Shadow of a Dead God: A Mennik Thorn Novel

by Patrick Samphire

  I looked back at the chaos and the blood and the devastation.

  “You want my advice?” I said. “Get the fuck out of here. Move house. Burn it down behind you.”

  Then I went home.

  I wasn’t good at leaving things alone. Yeah, that wasn’t exactly a revelation.

  I woke early with an itch working away at my brain. That thing at Sunstone’s house had nearly killed me, and I didn’t even know what it was. Not knowing was driving me crazy. Benny always said I’d never seen a crack I wouldn’t stick my nose into, which always made him laugh, for some reason. Self-preservation, I called it. If I knew what was coming for me, I had a chance of stopping it. And, the reality was, there had to be a link between that ghost-beast and whoever had framed Benny and me. It could not be a coincidence. Away from the terror of that blood-stained kitchen, I couldn’t deny it any longer.

  I didn’t know what the link was. I didn’t know whether it was direct and causal or not. But every link or lead was another part of the puzzle. If someone had sent that thing after me, they had made a mistake. That was ninety per cent bravado, but it was also true. I had been lost, out of clues, and now I had one again, maybe more than one. I had seen the thing that might have killed Rush and Bone, and I reckoned I knew where I could find out what it was.

  The University of Agatos was one of the oldest parts of the White City, pre-dating even Agate Blackspear himself. Once, it had been an isolated monastery on the banks of the Erastes River, dedicated to an early goddess of learning whose name had, ironically, long been forgotten. As the monastery had grown, spawning colleges, libraries, and lecture theatres, so Agatos had also grown, rolling over and around the university, so that now the university occupied a large campus in the north east of the city.

  I wasn’t terribly popular at the university, and to be honest, I wasn’t overly fond of the scholars, either. For a start, they insisted on calling mages ‘Mystery,’ which was frankly just patronising.

  I’d spent a year studying history and mathematics at the university before being expelled. It had probably been best for all of us.

  Benny’s trial wasn’t due to start until ten o’clock, which gave me almost four hours. It was a couple of miles to the university from the Grey City, but I would still be back in plenty of time, and maybe — maybe — this would be the thread that unravelled the whole damned tapestry. Maybe I would tug on it and it would collapse, revealing whoever was standing behind it before Benny’s trial even began.

  Hey, I was an optimist, all right?

  My new, good shirt didn’t look so new or good any more. It was stained with blood and other things I didn’t want to think about. I scrubbed it and left it to soak in my wash basin. Maybe it would be clean for the trial.

  It looked like I was going to be resorting to the mage’s cloak again.

  Paupers’ College had been dedicated by Euclase Darkwater, Agate Blackspear’s successor, over three hundred and fifty years ago as a place ‘For to Educate the Wretched and Vile of Agatos,’ by which Euclase, bless her snobbish heart, had meant the poor. Which was why Paupers’ College was now the most exclusive and expensive college in the university and why you wouldn’t see a poor person within a stone’s throw (due to the delightful habit of the students of Paupers’ College of throwing stones at the passing poor). Paupers’ College was, however, the preeminent centre for the study of theology and theoretical magic on the continent, and I had had a class there in my brief university career.

  The mage’s cloak did have the advantage of preventing the side-splitting barrage of stones I might have faced otherwise; even the most dim-witted of the pampered students weren’t stupid enough to lob stones at a mage. The serving staff weren’t always so lucky, which had been one of the prime causes of my expulsion, when a particularly enthusiastic bunch of students had found their stones flying back at them with twice the force. Apparently, actual use of magic was frowned upon in a college of theoretical magic. It had been worth it, though, and most of the magic theory they had taught was bollocks anyway.

  The ‘For to Educate the Wretched and Vile of Agatos’ slogan was still carved over the entrance to Paupers’ College, but under it some wag had scratched ‘the wretched and vile can fuck off’, and no one had bothered to remove it. As one of both the wretched and the vile, I felt great pleasure in slamming back the door with a little bit of magic-enhanced vigour. The green-robed man behind the desk jumped, spilling his tea. He dabbed at it with the corner of his robe as he hurried around the desk. I didn’t recognise him, but he would have to be one of the junior scholars to be manning the desk.

  “Mystery!” he said, with a little, awkward bow.

  I resisted the urge to punch him.

  “Fetch me Scholar Longstream,” I demanded imperiously. I had long ago discovered that the best way to deal with the scholars was to not give them the time to inflate themselves. It always took a few pumps of the bellows before they were ready, and a sharp pin early on took the air out of them.

  “But,” the junior scholar protested, “Scholar Longstream is sleeping.”

  I raised a hand and made one of those entirely unnecessary gestures that everyone associates with magic. The junior scholar deflated, which was frankly embarrassing for someone who was supposed to be a scholar of theoretical magic.

  It took a few minutes for my old tutor to appear, and when he did, he was still straightening his robes. He slowed when he saw me. I suspected he had been expecting someone rather more important.

  “Mystery Thorn,” he said, flatly. “Never less than a delight.”

  “Scholar Longstream,” I said with the same sincerity. “I have some questions.”

  I could see him considering refusal. I didn’t know what he had been up to in his rooms — not sleeping, I suspected; he looked far too awake and flushed for that — but he looked like he wanted to get back to it before the moment passed.

  I cocked my head to one side. “Although, now I come to think about it, perhaps Gods’ College…”

  Longstream sighed at the obviousness of the ploy, but his moment had clearly now passed. He gestured for me to follow.

  Scholar Longstream’s study was on the ground floor, not far from the library. Unmarked student essays were piled on one side of the desk. Theological texts covered the rest and were stacked haphazardly on shelves, shoved between religious artefacts. I unfocused my vision long enough to check them out — it never hurt to be careful. Most of them were no more than simple constructions of metal, wood, bone, or feathers, blank of any magical residue. One chunk of sandstone engraved with a script I couldn’t read held a faint trace of a god’s investiture. Nothing too significant, but if I had to handle it, I would do so with my defences up.

  “What’s that?” I asked, pointing at it.

  “Hmm?” He glanced back. “Oh. A fragment from a temple of Tulbek the Old. A Fatracian deity. Long dead.” He tilted his head. “You didn’t come here to ask me about Tulbek, and I am certain you are not nostalgic for your time at the university. You made your feelings entirely clear about us when you left.”

  What was that thing about not burning your bridges? I had blown this one up with a barrel of gunpowder.

  “You’re right.” I described what I had seen at Galena Sunstone’s house — leaving out my own ill-preparedness and cynicism. He already had a low enough opinion of me from my time as a student. No point in confirming it.

  Longstream scratched at his stubble.

  “What you’re describing sounds like a beast god. Karchek. Bellamer. Mur. Someone like that. There were dozens of them, as you must recall.”

  “I thought Bellamer and Mur were the same god,” I said.

  A superior smile tugged at Longstream’s lips. “A first-year mistake. They are similarly aspected and share much of the same essence, but they are distinct.”

  I had actually known that, but it never hurt to let Longstream think he had one over on me. His flaw was a snobbish arrogance, and if he th
ought he could prove himself superior, he would give away far more information than he meant to. I let my head droop like an embarrassed student.

  Longstream frowned. “Your exact description doesn’t match any of them. Are you sure you are correct?”

  “I was there.” The image was branded into my brain. I wasn’t going to forget it.

  “Hmm,” he said sceptically. “There are many stories of beast gods taking on human forms to enter human encampments. You should recall the story of Bellamer and the hunter of Treem.” He raised a questioning eyebrow, and I nodded. “However,” he continued, “there has not been a beast god in the Erastes Valley for thousands of years. They all died or were killed by the time the first true town was established here. You say the human forms were from only a few hundred years ago at most.” The smile returned. “Assuming you remember enough of your history to be sure…”

  I also remembered why I had hated lessons here. I detested being patronised, even in a good cause.

  “Knee-length, tasselled dress for her, with serpentine patterns on the sleeves. Long, pleated jacket for him, trousers cut above the ankle, and heavy leather boots.”

  Longstream nodded. “Two hundred and fifty years, no more. There are certainly no beast gods from even close to that time. And, of course, gods do not have ghosts. That is a human trait. You are sure they were ghosts, not a manifestation of a god?”

  I drew in raw magic and made lights churn around my hands to remind him that whatever else I was, I was a mage.

  His smile dropped into a scowl.

  Shit. Wrong move. Longstream didn’t like being reminded that there was more to me than an ignorant student.

  “So what, then?” I prompted.

  He sniffed. “A soul rider? It is said that some soul riders can contain the souls of several beasts.” He gave me a disdainful look. “Although that is more your field, I would have thought.”

  To any other mage, that would have been an insult. Soul riders were considered to be mages of a type, but primitive, untrained, limited — if dangerous — ones. I let it slide past me. I was in no position to have elevated ideas about my own worth as a mage.

  “So either the ghosts were soul riders,” I said, “or they were pursued by one.” Perhaps they had been killed by a soul rider originally. Perhaps they had fled towards the Sunstones’ cellar, and the soul rider had overhauled them, all of it hundreds of years ago. Could they be replaying their deaths at hands of a soul rider, over and over again? When the priest had trapped them, had their long-dead pursuer been able to catch up?

  That didn’t feel right. The power that had surged through them had come from within, somehow. It hadn’t been something coming upon them.

  Longstream raised an admonishing finger. I considered leaning over and snapping it off.

  “Except it is well understood that the souls held by a soul rider separate at death. The animalistic souls do not remain as ghosts.”

  “Fantastic.”

  “There may be more in the texts. This is not my speciality.”

  He put his head to one side, watching me expectantly.

  Arsehole. I forced a smile. “Would you be able to find out for me?”

  His superior smile returned. “Ah, but here is the problem. You are asking me to use my time — university time — to solve your problems for you. Not to be indelicate, but what is in it for me?”

  Fuck this. “People are dying! This thing is killing them.” And this smug arsehole wanted to negotiate?

  Longstream shrugged. Just the right amount of magic, and I could break those scrawny shoulders.

  “You appeal to my sense of obligation. An interesting approach. I could counter that the safety of the citizens of Agatos is the responsibility of the City Watch and the Ash Guard, not the university.”

  I ground my teeth. “This could help them.”

  “Hm. And so you believe I should accept the cost. Except that if truly this is of such overwhelming public benefit that every citizen should be obliged to sacrifice their effort towards it, why should it not be you who accepts the cost? Why should I allow you to transfer the obligation to me?”

  I stood up out of my chair, leaning forwards over the desk, fists planted on his books.

  “This isn’t a fucking academic debate.”

  He swayed back, but the smile didn’t falter. I wasn’t getting through to this bastard. I was going to have to do this the hard way.

  “Fine. What do you want?”

  He spread his arms. “Knowledge.”

  I eyed him cautiously. I wasn’t sure I knew much that he didn’t, at least about academic subjects. I doubted he was interested in how to survive growing up in the Warrens or how to run a failing business as a freelance mage. Perhaps something about the practicalities of magic? My experience was that the theory taught at the university had little to do with the actual practice of a mage. But he had never shown an interest before.

  “What is it you want to know?”

  He smiled. “Nothing you would be able to tell me.”

  I hated the fucking cryptic nonsense the scholars delighted in. “I’m not here to play riddles.”

  Longstream’s smile widened. “It is not a riddle, I assure you. It has been a matter of long theological debate, and I would like to lay it to rest. Agate Blackspear was a mage — some say the first high mage of Agatos. When he landed, the city, such as it was, was under the protection of Sien, the Lady of Dreams Descending. She was undoubtedly a goddess. Blackspear fought her and killed her on the top of Horn Hill. Some say it is her body, buried beneath the city, that provides most of the raw magic in the Erastes Valley.”

  I shrugged. I had heard the theory, but I doubted it. Enough gods had died here or been worshipped here in the thousands of years that mankind had occupied the valley that I didn’t believe that the magic came from any one particular dead god.

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  Longstream waved a hand. “That is not what interests me. I want to establish finally how exactly Blackspear killed the goddess. My colleagues have their ideas, but none of us have been able to prove it.”

  I laughed out loud at the preposterousness of the question. “I have absolutely no idea.” The idea that a jobbing mage like me would have that kind of information was absurd. “Why? Are you trying to kill a god?”

  Longstream scowled. “I would not expect you to know,” he said waspishly.

  I turned my palms upwards to show empty hands. “Then what? You want me to ask the Countess or Silkstar or the Wren? Even if they knew, they wouldn’t tell me.”

  “No.” He leaned forwards, and I saw desperate greed tighten his face. “There is only one person I want you to ask. I want you to raise Agate Blackspear himself and ask him.”

  I shot my chair back, almost knocking it over. “You’re fucking crazy.”

  It was possible to raise the dead, even someone as long dead as Agate Blackspear, but they came back … different. Unpredictable. As though something was missing or corrupted. I had only done it once before, when I had been eighteen and had been training as a mage for several years. There had been half a dozen other powerful mages around to step in if something went wrong, but it had disturbed me right to my core. The sense of wrongness had overwhelmed me. As I had lurched out of the room, I had suffered one of the worst attacks of panic I had ever had. I had sworn I would never do it again.

  “Very well.” Longstream bowed his head. “I wonder, though, how many more people will have to die before you decide you need my help after all.”

  “Fuck you.”

  It wasn’t my problem, and it wasn’t my job to deal with that thing, and if it was, I would find another way. There was nothing Longstream could offer that would be worth the price he was asking.

  I stalked out of Paupers’ College, leaving the self-satisfied scholars behind me. This was why it had been worth being expelled from the university — to avoid bastards like them.

  It would have felt good to burn
the whole place down behind me.

  Let it go, Nik, I told myself. Just let it go.

  I had Benny’s trial to get to. That was somewhere I could do some good and where it actually was my business.

  The magistrates’ court was at the far end of Justice Way from the City Watch headquarters. At least ‘Justice Way’ was what it said on the street sign. Most of us from the Warrens or the Grey City called it Bad Luck Way. Others, particularly from the Upper City, called it Lowlife Walk, because no one with any connections or wealth was ever forced to march along it. The Stypilians called it the Wrath of God, which was overegging it for a hundred yards of cobbles, but then they weren’t the most imaginative of religions. The traditional place to wait for the convicted prisoners to emerge from the courthouse so that you could throw stones, rotting food, or, if you were particularly drunk, your own shit at the prisoners was halfway up Bad Luck Way, where you could also buy snacks while you were waiting. Officially, you were supposed to hold off until the prisoners were convicted before you threw things at them, but there were always a few enthusiasts who liked to get some missiles in on the way down.

  I had meant to get there early enough to discourage anyone from pelting Benny; it was never great to turn up at court smeared in rotting vegetables, excrement, and your own blood. But my side trip to the university had taken longer than I had planned, the streets were packed and slow to navigate, and now I would be lucky to get there twenty minutes before he was brought to the dock. At least it would give me time to identify myself to the court and be in place to be called as a witness. I ran through the story in my head as I hurried along. We had been carrying a message to Silkstar from the Countess. We had been looking for Silkstar when whatever it had been had exploded around us. I shivered, remembering the creature ripping through the priest.

  Stop that! Confidence. Arrogance. Certainty. That was what I needed to project. Look like a mage. A real one with power and influence and a hunger for more of it. Not someone the court would want to piss off.