A Cypher of Hope

A Story by Mary-Jean

A young shade comes to realize the plight of his people and a surprise about the cyphers that feed them.

The castle was fashioned to be insurmountable. Shadows danced off the clear-cut walls, subtly illuminated by the moonlight. It was a seemingly indomitable fortress with patronizing towers and obstinate walls. There were windows at the towers’ summits, under utmost protection from all but high-flying birds.

Daylon had to admit that it was a fine piece of stonework, but laughed wildly under the pearly moon at the fragility of humanity. He had superseded the physical limits that impose restrictions on biological life to enter the next phase of humanity�"the shades. Daylon was well aware that average humans thought of his kind as vulgar beasts, a corrupted offshoot of humanity. But he pitied them, for they could not truly understand his kind unless they had learned the cypher-lore.

The castle would pose a minuscule challenge for the young shade, so Daylon dextrously etched a few cyphers with his finger before leaping up onto the stones. The boy had always been a nimble climber. Yet now, with the cypher powers surging through his body, allowing him to ameliorate the environment to his benefit, Daylon had quickly become an impressive shade.

As he dug his nails and pointed, leather boots into the sheer wall, the dark hood from the boy’s ethereal cape fell from his head. He paid no heed, captivated for the treasure he would soon find in the princess’s bedroom. Namely, the princess herself.

Daylon had never been caught on his hunts, nor did he entertain the possibility. He was effectively invisible during the night-time hunt with dark hair and his costume of a majestic cape, inky shirt and pants, and charcoal pointed boots that assisted in the scaling walls and were an excellent weapon.

Mocking zephyrs picked up his cape and ruffled his hair. Daylon smiled, knowing he would be all the more alluring for the princess. When he reached the sill, he crouched into it quietly and framed himself in the window, obscuring the moonlight. The vast room was lit by a sole fire of embers, so Daylon lifted his hand to etch a flowing symbol to aid him. Inky wafts formed the cypher instantly, coalescing into an emblem of twisting mist. The black cypher gave subtle illumination as if a candle was burning under a dark veil. Daylon squinted his black eyes and grinned on seeing the sleeping girl. He didn’t know her name, but the shades had determined her whereabouts for Daylon to capture. Yet Daylon knew that it was truly the hunt that was capturing him. For learning the cyphers built passions and a devotion to their powers that dwarfed those of humans. To be a shade was to be at the whim of the cyphers, to feel the hunt as a fervent initiation of humans into shades. The young girl would be next.

“Princess of Ceilidah,” Daylon announced.

The girl suddenly jolted, and gasped at the macabre yet enchanting boy on her windowsill.

“Follow me,” Daylon whispered, reaching out a hand. He knew the girl would not be able to resist. The shades needed little force to succeed in the hunt. Most young shades were sinisterly beautiful, untamed, seductive�"irresistible when perched on one’s windowsill at night. Yet Daylon’s cypher passions did not pry him from decency. Peculiarly, he could tame his cypher nature with thought; sporadic thought nonetheless, that allowed him to catch momentary glimpses of himself like flickers of light in a broken mirror.

So Daylon waited for the girl patiently, sensing her curiosity, knowing she would follow suit. True enough, the princess pulled off her covers and perched at the edge of her blue, silken bed.

But on catching a glimpse of her foot, Daylon’s hand fell back in shock and he impulsively clamped his mouth shut. It was known that normal cyphers persisted in their spots until purposefully destroyed, which was usually an unnecessary thing to do. Humans could not sense the cyphers, yet the princess had a blatant cypher inscribed upon her right foot, a sinuous, entwining mark clearly created by a masterful shade. She couldn’t have possibly known it was there, so Daylon tried to be subdued about it. He had never seen the cypher before, nor had he seen any cypher upon unknowing humans. It was looked upon as bad practice.

“Who are you?” the girl demanded.

Daylon grinned. She was a pretty thing, her raven hair long and lustrous, delicate bare legs smooth. Yes, she would be a perfect shade, and Daylon could not wait to take her. “My name is Daylon, Daylon of Cruachan,” he said secretively.

It puzzled him why the girl wouldn’t come to him as all the others had; after all, he had not known her in the past. Hunting those one had known before becoming a shade was one of the few definite restrictions. Too often one’s lover would return to them as a shade and they would be stunned with complete rejection and fear. For initiation as a shade changed one visibly and distorted their thoughts and hopes, moulding them into a different person. Noble girls would scream when their macabre brothers came back for them as dark shadows, yet Daylon knew the boys screamed even more when their unruly sisters appeared like phantoms. But how could such practices be stopped? Daylon knew he had been blessed with slight temperance, yet others did as they pleased, returning to catch every sister and friend they once had.

“Where do you want me to go?” the girl asked quizzically.

Daylon hopped off the sill, his cape settling like smooth wings breaking his landing. Although it gave him amusement, Daylon was slightly troubled by the girl’s behaviour. “Have you ever met a shade before?” Daylon asked.

The girl nodded. “Yes,” she affirmed. “He’s standing in front of me now.”

Daylon laughed, his voice resonating like playful glass bells. Could he have entered a trap? The warm room was no different to any other, and the shades had never caused too much acute trouble within a town to be hunted themselves. Two children gone from one town, three from a larger land. With cypher senses to create powerful individuals, Daylon doubted that anyone had ever killed a shade, despite some of his brethren’s foolish decisions.

“I want to take you to Cruachan,” Daylon finally said, after deciding that another shade must have secretly given her the cypher when she was unaware. The girl couldn’t be lying, Daylon told himself, he would have sensed it like she were a wounded animal trying to hide a bad leg.

“I see,” the girl muttered. She glanced at her door quickly, as if judging if she could escape. She must have deemed it a futile notion, for she stood up and her sapphire nightgown tickled her toes.

“Cruachan will awaken your soul to the cyphers of the world,” Daylon said, taking her hand gently. “Far off in the woods we have a wonderful land where you can be trained to create unimaginable forces that will mould the world to your liking.” He didn’t mention how the cyphers moulded the shades as well, that their very study fused them into new people.

“Why?” the girl asked. “What are you trying to accomplish?”

Daylon breathed deeply and subtly etched a cypher with his free hand, feeling a seducing power elevate his mind. The cypher burned a faint grey, averted from its natural, sooty darkness. It coalesced into a sharp crown, and Daylon placed it on the girl’s head. She wouldn’t have seen the cypher, only the glowing crown.

“You want power,” the girl said.

“And a better world,” Daylon replied, tossing the makeshift crown off her head as it started to fade back into inky swirls. “We can complete our next step of evolution. When we all see the cyphers and the ways of nature, heighten in power, and control the natural processes, we will no longer be at nature’s whim. Shades need to be accepted for a perfect society to take form.” Daylon could not wait for that day�"when shades took over lower humans, initiating them with the cyphers. He knew it was perfect logic, perfect ethics, and perfect passions.

“I am interested in your cyphers,” the princess said, stepping closer to Daylon. She was curious, and Daylon respected her for it. He had little enjoyment in seducing people, and was glad the princess saw past him to the true reasons of his exploit. Pity swelled up for her, for Daylon was fond of her demeanour, and knew that it was rare for her to persist in such a way after studying the cyphers. There were few shades Daylon could relate to on any more than his bewitching cypher drive.

“What is your name?” Daylon asked her.

“Tara,” the girl replied. And after grabbing some slippers and changing into a daytime dress with scarlet skirts and black ribbons, Tara descended down the castle wall, clutching onto Daylon’s back with poise.

***

Daylon’s study of the cyphers intensified, and his classmates were thrilled by the complex theories of nature. The theories corrupted the mind, yet made truly gleeful shades in Cruachan. Cruachan was well protected by a labyrinth of canyons and rivers that cloistered an unnatural cypher land. The cyphers could be seen everywhere, and though they may turn up occasionally in a town or on the peak of a mountain to emphasize an accomplishment, about five cyphers could be seen in Cruachan. Daylon had seen thousands; cyphers supporting draping stone pillars in the abodes of the shades, unnatural fires burning at the outskirts of a cavern.

Daylon was deliberating the theory of the shade Vanora as he walked through the crossing point. Up above, the sky was naked from enormous breaks in the cavern, and an airy breeze tickled him from the open sides that led to the valley and stream. The maze of caverns connected to the crossing point with pastel foliage and rose-coloured salamanders nibbling honey petals.

“Oh, Daylon!” a girl cooed from a rocky platform. It was Fiona, he knew, the only one who took it upon herself to make Daylon “more of a shade.” She leaped down with a supernatural weaving through the air to land on a soft, blue plant.

“Are you ready to hunt tonight?” she asked, brushing a lock of dark hair from Daylon’s eyes.

“You know I hunted yesterday,” he replied. But the cypher drive tickled his skin, a yearning to initiate, to create more shades that very instant.

Fiona’s hollowed, swarthy eyes flashed. “I initiated two last week,” she bragged. “Beautiful boys like you. I pick them wisely.”

Daylon smiled silently, though wished Fiona would leave him alone. He wanted to be the best shade he could, but an often neglected voice made him retain a part of his sanity.

“Think of it,” Fiona said, turning to skip away. She gave him a rapturous glance. “We’ll start together, go to the same castle.”

Fiona’s intents were evident, and Daylon knew she had created a morally corrupting trap for him. Who could resist the cyphers? No proper shade could, and Daylon sometimes wondered why he fought total submission. No matter, he hoped he wouldn’t see Fiona any time soon.

So Daylon occupied himself with Vanora’s theory as he jumped into a brass boat, strengthened perfectly by cyphers, and headed to his dwelling. Vanora had been one of the most ardent shades, and had created a novel branch in cypher-lore that dealt with insinuating cyphers into living beings. Before that time, when perfecting a shade’s environment based on Tristan’s principles was paramount, failed attempts to ameliorate people and animals halted the practice. Yet Vanora had offered another way, a strict yet elegant set of rules to perfect cyphers on the living. There were severe limitations, however, for embedding a cypher of strength could unbalance the subject, and cyphers to change the mind could lead to insanity. Daylon loved the cyphers, though he had none embedded into him personally.

To his right, Daylon saw a group of young shades sitting in the natural holes of the cavern wall, the sunlight a halo around their dark bodies. Some girls twisted shadowy cyphers in the air in a small jest to best one another, and the boys leapt from the openings and even across the stream over Daylon’s head in powerful bounds. One seemingly average cypher girl sat alone on a rocky window, long legs dangling across a dark void as she read a book.

Daylon rowed the boat to the cavern’s side and tried to catch her eye. He had forgotten about her for the longest time, as she was just another he had initiated. Her feet toyed with Daylon’s memory of their first encounter, yet her cypher was gone. Of course, it wasn’t really gone, just hidden, as all personal cyphers were. Though few young shades had cyphers inscribed into their flesh, everyone had a special cypher to cover personal ones. It was thought to be best if an enemy didn’t know one’s skills.

“Daylon!” Dorian called as he leaped over Daylon’s head, laughing madly. He landed presumptuously into the boat in a dark flash. “We’re learning more of Drostan’s cyphers tomorrow,” he chuckled.

“I know. And all the better to take over the world with,” Daylon replied, the thought soothing.

Dorian drew a cypher in front of Daylon’s nose and it burst into powdery mist when Dorian left.

Tara was now alerted to Daylon’s presence, and she descended down to his boat. Daylon was shocked to see that she hadn’t changed a bit since her initiation, except for a counterintuitive look of calmness.

“You look the same,” Daylon stated dumbly.

Tara smiled. “You do too.”

“Yes, but I wasn’t the one becoming a shade. You’re clad in lovely shadows, but your skin is as fair as ever, and your eyes quite blue,” Daylon remarked, raising an eyebrow. He wondered if she knew about her cypher now, could understand the cause of her depravity of cypher passions.

“I’ve learned much about the shades, and I understand the cyphers. I couldn’t thank you enough. It’s a wonderful gift, but one that needs to be tamed,” Tara said, then leaned close to Daylon and kissed him gently on the cheek.

Strange, Daylon thought. The other shades would have smacked him full on the mouth. He dared not speak about her cypher, but the image of it was a canker to his mind. What was it? Daylon could not fathom its purpose, but he was sure it had altered Tara’s transformation to be a passionate shade.

“I’ll be in your class tomorrow,” she promised.

“Really? You’ve advanced that quickly?” Daylon said.

“Oh, yes. I don’t trouble myself with the hunt, but you can’t tell the others that.”

Daylon nodded. It was expected that all shades would hunt for the betterment of their society, but he had a strange admiration for Tara’s resistance. Tara took her book and returned to her lofty perch and waved to Daylon as he rowed away.

Daylon had no intention of returning to his dwelling, for his meeting with Tara had unsettled him, and he needed to get answers to the newly awoken quandary. Caedmon was the only one with the potential to help him understand the esoteric cypher, so diverging down a smaller, funnelling channel, Daylon descended to meet the old shade. It was said that the cypher-binders were rich with personal, glorifying cyphers. With every shade’s protection cypher, no one could tell for sure, but some binders had such strange qualities that it was nearly certain that they had taken advantage of their skills. Caedmon was much more approachable, for Daylon never felt the man could snap his neck with a flick of his finger or strangle him with some corrupted cypher. Other cypher-binders scarcely left their dark studies in the recesses of the caves, except when secretly leaving for the hunt.

A faint red glow percolated into the empty darkness as Daylon approached Caedmon’s dwelling. True shades of darkness dwelled down here; there were no breaks in the cave’s walls to allow for sunlight. A bit uneasy to intrude on the great cypher-binder’s studies, and slightly frightened that he would enter in on a hazardous site of cypher-making, Daylon nevertheless dragged his boat upon the narrow, sandy stretch in front of Caedmon’s cavern. As shades are separated from their parents upon initiation, older shades had been Daylon’s sole mentors. And Caedmon was perhaps the most willing to help the young shades like a father, if only on occasion.

Daylon pulled the string of his wispy cape and hung it beside Caedmon’s on the outer facade of the cavern.

“Come in Daylon,” a brisk but calm voice said.

Daylon grinned. Caedmon couldn’t have known he had arrived without the aid of the cyphers. He must have mastered a new one, and Daylon itched to trace the cypher himself.

“Caedmon,” Daylon chimed, scanning the rounded study chiselled from the rock. The room was cloistered within a dark, wooden bookcase that curved around the walls, housing many ancient cypher tomes. Malformed plants grew like withered rags in the corner, by-products of experiments; crude mica jars held visible cyphers that were prone to collapse under the influence of other substances; and Caedmon himself sat sturdily at a desk as he perused a newer book.

“I must ask you a question,” Daylon finally said, determined not to encroach on Caedmon’s time more than necessary.

“Ah,” the shade said placing a pair of spectacles on his book. A preternatural candle gave soft illumination for his studies, and allowed Daylon to clearly see his expression. An encompassing look, a crisp mind that could analyse Daylon’s passions and thoughts in an instant. Yet Daylon had grown used to it, and knew that such interpersonal intelligence only made Caedmon friendlier, a warm connection in a world of somewhat glazed shades.

“Sit down, lad,” Caedmon said, motioning towards a chair beside his. The man’s face was taut and his cheekbones jutted out under russet eyes.

Daylon sat, knowing Caedmon was already well aware of his anxieties.

“You have just about every book on cypher-lore ever bound,” Daylon started. The very thought of such a wealth of cyphers infused in him a burning charm of discovery, but he continued nonetheless somewhat level-headedly. “And I need to find the significance of a cypher I have seen. A beautiful cypher that will surely be in one of your books.”

“Where was this cypher?” Caedmon enquired.

Daylon had known he had no choice but to tell the man. He knew it was wrong to reveal others’ personal cyphers, if there were a rare chance where someone knew of one, but in order to find the cypher successfully, Daylon had to distinguish it from a cypher of the natural world.

“It was a permanent human cypher, but I cannot reveal where I saw it,” Daylon replied.

Caedmon’s forehead creased as his nonexistent eyebrow rose. Yet he did not question Daylon further, he merely smiled as if he had been let in on a grand secret. Daylon knew Caedmon trusted him, and he trusted Caedmon, but he never knew how it became so.

Caedmon muttered about the patterns of the cyphers as he determined which shelf to search. “Was it a knotted or circular base?” he asked.

“Knotted,” Daylon said. “And it had the steren complex as a subordinate strand. I’ve never seen the combination before.”

All cyphers were formed of about a dozen bases, and related cyphers had similar bases, such as the circular, knotted, or signet base. On top of them were intricate, twisting strands that embellished the symbol, creating multiple layers up to about eight for the rare and ridiculously complex cyphers that almost no one dreamed of making. Some even had other complexes, supposed to represent forces of nature. Daylon had progressed to a five layered cypher so far.

Caedmon brought a monstrous book to his desk, and with an intense fixation, flipped to the desired section tenderly. “An old, elaborate group of cyphers before Tristan’s time was created by Deverell. No one uses them anymore, and we do not teach them formally,” Caedmon stated. “The cypher you speak of could have been the work of Deverell himself. I suggest flipping through them until you find your cypher.”

Daylon nodded and thanked Caedmon, for he had the opportunity to glance at the formula for creating such cyphers, yet Caedmon trusted that Daylon would only use information he gleaned wisely.

“This one,” Daylon said suddenly, on reaching the second page. It had a knotted base with diaphanous tendrils wrapped in the halo of the steren complex and completed with more sinuous offshoots of black mist. Before Daylon read it, he asked Caedmon, “Have you ever seen it?” eager to share in such a wonder that a mere drawing could not properly capture.

Caedmon merely read the description, biting his lip. Daylon quickly skimmed it, and gaped at the cypher’s use, amazed that the purpose he envisioned was not as wild as he supposed. The cypher was a protection against all other cyphers, against shades and their infusing passions. It could work with normal humans and shades alike, keeping one a tempered shade, a detached observer and simple student of the cyphers.

At Daylon’s intense deliberation, Caedmon spoke up hesitantly. “It was Deverell’s wish to use this cypher upon himself. Yet he could not muster the strength to live without the cyphers, and this, along with a few more he used to ambush himself, failed to be used.”

Daylon shuddered. “Why would he do such a thing? How could he betray the cyphers?”

Caedmon, obviously having thought of the subject before, answered solemnly, “Some believe that the shades are dying, that we have been since our first cypher initiation.” He paused, cautious of Daylon’s reaction.

Daylon had a feeling none of the shades could bear to hear such blasphemy, and would have been prone to attack all of Deverell’s descendents. Yet Daylon, although discomforted, could subliminally relate to such a cypher.

“The cypher lusts, the hunt, the blind cyphers we create to appease our hunger,” Caedmon continued, “all work in two ways. We are shades because of them: strong, passionate creators of the cyphers. Yet the world could not live as we do. Had everyone been a shade, who would we hunt? Where would we retreat to? What virtues would persist? The world can accommodate the present shades, but we are not fit to rule a kingdom. But I am fascinated by the shades. I live for them, and see the strength in the cyphers.”

Daylon blinked, feeling cheated out of the alternative idea during his life as a shade. He knew he should have realized about the cyphers’ damaging aspects after meeting Tara. Tara, who stayed a cypher-human, who could master the cyphers without being afflicted by the cypher passions. Daylon could no longer decide what was better.

“You have it well, Daylon,” Caedmon said with a smile, puncturing Daylon’s reverie. “The others cannot analyse their lives, and blindly serve the cyphers. Yet I know you serve them for the betterment of the world, to fuse the cyphers with humanity and give tremendous power to all. And you have told me that you have no cyphers to explain for such behaviour, yet you are definitely a shade.

“This other cypher you saw, was it on a shade?”

Daylon nodded, and could not help but tell Caedmon how he chanced upon his knowledge. “The shade was under the influence of the cypher as a human, and I’m sure she retained it as a shade. She hasn’t changed, Caedmon. She’s the same as she was as a human. But she’s brilliant with the cyphers, and I...don’t know where I fit in anymore,” Daylon admitted.

“You fit in as one to help raise the shades above their desires. This other shade is a beacon that could save us; she is even above you and I. Her cypher purifies corruption and keeps one sober to the captivity of the cyphers. The cyphers still rule you, yet this new shade is not jaded by them at all, and thus, is a connection to our humanity. This cypher can create intelligent light, for one retains control yet can still master the cyphers.”

“Why don’t others use the cypher then?” Daylon asked.

“Ah, cypher-lore will die if too many lose their natural cypher behaviour. It is forbidden anyhow. Deverell was a powerful cypher-binder, and I praise him for allowing us to create tools to cease corruption, if only to be relieved for an instant in time.”

Daylon nodded and stood, dazed. The view of the shades as corrupted humans sat uneasily in Daylon’s stomach as if bile were creeping up into his throat. He looked back to the old shade, and the man’s spectacles reflected fractured images of the dancing red flames. Daylon had a sudden realization, and could not help but grin in amusement at his past oblivion.

“Thank you,” he said to Caedmon, then left the room.

Tara was not the only shade free from the cyphers. How could Caedmon have spoken to him about such matters had he not the cypher himself? And his eyes, Daylon thought while returning to his boat, they were dark brown, not close enough to the black of the other shades’ eyes. They should have been dusted from the cyphers, providing him with extraordinary vision, certainly not in need of glasses. Caedmon was tempered, a studious shade�"Daylon didn’t know how he didn’t realize it when he learned of the cypher. Caedmon was part of the light, bound to a cypher of purification. Daylon could only revel in such an esoteric state. He knew the torture one would have to succumb to in order to bind oneself. Tara had been lucky; never at the whim of the cyphers, she could not have tasted the passions, never had to fight what was not attached to her.

Yet could Tara and Caedmon really revive the shades? Daylon had faith in such noble shades, silently thanking whoever blessed Tara with the cypher. For Daylon would forever remain in the shadows, and however cognizant he was of his predicament, he adored the cyphers fiercely, and could never part with them. He would help the redeemers, the beacons of light in the world which he was a part of, a world clad in shadows.