‘Right,’ she said to the air at last, coming to a halt. Speaking aloud helped, somehow, the sounds a grounding influence even if she had made them herself. And it made a pleasant change from the hollow, barely perceptible whistle of a wind that wasn’t there. ‘One goes nowhere in the Deathlands by walking, then,’ she added. At least, not if you were alive in this unliving place. What became of the dead? Where did they go, and how? For the thousandth time, Nanda scanned the horizon and found it lacking.
She might have expected to encounter someone by now. Were these lands not the ultimate destination of all deceased souls? They ought to have been crowded with thousands upon thousands such souls by now. Yet alone she stood, isolated and cold — no, not cold. Still not cold. Just with the lingering sense that she ought to be.
‘Konrad!’ she shouted, knowing it to be futile. The two crisp syllables split the air like a bolt of lightning; for one, hazy second she thought she saw something else hidden behind the lifeless atmosphere, a glimpse of structures rising tall and dark…
‘Konrad Savast!’ she shouted again, louder still, and there it was again: a flash, a glimmer—
‘You will not find anybody that way,’ said somebody. Dry words, uttered like the crackle of dry paper. For the first time since stepping into the Deathlands, she felt: wisps of air wafting past her face, a kind of movement if not exactly a breeze, and an aroma that had nothing to do with flowers.
She whirled, but saw no one.
‘Help me, then,’ she demanded. ‘How do I find my— friend?’
Slowly, a figure materialised before her. At first glance, this soul — whatever he, or she, or it was — satisfied every idle speculation she had ever formed about the inhabitants of the Deathlands, for the figure was a motley collection of shadows streaked with light. A dark mist boiled upon the air and wafted away, pouring from everywhere and nowhere, and within its depths Nanda saw quite another being. He — she thought — sat cross-legged upon the empty air, elbows planted upon his knees, a cloak of dark nothingness billowing around him. He had a pleasant face, no deathly cadaver at all: smiling even, skin of indeterminate colour, if it was skin at all, and eyes of clear black.
Nanda’s words deserted her, leaving her staring. Not out of fear, for while the shadow-bound figure exuded an intimidating aura, she did not find that it affected her. It reminded her of— of Konrad. ‘Who are you?’ she finally mustered wit enough to ask. ‘Are you… are you The Malykt?’
A faint, faint smile came in answer; she would swear to it. ‘They call me the Gatekeeper.’ He put his chin in his hands and stared back at Nanda, a hint of curiosity lightening an expression of otherwise unbroken bleakness. ‘Or the Guide. If that answers your question.’
‘Not even a little bit.’
‘So,’ he said without moving. ‘I am forgotten.’
‘By whom?’
‘The living. I had colour about me, once.’
‘You serve The Malykt?’
The Gatekeeper merely blinked slowly. Assent, of a sort.
‘I’m looking for another of His servants,’ said Nanda more briskly, setting her fascination aside. Time was wasting, and Konrad was dying ever more permanently with every minute she lingered in this empty place.
‘I had supposed you to be in search of somebody,’ said the Gatekeeper. ‘It was the shouting that gave it away.’
‘Will you help me find him?’
The Gatekeeper dropped one hand into his lap, his head tipping sideways upon the other. He regarded Nanda like this with solemn attention. ‘What I don’t understand,’ he said, ‘is why you appear to be alive.’
‘Because I am.’
His wide nostrils twitched, as though he inhaled her. ‘These are the Deathlands.’
‘I am aware.’
‘And you are alive.’
‘For the moment. I would like to get on with retrieving my friend, while I can still say that.’
‘This friend.’ He sat up suddenly, and his bones — had he bones? — loudly cracked. ‘Is he alive, too? Are there more of you adrift?’
‘No. He is dead.’ Nanda said it quickly and evenly, suppressing as she spoke the image her ready mind presented to her of Konrad so. Felled like a tree, torn apart, face a rictus of agony as his blood spewed all over the ground and Tasha looming over him like Death itself, knife in hand—
‘Then you cannot take him,’ said the Gatekeeper, interrupting this happy flow of thought.
‘Why not?’
‘Because this is the final destination.’
‘And?’
A blink. ‘Final.’
‘There is another place. Isn’t there?’ Nanda jabbed a finger in the general direction she’d seen that city materialise, if city it had been, and for however brief a time. ‘Konrad must be in there, but I cannot reach it. Please help me. He did not deserve to die yet.’
‘Who does?’ said the Gatekeeper, with a simplicity that briefly silenced Nanda. He was right. How many people truly deserved to die?
Well, everyone Konrad had slain. That was the whole point. ‘Killers,’ she said firmly. ‘The Malykt says so, and Konrad is the one who is responsible for dispatching them here. Is that not important?’
‘The Malykant?’ The Gatekeeper woke up a bit more at that, his sleepy eyes widening. ‘Another one?’
Nanda’s turn to blink. ‘What?’
‘You are careless with them.’
‘They— how many have there been?’
‘All of them were glad to arrive here,’ said the Gatekeeper. ‘Grateful to die, and this friend of yours can be no different.’
‘What if he is?’
A wave of an insubstantial hand dismissed this point as immaterial. Or improbable. ‘Always it’s the same. Go home, while you still can. Find another friend.’
‘Wait,’ said Nanda, aware that he was preparing to leave. To abandon her to this hopeless nothingness, with no Konrad in it. ‘What would it take, to get you to help me?’
The Gatekeeper climbed slowly to his feet, still impossibly aloft, and looked down upon Nanda from a great height.
She stood quietly, looking up and up into that shadowed countenance, jaw set, heart hardened.
‘You,’ he said, ‘can have nothing to offer.’
‘You spoke of colour.’
‘What of it?’
‘I will bring you colour aplenty, if you get me my Konrad.’
‘Will you?’ he said softly. ‘How?’
‘I do not yet know, but I pledge myself to perform this task.’
An infinitesimal nod answered her, and her heart leapt. ‘Thank you,’ she said, weak with relief.
‘Do not thank me. You have no idea what you face.’
‘You are the Guide,’ Nanda replied. ‘Guide me.’
An eyebrow went up. ‘You ask more?’
Nanda folded her arms, and stared hard at the sorry creature. Honestly. ‘Are you not bored?’ she said. ‘When was the last time you had any company in this heartless place?’
‘The Gatekeeper needs no company.’
Her brows rose. ‘Mhm. The Malykt told you that, I expect. Have you been at this a while?’
‘Half of eternity, or thereabouts.’
‘I offer you an interlude. Keep me company, and remember what life was like. You were alive once, I presume?’
His eyes grew distant. ‘Was I?’
‘Try it out, for a few hours. You might enjoy it.’
Slowly, the Gatekeeper descended from his lofty height, until he was eye level with Nanda. More or less; still he towered some little way over her head. He did not speak, only studied her face, quizzical.
‘What is it?’ she said, feeling the stirrings of impatience. Konrad was waiting.
‘You are trusting me.’
‘Were you planning a double-cross?’
‘I might be. I am the Gatekeeper. My role is to open the gates so that souls can pass through — and then close them again, forever.’
‘
But you won’t do that with me, because I am not dead. Don’t tell me I am the only person who has ever come up here looking for a friend.’
‘It has happened before,’ he allowed. ‘Most of them were tattered shreds within minutes. This place is not forgiving to the living.’
That disconcerted Nanda. ‘And why am not I?’
‘Perhaps it is because you come bearing Her protection.’
‘Her— oh.’ Nanda remembered the blessed knife she still had in her possession. It was by the knife’s penetrating blade that she had torn a way through into this place; had its Mistress’s touch also shrouded Nanda herself, keeping her safe?
Thank you, My Lady Shandrigal, Nanda prayed, and added another silent prayer that the effect, wherever it came from, would last long enough. ‘Do I pass, then?’ she said aloud. ‘Will you open the Gates?’
The Gatekeeper, shockingly, grinned. ‘I think I may be going to enjoy this after all,’ he said.
‘I’m not turning into tattered shreds for anybody’s amusement.’
The Gatekeeper did not reply, but turned away from Nanda and swept out an arm in a smooth arc across the sky. In his hand, dark fire burned, leaving in its wake a jagged-edged rupture in the world, like torn fabric.
Through it, Nanda saw the city she had glimpsed before; saw it clearly now, nothing wavering about it at all. Gut-wrenchingly solid. Unspeakably vast.
‘Do you want to go in?’ said the Gatekeeper.
She lifted her hand, the one upon which she wore her simple ring. The sliver of diamond embedded within the golden band glinted with a nauseating pallor. ‘No one in their right mind wants to go in there,’ she retorted. ‘But nonetheless, lead on.’
Chapter Three
Tasha left the unfortunate Rodion Artemo’s place of abode with a bone knife in either pocket. One was the pretty engraved specimen which had done for the victim. The other was the stoutest of his ribs; not strictly a knife yet, but soon she would sharpen one end and make a blade of it.
She had tried not to enjoy the process of its removal, not too much. The inspector had withdrawn, taking Karyavin with him, on the pretext of further enquiry with some nearby soul. He’d given orders for the removal of the body to the morgue beneath The Malykt’s Temple, to be carried out shortly. In the intervening time, Tasha had found her opportunity to procure her weapon. Considering the mess of the man’s torso already, she’d had an easy time of it. Beginner’s luck.
She walked away from the humble cottage, hands in her laden pockets, whistling in her own mind if not aloud, and picturing the moment when the second of those two knives would puncture some scoundrel’s heart and send him twitching into the afterlife.
First, though… the inspector was right. She would have to do some of the dull work.
She had a little hunch about the knife — the engraved one, the murder weapon. If Artemo had died by the hand of someone he had known, and the inspector claimed that most murders were committed by some connection of the victim’s, then that presented a puzzle. Who among Artemo’s likely social circle, poor as he had been, might possess such an object? And where had they got it?
The second question might be the easiest to answer first; and answering it might produce a solution for the first, too. Tasha knew the poorest regions of Ekamet well. When families fell on hard times and needed fast money, there was always a pawn-broker at hand to purchase their remaining articles of value for a fraction of their worth. The brokers did not always know what it was they had bought, and considering the low cost of purchase, said articles were frequently sold for a fraction of their value, too. Had somebody parted with the pretty knife in exchange for some quick cash? The murderer might have bought the thing nearby, in that case, and need not be rich to have done so.
Two minutes’ walk brought Tasha to the nearest pawn shop. She went in, and presented the knife — carefully cleaned of blood already — to the shopkeep, a rotund woman with round cheeks and lank hair.
‘I’m not selling,’ Tasha quickly explained, when the woman barked an offer at her. ‘I want to ask if you’ve seen something like this recently, or sold one perhaps?’
‘No,’ said the pawn-broker. ‘But if you’re interested in knives I got three others here, good nick, cheap—’
‘I don’t want to buy a knife,’ said Tasha. ‘I just had the one question.’
The pawn-broker responded with a flat, unfriendly stare. If Tasha was neither buying nor selling, what was she doing in the woman’s shop?
Tasha stared right back. Was this what Konrad had to put up with? Small wonder he’d killed a lot of people. Tasha suppressed an impulse to “lose” her pretty knife in one of the woman’s steely eyeballs, and satisfied herself with a quick snack instead. Greasy the woman may be, but she had vitality aplenty. Tasha inhaled, and received a dose of the objectionable woman’s energy. Intense. She swallowed it down, enjoyed the brief elation that always followed a good feed, and smiled benevolently upon the aggravating woman.
The pawn-broker looked a shade paler than she had a moment before, and rather drawn. Tasha left the shop, satisfied that the woman would suffer a dragging, inexplicable weariness for the rest of her day, and possibly tomorrow too.
She deserved it.
Her trip around the woman’s competitors availed Tasha very little. Few were so rude as the first woman, but none had any information of use to offer. No one had seen or sold any such knife, not recently and not ever.
Except for one, the furthest away from Artemo’s house. Quite on the other side of the city, in fact; Tasha arrived there some three hours later, footsore and chilled and heartily bored. Her inclination was increasingly to pack the venture in and go home, and let the inspector’s men finish such dull duties as this. But her perseverance was rewarded — slightly — when the last broker on her list, an elderly, desiccated man with a single, blackened tooth surviving in his wizened jaw, tapped a finger against the knife’s smooth hilt and said, ‘Pretty thing, ain’t it? I seen one like it afore. Give ‘ee a good price for this one.’
‘When did you see one before?’ said Tasha quickly, her heart leaping.
‘Long ago now, missie. Long afore you were born.’
‘Oh.’ Twenty years or more, then? It did not seem likely to have any bearing on the case at such a distance of time, and Tasha’s hopes sank again. ‘Um. Still, do you know anything about it?’
‘Know anything?’ echoed the broker, blinking rheumy eyes.
‘I mean, about where it might have come from, or why it’s engraved. Things like that.’
The broker blinked slowly, and was silent so long Tasha began to suspect him of a profound simplicity of thought. ‘It’s old,’ he said at length.
‘I had imagined so.’ The knife was neither damaged nor stained — someone had kept it in good condition — but it bore a well-worn smoothness to it suggestive of some age, and an indefinable air of antiquity.
‘Out of Marja, mebbe,’ said the broker. ‘Had me some bone jewellery of theirs, a time or two. Not much of it about now.’
‘Engraved, like this?’ Tasha traced a finger over the swirling patterns embedded into the blade.
The broker nodded, head bobbing upon his skinny neck. ‘Something a bit like.’
‘You don’t happen to have any examples in the shop right now?’ Tasha crossed her fingers, unconsciously holding her breath.
‘No,’ said the broker, dashing her hopes. ‘You selling that one, missie? I’ll take it off you.’
‘I can’t,’ she said with a moment’s regret, for it would probably fetch a bit. Enough for a new cap, at any rate. ‘It isn’t mine. I was just trying to find out about it.’
‘Well, you change yer mind, you come back.’ The broker grinned, awarding Tasha a beautiful view of his sole, rotten tooth.
Tasha grinned back. She liked the old man, for all that he stank of mildew and mould. Quite the contrast with that awful woman at the first shop.
He looked tired, though. Small wonde
r at his age. Moving stiffly and carefully, he regained his seat upon the high stool behind his shop’s counter and sat gulping in air.
Hm.
Tasha reached within, to the core of vitality that kept her sundered body and soul more or less together. It burned strong and clear, thanks to the snacking she’d indulged in on her way across the city. She could spare a little. She caught at it, exhaled; several potent wisps found their way to the pawn-broker across the counter, and he breathed them in.
She fancied he looked a little brighter right away.
‘I’ll come back,’ she promised. ‘Probably not with this knife though.’
‘Anything else you like,’ said the cheerful fellow, and waved her off.
Tasha went out, whistling. Next time anyone happened to mislay something vaguely valuable in her general vicinity, she would certainly keep that man in mind.
As for what he’d told her: that could prove of interest. Did it mean that the murderer was from Marja? No, not necessarily. Anybody could get hold of a Marjan artefact. But it did give her an idea.
‘Nuritov,’ said she a little later, bursting into the inspector’s office with the Marjan knife in hand. ‘Help me with something.’
He was sitting, not in the chair behind his cluttered desk but on the edge of the desk itself, still wearing his coat. Only just returned, from whatever investigative activities he had gone off upon? He looked up as she bustled in, but half his attention was still on the paper he held. ‘What’s that?’ she said.
‘In a minute. What do you need help with?’ He looked at the knife she wielded in her left fist, and his brows went up. ‘If you’re asking for help committing murder, I am too busy this afternoon.’
‘Not just yet. That comes later.’ The inspector winced, and she grinned. ‘Too easy, Nuritov.’
‘I never learn, do I?’ He drifted back to his letter.
Tasha brandished the knife, producing a satisfying swish as it sliced through empty air. ‘This is from Marja,’ she said.
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