Shadow of a Dead God: A Mennik Thorn Novel

by Patrick Samphire

  “Fine,” I said. “Pass it over.” Then maybe I could finally get to bed.

  Benny’s eyes flicked away, and he rubbed a hand over his rough brown hair.

  “Ah. That’s the problem, see? I haven’t got it.” He licked his lips nervously. “It’s up there in Thousand Walls.”

  Well, I thought as every last ounce of energy drained out of me. Fuck.

  Chapter Two

  Thousand Walls, which was properly known as Silkstar Palace, was the home of Carnelian Silkstar, the wealthiest merchant in Agatos, possibly on the whole continent. Oh, yeah, and he also happened to be a high mage, which put his magical abilities about as far above mine as his palace was above my shoddy apartment.

  Thousand Walls perched on the top of Horn Hill, scarcely spitting distance across Sien’s Stand Plaza from the Senate building. Horn Hill wasn’t a part of the city I visited often. I had an issue with a certain Countess whose own palace stood not far from Thousand Walls, but even if I hadn’t, Horn Hill wasn’t the kind of place for someone like me.

  The hill rose from the centre of Agatos, sloping hopefully upwards for over a mile before plunging back down in a sheer cliff called the Leap. I had spent plenty of time peering at Horn Hill from every angle, and I still didn’t think it looked anything like a horn, but what did I know?

  Benny’s suggestion that I should help him steal from Thousand Walls was stretching any debt I might owe him, and he knew it.

  I would like to be able to tell you that, as a mage, I could do whatever I damned well pleased in this city, but the truth was that I was tolerated only as long as I didn’t stick my long nose too far into the wrong business. Step out of line, and there were plenty of people who would happily slap me down. Carnelian Silkstar would slap hard. He wouldn’t kill me — the Ash Guard didn’t tolerate magic being used for murder — but there was a whole lot of pain and misery that fell short of death, and I wasn’t keen on any of it.

  Anyone else, and I would have told them where to stuff their debt. But Benny and I had been friends for almost twenty-five years, and when I left my mother’s house (or was kicked out; we still differed on that one), Benny had been there to help me.

  “They paying you well for this?” I asked.

  “Five gods,” Benny said, a little sheepishly.

  I whistled, not able to stop a brief surge of envy. “Someone really wants it.” You could buy a good chunk of the Warrens with five gold crowns.

  Benny grinned. “And with both of us together, how can we possibly fail?”

  Which was exactly the point where I should have put a stop to the whole thing.

  Instead, I said, “All right. But you’d better have a good plan.”

  As it happened, Benny did have a plan, but he didn’t deign to share it until we were nearly at the top of Horn Hill and it was too late for me to back out.

  The Corithian Steps cut back and forth up the eastern flank of Horn Hill to emerge close to Thousand Walls, neatly avoiding Agate Way, which ran the length of the hill, and the palaces lining it. It was a steep, almost precipitous climb in places, and it didn’t do my ankle any favours. By the time we were three quarters of the way up, my ankle was flaring with every step, and I had to wave Benny to a stop.

  Cursing, I bent over, hands on my knees. If I had been a more powerful mage, this ankle wouldn’t have bothered me. We mages were luckier than most when it came to injuries. When we slept, we absorbed the raw magic around us, and it helped us heal. Unfortunately, while any cuts and bruises I got healed fast, and even broken bones knitted, that was as far as it went for me. When it came to damaged tendons and ligaments, I was no better off than anyone else.

  I lowered myself carefully to the paving and looked out over the city while I waited for the throbbing to subside. High, white walls punctuated with blue shutters rose on either side of us, making the Corithian Steps feel like a canyon. From here, I had a pretty good view over the eastern part of Agatos. Below, the Royal Highway paralleled the side of Horn Hill at a distance of about a hundred yards, a river of people, carts, and carriages marking the boundary between the Middle City and the Grey City. From up here, in the bright sunlight and with a bit of squinting, the Grey City — itself divided in two by the Erastes River — looked almost white.

  “You all right, mate?” Benny asked. “Something up with your eyes?”

  “Just catching my breath.”

  I wasn’t exactly in a hurry to break into a high mage’s home, either.

  “You need more exercise,” said Benny, a man whose only exercise involved finding ways into rich people’s homes and making off with their valuables.

  “I need more sleep,” I said, giving him a meaningful look, which he ignored.

  The city of Agatos occupied one end of the Erastes Valley, squeezed between mountain ranges. Beyond the Grey City, the valley wall rose steeply, but that hadn’t put off the citizens of Agatos. The houses just continued, stacked nearly on top of each other. That part of the city was known, with an admirable lack of imagination, as the Stacks.

  Eventually, though, the mountains grew too steep and the city ended. Above it all, the temple-like façade of Ceor Ebbas looked back across the city.

  I straightened, testing my ankle. It still hurt, but I would cope.

  “Are you going to tell me your plan before we actually break in?” I asked, buying a few more seconds to recover.

  Benny nodded. “Fair enough. It’s the Feast of Parata.”

  I waited a minute for the rest of it, but Benny didn’t add anything.

  “You know that’s not actually a plan.”

  “Sure it is.”

  The Feast of Parata was a public holiday. I had forgotten about it because freelance mages didn’t get such things as public holidays. Most of the temples in the city would be throwing open their doors to welcome worshippers into whatever festival of naked cavorting, hallucinogenic smoke, bloody animal sacrifice, or all three that got them feeling holy. Those citizens who considered themselves particularly pious would open up their houses, too, in the hope that some of the worship would rub off. Carnelian Silkstar was a follower of Belethea, the goddess of bees, and he would certainly be showing off his shrines and obscene wealth.

  “We’ll be able to walk straight in,” Benny said.

  “Along with several hundred other people.”

  “Which is why no one will be watching us.”

  I shook my head. “I have no idea how you’ve avoided the executioner’s spear this long.”

  “Lucky, aren’t I?”

  One of us had to be. I was tired. I was dirty. I certainly smelled. My ankle was killing me. I didn’t feel lucky.

  “He’s going to have dozens of guards there precisely to stop people stealing things,” I said. The more I thought of it, the worse Benny’s plan sounded.

  “They way I see it, it’s not stealing if your mark’s rich. It’s taxation. Just saving the Senate the bother of gathering it. I should be getting an award.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Have you ever actually paid any tax?”

  “I’m not answering that one.”

  I looked towards the palaces at the top of Horn Hill. I could only just glimpse them through the gaps in the high walls.

  “I don’t know, Benny.”

  His eyes tightened. “You promised.”

  I had, and promises mattered between us, irrespective of Benny’s multi-dimensional tally of debts and favours. We had grown up in the Warrens, poor kids of poor parents in an area the City Watch avoided like a seeping wound. I had been five, Benny just turned six, when we’d met, and we had had each other’s backs ever since. I had never known my father, and even back then my mother had had ambitions for me that I hadn’t shared. Benny’s parents, meanwhile, had had almost no interest in him. Benny had already been drifting away from them when we met, and by the time he was nine, he had left home completely. You didn’t survive in the Warrens unless you had someone you could trust implicitly. I wasn’t going
to break that after all this time, no matter what.

  “I just thought you’d have a better plan,” I said.

  Benny’s face broke into a grin again, the tension slipping from his shoulders like a shadow in the midday sun.

  “I don’t need one. I told you, I’m lucky.” Which didn’t fill me with as much confidence as he probably thought. “Anyway, I’m not a mage like you. But if you want to turn us invisible or, you know, mind-control the guards or something, be my guest.”

  “Not bloody likely.” Even if I could manage such things, Carnelian Silkstar was a high mage. If I touched magic within a hundred yards of him, he would know.

  There were three ways to make a lot of money in Agatos: politics, crime, and commerce, although some would argue they were basically the same thing. The city’s high mages had them pretty well sewn up. The Countess controlled politics, the Wren ruled the underworld, and Carnelian Silkstar had most of the city’s trade grasped in his greasy little hands.

  Benny shot me a happy smile. “I guess that means we’re doing it my way after all. So, what are we waiting for?”

  Yeah, I thought bitterly. What are we waiting for?

  Once, Horn Hill had been crowned by a fortified keep that jutted up from the edge of the Leap like a big ‘fuck you’ to anyone approaching from the sea. Over the centuries, the walls and the keep itself had been torn down and Horn Hill given over to a much bloodier purpose than war: making lots of money for very few people.

  The story went that, four hundred and twenty-six years ago, Agate Blackspear had sailed into the harbour, seen the Erastes Valley stretching out before him, and announced in a ground-shaking and undoubtedly very manly voice, “I shall build a city here, and it shall be the greatest city on Earth.”

  Agate’s clerks and scribes must have been working overtime for anyone to actually believe that goat shit, because there had been cities here for thousands of years, each built on the ruins of the previous, burying their memories, their histories, and their dead gods beneath the weight of stone and carefully crafted stories. Agate Blackspear had been just the latest in a long line of pirate kings who had seen the potential of Erastes Bay.

  The prevailing winds across the ocean meant that ships were forced to anchor in the bay and there wait for the wind to change so they could sail through the Bone Straits to the Folaric Sea and the rich trade with the coastal cities beyond. If you controlled the only major port on the coast, well, think of the potential to tax all those waiting ships at the point of a sword. Agate Blackspear must have been rubbing his hands. Add to that the fact that the Erastes Valley marked the start of the Lidharan Road, the main trade route to the northern cities, and money washed through Agatos like shit through the sewers after a storm.

  Over the centuries, whether Agate had actually said it or not, Agatos had become one of the great cities of the world. The Godkiller had secured his legacy, even if he hadn’t lived long enough to see it. Personally, I was glad he hadn’t. He sounded like a massive arsehole.

  The Palace of a Thousand Walls covered a good chunk of the plateau of Horn Hill. I doubted anyone had ever counted the walls in Silkstar Palace, but they were impressive. Almost all of the internal walls were movable, capable of being swung or slid in and out of place to change the configurations of the rooms and the dozens of small courtyards hidden within. The house was supposed to reflect the honeycomb of a beehive in structure. I didn’t know if that was true, but I did know that Thousand Walls was a bloody awkward, ever-changing maze, and we had a good chance of getting lost in there and wandering around until we died of old age. The outer wall was solid stone and thirty feet high. It ran in a square that was a hundred yards to each side. Gold and blue banners draped the walls, embroidered with the Silkstar crest of a ship following a single star, topped by three absolutely gigantic bees. All I could say was that I wouldn’t have wanted to be on that ship when those bees came past.

  The main gates of Thousand Walls had been thrown open and the internal walls had been slid back to provide a wide, direct passage all the way through to the central courtyard. There were guards at the gate and spaced around the roof, looking like Charo decorations in their frilly, matching Silkstar uniforms. The swords at their waists and the muskets in their hands looked anything but frilly and pointless. I might be a mage, but I wouldn’t be able to hold off that many armed men, even if their master didn’t decide to get involved.

  “Pity, Benny. What have you got me into?” I muttered.

  “What’s that, mate?”

  I shook my head.

  The guards were watching the steady stream of people passing through the gates, but no one was being questioned. Sneaking into the house itself wouldn’t be so easy, but that was Benny’s problem. And if he couldn’t get us in, well, that would free me from my part of the deal. The relief that rushed through me at the thought was followed by guilt.

  You’re a shit friend, Nik.

  It didn’t stop the relief, though. I wanted out, and no amount of arguing with myself would change that. This was not my kind of place. It triggered an aversion deep in the beast part of my mind that I couldn’t shake. I wanted nothing to do with the likes of Carnelian Silkstar.

  The central courtyard was already packed and the heat of the day was becoming oppressive. The high walls prevented any hint of a breeze. An altar carved from a single block of honey-yellow amber stood at one end. Amber didn’t come in lumps that size, which meant that Silkstar had created it himself with magic. Bloody show-off.

  Nobody was paying much attention to the altar, because in the end, an altar was just an altar, no matter how shiny and impressive it was, and whatever else you might say about the citizens of Agatos, they didn’t turn their noses up at a free meal. Tables had been set up around the courtyard, laden with honey-soaked treats. I’d noticed that most of the citizens who’d made their way to Thousand Walls were from the upper end of society, but that wasn’t stopping them stuffing their faces, and there were enough adventurous souls from the Grey City and the Middle City that Benny and I didn’t stand out.

  Around the edge of the courtyard, beneath the occasional sneezing fits from the crowd, a constant, low hum rose from dozens of beehives. I could smell lavender and rosemary heavy in the still air. Clouds of bees lifted or settled, bringing nectar from the Missos flowers. Personally, I would have thought twice before covering the tables with honeyed snacks with so many bees around, but that’s religion for you. The crowd jostled around me.

  Benny leaned in closer. “Try to look like you fit in.” He grabbed a handful of sticky pastries from the table and shoved them into his mouth. “Like this.”

  “You’ve got honey in your beard.”

  “Saving it for later.”

  I shrugged. “Don’t blame me if you get a face full of bees.”

  I still hadn’t eaten today, and my stomach was protesting. I waited until Benny was looking the other way, then scooped up a finger-sized pastry, stuffed it in my mouth, and wiped my fingers on my shirt.

  There were guards at all the entrances to the actual house from the courtyard. How Benny thought we were getting past, I didn’t know. I hoped he didn’t have anything too drastic in mind. Drastic things tended to go wrong.

  The first time Benny had got me into real trouble, I had been eight years old. There had been nothing mage-y about me then — I had been able to see magic, catch glimpses of it when staring into the distance or daydreaming, but I hadn’t really known what it was, and I couldn’t do anything with it. Benny, though, was already an accomplished thief. Or that’s what he’d told me. Like the idiot I had been, I’d told him to prove it.

  This had been back when we had both lived in the Warrens, down by the docks. If the Grey City was the disreputable older brother of the White City, then the Warrens was the uncle that all the kids tried to stay away from during the Ebbtide Vigil.

  Benny’s young pride had been hurt, so he’d decided to prove me wrong by breaking into one of the Wren’s w
arehouses in full daylight. We hadn’t made it five yards inside before we were caught. For some reason, maybe because my mother worked for the Wren, or maybe because he took pity on our absolute incompetence, he didn’t cut off our heads and use them as footballs. We did get a good kicking, though, which soured me to Benny’s schemes, although it didn’t have much effect on him.

  “Here he comes,” Benny whispered.

  If I hadn’t already known what Carnelian Silkstar looked like, I would have taken him for an apprentice scribe or a bookkeeper. He was a small man with narrow, drawn-in shoulders, skin that was lighter than was common in Agatos, and thin brown hair. I certainly wouldn’t have taken him for one of the three most powerful people in the city. He could scurry past you on the street and you would never notice him.

  Everyone noticed him now. He emerged from his palace at the head of a battalion of priests, clerks, black-cloaked mages, and a selection of weak-chinned young men who I assumed were his sons.

  “I thought we were going to avoid him,” I hissed at Benny.

  I would only have to let slip a trickle of magic and Silkstar would spot me. It was the Feast of Parata, and I was as welcome here today as anyone else, but once Silkstar noticed me, he would put some kind of trace on me. That was just basic common sense when a mage came into your home. I wouldn’t be able to break Benny’s curse without Silkstar coming down on me like a plunging hawk.

  This was crazy. How had I let Benny talk me into this?

  “Don’t worry, mate. We’re not going anywhere near him. He’s just the distraction.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m feeling fucking distracted right now.”