “You know your mission,” Reb snapped, jerking her head towards the tent opening. “Leave.”

  Aike and Hid both acknowledged Reb and the chief and were ignored before they moved to the exit as quickly as possible.

  Once outside, they made a quick escape to where the rest of the team was gathering supplies.

  “Done already?” Retha chirped from where she sat, skinning some small rodents.

  “Yep.” Aike’s goofy smile adorned his face again as soon as they exited the tent, “You know we can’t stay away from you guys for long.”

  The other members of the team gathered around them with expectant looks for news of the new mission.

  Hid remained silent and waited to see if Aike wanted to discuss a plan with him before talking to the team about their newest impossible mission.

  “Hmm.” Aike screwed up his freckled face in an expression of deep thought that could only be described as a duck-faced look.

  “Hid and I will work on a plan and get back to you.”

  Aike nodded at his decision and started walking off in a random direction without another word.

  “That bad, huh?” Bary glanced at Hid with a frown but fell in line to follow Aike out of the marketplace without waiting for an answer Hid would not give.

  Hid counted and recounted to make sure all six of their teammates were accounted for before he brought up the rear of the column.

  After they left the edge of the marketplace far behind, Hid changed his position to catch up with Aike. The others all remained out of earshot, with Xiulan keeping the others in line and maintaining the distance.

  Hid changed his pace to match Aike’s as he arrived next to him. He fidgeted, not bothering to hide his anxiety.

  “Any idea how to work that box the Oracaede woman gave you?” Hid asked when the usually talkative Aike remained silent.

  Aike shook his head as he turned the Aequorian contraption over in his hands before handing it to Hid.

  “No clue.” He stretched his now free hands, saying, “She seemed confident it would be able to catch a Shade though. Now we just have to find one and get close.”

  Hid scoffed. “Easy to say, hermano.”

  He turned the box over in his hands. It was as long as his forearm and as wide and deep as his spanned hand. But for its size, it weighed next to nothing.

  Two buttons, flush with the side, were the only other features in its obsidian form.

  Hid tucked the box under his arm for a moment before thinking better of it and tossing it back to the others.

  “Bary, see what you think of this thing.”

  Hid called and watched a moment to see that Idir, who caught it, made sure Bary ended up with the box.

  “Never mind trying to get near a Shade without dying horribly, how are we going to find one?”

  Aike was staring up at the sky as he asked the question.

  Hid was not sure, but he considered that someone, somewhere in Eidola might know. The wraiths of the gray world were good at avoiding the Shades so they must have a way to keep track of when one was close.

  That makes sense, right?

  Hid was not sure, but it was the only idea he had as he told it to Aike.

  “Worth a talk.” Aike shrugged as he took out one of the team’s AaDs and started mapping a path through the Empty to Eidola.

  They walked in a semi-circle back in the direction they had come while avoiding the Aynur marketplace to reach the right doorway.

  Aike and Hid continued to suggest ideas and shoot them down about how they could complete their mission.

  Chapter 2

  “IS CAPTURING A SHADE even possible?”

  Hid shifted his attention from the blue-gray expanse of Eidola sand to Retha at the question.

  “We’ll find out, muchacha,” he stated, returning his attention to the umbra world around them.

  “If anyone could do it,” Caesar Apollo said in his strong, falsetto voice, “We’d be the ones to find a way.”

  Hid nodded at the encouragement even though he struggled through nerves to believe it.

  They reached the position of the doorway and he waited as Xiulan opened the Empty from the AaD.

  “You think Aike’s group had better luck finding one than us?” Retha continued with the questions.

  “I hope so,” Hid said with a shrug and a smile for the young girl.

  They walked the long path in the Empty. Xiulan and Caesar Apollo occasionally had ideas they shared, and Retha always had more questions.

  Hid relaxed in the comfort of the familiar which was so rare for them, especially on missions. But it had been over a week since they had arrived in Eidola, and they had yet to find anything of a Shade.

  Aike had decided to split the group into two teams to search fast and follow every rumor of a Shade’s presence before it could escape, but they still had not made any progress.

  Hid did hope Aike’s group had found something since they parted that morning, even if it meant he would lose their bet and owe the Celt a coin.

  They re-entered the gray world at the forest they had made their base camp and traversed the now familiar paths until they reached their clearing.

  Aike and the others were already back and working on dinner. Or rather, Aike and Idir were working on dinner. Bary and Sa’dia were, as usual, in the middle of an argument. This one

seemed to revolve around the firewood they had collected.

  Hid ignored the bickering pair as he approached Aike. The freckled man was in the middle of mixing some overly elaborate concoction of spices for the few simple food items they had gathered.

  “Guess what?”

  Aike grinned at Hid with an over-wide, toothy grin that Hid always associated with an I-just-set-something-irreplaceable-on-fire level of trouble.

  “You found a Shade,” Hid guessed, hoping to ruin their leader’s fun.

  At Aike’s crestfallen expression, Hid knew he guessed right.

  Aike pointed a finger in Hid’s face while holding on precariously to a multitude of spice packets as he spoke.

  “You are the worst dryshite of a killjoy to ever grace these worlds with your bore.”

  Hid smirked as he handed over the coin he owed, setting it in Aike’s already overburdened spice hand.

  Aike continued in exaggerated Celtic insults as he settled all the packets onto the ground so he could snatch up the coin.

  “Where was the Shade?”

  Hid interrupted his friend’s raving just as Aike had finished unloading his hands.

  Aike glowered at him, but the expression did not last long before the grin overtook it.

  “Heard rumors of one by the Under Rocks on the bottom side of the world.”

  Hid frowned as he focused to recall the wraith terms for direction.

  South, then?

  He opened his mouth to ask, but the devious tinkle in Aike’s eyes stopped him. Aike was just waiting for him to ask so he could mock him for not knowing the linguistics of the sphaere.

  “Well, we should be able to follow it tomorrow then,” Hid stated instead.

  Aike pouted at him for only a moment before he turned to be equally distracted by Retha explaining her idea for capturing a Shade by blowing it up.

  They passed the evening with similarly entertaining ideas and no solid plan.

  It seemed just as likely to Hid that they would reach the area the Shade was supposed to be and find nothing as otherwise.

  Hid had always known to be afraid of Shades, the same as every other sentient, reasonable being in the seven sphaeres, but he had never considered before how rare they were. Running into a Shade had become so much more of a problem now that they were actually looking for one.

  The next morning, they broke camp quickly, and all headed in the direction of the nearest doorway that would lead to the south, the bottom of the world, where the shadows pooled. The light of Eidola was as strangely affected by odd gravity as everything else in the sphaere was strangely affected by the blue-gray light. The fact the sphaere’s gravity was not centered made everything in that world behave differently.

  They followed the rumors all day before they finally ended up in a small village on the far side of nowhere.

  Xiulan, as their most benignant team member, talked to the villagers first about recent Shade sightings.

  Aike and Hid followed close behind with more questions.

  “None have been in the area these last several months together?” Aike nodded as he listened.

  The wraith woman nodded; her pale blue skin glowed under the light of the five moons.

  “This is as safe a place as any if you’re looking to rest for a spell.”

  She smiled between them with soft glowing gray eyes.

  One of the woman’s several children appeared next to her, coming in from playing in the street.

  “Do you want me to make up the guest room, ma?” the little girl asked, grinning at Aike with a shy smile.

  “Oh, you don’t have to worry about it,” Aike waved off the offer with a wink to the girl and an infectious smile for the woman, “My friends and I are enjoying our camping trip. Just wanted to check if we should be worried.”

  Hid turned to leave as Aike followed with a wave to the two wraiths.

  “It hasn’t made it this far yet,” Hid said, scratching his chin with new anxiety.

  “Yep,” Aike said while motioning Xiulan to head back to the team ahead of them.

  Xiulan’s narrow eyes narrowed further, but she only nodded and moved on ahead.

  “They think it’s safe.” Hid stated when they were alone again to discuss plans.

  Aike hummed without adding anything further.

  “We have to warn them, Aike.”

  Aike frowned in thought, staring up at the sky.

  Hid waited a beat in silence as he waited for an answer.

  “Aike?”

  “If we tell them, they’ll leave to avoid it,” Aike stated with a sigh.

  Hid nodded. “Yeah, and they’ll survive.”

  “If we retrace our path back,” Aike chewed his lip as he thought aloud, “we could find it before it reaches this village.”

  “Use the villagers as bait?”

  “I’m not comfortable with it either,” Aike said, “but if they leave, the Shade will move on to target another village.”

  Hid frowned at the idea, but he saw the point. If the Shade was not going after one village, it meant it would just go after a different one.

  Ah, the plight of being prey.

  Hid despised that notion with all his being.

  He remembered the woman wraith they had just spoken to and her kind smile. He stopped walking.

  “I’m going to see if they have an AaD,” Hid said, turning to head back as he spoke, “we can call to warn them if we can’t find it.”

  A relieved look crossed Aike’s face as he changed direction too.

  They hurried back to the village and the house that they had stopped at before. The woman smiled when she greeted them again and renewed her offer for them to stay the night.

  “Sorry, ma’am, we’re still planning on camping,” Aike grinned his usual cheerful look, “we were wondering if we could get the AaD number for someone in the village. Just in case we see anything while we’re out wandering.”

  “Oh, yes, of course.”

  The woman hurried to find a scrap of paper and scrolled down her number. She handed it over with another scrap of paper.

  “Write down your contact too. I’ll warn you if we hear anything of a Shade.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Hid took the paper and returned it with one of the numbers for their team AaDs.

  “I was going to prepare dinner soon,” the woman continued, “would you care to join us?”

  Hid ducked his head with guilt as he tried to continue smiling.

  “No, thank you, ma’am,” Aike answered quickly without any obvious sign of the guilt and stress that was tearing at Hid’s mind. “We were going to continue traveling a bit further.”

  “All right,” The wraith smiled and shook her head, “you kids be careful out there.”

  “Always, ma’am,” Aike said, a bold-faced lied.

  They exited the village a second time, and Hid was even more uneasy about the plan than before.

  “It’ll be fine,” Aike stated.

  Hid rolled his eyes and glanced over to his friend. Aike was frowning with a look of worry too. Hid realized Aike was trying to convince himself.

  “Sure it will,” Hid stated as if it were fact and hoped it was as they reached their team’s camp.

  Chapter 3

  AIKE KEPT A CAREFUL watch over where every one of his teammates was located. Since they had decided to split into two teams again, it was easier to watch out for four teammates than eight, but he wished he could have closer contact with Hid’s team.

  Hid’ll keep ‘em safe.

  He repeated the line over and over to himself, willing it to be absolute truth and resisting the urge to call Hid’s AaD again.

  “You guys, be quiet.”

  Aike glowered at Sa’dia and Bary as the pair continued finding new, nonsensical topics to argue about.

  Though he was amused to hear Bary’s reasoning to believe the sand around them would be green in any other, normally lighted sphaere. The argument coming over the pair’s AaD was still too distracting for him to allow it to continue.

  He had decided to split his team up into two groups of two and spread out further while keeping an AaD call open between them. He knew he was lucky to be able to do that since his team happened to have two of the Wolves’ three AaDs.

  “Aike,” Caesar Apollo’s high-pitched voice next to him startled Aike out of his distracted thoughts.

 

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