Benny had better be telling me the truth. I didn’t care how much I owed him. I wasn’t going head-to-head with a high mage for any debt or favour. Suicide didn’t look good on me.
Benny was right that Carnelian Silkstar was a distraction, though. The moment he had emerged, heads had turned towards him and conversations around courtyard had died away, leaving only the hum of the bees, rising and falling and shushing like gentle waves on a pebble beach. Everyone was watching the procession towards the altar. The citizens of Agatos might be here for the free snacks, but it was polite to pay attention to the religious bit, particularly when your host could flatten the whole lot of you with a single twitch of his finger.
Benny plucked at my sleeve, drawing me back through the pressing crowd.
As Carnelian Silkstar reached the altar, Benny and I slipped into the shadows beneath the covered walkway that surrounded the courtyard.
Much as I hated to admit it, this plan of Benny’s was probably the best we could have come up with, no matter how crazy it was. Our other option would have been to come under cover of the night and pick the locks. But any mage worth the name would have wards around their house. Depths, I had wards, and there were plenty who would say I was a disgrace to the whole of magedom, the pompous gits. But right now Carnelian Silkstar’s wards were down. Even for a high mage, it would be frowned upon if he accidentally fried any of his guests who had just wandered off looking for a toilet.
Of course, we still had to get past the guards, and that was where partnering someone as fundamentally dodgy as Benny came in handy. Benny knew a good chunk of the other dodgy citizens of Agatos. He wasn’t much use with the criminals and frauds in the upper echelons of society, the likes of Carnelian Silkstar, the various priesthoods, or the Senate, but for your common or garden scumbags, Benny was your man. So I wasn’t at all surprised when Benny sidled up to a couple of the guards with a familiar nod of the head and a whispered, “All right?”
The religious part of the event was getting into full swing. Priests were wandering about, tossing handfuls of flowers into the crowds, which had the dual effect of raising the hum of the bees from the hives and setting at least a dozen people sneezing. I kept one eye on the happenings in the courtyard while watching Benny’s dealings with the other.
In the Warrens, we called a silver coin a ‘watchman’ because it was the traditional amount it took to bribe a member of the City Watch to look the other way. From the clink of the purses Benny slipped to the guards, Silkstar’s men worked to higher standards.
The moment the purses were out of sight, the two guards appeared to get religion, because they developed a singular focus on what was happening at the altar. Benny beckoned to me, and we slipped inside Thousand Walls.
The interior of the Silkstar Palace was furnished in the style I liked to call Mycedan-tat. The island of Myceda lay three hundred miles to the south of Agatos, just off the coast of Corithia, and specialised in delicate sculptures made from gold, silver, precious jewels, and rare tropical woods. They were considered the height of classy sophistication across most of the civilised world. That was why, when the fashion reached Agatos, the wealthy merchants and senators immediately set about duplicating it, except instead of sticking to the small and delicate — which people might not notice — had instead commissioned great, hulking copies that loomed tactlessly over everything. So, the now-famous Mycedan-tat style had been born. No one would be able to miss just how much wealth and how little taste the owners had. And as a typical piece weighed as much as a fully grown bull, they were nearly impossible to steal without a team of men, a hefty wagon, and several mules. It also meant that Benny was after something more unusual.
“Lady of the Grove,” Benny swore as we entered a lavish sitting room. “Look at this place!” His fingers rubbed unconsciously together.
“You’re only stealing what you’re being paid to steal these days,” I reminded Benny. “Going up in the world, remember?”
“You’re no fun, mate. This way.”
Foolishly, I assumed Benny knew what he was talking about.
If you were of a masochistic frame of mind, you could do some fairly complicated mathematics to show how many rooms Thousand Walls could have if it really did have a thousand walls, and the answer was, I didn’t know. I was a mage, not a mathematician. But within a few minutes of following Benny from over-decorated room to over-decorated room I had come to the conclusion that there were an awful lot of them and that Benny had no idea of his way through.
I grabbed his arm as he started across a small, darkened kitchen with strings of garlic hanging like skeletal, arthritic fingers from the ceiling.
“What exactly are we looking for?”
Benny glanced shiftily from side to side. On principle, Benny was the kind of man who wouldn’t admit to owning a candle even if you caught him halfway down the stairs on the way to the loo with the candle clutched in front of his face. I had seen him avoid several convictions for burglary by the simple expedient of lying so shamelessly that no one quite knew what to do with him. After a moment, though, he slumped slightly.
“It’s a ledger, all right?”
“A cursed ledger? Why would anyone put a curse on a ledger?”
“I don’t know, do I? It’s an old one, anyway. Maybe someone he cheated got pissed off.”
Except Carnelian Silkstar was a high mage and he could break a curse easier than clicking his fingers. More likely, the curse was there to discourage his minions from poking around. His mages should be able to break the curse, too, of course, but recreating it again in such a way that Silkstar wouldn’t be able to tell the difference was high mage-level magic.
The ledger must contain some of Silkstar’s business secrets, and it made sense that one of his rivals would try to steal it.
“Let’s bloody find it before they finish up out there and catch us in the act,” I said. Waves of exhaustion were washing over the back of my mind, and only a seawall of terror kept them at bay. I just wanted this over.
I strode across the kitchen and yanked open the nearest door.
I didn’t know who was more surprised, me or the Master Servant standing on the other side. She reacted quicker, though. There was a brief blink of startlement, then her head came up while I was still standing there, grasping the door handle.
“Can I help you, gentlemen?”
She had been well trained. Despite the fact that we were obviously not supposed to be creeping around the palace and despite the possibility that we might be dangerous, she didn’t flinch.
I couldn’t quite place her accent. It was Agatos, and she was clearly an Agatos native, but whether she was Grey City, Middle City, or Upper City I couldn’t tell. Her voice had been tutored to a neutral formality.
I cleared my throat. “We’re here to see Carnelian Silkstar.”
She didn’t move.
More than a grand house or palace, more than a seat in the Senate, more than magical powers, employing a Master Servant was the sign of status in Agatos society. There were never more than forty Master Servants in employment in the whole city at any one time, and they undertook years of rigorous training. They were notoriously trustworthy, efficient, and dedicated. I had absolutely nothing in common with any of them.
Only the tallest men and women were ever selected to train as Master Servants, and looking contemptuously down their nose at you was one of the first skills they learned. I was tall for a citizen of Agatos — like I said, I never knew my father, but I had always thought he must have come into the port on a boat from Secellia or Tor — but the woman in the doorway topped me by a full head, and she had that look-down-the-nose thing off pat. She was dressed in sweeping robes of gold and silver that bore Silkstar’s ship-star-and-giant-bees insignia.
“I can assure you that he has no appointments today.”
I cursed silently. Of course she would know. Her job would be to organise Silkstar’s life like cutlery in a drawer. Well, not like my cutle
ry.
Pull it together, Nik! The exhaustion was making me stupid.
You couldn’t intimidate a Master Servant. That was part of the deal. And they were almost impossible to fool. But I was willing to give it a go.
“We have a message from the Countess,” I said.
If you were going to lie, lie big. No one in their right mind would tell a lie like that. The Countess did not react well to having her name taken in vain.
Well, if you’re going to piss off one high mage, you might as well make it two. You could only die horribly once.
For the first time, a flicker of doubt crossed the Master Servant’s face, and I pressed my advantage. I raised an eyebrow. There were years of training, there were ridiculous levels of pay, and there was loyalty. But there was also stupidity, and it would take a suicidally brave Master Servant to interfere with the business of a high mage.
For a second, I thought she was going to say no, anyway. I thought she was going to deny the Countess’s supposed will simply so as not to inconvenience Silkstar. But then she must have realised that if it was important enough for the Countess to send a messenger today of all days, it was something Silkstar would want to be told.
You are in so much trouble, Mennik Thorn, I told myself.
“Follow me,” the Master Servant said, turning on her heel. I felt, rather than heard, Benny’s sigh of relief.
The Master Servant took us to a small sitting room with one wall swung back to let in the fresh air and light from a miniature courtyard. The smell of lavender and honeysuckle drifted in on the faint breeze, along with the murmur of the crowd in the main courtyard. Unsurprisingly, there was a beehive in the centre of the little courtyard, and I avoided looking at it out of an excess of caution. I was pretty certain a dead goddess wasn’t going to report me to Carnelian Silkstar, nor send her bees after me, but it never hurt to be careful.
“Wait here,” the Master Servant said.
Benny and I lowered ourselves onto the perfectly upholstered chairs. I thought the Master Servant did a wonderful job of not shuddering as we settled our dirty, sweaty, ragged selves onto cushions that were used to far more refined backsides than ours.
“This is a bit of all right,” Benny whispered loudly.
This time, the Master Servant’s jaw did tighten.
“I will see if Master Silkstar is available.” With a sharp nod, she turned and strode off, not hurrying exactly, but certainly not hanging around.
“How long do you reckon we’ve got?” Benny said when the Master Servant was gone.
“Not sure.” It wouldn’t take long for her to reach the central courtyard; unlike us, she knew where she was going. “Five minutes? You can’t hurry religion, but Silkstar’s going to want to know what was so important the Countess would interrupt him during the Feast of Parata.”
“That one’s all on you, mate.”
“I didn’t notice you jumping forwards with any great ideas.” I squeezed my thumb and forefinger into my eyes to push away the tiredness that was threatening to overwhelm me. “You’d better know exactly where we’re going.”
“Not a clue, mate. His personal library, that’s what I was told.”
“Great.” I thought for a moment. “Silkstar is probably going to see us in his office, right?”
Benny shrugged. I decided to take that as agreement.
“His private library won’t be too far from that, and the Master Servant will have left us near the office.”
“Makes sense. Doesn’t mean it’s right, but it makes sense.”
“You’re all encouragement,” I said. “If you were to choose a door that looked like you really shouldn’t go through it, which would it be?”
Benny had an almost supernatural sense of things he wasn’t supposed to do and places he wasn’t supposed to go. There were three doors into the sitting room, including the one we had come through, but it only took Benny a second to point at a door upholstered in green leather.
“That one. No one wants me in there. I can feel it.”
“Then let’s do it.” I eased myself up, wiping my sweaty hands on the expensive cushions.
Benny was right. The door led to a long, wide room with desks down both sides, carpeted in the same green colour as the door. Silkstar’s clerks must have worked here, when they weren’t standing around watching him be religious. The double doors at the far end were closed and probably locked, but Benny went through locks like I went through a plate of cheese and olives after a long night’s ghost hunting. Or, my stomach reminded me, the way I would have if Benny hadn’t dragged me away before I had had a chance for breakfast.
A large desk stood in front of the double doors, facing down between the rows of smaller desks, so that anyone entering would be forced to approach Carnelian Silkstar like a supplicant in a temple. Maybe he just had a thing for altars.
Neat papers, pens, inks, and blotters decorated the clerks’ desks like little votive offerings to their master.
“Come on.” We crossed the office, and I waited while Benny made short work of the lock.
“Too easy,” Benny said. “Some people don’t even try to make it difficult.”
I pushed the doors open. Beyond was a short hallway with only a single example of Mycedan-tat half-blocking the way through. The walls on either side were solid marble. An inlaid cedar door opened off one side. I peeked through into a room with four comfortable chairs and a low table between them. Somewhere for more private meetings. Double doors had been thrown open to another small, private courtyard. I had to squeeze my nose so the smell of honeysuckle didn’t make me sneeze. I could hear the constant hum of bees.
“That’s not very secure,” Benny observed, nodding towards the open courtyard doors. “That’s just asking for someone to let themselves in.”
“Which might have been useful if we’d known about it before we started all this creeping around.” I shook my head. “Focus on the job.”
“What? I’m just making notes for next time.”
The only other door was at the end of the hallway. It opened into a library, and I felt a surge of elation for the first time. We had found it, and there was still no sign of Silkstar turning up to rip our skins from our backs and use them to cover his books. Maybe this plan really was going to work.
A desk stood in the middle of a rug on the marble floor, heaped with papers and worn books. A vase, holding freshly cut lavender, sat incongruously on one side. More fucking lavender. I didn’t normally get bad allergies, but this was place was a full-on pollen assault.
Red-painted shelves covered every wall except for a single barred, shuttered window, making the whole place look like a disused brothel. I was starting to doubt Carnelian Silkstar’s taste, or possibly his eyesight. An armchair sat beneath a morgue-lamp in one corner. The room smelled dry and old, with a hint of dust and crumpled paper and the taste of warm wood.
Half the shelves were filled with ledgers.
“Great,” I said. “So, which one is it?”
Benny scratched behind an ear. “I was hoping you could tell me that.”
At this point, nothing was going to surprise me.
That was what they called ‘famous last words’, right?
“You might want to hurry, too,” Benny added, helpfully.
I waved him into silence.
One of the first things a mage learned was to sense magic. If you couldn’t sense the magic around you, you couldn’t draw it to yourself and cast spells. Most mages could sense magic long before they started training, even if they weren’t sure what they were sensing.
I let my eyes unfocus and slipped into the semi-trance that allowed me to see magic.
Colours rose around me. Tendrils of green lifted from the floor like smoke. That was the raw, natural magic every mage drew on. The morgue-lamp was green, too, but focused and bright. Silkstar’s deactivated wards permeated every wall, the ceiling above us, and the floor below, seething heavily in unsettling black and red patte
rns. I shuddered. A single word from Silkstar would bring them to ominous life, and that would be the end of me and Benny. I forced myself to ignore them, along with the green mist and the morgue-lamp.
Magic didn’t have colours, of course. That was just the way I visualised it. I knew a couple of mages who sensed it as music, and even one who tasted it, although I had no idea how that could actually work. I did know it would have put me completely off my dinner.
I saw curses as white strands, enfolding objects like a dolphin caught in a net.
I turned slowly, letting my senses drift across the room. There was something cursed in the desk, but it was the wrong shape. A dagger, perhaps. I moved past it.
“That’s the one.” I pointed to a heavy ledger just to the left of where Carnelian Silkstar would sit. It was buried beneath a pile of papers.
“Go on, then.”
I shot Benny an annoyed look. A bit of appreciation wouldn’t have gone amiss. I wasn’t saying I was the only one who could have found the right book so quickly, but I was the only one whom Benny could persuade to do something this stupid for him. I swept off the pile of papers and dumped them into Benny’s hands.
“Hold these.” I intended to leave this library looking as untouched as possible when we left. The longer it took for Carnelian Silkstar to realise he had been robbed, the better.
I leaned closer. The curse was a work of beauty, one of Silkstar’s own creations, I was sure. It would take an accomplished mage to create something so delicate. Your average curse cast by someone untrained in magic might work, but it would be an unstable mess. This one would never break spontaneously.
“Speed it up, mate,” Benny hissed. “I can hear someone in the outer office.”
I swore under my breath and focused on the lace-thin net covering the book. Benny had uncanny hearing, and I had learned to trust him.
If I’d had more time, I could have figured out exactly what kind of curse this was — warts, an unpleasant seepage from unnamed orifices, a swarm of enraged bees, whatever. It was always nice to know what you were in for if you got it wrong. But time was one of the many things I didn’t have.
Shadow of a Dead God: A Mennik Thorn Novel Page 3
