Table Of ContentThe Dominions of Irth
Book Two:
The Shadow Eater
A. A. Attanasio
The Shadow Eater
published by A. A. Attanasio
Second Edition
Copyright © 2012 A. A. Attanasio
ISBN: 978-0-9836084-9-3
First edition published by Avon Books: 1998
Dominions of Irth; bk. 2.
Pen Name: Adam Lee
Library of Congress classification: PS3562.E317 S53 1998
http://aaattanasio.com/
Cover Art:
Mario Sánchez Nevado
A Dying Wish
http://aegis-strife.net/
Interior Illustrations:
John Bergin
http://web.mac.com/grinderx/Site/home.html
For one, none, no one, and thou, Reader—light of my darkness.
I will make darkness light. —Isaiah 42:16
Cast of Characters
The Nameless Ones—hyperspatial, godlike entities that dwell inside the
Abiding Star, the energy source of the universe [the Big Bang].
The Lady of the Garden—a noblewoman of the Nameless Ones, who has
magically created the worlds of our cosmos to serve as a learning tool for her as-
yet-unborn child.
The Lady's Consort—the Nameless One who has fathered the Lady of
the Garden's unborn child; he now sleeps within the Abiding Star; his
nightmarish dreams of malformity, cruelty, and madness darkly influence the
worlds that his lady's magic has created.
The Four Mystic Worlds—consist of the original reality that is the
Abiding Star and the three realms created by the Lady of the Garden's magic in
the void outside that primordial radiance:
• The Upper Air, the turbulent corona of the Abiding Star in which dwell
numerous energetic beings, including ether devils, spawns of the nightmares that
trouble the sleeping consort.
• The Bright Worlds, numerous planets, including Irth, Nemora, and
Hellsgate, that range through the brilliance surrounding the Abiding Star.
• The Dark Shore, cold, dim worlds, among them Earth, cast like
shadows into the void by the radiance of the Bright Worlds: our universe
congealed from light into planets, stars and galaxies.
Full Cast
Part One:
Somewhere at World's End
Those who give light are received by darkness.
—Gibbet Scrolls, Screed 3:23
The Author of Worlds
Somewhere at World’s End, a young woman with long tresses of red hair
bathed her swollen belly in a garden's marble pool. Her bright ringlets spread
like flames in the ice-green water of an ornate pool that reflected temple
columns and a sky of mauve dusk.
The cobbled garden spun with golden leaves. Among its bluestone pillars
and architraves, horned lizards slept and doves fluttered between columns and
alighted upon flower-laden trellises to roost for the night. Black-and-green
butterflies danced to stillness among the leaves, sudden petals, lulled to sleep by
a breeze that carried scents of leaf drift and distant wood-smoke. An owl called.
The pregnant woman sat up taller in the pool. Grave concern troubled her
pale features. Her hands trembled as she massaged her taut abdomen, and a tear
glinted at the corner of her eye. With dismay, she looked about the garden,
searching for the one she had summoned to help her and her unborn child.
Atop a stone jar slued with red ivy sat an eldern gnome. He wore breeks of
brown cord, a green blouse serrate with silk ruffles, and a slantwise cap of
crushed blue velvet. His gaunt and sunken cheeks glinted with two day's pink
beard. He gazed hard at the naked bather with large eyes of cold gray mist.
"Why is the child within me not moving?" the woman demanded. She
turned upon the gnome her long eyes cored black within irises of attic blue. "Is
my baby dead?"
"My lady—" With bulb-jointed fingers, the gnome gripped the lip of the
jar where he perched, bowed forward, and addressed the pouring leaves.
"Darkness encroaches upon the worlds of light."
"How can that be?" the lady frowned, tapered fingers describing small
circles upon her gravid belly. "I have poured forth all my soul to drive the dark
hard away from us that my child may be born in the light."
"Yours is a soul of magic, lady, and what you have poured forth has
broken the dark and authored the wonders of the void that are the Bright Worlds.
And yet—" The gnome sat up and showed worry upon his acorn brown face.
"One of darkness has climbed into the light."
"Whence?" she asked, with casual disdain masking her worry. "Out of
darkness? Are there worlds then in the outer darkness?"
The gnome nodded vigorously. "Oh yes, lady. But not worlds as we know
them. Not the worlds that are the condensation of your magic, a radiant magic
that prefigures for all time in the void the orders and histories of the Bright
