This duty Tasha had carried out on her way through the city. A convenient post-box received the two missives; in they fell with a satisfying rasp of paper.
A third went in, too, this one with the words Alexander Nuritov emblazoned on the front. Tasha did not know what Nanda had written to the inspector, and had not chosen to ask. Not her problem.
Next.
At the heart of The Malykt’s Temple lay a room only the few had ever been admitted to. Fewer still had forced their way inside, as Tasha proposed to do. This chamber was sacred, so the Order said. Sanctified to The Malykt in some indefinable and uninteresting way, a place where the most sacred of rituals or ceremonies were performed in His honour, blah blah. To enter without invitation or permission was to offend against The Malykt himself, so they believed. Even Konrad had likely only seen that room a time or two.
Having availed herself of Diana Valentina’s keys during the chaos, Tasha let herself into this “sacred space” with scarcely a sound. The door was cleverly hidden, after a fashion she actually admired: not concealed in some obvious way, but camouflaged as nothing at all. From the outside, the unassuming door might be taken for the entrance to a closet, or some such uninteresting thing.
Tasha closed it behind her, and took the precaution of locking herself in. Not that she expected to be interrupted, but disruptions enough to her plans had occurred already. The malefic, for one. Abominable timing! Konrad had needed to be slain much sooner than planned, before she’d had time to get everything in place. And Nanda, instead of having a suitably monster-sized diamond with which to manipulate Konrad’s immaterial existence, had been forced to use the only one she had to hand. A tiny sliver of a thing, only just enough to absorb a wisp of Konrad’s fraying soul. Hopefully it would be enough.
Shame, too, for Tasha had been looking forward to the challenge of divesting some self-satisfied nob of a prized diamond. Maybe she would do it anyway, later, just for fun.
But first.
Hurling herself dramatically face-down upon the floor of The Malykt’s sacred room — an underwhelming place, all told, nothing but a shadowed altar near the far wall, and a set of iron sconces — Tasha offered up a prayer.
‘O Malykt,’ she intoned, enjoying the way the words echoed off the stark walls. ‘Your humble supplicant would have speech with Thee.’ Such ancient beings liked old-fashioned conceits such as thee and thou, did They not? ‘Hear me, I beg Thee, for I offer Thee my service and honestly, it’s a great deal.’
She went on in this way, wondering after a time whether she ought to have lit the sconces, or sacrificed something small and bleeding on the silent, looming altar, or whether His Malyktship was simply busy — Konrad complained sometimes that the Being could be distant and unhelpful, well small wonder, Great Spirits were like that sometimes, too high and mighty for Their own good really—
You may stop, came a deep, shattering voice, emanating out of the air and the floor and the altar and everything all at once. Beseeching, added The Malykt, and Tasha did, for she had stopped breathing, too, and speech could be difficult under those conditions.
She fought for air, noting with bemused detachment the raging winter going on in her insides under The Malykt’s cold stare. Spirits above. Konrad hadn’t even been exaggerating.
‘M-Master,’ Tasha managed after a moment, and bowed her head again. She’d tried for a glimpse of The Malykt but no luck: He was immaterial. ‘I bring news.’
You are not one of Mine, said that dark voice.
‘No, but I am hoping to change that pretty soon. And I’m bringing you news of one of Your most loyal servants.’
Silence. He was a hard sell.
‘Your Malykant,’ Tasha added helpfully.
Silence — but a palpable one this time, arrested.
‘As You are no doubt realising at this moment,’ said Tasha, sitting up, for her neck was starting to ache, ‘He is dead.’
Why?
Tasha had not anticipated such a question, and knew a moment’s pause. But she went smoothly on. ‘It was the terms of that pact you made a while back, was it not? He has died as You commanded, his debt to You is paid, and the position of Malykant now being open—'
She’d rushed her fence. The Malykt was not listening. I commanded no such thing. Yet.
Tasha blinked. ‘What?’
It was not yet time.
‘Not yet time— there was a set time?’ Tasha gabbled. ‘When was that supposed to be?’
This is the doing of My Chieftain. Has it been ordered by her?
‘You mean Diana? Sort of. Well, no, not exactly, though she did say Konrad should retire—’
She may have been right. But The Malykt did not sound certain of the fact. A cold fury laced the words; black ice shot across the floor and up the walls; and Diana Valentina might be in for a bad morning.
And Tasha herself might need to do some very fast talking.
‘It was what Konrad wanted,’ she said quickly.
She was beginning to hate these long silences, for how could an absence of sound — of everything — feel so suffocating? Was it? said The Malykt finally, and Tasha drew in a huge gulp of air.
It was important, now, to be truthful, she knew. Fast talking was all very well, but for once in her life, she was dimly aware that what was at stake was infinitely more important than she. And, moreover, had nothing to do with her.
Was it what Konrad had wanted? She had been poking at him about it for some time, trying by oblique means to get at Konrad’s true feelings about his role as the Malykant. She hadn’t dared ask direct questions for fear of tipping him off about what she meant to do. Nanda and Alexander had taken the same approach, she knew, and the consensus among the three had been that Konrad was weary of the appalling duty laid on him by The Malykt, ready to stop, desperately in need of peace.
Which wasn’t quite the same thing as being ready to die, indeed volunteering himself for a speedy murder at the hands of one of his few friends. But she needn’t go into that.
‘He was tired,’ she said. ‘He wanted to resign his duties.’
Then why did he not?
Tasha swallowed. ‘Because…’ A difficult question, this one, for she had wondered the same thing herself. Konrad had often given the impression of a man wearied of life itself. Hating his existence as he had, why hadn’t he ended it long since?
The entrance of the inspector — and, if she could so flatter herself, of the inspector’s ward, too — might have had something to do with it. Friends made life just a bit less execrable, on the whole.
But that wasn’t enough by itself. The real reason Konrad hadn’t wanted to die, not even when it was the means of extricating himself from his detested life as the Malykant?
‘Because he was in love,’ she said.
And now he is dead.
‘Yes…’ Better get it over with, make a clean breast of it and all that. ‘I killed him.’
No doubt you have some excellent explanation for this decision.
‘He was mortally wounded anyway,’ Tasha said quickly. ‘I was just helping things along. Look, can we put this aside? The facts are that You’re short one Malykant, which I imagine to be pretty inconvenient.’
Extremely.
All the air whooshed out of Tasha’s lungs again, squeezed as though by an icy, incorporeal hand, and she hid her own, traitorously trembling hands behind her back. A small voice somewhere deep within said, spirits above, what have we done, but she ignored it.
‘I offer myself as replacement,’ she said in a rush.
Indeed? And what qualifies you for this role?
‘I am good at killing. Haven’t I proved that?’
The Malykt said nothing, which Tasha took as an encouraging lack of opposition. She soldiered on. ‘And I have experience at solving crimes. I’m a police ward, I’ve been working with Konrad for a while now, in fact I solved a case for him not long ago.’
Formidable.
Unmistakeable sarca
sm to the word; not a good sign. Tasha swallowed. ‘I will do a good job,’ she said. ‘I swear it.’
This is not the way such matters are usually handled. The Chieftain of My Order—
‘Condemned Konrad to retirement-by-way-of-death, left him to deal with that alone, and apparently hasn’t yet found a replacement for him. Has she?’
No, acknowledged The Malykt. A flare of anger followed: a fresh coat of ice covered the walls, and Tasha’s coat too. And her face. The ice burned. This is not how I prefer things to be done.
Tasha, aware that her weakened knees would give out on her any moment, took a deep breath. ‘Look,’ she said coolly. ‘Do you want a new Malykant or not?’
***
Konrad knew cold.
He would have said that without hesitation, once. A life lived in Assevan gave a person an intimate knowledge of winter, in all its frigid cruelties, its unforgiving, icy beauties.
A decade, or near it, in the service of The Malykt resulted in the same.
But all that had been nothing.
Bodiless, dazed, he now felt that cold was all that he knew, perhaps all that he had ever known. No heart beat in his chest, for he had neither torso nor heart. No blood to carry warmth and life to his head and limbs. No face to smile with.
He remembered love. Hate, too. Warming emotions, both of them, in their different ways. He felt them now as a distant echo, deprived of all their power, turned to naught but the dead ash of regret. He had failed at love, succeeded too well at hate.
Eternity drifted by.
This was death, he realised, this hazy existence. He knew serenity, the kind that came from nothingness. He knew calm. Could not muster feeling enough even for distress, despite the loss of — everything. He existed, a shade of himself, waiting.
Waiting?
For what?
He felt, in some dim way, that this was not yet the end. Not for him, yet, the blissful, utter nothingness of The Malykt’s embrace. He… waited. Not quite ended, nothing begun, a thin sense of wrongness his only company.
Wrongness.
He ought not to have died, yet. That was the truth of it. He had been dispatched into the Deathlands before his appointed time, before The Malykt had yet expected to receive him. A wrongness had done this.
And until that wrongness was righted, Konrad must wait.
Wait.
Shandral
Chapter One
At the door of a certain luxurious study at Bakar House stood Inspector Nuritov, hatless and bemused.
‘Tasha,’ he said. He paused, and looked behind himself as though he suspected life of playing some prank upon him. ‘Have you seen Konrad?’
What puzzled the good inspector, Tasha realised, was twofold. The absence of Konrad was half of it. The other half was Tasha’s emphatic presence, for she was not only occupying space in Konrad’s private study, she had taken possession of it. She lounged at her ease in Konrad’s favourite chair — a respectably well-worn article with wide arms, smooth leather and plentiful stuffing — and in her hand she held Konrad’s snake-headed cane. It felt rather like wielding the royal sceptre. If only she’d been able to avail herself of one of his tall, glossy hats, too.
‘Not lately,’ she answered, which was sort of true depending on your definition of lately. Two whole days had passed since she had last exchanged words with Konrad, and that was a long time, wasn’t it?
‘He isn’t here?’ said the inspector, venturing a step or two beyond the threshold.
‘No,’ said Tasha. ‘But you can relax. I’m the new Konrad.’
‘The new…?’
‘You did come here looking for the Malykant?’
‘I… a case has come up, yes, and I wondered—’
Taking pity on her erstwhile superior’s bewilderment, Tasha smiled. ‘Wondered why Konrad wasn’t already all over it? He—’ She stopped, for doubtless if Konrad was present he would have already been all over it, and therefore why wasn’t she? ‘How did you find out about this case?’ she said abruptly.
‘I am the police,’ he reminded her, gently enough.
‘Yes, but Konrad always gets there before the police. What am I not… oh.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Eetapi!’ she yelled. ‘Ootapi! Get down here.’
A long silence followed, so lengthy and so pointed she wondered if she was to be obeyed at all. She tried not to look too closely at the inspector while she waited; the look of befuddlement was fading fast, replaced by narrow-eyed comprehension laced with disapproval.
‘Eetapi!’ she screamed.
Cold descended, wrapping around her shoulders — no, her throat, icy draughts slipping over her neck, and down her back. Deep, dark winter took hold of her, and squeezed.
Was there something? hissed Eetapi.
‘Yes!’ choked Tasha. ‘Manifest, please. Do I have to talk to empty air?’
She regretted her insistence at once, for bright bands of ghostly energy wound around and around her throat; Eetapi, her incorporeal serpents’ form locked in an icy death-grip. ‘Stop that,’ she gasped, swallowing down a slight tremor.
Eetapi ignored her command. If anything, the cursed creature’s grip tightened; Tasha choked, and shivered.
‘Why,’ she gasped, ‘have you not reported this death to me?’
‘To you,’ said the inspector. ‘Why should she?’
‘Because I— am the Malykant, now.’
The inspector, to do him justice, did not waste time on futile questions or exclamations. He was silent for a short time, no doubt putting the pieces together in his mind.
What death? whispered Eetapi, innocence itself, but Tasha heard the echo of a harsh laughter behind the words.
‘That death,’ she said furiously. ‘The one the inspector is here to report. Unless it is more victims of the malefic?’
‘Not unless the malefic has taken to blinding its victims and then stabbing them to death,’ said the inspector, watching Tasha with calm, sad eyes. ‘And you know there have been no further sightings of the malefic in two days.’
‘Before you ask,’ said Tasha, ‘which I know you are dying to do, yes, Konrad is dead.’
‘I see,’ said the inspector.
‘He died… slaying the malefic. That’s why no one has seen either of them in two days.’
Yet, hissed Eetapi, his was an unclean death. I felt it.
‘The—’ Tasha swallowed painfully. ‘The malefic wasn’t too clean, was it?’
It was not like that. He died by the hand of another mortal. Like you.
Tasha, catching the inspector’s eye, hurried into speech. ‘He died a heroic death, isn’t that great? Saving the city and the spiritlands alike from the predations of an ancient curse — selflessly sacrificing himself for the greater good—’
‘So you mean you were there?’ said the inspector.
‘Um. Yes.’
‘You’ve known for two days he was dead, and did not tell me?’
‘I… was going to.’
‘When?’
When she was ready to reveal herself as Konrad’s replacement. Her first plan had been to do so at once, not only to the inspector but to the Order of the Malykt as well. Only, it had proved difficult. Something had kept her hesitating, postponing the moment. She ought first to familiarise herself with The Malykt’s Temple, had not she? So she’d done that. And then someone ought to keep Konrad’s seat warm at Bakar House…
In truth, she had been a coward. The enormity of what she had done had only hit her when it was far too late. And wasn’t that just the way of things? It didn’t matter what you thought you were ready for. You never were.
‘I was there,’ she acknowledged again. ‘So was Nanda.’
‘Nanda?’ Misdirection successful: the inspector was entirely diverted. ‘What was she doing there?’
‘Helping… Konrad.’ Sort of.
‘Is she all right? Where is she?’
‘She isn’t dead,’ said Tasha hastily. At least, hopefully Nanda was
n’t dead. Where she had gone, there was no saying for certain. ‘She will be back soon.’
‘Back from where? Tasha, if you will not be honest with me—’
Tell him the truth, hissed Eetapi, and a needle-sharp pain blossomed suddenly in Tasha’s ear. The filthy creature had bitten her! Tell him the truth or I will slay you where you sit.
‘You can’t slay me, I am lamaeni,’ said Tasha. ‘Not that we cannot die, but that isn’t how you go about it—’ Her words failed as the pressure on her throat increased, cutting off her air.
Tasha flailed.
‘Eetapi,’ said the inspector sharply. ‘Please, leave be.’
Somewhat to Tasha’s surprise, the serpent obeyed this request, slinking sulkily away from Tasha’s throat and taking up a position near the inspector’s left shoulder instead.
Two sets of eyes — one mortal, one ghostly — stared balefully upon Tasha. How could she suddenly feel so small, when half an hour ago she’d felt the size of a house?
‘Fine,’ she sighed, sitting up. Massaging her throat did not help, damn the serpent. ‘I killed Konrad. I think. He went up to the spiritlands in pursuit of the malefic, and Nanda and I followed him. He fought it, and killed it, but it injured him — again — and you know they said anyone marked by the malefic has to die? Well, Konrad would probably have died of the wounds anyway, they were quite bad I can tell you, but I had to make sure, so I killed him the rest of the way.’
‘Why?’ said the inspector, in a low, ominous tone Tasha had never heard from him before. Not even when she had broken the framed miniature of his wife he’d once kept on his desk.
‘I told you. Those struck have to die—’
‘You planned this before the malefic appeared. Did not you? Did not we?’
‘There was the small matter of that bargain with The Malykt,’ said Tasha quickly. ‘And Konrad’s misery and how he was losing his marbles. You agreed that something must be done.’
Some of the indignation went out of the inspector in a rush, leaving him weakened, for he sank into a chair. ‘I did not think it would be like this,’ he said simply.
‘Well, neither did we. You can thank the malefic for that.’
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