Dark Paths

by Markus Heitz

  Crotàgon was astonished by what he saw. ‘That’s Tûrshai’s form.’

  ‘Of course, she mentioned that she knew you.’ Hopiash placed his hands on his hips. ‘I’m afraid that was quite some time ago. We weren’t able to preserve her. Something went wrong with the embalming process.’ As he said this, he frowned at one of his tattooed colleagues. ‘I may have misjudged Tossàlor on that score; I have a shrewd suspicion that one of this lot brushed against her corpse.’ He smiled. ‘But now, here are the two of you.’

  Tossàlor? First he uses his own kind for his sculptures and then he lowers himself to carry out embalming for this monster? Firûsha was growing more and more opposed to the idea of locating Tossàlor and taking him along.

  ‘What exactly do you mean by rewarding?’ She saw Crotàgon’s shoulder muscles tense up.

  Firûsha knew what he was doing. He’s trying to divert attention with all these questions from the attack he’s about to make.

  Hopiash transformed himself back into one of the ukormorier. ‘I extract the latent magic in a creature and I preserve it for my own use. It enables me to change shape whenever I choose,’ he explained. ‘Magicians and witches are not bad but the best source of magic is in creatures that have it inherent in them since birth. Like the älfar race. I don’t come across them often enough and when I do they always fight like stink.’ He laughed. ‘My ukormorier warriors will change your mind about defending yourselves. If there is the slightest contact you start to fall apart. Not immediately; maybe not even tomorrow or the next day. You people are immortal so it takes a little longer for you to decay completely. And it’s an extremely painful process. But it happens.’ He grinned.

  Firûsha shivered. And we’re known as the cruel race! The whole of Tark Draan should have a look at what’s happening in Phondrasôn. They’d be forced to recognise what true cruelty is.

  ‘Best find yourself a different source. We’ve got to get on our way. But I’m happy to send you a little of my own magic.’ And Crotàgon launched his weapon.

  The spear struck Hopiash full in the chest, the wide tip splitting the ribcage as easily as a spade going into soft earth. A dull thud was heard as the shapeshifter was thrown on his back by the impact, his body returning to his original, squat, yellow form. Blood shot out of his open mouth, gushing round the long teeth, running down his face and forming a pool on the ground.

  The ukormoriers were not dismayed by their leader’s demise. They promptly rushed forward, charging at the two älfar.

  ‘Watch yourself,’ said Crotàgon, drawing his broadsword from its scabbard. ‘I’ve got to concentrate now. May the forces of infamy be with you, little älf-girl. If you run I won’t take it amiss. I’ve no idea how this is going to go. You have to save yourself.’ He ran to meet the foe.

  Firûsha weighed the heavy dagger in her hand. But I’m a singer, she thought in panic. She suppressed her fear as much as she could. My combat skills are so much weaker than Tirîgon’s. In the whole of her life she had only fought three mock duels, all against her brothers, of course. And she had lost each time. Her only hope was that Crotàgon would somehow manage to defeat all of the ukormoriers by himself.

  The älf slit the bellies of three of them with a scythe-like sweep of his blade. The sword dripped with white blood but started to decompose immediately. Reddish-brown rust spread upwards to the grip.

  When Crotàgon raised his arm the sword crumbled in his hand. The blade was corroded through and splintered to pieces when he swung it at another.

  Ukormoriers destroy everything they come into contact with, whether it is dead or alive! Firûsha’s heart beat wildly when she noticed two of the ukormoriers stepping round the muscular älf and heading for her. On their hideous old men’s faces stood pure lust to kill. Their toothless mouths were open in a soundless battle cry.

  ‘Get back! I’ll kill you!’ She hurled stones at them, temporarily felling the first one with a double hit to the forehead. Bright blood flowed into his eyes from the cuts on his wrinkled brow. The second attacker leaped at her.

  Firûsha dodged and swung her knife. The sharp tip buried itself in the hairy belly of her assailant. He groaned but lunged at her once more.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ She kicked him back with a cry of desperation. The sole of her shoe heated up and started to disintegrate, with the rest of the leather following suit. She was forced to go barefoot.

  The ukormorier pulled the dagger out of his flesh. A thick gout of white blood sprayed towards Firûsha. She jumped back, holding her eyes and mouth tightly shut. The sound of his falling body told her she had eliminated one enemy.

  But am I infected now? Am I starting to disintegrate? She opened her eyes to see where her other attacker was. The knife in her hand crumbled, from the metal blade to the material used to cover its hilt. I’ve no more stones left and now the dagger is useless!

  Crotàgon stood facing own two assailants, desperate for a solution to the problem of defeating them without making any kind of contact. Firûsha’s first attacker was rising. I am a singer, she thought. I ought to be able to use the talents I was born with. She opened her mouth and sang the first song that came into her head. The notes were clear and pure as they formed in her throat and the cavern’s walls magnified the sounds, making the tune swell and reverberate in the empty space. I want to make you stop to listen to my song.

  But the ukormorier was completely unaffected.

  Before she could move safely out of reach, he grabbed her arm. He pulled her towards him, yanking her long black hair with his other hand to get her to the ground.

  She was aware of a burning sensation all over her body. It has touched me! I shall dissolve away to pieces!

  Knowing herself to be a lost cause, she battered at him, screaming, until she broke his hold. Lines of fury burst across her face in an angry web. ‘You are stealing my immortal life. I shall kill you for that!’

  She stabbed the ukormorier in the eyes with two fingers, kicked him in the groin and knocked him to the ground. He was on his knees, gasping for air; she belted him on the ears with both fists and kneed him in the face.

  He fell over backwards and tried to crawl away.

  I won’t let him escape! Firûsha jumped on him, put her sweet, white, soft hands around his throat and throttled him. ‘You have taken my immortality!’

  The ukormorier was beyond defending himself now but flailed at her weakly; when she released her hold, his death-rattle heralded his passing. She had suffocated him.

  ‘Your death bears the name of Firûsha,’ she spat, as she rose to her feet.

  Over to one side Crotàgon was still trying his best to dodge his opponents’ touch. Firûsha thought it was like a child’s game of It.

  I have actually won a fight now. Two! Tirîgon would have been amazed. She ran over to Hopiash’s corpse and pulled out the spear. ‘Wait, let me help you!’ She nearly laughed at the comic situation. Here she was, a weak älf-girl, racing to the aid of a warrior built like a wardrobe.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ Crotàgon called out. ‘They must not touch you!’

  ‘Too late. It’s already happened. I’ve nothing to lose.’ Firûsha rubbed her arm. It felt numb. A tuft of hair fell out when she touched her head. ‘Look out, beasts! Here comes your death. It bears the name . . .’

  But her strength failed her. She fell senseless to the ground, her eyes rolling up into her head.

  Ishím Voróo (Outer Lands), Dsôn Sòmran, Dsôn, in the northern foothills of the Grey Mountains, 5427th division of unendingness (6241st solar cycle), spring.

  Aïsolon was sitting on a wooden chest in the attic room. All around him were smoking blackened beams and his nostrils were filled with the smell of a recently extinguished fire. And of freshly spilt blood. Ranôria’s perfume could only faintly be detected, but he recognised it as being one he had once given her.

  He stared at the dead body lying under the roof window. The eyes were still open, reflecting the grey sky. T
he fog masked the brilliance of the distant stars the dead woman would never see again.

  The still-smouldering timbers crackled and a charred lump of wood clattered to the floor joists.

  The sound died away. As Ranôria’s soul had done.

  Aïsolon wanted to leap to his feet and shout and scream and weep; a second later fury shook his body and he was consumed with the desire to plunge his sword into the unknown perpetrator, to split him limb from limb and fling the remains from the highest point of Dsôn’s ramparts. At his third breath, he found he had no energy at all and he sank down next to her body, wanted to do nothing more than lie with her in his grief. His emotions were as violent as any thunderstorm.

  Rain falling through the open skylight had cleansed Ranôria’s countenance, removing the traces of blood on her skin. But the marks and wounds her body had received left no doubt that there had been a struggle; her killer had stalked her and deliberately taken her life.

  It was clear how she had tried to escape.

  The guards had found the shattered body of two älfar in the ruined transport lift that had crashed to the bottom of the quarry. The bodies belonged to the lift operative and a passenger. The injuries had not all come from the fall. They had been murdered with the same blade that killed Ranôria.

  A witness had turned up, stating he had glimpsed four älfar inside the car he had tried to board.

  She leaped free of the lift before it fell. She must have jumped down onto this roof and the murderer must have followed her. Aïsolon took Ranôria’s cold hand in his own. ‘I swear I shall find whoever did this. They will die at my hands. And my investigations into the deaths of Sémaina and her family will be re-opened. I will have justice for you.’

  Aïsolon guessed what had happened. Ranôria must have made certain people in Dsôn nervous with her enquiries. They would have paid an assassin to silence Ranôria before she could uncover the truth. There was no other interpretation for the death of his beloved former companion.

  If only I had believed her. She would still be alive. He reproached himself with her fate.

  If it had not been for the rain putting out the fire the murderer had deliberately started, there would have been three unidentifiable blackened corpses and a mystery concerning a celebrated singer. Whoever was behind this killing will have had a store of rumours ready to explain away Ranôria’s disappearance. There would be witnesses bribed to say they saw her throwing herself in despair from the ramparts, or fleeing for Tark Draan. The homeowner and his daughter would be lives claimed by a tragic house fire.

  Clasping her icy fingers, Aïsolon covered his eyes, trying to stop the tears flowing down his face.

  He was determined not to collapse into helpless mourning. It was vital that he begin the search; he would pit all his strength and fury against the perpetrators and those who had commissioned this cowardly murder.

  However strong his resolve, his emotions were stronger still. He simply could not get up and leave her. The most powerful figure in the whole of Dsôn, the city governor, wept for the mother of his children. The hardest thing to bear was the innocent son who had followed his siblings into banishment of his own accord. I have lost everything. He sobbed. He found it hard to look at Ranôria through his guilt and grief. Samusin, where is your sense of justice?

  A woman called his name quietly. He heard the rustle of dress fabric on the stairs.

  Hands placed on his shoulders and the warmth of her body against his back as he sat calmed and comforted him. It was Cèlantra, his current partner. She had been looking for him.

  ‘Look at her injuries,’ he said, his voice hoarse.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, with great sympathy. ‘It must have been terrible. She was made to suffer so much before she was killed.’ Cèlantra did not try to evade the shocking truth of the situation.

  The young, brown-haired woman was from the upper echelons of älfar society and lived on the eighth ring with her family. She specialised in magic healing. Cèlantra had an eye for assessing wounds. Aïsolon had chosen her as his companion because of her sharp intellect. He could only assume she had been attracted to him on the grounds of his heroic past deeds.

  ‘Can you imagine what it will mean for the city when word gets round?’

  Cèlantra hesitated. ‘There could be different reactions. Some will be upset about the breakdown of community ties, some will accuse everyone who envied Ranôria, and a few will say her death was due to her disputing the story about her children,’ she said, appraising the situation soberly. ‘Not more than a handful will believe it was a random attack, a robbery. Perhaps even I’ll be suspected of involvement. They might say I was jealous.’

  Aïsolon nodded. ‘I have to find the murderer and deliver him to justice. Can you make a plaster cast of her wounds for me?’

  ‘If the blade went deep enough to damage a bone, it should work.’ Cèlantra pulled Aïsolon’s head gently back against her belly, swollen with the child she was bearing. ‘Do you think the attacker still has the knife on him?’

  ‘Älfar do not kill each other without very good reason. Not here in Dsôn Sòmran. Everyone knows we depend on our sense of community for our survival. Envy or malice aren’t sufficient motives for murder,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to the conclusion that someone has hired a hit man, perhaps one of the assassins that Virssagòn trained. If there’s one living here in the city I’ll bring him in and interrogate him. If you could get me that cast from the weapon?’

  ‘Of course, my dear. And have Gàlaidon carry out the enquiries about hired killers. He is a good deputy governor. He’s clever. If there are assassins living here in Dsôn, he’ll find them.’ Cèlantra bent her head to kiss his hair. ‘She was beautiful. Beautiful to look at and wonderful to listen to. A great loss,’ she whispered. ‘Nothing can justify such a deed. You must find the murderer.’

  ‘I have already sworn to do so. I have made my vow to her.’ Aïsolon loved the woman at his side but he was very aware of his deep feelings for Ranôria. Yes, truly a great loss. My heart is like a heavy millstone in my breast. Every heartbeat hurts.

  He gently placed Ranôria’s hand back down on the floor and Cèlantra wiped away his tears. He said, ‘I expect she went to see Wènelon first of all. And after that she will have gone to see the story-teller. She was checking out the witnesses closest to where she lived. She will have been on her way to see Nomirôs, when . . .’ He broke off. ‘It’s so absurd, the idea that the perpetrator could cause the lift-car to crash and that we’d somehow not notice. That we’d not work out what had happened.’ To show such a callous attitude to one’s own kind.

  ‘If I can be of any help with the investigation . . .?’

  ‘Please check the body for any clues. Any traces he could have left on or near her. And be discreet. Take care that word doesn’t get out. We don’t want to alert the killers to our suspicions. Who knows how they might react if they think we’re onto them?’ I can’t have Cèlantra placing herself in danger for my sake, too. Aïsolon stood up. ‘I’ll get the body brought to your institute.’ He looked deep into her light green eyes. ‘Remember, nobody else gets to hear what you discover. Your report comes to me alone.’

  ‘Of course,’ she agreed.

  ‘I’ll have one of my best warriors detailed to protect you and our child at all times.’ With a tender kiss on her mouth, Aïsolon embraced her. The two of them went downstairs to leave the house.

  At the bottom of the steps Aïsolon gave his instructions to the älfar who served him; taking two guards with him, he headed towards the nearest lift platform.

  It will soon be getting light. That is, if it gets light at all with this heavy fog. It’s been a hard winter. He paced through the streets with his escort.

  He was afraid there would be more deaths if he did not solve the murder quickly enough and uncover the plot behind it.

  Of course, they’ll be watching me. Aïsolon could not understand what was happening in the city he was holding, waiting f
or the long-awaited call from the Inextinguishables for the älfar people to join them in Tark Draan. He was a governor, nothing more. And he bore this simple title although his function was in reality closer to that of a ruler. Why is all this happening now?

  There had never been more than a handful of killings in the years since the founding of this interim Dsôn state on the slopes of the volcanic basin in the Grey Mountains. Any previous murder would have been an act of passion or the work of a mentally disturbed älf. And when the offenders confessed, as they always had, they were exiled to Phondrasôn. When their sentence was over they could return, but the majority never made it back. This made him even more worried about the fate of his triplets.

  I ought to have given ear to their versions of the incident. But the evidence had been so clear, so cut and dried.

  They took the lift cabin down to the fourth ring.

  His soldiers did not talk, and, as ordered, kept watch assiduously, making sure no one came too close to Dsôn’s governor. It was doubly important considering the recent events that would soon be the talk of the town.

  I hope I can find the killer in the next few moments of unendingness and break this plot – this vicious conspiracy – wide open. His emotions were in turmoil and he could not dispel the image of Ranôria lying there with those horrifying injuries. Cèlantra had managed to calm him, but only temporarily. Now his fury was reignited. The tugging on the skin told him the threatening black anger lines were spreading across his face.

  They alighted at the fourth ring and made their way to Wènelon’s house, where one of the guards hammered on the door.

  When the door opened slightly and a sleepy face appeared in the slender gap, Dsôn’s governor delivered a hefty kick to the wood, flinging the surprised älf into the corridor.

  You are going to tell me the truth! Aïsolon bent down, grabbed Wènelon by the collar of his mantle and hauled him to his feet, slamming him against the wall. ‘I have just come from Ranôria,’ he said darkly.

  ‘Have you gone completely mad? My nose! You’ve broken my nose!’ Wènelon protested, whimpering with pain.