The Spirit of Solstice

by Charlotte E. English

  In silence, Ivorak nodded. ‘You here to kill me.’ He withdrew his hands from their concealment, and displayed them for Konrad’s scrutiny: blue with cold, sinewy, each finger tipped with a vicious claw.

  ‘It is my duty to do so,’ Konrad replied.

  Ivorak bowed his head, trembling. ‘Good. Do it now, please.’

  ‘I do not want to kill you, Ivorak. I need your help. Who did this to you?’

  ‘My… my brother.’ Ivorak shook his head. ‘He kill you. Even you.’

  ‘I doubt it. I am not easy to kill.’ Konrad spoke the words with confidence, and tried to expel from his mind the occasions upon which he had been slain in the course of his duty. More than once… but Ivorak did not need to know that.

  ‘Konrad!’ Nanda’s voice, close by. He cursed himself, for he had not thought that she would follow, would brave the bridge alone and without the serpents’ aid. He went to meet her, took her cold hands and led her to the tiny shack. Konrad felt strengthened by Nanda’s presence at his side.

  ‘Where is your brother?’ Konrad resumed.

  ‘I know not! I follow him here, to the city. Where we come from, Kayesir, is full of ilu-vakatim. Too many. Harder to hide, and some people, they remember the old stories — hunt us, kill us. My brother, he go looking for new place. Assevan, say he, not many vakatim there. I go, take this new place, kill many. Feed much.’ Ivorak’s face turned grim. ‘I follow him. Look for way to kill him — knives not work, water, nothing. At library they say, who are you, can’t have book. I take it. Book say, silver kills vakatim. Where I get silver knife? Then my brother find me, with book. He know what I try to do. He kill me, he… make me like him… and he burn book. Say, now no one know how to kill us, and you like me now. We the same. And then he go, vanish, and I no see him since.’

  ‘You are not the same as he,’ Konrad said. He tried to speak reassuringly, but the words emerged as cold as ice. ‘You were hungry. You had to feed. What did you do?’

  In answer, Ivorak leaned nearer to Konrad, his eyes unfocused. ‘You living,’ he said. ‘But not. Not sick, not well. Other. And she—’ His gaze swerved to Tasha, who looked up, blinking. ‘She dead, like me but not like. I see. I see sickness, health. Old woman, man with wine. Both sick, nearly dead, though he not know it. I choose them.’ His head drooped, and he took a great sob. ‘I have to. But the others—’

  ‘Why did you go to the Crow’s Foot?’

  ‘I felt… right again, after old woman, and man. Felt good. Wanted ale, but when I taste, it make me sick. I stayed, should not have. Got hungry.’ He began to cry in earnest, his whole body shaking. ‘Kill me, then I no kill others.’

  ‘I will not kill you,’ Konrad said firmly to Ivorak. ‘You have not deserved such a judgement.’ Someone had to pay for the deaths of Albina Olga and Illya Vasily, and Yegor and Iosif from the Crow’s Foot. But in Konrad’s opinion, the responsibility for those deaths lay with Ivorak’s brother; it would be he who would pay.

  ‘What if he lies?’ whispered Nanda, her lips so close to Konrad’s ear he was certain no one but he could hear.

  ‘Then I will kill him later,’ he whispered back, with a mirthless smile. But the threat was an empty one. Ivorak’s story fit his behaviour perfectly; he had neither said nor done anything to imply that he might be lying. ‘Will you help him?’

  ‘I will,’ she agreed, without hesitation.

  Nan was of the Shandrigal’s Order, a being as devoted to life as The Malykt presided over death. Nanda’s Order might find use for a person who could literally sniff out sickness, could sense death taking hold of a living person’s body. And who better than they to help a beleaguered, desperate nightwolf learn to control himself? With the right help, Ivorak need never kill again.

  As for penance for the damage he had already caused, the man’s obvious torment was punishment enough. He had been brave beyond words, to go after his brother as he had. Many another man would have waved farewell with delight, thinking himself well rid of so dangerous a sibling. Ivorak had risked everything and lost everything. Such courage, such commitment, also fit him perfectly for the life of a Shandral.

  Whether The Malykt would agree was another matter. Konrad decided to worry about that later.

  He needed to explain none of this to Nanda; she reached the same conclusions as he without speech.

  ‘What is your brother’s name?’ he said to Ivorak.

  ‘Hakir,’ whispered Ivorak.

  Somewhere in Ekamet, Hakir Nasak prowled the night, looking for… what? He did not seem to be killing. If Ivorak had come here in pursuit of his brother, Hakir must have arrived at the same time, or even earlier — in other words, more than a week ago. Four had died since, but all four killings were committed by Ivorak; why was his brother so restrained? If he came to Assevan in search of an untapped source of food and freedom to kill at will, as Ivorak described, why had he been so quiet?

  On the one hand, this boded well for Ivorak: clearly, the nightwolves could feed without killing, as Konrad doubted that Hakir Nasak had spent the past week or two fasting. Perhaps he was choosing to feed discreetly, so as not to draw attention to the presence of ghostwolves in Ekamet. But he had turned his brother and then let him loose, left him alone. He must have known that Ivorak, new to the state, ravenous and frightened, would be unable to help himself from killing his first victims.

  So, Hakir’s restraint probably had nothing to do with discretion. That suggested that his true purpose was not quite as Ivorak imagined. What might he be doing in Ekamet, if he did not come expressly in order to feed and kill at will?

  My brother, he go looking for new place. Assevan, say he, not many ilu-vakatim there.

  ‘Ivorak,’ said Konrad slowly. ‘In Kayesir. Do the ilu-vakatim have… structure? Are they loners, I mean, or do they have society, a hierarchy?’

  ‘Some alone. Some not. Live in… um, live together. Groups.’

  ‘Wolf packs.’

  Ivorak nodded. ‘Three big ones, some small.’

  ‘Did your brother ever lead such a pack?’

  ‘No. He try, leader almost kill him.’

  Konrad sighed. His hands were so cold he could barely feel them; he dug them deep into his pockets, shivering.

  ‘He’s building a new pack,’ said Tasha in awe. ‘That’s what he’s doing here!’

  ‘I’d say so,’ Konrad agreed. ‘What better way than to construct a pack from scratch, filled with people he has personally turned into vakatim? The only pack in Ekamet, maybe the whole of Assevan!’

  ‘I wonder how many he’s already turned?’ said Nanda.

  Konrad nodded grimly. ‘We need to find him, and fast. Ivorak, think. Anything you can tell us will be helpful. Where would Hakir go?’

  ‘He like good things,’ said Ivorak promptly. ‘Expensive things, rich people. So I come here, to this bridge. He hate… all this.’ Ivorak gestured at the decaying bridge, the decrepitude of his little shack, the total lack of any kind of comfort. ‘Maybe I safe here, from him.’

  ‘Snob,’ said Tasha with contempt. ‘Is he rich himself?’

  Ivorak nodded. ‘He older than me, inherit all father’s money.’

  ‘So he’s off cosying up to Ekamet’s elite,’ Tasha concluded. ‘Konrad, you gentleman, look how useful you are! Where do the likes of you hang around?’

  Konrad said nothing. He barely heard Tasha, for Ivorak’s words had sparked off a series of thoughts.

  At Lady Goraya’s Solstice ball, ten days before: a new arrival. Sleekly handsome, his black hair oiled, dark beard perfectly trimmed. Dressed in Kayesiri silks, the man all smiles and well-bred charm. He had not been introduced as Hakir Nasak; the name he had given was…

  ‘Vakatim,’ Konrad said aloud. ‘That’s the name he gave.’

  ‘What, Konrad?’ said Nanda. ‘Who?’

  ‘There’s a newcomer from Kayesir. He arrived a couple of weeks ago, has shown up at all the best balls since. I saw him at Zima’s once or twice, too. Ca
lls himself Mr. Vakatim, but I heard it spoken only once or twice, thought nothing of him…’

  ‘How obvious can he be?’ asked Tasha.

  ‘There is a reason the book is called lost folkore of Kayesir. The nightwolves have done a fine job of talking themselves out of existence, as far as people in general are concerned. And they have never really been a part of Assevi culture. He relies on our knowing nothing of them, having no way of making that connection.’

  ‘That’s why he burned Ivorak’s book,’ said Nanda. ‘It gives the Kayesiri name for the nightwolves, vakatim.’

  ‘I think so,’ Konrad agreed.

  ‘And it says how to kill them,’ added Tasha.

  Konrad nodded. ‘Silver.’ He thought a moment. ‘I don’t know where Hakir has set up house, but it won’t be hard to find out — in the morning. Which gives me a couple of hours to find a silver knife.’

  ‘I have one,’ Nanda murmured.

  ‘You… you do?’

  Nanda nodded once.

  Apparently she did not wish to engage with the implied question, that being: why in the world do you have a silver knife, and what is it for? ‘May I borrow it?’ he said instead.

  ‘If there is so much as a speck of blood on it when I get it back, I will have your head.’

  ‘That’s fair.’

  ‘Then you may.’

  Chapter Nine

  Nanda’s silver knife acquired, and Ivorak shepherded off into the care of The Shandrigal’s Order, Konrad tried to sleep. Thoughts of the so-called Mr. Vakatim kept him awake, as exhausted as he was. The nerve of the man was incredible. He had penetrated Ekamet high society with ease, effortlessly passed himself off as a natural among the aristocracy, purporting to be a man with as much right to the drawing-rooms of Ekamet’s finest as he had to breathing air. Konrad had not liked him, on the one or two occasions they had met. He had come across as cold, even calculating. But Konrad had set him down as an opportunist, a social climber, a man with an eye to his position and a desire to rise.

  The truth was far worse. There could be little doubt that he intended to populate his new wolf-pack with people of refined bloodlines; an aristocracy of nightwolves taking root in the very heart of Ekamet. Hakir Nasak certainly had ambition, and more than enough nerve to act upon it.

  What role he envisioned for his tormented brother in this bright new future of his, Konrad could not guess. Ivorak seemed discarded altogether, but a man with so organised a plan was unlikely to leave that kind of a loose thread dangling. Nanda had taken Ivorak away, to be tended by her Order. Konrad’s strictest instructions to take care had gone with her, exhortations she had returned with equal force. Eetapi had also gone with her, at Konrad’s insistence.

  ‘What am I going to do with her?’ Nanda had asked.

  ‘Nothing. She’s going to play lookout for you.’

  ‘I am not in need of her assistance.’

  I told you, said Eetapi.

  ‘Take her along anyway,’ he’d said, and added more tenderly, ‘Please.’

  Grudgingly, Nanda had relented. Konrad and Ootapi had returned to Bakar House, minus Tasha, who went first to the station to apprise Nuritov of developments. She appeared in Konrad’s bedroom an hour or so later, interrupting his latest attempt to drop into an exhausted doze.

  ‘Nuritov says hello,’ she announced.

  Konrad lay inert, staring at the bed curtains in despair. ‘How polite of him,’ he mumbled.

  ‘He also says that Vakatim lives on Tatav Circle. Number twelve. Big place, gilding, all that.’

  ‘I know the house.’ The choice of address fitted with the profile Ivorak had made of his brother: all pomp and show. Konrad threw back the blankets and tore off his nightcap, exhausted with the effort to sleep. ‘Are you up for a fight, Tash?’

  ‘Always.’

  ‘Me too. Forget waiting for morning. Let us go and explain one or two things to Mr. Vakatim.’

  Considering the lateness of the hour, Konrad expected to find Number Twelve, Tatav Circle dark and quiet. Instead, lights blazed in most of the windows, and the sounds of music and raucous conversation were clearly audible even from the street outside.

  ‘Mr. Vakatim likes to party,’ Konrad murmured, staring up at the silhouettes of well-dressed figures passing behind the drapes that covered the house’s long windows.

  ‘Inconvenient,’ Tasha observed.

  Highly. Konrad thought for a moment. Ootapi. Find Mr. Nasak, if you please. Softly, softly. We do not know what manner of help he may have.

  Ootapi did not deign to respond, and Konrad felt disgust and affront rolling off the serpent in waves as he drifted through the wall, vanishing into what was probably the house’s drawing-room.

  Sorry, Konrad said belatedly. You are always careful, of course.

  It was not strictly, absolutely true, but it mollified Ootapi. The serpent’s icy disdain lessened, which hopefully meant he was concentrating more on his appointed task than on his feelings about Konrad.

  While you are in there, Konrad called after him. Take note of who you see, please, and if there are other nightwolves among the company, inform me at once. How promptly had Nasak set about turning others to ilu-vakatim? His snobbishness might encourage him to take care; to be selective, elitist, and wait to act until he had forged links with the cream of Ekamet society. Or so Konrad hoped. But perhaps he would rather begin by recruiting a few lesser beings to his cause, men and women who would help him in establishing himself.

  He was relieved when Ootapi reported, distantly: No vakatim, Master.

  None? Konrad wanted reassurance.

  None at all, Ootapi confirmed. Not one.

  Oh. Literally none?

  Yes, Master. Ootapi spoke with exaggerated patience. Literally not a single one.

  Not even Hakir Nasak was there? Mr. Vakatim himself was absent from his own house party? Konrad stood, briefly dumbfounded.

  ‘He is not there,’ he relayed to Tasha.

  ‘Mister Nightwolf? Huh.’ Tasha surveyed the house thoughtfully, as though a closer scrutiny of its stone walls might offer some clue. ‘I wonder where he is.’

  ‘Yes,’ Konrad said, a trifle testily. ‘I was wondering that, myself.’

  Tell me what is going on in there, Ootapi, he commanded. He needed more information, a way to picture the situation inside the house. Perhaps he would then be able to guess at Nasak’s whereabouts.

  Everyone is drunk, Ootapi reported. Mixed company. No undead, no ghost presence —

  Wait. Mixed company? How so?

  Gentry. Occasional aristocracy. And it is my guess that some of these are prostitutes.

  Konrad blinked. Prostitutes? At snobbish Hakir Nasak’s elite Solstice celebration? That did not fit with his brother’s account of his tastes.

  For that matter, so raucous and inebriated a party did not fit the refined picture Ivorak had painted of Hakir’s preferred lifestyle, either.

  Konrad felt a flicker of doubt.

  Is there nobody presiding?

  No. All is chaos.

  ‘We are going in,’ Konrad said to Tasha. He needed to see what was going on for himself. If he encountered anybody he knew, well, he could claim to be a late-arriving guest. But from Ootapi’s account, he did not think anybody would pay him much regard.

  He dutifully lifted the knocker upon the front door and rapped. It was worth keeping up appearances, if he wished to pass for a guest, but in the tumult of the party he did not think anybody would hear the knock. And so it proved, for after a minute’s waiting no one came to the door.

  Konrad turned the handle, and went inside. Tasha silently followed.

  The scene within was as Ootapi had succinctly described: chaos. Revellers crowded every chamber, and Konrad had to force his way from room to room as he scanned the company for any sign of Hakir Nasak, for faces he knew, for anything that might assist him. But he saw little of use. Some of the guests were known to him, at least by sight, but their presence cast no
light whatsoever upon the problem of Hakir Nasak. And as he pushed and shoved his way through the ground floor and then up the stairs, he had to conclude that Ootapi had been right about everything: the company was very mixed, and the so-called Mr. Vakatim was not there.

  An unsettled feeling grew, and Konrad’s thoughts began to race. His reflections were unpromising. Ivorak Nasak had given a clear picture of his brother, Hakir, but Konrad saw little that agreed with it. Hakir had certainly introduced himself to Ekamet’s high society; Konrad could vouch for that, for he had encountered “Vakatim” himself. But the man who could throw such a riotous, raucous, absolutely unelitist Solstice party was not the would-be social leader Ivorak had described. And while Konrad had been relieved to learn that there were no nightwolves among the company, that fact, too, sat uneasily alongside everything they thought they knew about Hakir Nasak. If he had come to Ekamet in order to feed and kill as he pleased, as Ivorak had said, why had he not done so? And if he had come in order to establish his own pack, why had he not already begun? Konrad’s notion that he preferred to reserve his attention for the cream of society was decidedly belied by his choice of house guests.

  And where was he? Why would a man fill his house with revellers on Solstice Eve only to disappear, leaving his drunk, out-of-control guests in unsupervised possession of his property?

  Konrad fought his way back out of the house and regained the street, desperate for a moment’s respite from the noise and the crush. He needed to think.

  ‘Konrad,’ Tasha panted as she ran after him. ‘What—’

  ‘Hush,’ he said softly. ‘Please.’

  Tasha subsided, and Konrad closed his eyes against the drifting snow. He tried to remember the man who had been introduced to him as Mr. Vakatim, wishing now that he had paid closer attention. He had treated the introduction with indifference, disliking the man on sight, and now he struggled to recall his face in any detail. Shiny black hair, neatly groomed beard. Fine clothes. That was all.

  Oh, but Ivorak…

  ‘You and I,’ Konrad said after a while, ‘have been set up.’