Stalking Darkness

by Lynn Flewelling

  “It’s all right,” said the second one, speaking for the first time. Another man. “Go ahead and eat. You look like you could use it.”

  The smoky garlic scent of the sausage was too much. Praying it wasn’t poisoned, Skut took a cautious nibble, then another.

  “What happened to Tym?” asked the first one.

  “Fell off a roof, that’s all,” Skut replied around a mouthful.

  “Tym fell?”

  Skut shrugged, peeling one of the eggs with dirty fingers. “Saw him go over. He didn’t yell or nothin’, just toppled down.”

  “No one’s found his body. Are you certain he was dead?”

  “Course!” Skut snorted. “Think I wouldn’t make sure? The bastard hadn’t paid me yet. His head was all stove in and broken. He didn’t have so much as a groat on him, neither, not even his knife.”

  His unseen interrogator seemed to consider this for a moment. “What were you doing there? What was it he was going to pay you for?”

  “Well—” Skut hesitated. “I guess I could say, since he’s dead and all. I was watching a house for him, the one he fell off of.”

  “What house?”

  “Tenement house in Sailmaker Street. Tym said I was to keep an eye out for any shady sorts, especially breakers and gaterunners. And Scavengers, too.”

  “How long did you watch?”

  “Most of a week.” The sausage was good, best he’d ever tasted. On the strength of this, he added helpfully, “I seen one, too. Pry the Beetle come by day before Tym fell.”

  “Did Tym say why he wanted you to watch for these fellows?”

  “No, and I didn’t ask. When Tym wanted something done, you done it, that’s all,” Skut told him, adding somewhat pointedly, “Would’ve paid me, too, if he hadn’t gotten his self killed.”

  The man chuckled in a friendly way. “A true man of honor, our Tym. Did you see anyone on the roof, or hear anything strange before Tym fell?”

  Skut absently cracked a louse on his sleeve as he thought hard. “No, nothin’.”

  “What was he doing up on the roof in the first place?”

  “Said he was going to have a listen on the feller he was watching, lived up on the top floor. That’s where he went over, right at that window. You ain’t going to kill me or nothing, are you?”

  “No, but I’ll give you a word of advice. Keep low and stop blabbing. You don’t know who else might take an interest in you. Now I want you to sit tight awhile, until you know we’re gone. I wouldn’t want to have to hurt you after you’ve been so helpful.”

  “I won’t twitch!”

  A strong hand clamped menacingly down on Skut’s shoulder. “And not a word to anyone about this little visit, right?”

  “Right! You wasn’t never here,” he whispered, suddenly fearful again.

  The hand withdrew. Skut heard a shuffle of boots, the creak of the ladder, then silence. He made himself count to a hundred twice before he dared pull the cloak off his head. When nothing stirred, he scrambled to kindle a light and found a sturdy dagger and a small cloth purse lying on the brazier grill. The bag held at least a sester’s worth of pennies.

  Highborn or not, those gents knew a thing or two, Skut thought wonderingly. Showing gold or silver around these parts could get you killed right quick, especially a skinny brat like himself. But a few coppers here and there were safe enough and a stash like this could keep him going a month or more. He turned the knife over with something like reverence, testing its wicked edge against his thumb. Just let Kaber try knocking him around again! Gathering what few belongings he owned, together with anything of Kaber’s that struck him as useful, he set off in search of new lodgings.

  “Sounds like an accident,” Alec said as soon as they were well away from the ruined warehouse. “He must have slipped coming down those slates, just like I did.”

  Seregil looked doubtful. “It’s hard to believe Tym could fall. He’s been over those roofs all his life. And the missing knife, that bothers me. Tym only drew his blade when he meant to use it. If it was in its sheath when he fell, Skut would have taken it. He said himself it wasn’t there. Besides, if Tym had gone clattering over the slates, the boy would have heard it.”

  “And what happened to the body?” mused Alec. They’d already made the rounds of the charnel houses. “From the sound of it, he didn’t just get up and walk away.”

  Seregil shrugged. “There are plenty strange characters in Rhíminee who’d pay for a corpse.”

  Alec grimaced. “Like who?”

  “Oh, the mad and the curious, mostly. There was one man, a lord, no less, who wanted to determine which organ contained the soul. Artists have been known to use them, too, sculptors in particular. I recall a woman was executed after it was discovered that she’d used human skeletons as armatures for statues she was casting for the Dalnan retreat house. According to the story, a priest stopped by her shop to see how the work was coming along and inadvertently knocked over one of the life-size clay models. The head struck the floor at his feet and split open to reveal an all too lifelike mouthful of teeth.”

  “You’re joking!”

  “It’s the Maker’s truth. Valerius has told that story a hundred times. ‘Burn ’em or leave ’em alone!’ was generally the moral of the tale. As for Tym, though, it could be necrophiles or just some poor starving sod—”

  “Enough, I get the idea,” Alec growled. He had no idea what a necrophile was and didn’t think he wanted to know; the thought of cannibalism was nauseating enough all by itself.

  “What? Oh, sorry. All that aside, I think it’s more likely that Rythel or some of his associates caught Tym spying and wisely disposed of the body. We’d better have a look up there ourselves.”

  They waited until it was full dark, then rode down to Sailmaker Street. The inhabitants of the house were still awake and at their suppers; their own clatter would cover any noise Seregil might make going over the slates.

  With Alec on watch below, he climbed the rickety stairs at the back of the house and pulled himself onto the roof. Looping a rope around a chimney pot, he crept cautiously down to the eaves just over Rythel’s window.

  He spotted the knife at once, its naked blade gleaming cleanly in the gutter.

  Stretched out on his belly, face just inches from the knife, Seregil regarded it for a moment, wondering how Tym—quick, clever, deadly Tym—could have been caught out on the edge of a bare roof and not drawn a drop of blood before he died.

  You were good, Tym, but it looks like we all meet our match sooner or later, he mused, reaching for the dead thief’s knife. The thought sent a brief chill up his spine as he grasped the scarred hilt. Hurrying on its heels, however, came the still more chilling memory of sending Alec to burgle the room by himself. Was it any more than Illior’s luck that whoever Tym had run afoul of had not been on hand for Alec’s visit?

  Tucking the knife into his belt with a silent prayer of thanks, he worked his way back the way he’d come and found Alec waiting across the street.

  “I checked the yard,” he told Seregil. “All I found was this.” He held up a small, fancy button of carved bone. “Anytime I saw him, his clothes were pretty fancy under the dirt.”

  Seregil nodded. “True enough. What about bloodstains?”

  “Too much rain and foot traffic. Did you have any luck?”

  Alec’s eyes widened a bit at the sight of the knife. “I’ll be—But where does that leave us?”

  “Nose deep in the shit heap, I suspect,” Seregil sighed. “I expect that map is long gone, and it’s two more days before we can check. Rythel will be done with his good work in the sewers by then and we still don’t have a clue who’s behind him on this. Now the bastard’s cost me a good thief to boot.”

  Alec looked up at the place Tym had fallen. “If Nysander hadn’t called us away that night—”

  Seregil shook his head. “Then we’d be wiser or dead, too. It’s useless to speculate. It’s time to grab our man, but we�
��ve got to do it quick and proper. And for that, we’ll need a wizard’s help.”

  He touched Tym’s dagger again. “Maybe Nysander can get something out of this, while we’re at it. Let’s see if he’s home.”

  Galloping up the Harbor Way, they rode at full tilt through the streets toward the Orëska House. Catching sight of its high spires looming ahead of them at last, they were relieved to see a light burning in the east tower.

  They found Nysander and Thero at work over a malodorous collection of bubbling limbics and crucibles. At one end of the worktable a handful of unpolished broad arrow points lay in a little heap on a leather pad.

  Seregil saw Alec’s eye stray toward these, but they had more pressing matters at hand.

  “Can you get any sort of a sighting off this?” he asked, showing Nysander Tym’s dagger.

  Wiping his hands on a stained rag, Nysander took it and turned it over in his hands for a moment, then grasped it and closed his eyes.

  After a moment, however, he shook his head and handed it to Thero. “There is a faint trace of magic about it, but I cannot say what sort or how long it had been there.”

  “Objects seldom retain much,” Thero observed. “His body would have told us more.”

  “Obviously someone else knew that,” Seregil muttered, dropping onto the nearest bench with a disgusted grunt. “We’re getting nowhere! Let’s just reel Rythel in. Week’s end is the night after tomorrow. I say we keep a close eye on him, and hit him then.”

  “That would appear to be the next logical step,” Nysander agreed. “What will you need?”

  “A translocation key. Make it something small I can hand him without raising suspicion. A rolled document should do the trick. As Lord Seregil, I can talk it up to be a salable item. I think we can count on our man’s greed.”

  “Excellent. And I shall make arrangements with the warder at Red Tower Prison. We will pop him into a cell before he can wiggle loose.”

  Seregil turned to Alec, hovering expectantly beside him. “You’ll nip in and toss his room as soon as he leaves for his weekly whoring. Even if the map’s gone, there may be something else incriminating lying around. We don’t want to give anyone else time to clean up after him once we’ve got him. As soon as you’re done there, meet us at the prison.”

  Alec grinned, ready for the hunt. “This shouldn’t take too long.”

  Seregil grinned back, glad to see an end to this particular job. “Hell, we’ll probably be able to catch the second performance at the Tirarie Theater!”

  26

  EYES OF THE NECROMANCER

  Vargûl Ashnazai looked resignedly around his latest lodging. The deserted house smelled of damp and mice, but the roof was sound and the hearth was usable.

  He’d lost count of the inns and taverns they’d stayed at since their arrival in Skala three months before. Winter was harsher here than in his native Benshâl, but not so harsh as those they’d endured for three years as he helped Mardus scout the northlands for the Eyes and the Veil.

  No, in Skala the necromancer’s greatest hardship so far had been boredom. The Orëska’s reach was long; no matter if they were in Rhíminee tracking Urvay’s various spies and dupes, or sequestered at a deserted steading such as the one they now occupied, he could not afford to practice his art without first weaving a tight barrier of shielding spells. Such magicks had worked admirably with the avaricious young sorceress Urvay had netted for them. Ylinestra was altogether too sure of her powers; never once had she divined who, or what, Mardus truly was.

  Throwing back the warped shutters, Ashnazai blinked out at the cove below the house. Great slabs of sea ice lay piled at the tide line, but beyond the shingle open water rippled grey-green in the morning light.

  Yet another impediment nicely cleared away, he thought, smiling to himself. Urvay’s actor dupe, Pelion, had leapt with predictable glee at the offer of a series of special engagement performances in the southern city of Iolus. He would have his triumphs there, no doubt, never knowing his life’s thread had been measured to its final length, to be cut two weeks hence by an assassin already paid in full. And the beautiful Ylinestra, too, was living on ransomed time, along with all the others.

  The months of waiting were nothing now, compared to the coming triumph. Ashnazai’s revenge hung before him like a heavy, promise-filled fruit, almost ripe and soon to be within his grasp, a fruit that would ooze with the sweet liquor of blood when pressed. Two short nights, and all would be in place.

  She would be here.

  The stars stood out like glittering eyes against the midnight vault of the sky.

  Standing beside Mardus on the beach, Ashnazai could hear Tildus’ men moving through the trees that fringed the little cove, and the nicker of the horses that were tethered, ready for the night’s ride. Other men patrolled the woods beyond the gully where an unlucky peddler lay face down in a brackish pool of water. There would be no witnesses.

  They hadn’t been waiting long when a black presence suddenly coalesced out of the darkness in front of them.

  Ashnazai bowed gravely to the dra’gorgos.

  “We will be with you presently,” it announced in its hollow, wind-filled voice.

  “All is prepared,” Mardus replied. “We await you here.”

  Soon the light splash of oars came to them from across the water. Tildus and his men tensed, weapons drawn, as the black outline of a longboat came into view. Two sailors pulled the oars, while their two passengers sat motionless in the bow.

  Reaching shore, one of the oarsmen jumped out and pulled the prow up onto the beach so that his passengers could disembark dry shod. The first to climb out was the gaunt, grey-beaded necromancer, Harid Yordun.

  “Welcome, my brother,” Ashnazai said, clasping hands with him, “and to Irtuk Beshar, our most esteemed lady.”

  Yordun gave a terse nod, then lifted his companion out onto the shore. Silent and invisible behind her thick veils, Irtuk Beshar extended a leathery, blackened hand in benediction.

  27

  RYTHEL’S END

  At week’s end Seregil and Alec lurked for the last time in the evening shadows across from the smith’s tenement.

  “You don’t think he’ll change his pattern, now that the job’s finished, do you?” Alec asked for the third time that day. His new cronies at the Hammer and Tongs had passed on the news that the sewer contract had been fulfilled. So far, there was no word of Master Quarin awarding his nephew more work, or of Rythel requesting it.

  Seregil stifled an impatient remark. “Wait another few minutes and we’ll know. Hold on, there he is, and dressed fit for a ball, too!”

  As Rythel paused by the lantern over his door, they saw the glint of gold embroidery on the coat beneath his fur-trimmed mantle.

  “Looks like we guessed right,” Seregil whispered. Under his black cloak he wore one of his finest claret-colored coats, white doeskin breeches, and a weighty purse.

  A boy brought Rythel his mount and the man headed off in the usual direction.

  “Luck in the shadows,” Seregil whispered, quickly clasping hands with Alec. “See you at the prison.”

  Flashing him a happy grin, Alec ghosted off toward the tenement’s back stairs.

  Seregil let Rythel round the corner down the street, then mounted Cynril and set out to arrange a chance meeting with his quarry.

  Tonight Rythel bypassed his usual haunts and made straight for the Street of Lights.

  They must have given you a nice bonus today, Seregil thought, shadowing him to a gambling house called the Golden Bowl. Perhaps you’re even thinking of setting up in a new line of work with the proceeds. I wouldn’t make too many plans just yet, my dear fellow.

  Reestablishing contact proved an easy enough matter. Seregil had hardly stepped inside the card room where Rythel was playing before the man was hailing him like an old comrade.

  “Sir Rythel, how good to see you again!” Seregil greeted him, shaking hands warmly as he joined him at t
he table.

  This was clearly a triumph of sorts for Rythel; Seregil could see him scanning the other nobles at the table, gauging their reaction to his reception by one of their own.

  “Well met, Lord Seregil,” Rythel exclaimed, taking up his cards again. “We’ll be getting up a game of Coin and Sword next. Perhaps you’d partner me?”

  With the subtlest of winks Seregil nodded, bidding his time.

  As before, Seregil talked a great deal during the game, interspersing his gossipy chatter with casual references to various business ventures. He could see Rythel rising to the bait; another few rounds and he’d suggest they retire for a quiet drink somewhere. A private room here would do nicely.

  Seregil had just broached the suggestion when a ragged lad appeared with a message for Rythel.

  Laying his cards aside, Rythel scanned the scrap of parchment and then tucked it carefully away inside his coat.

  “You must excuse me,” he said, sweeping his winnings into his purse. “I have a small matter to attend to, but I shouldn’t be long. Could we meet here in, say, an hour or two?”

  “I expect I’ll be here most of the night,” Seregil replied, nodding cordially. Then, to set the hook, he gave him a rakish wink and added, “There’s a small matter I would appreciate your assistance with. Small but quite possibly lucrative. We can discuss it when you return.”

  “I’m at your service, my lord.” Giving Seregil and the others a bow, he hurried out.

  “And since my partner has deserted me, I think I’ll take a moment to freshen up.” Leaving the table, Seregil retrieved his cloak and hurried outside.

  To his surprise, he saw Rythel strolling away on foot. Keeping well back, Seregil followed.

  It was a warmish night. The last grimy remnants of snow steamed in the damp night air, mingling with the light fog rolling up from the harbor. Early spring was fast coming to Skala; the dank, rotted smell of it was on the air.

  Rythel whistled softly through his teeth as he left the Street of Lights and skirted the Astellus Circle to Torch Street. This soon led them to the narrower streets of the nearby merchants district.