Free Best Left in the Shadows by Mark Gelineau, Joe King

halls of the old fortress that served as the orphanage. “Crazy is at it
again,” he heard. “The lunatic’s seeing monsters again.” He knew if not for his
friends, he would have suffered that night.
    His friends Elinor, Alys, Roan, and Kay had not been angry,
though. They believed him. They comforted him, drawing him away from the
performers and out of the room without a look back at the ruined entertainment.
Elinor wrapped an arm around his shoulders as they walked and Roan stared
daggers at the other orphans, defying their anger at his friend. Together, they
returned to the dormitory and prepared for bed.
    No, his friends had not been angry like the other children
were. They never were. But he also knew they did not understand. Not truly.
Even he began to doubt himself. Perhaps the cruel whispers from the other
children were right, he thought.
    Until tonight. Until he had seen the blackheart just an
arm’s length away from him and he screamed and screamed till his throat was
raw. Where their hearts should have been, oily mud and black smoke oozed from
their chests to cover their bodies. He had seen them three times before, but
never up close like this.
    Even now, in the small hours of the night when everyone in
the large room was asleep, the boy remained awake. The fear of the shadowed
juggler would not leave him, and behind his closed eyes, he pictured the
horrible darkness moving over the man. The feeling crept over him more and
more. The cold feeling. Sharp. Dangerous.
    He finally could not stand it any longer. His eyes snapped
open, and he looked across the darkened room, past the simple cots the orphans
all slept on.
    And he saw it.
    The blackheart was in the room. The rolling, oily blackness
spilled from its chest like blood from a wound, deeper even than the dark of
the night. It stood across the room from him, looming over the foot of one
girl’s bed. The boy felt his heart pounding, and he longed to reach out to
touch his friends, either to wake them to see what he saw or to wake himself
from what must be a nightmare. But he was too frightened to move.
    As he watched, the juggler’s shape sloughed off, dropping
to the floor like a discarded garment. In its place was something more
horrifying. The head became longer and had no eyes, only a round mouth from
which the boy could see wicked teeth. It craned a long, serpent-like neck
toward the sleeping child while reaching forward with ragged claws at the end
of spindly arms. The thing bent down to feed, and the boy moaned with terror.
    The long neck whipped impossibly around, turning its
eyeless face toward the boy. It dropped to all fours and charged across the
room.
    For the second time that night the boy screamed himself
raw.
    ***
    Ferran opened his eyes and tried to still his breathing. The
room was warm. All around him were men and women, wearing the earthy colors
favored by the Order of Talan. Many of them had their exposed skin heavily
tattooed with strange symbols and designs. But all of them looked on him with
understanding eyes.
    An old man stepped forward, leaning heavily on a cane. Dark
stripes were inked onto his weathered and wrinkled face, contrasting with the
bright white of his long beard. He stood before Ferran and watched as the young
man drew deep breaths.
    “What did you see?” the old man asked.
    Ferran matched the old man’s gaze and steadied himself. “My
past,” Ferran said.
    The old man studied him for a long moment and then nodded
once. He stepped out of the way and made a gesture. Across the length of the
chamber, a heavy iron door swung open, to reveal the creature from his memory.
The monstrous head whipped around and the circular maw puckered at the air.
Long talons scraped across the floor with a high-pitched keening as it drew
away from the open door.
    “What do you see?” the old man asked from behind Ferran.
    In his left hand, Ferran felt the weight of a long length
of silver chain, and he let one end fall to the floor