The Shadow Saint

by Gareth Hanrahan

  And all the while, the faithful of Severast knew that the faithful of Ishmere were a hundred times more fervent and godly than they, and that the gods would favour the invaders in the bay.

  Across the city, a bell sounds the midnight hour. It’s time for the spy to go.

  He climbs out of the window, crosses the roof without a sound, shimmies down a drainpipe. He’s learning how to move in Guerdon without being seen, and there are routes above and below the streets. Tonight, he doesn’t have far to go.

  Tander’s down by the docks, talking with a group of mercenaries. They’re just back from the Godswar, bearing the scars of that conflict. Haunted and hollow-eyed, those who still have eyes. X84 loiters nearby, in Tanner’s line of sight, close enough to eavesdrop, and waits.

  After a few minutes, Tander detaches himself from the crowd and walks away. The spy follows him, and around the corner falls in beside him. They walk along the maze of jetties and docks that’s the shoreline of the Wash.

  “My old company back there,” says Tander. The former mercenary grins at X84, but there’s panic in his voice. Old trauma or new woes, wonders the spy. “Good lads, good lads. One of them’s ex-navy. Used to work at Queen’s Point, knows the place well. She says the fortress is… well, it’s a fortress, isn’t it? It’s locked up tight.”

  The spy nods. Queen’s Point is impregnable.

  “Annah wants me to go in. Take a look at that fucking ship you found out about. See if it’s really got the weapon on board. Walk into the fortress, she tells me, like it’s nothing. Like I…” He rubs his neck, scratching furiously. “Half the base is given over to the city watch, right, and the watch are shit. So, break in on the leeward side, find a way through–a connecting corridor or a waste pipe, maybe. I’d fucking crawl through the sewers if it weren’t for the damned ghouls.”

  Tander stops by the waterside, lights a cigarette. The flare of the lighter’s reflected for an instant in the dark waters beneath them, and matched by the smear of light across the bay, all the floodlights at Queen’s Point.

  “No miracles, she said. They’d be detected. No fucking miracles. But I need a miracle,” mutters Tander, apparently to himself. The mercenary takes a few long drags on the cigarette. “Do I call you Sanhada or Alic these days, you sneaky fuck?”

  X84 shrugs. “Whichever.”

  “Alic, then. Alic, my lad, my chum, my fucking bosom pal, did I ever tell you how I got into this game?”

  “This sounds like a conversation to be had over a drink,” says the spy, gesturing towards a dockside tavern.

  Then suddenly he’s on the ground, face pressing into the slimy wood of the jetty, Tander’s knee crushing his spine.

  The pain is interesting.

  “We’re having it now, all right?” hisses Tander in the spy’s ear. The pressure vanishes, and the spy rolls over to see Tander pointing a gun at him.

  “What is this?”

  Tander ignores him. “The lads and I, we were good. Gods below, we were good. And stupid. We held our nerve when the god-husks came shambling. Divine things, gods that had been beaten down so many times there wasn’t much left of them, just teeth and miracles. Saintless and witless. We made a fortune off the Haithi, putting down husks for them. Came back here, and Bena made sure we spent most of that fortune on new gear. Proper weapons out of the alchemists’ best workshops.”

  The spy shifts, moving so that he’s got a wooden post at his back. If he needs to, he can twist and slip into the water like an otter.

  “Next time out, we go down south. Get hired by the Severasti, to hold the line against Ishmere. More money that we’ve ever seen, good wine, girls from the Dancer’s temple, and everyone’s telling us that the Godswar’s not coming, that Ishmere won’t attack Severast. Same gods, right? Allies as long as anyone can remember.

  “We lasted a month.”

  Tanner’s cigarette scatters ash over his shirt as his mouth trembles. The gun shakes, too, and he squeezes his hand to keep his grip on the weapon. His trigger finger quivers.

  “They captured me. Cloud Mother just plucked me off the ground, threw me into the sky. I wake up in… in their fucking heaven. Annah was there, she’s intelligence corps, but there was a g-g-god there, their spider. Fate Spider. He…”

  Tander turns his head to the side and throws up into the waters of the bay. The spy darts forward, but Tander’s faster, and he brings the gun up to point straight at the spy’s face.

  “Back!”

  The spy retreats.

  “It’s a terrible thing to meet a god. The Spider… dissolved me. His venom burned me away. There wasn’t anything left, except some little screaming thing. And they gave me a way out. Wove me a new fate, bound me to Annah. See, I have to do what she says, or she breaks the thread and I… I don’t exist any more.

  “She says jump, I jump. She says die, I die.

  “So if she says get into Queen’s Point and verify, I have to. You’re a smart bastard–you’re going to help me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “I’ll kill you.”

  The spy doesn’t move. The threat doesn’t hold much fear for him.

  “I’ll kill the boy. I’ll burn down that fucking gentling-house. Burn them all. Think I won’t? I fucking killed our last saint, I’ll do this one, too. Happily. The bastard Spider won’t find me if I put out all its eyes.” Tander’s finger tightens on the trigger.

  “Don’t!” Alic says. “I’ll help. I’ll help.” The image of Emlin burning leaps into his mind and won’t leave.

  Tanner sobs in relief, great gusty choking tears wracking his body. The gun’s still in his hand, shaking as he struggles to breathe.

  The spy sits there, disgusted with himself. Disgusted with the man in front of him. But his mind is already moving, changing plans. He can turn this to his advantage.

  “You don’t know what it’s like, being like this. It’s no way for a man to live, dangling from a thread. To be used like this…” He wipes snot from his nose with his sleeve. Sheepish, he pockets his gun. “I owe you, understand? I won’t forget this. We’re mates. We’re in this together to the end, whatever happens.”

  A terrible thing, indeed.

  “San!” booms Dredger. “Come in, come in. Sit. Have a drink.”

  Dredger’s office smells so strongly of fresh paint that Sanhada Baradhin considers borrowing a gas mask. He sits down on a new couch, pours himself a glass from the crystal decanter on the side table. “Business is good, I see.”

  “Oh, aye. With the alchemists still rebuilding, supply of new weapons has fallen, but demand has only increased. Ishmere is on the warpath again, it seems.”

  “Are they coming here?” asks the spy.

  “Nah, not a prayer. They’ll go for Lyrix, probably. Maybe Haith. They don’t have the strength to take both at once, and they’ve got to be wary of pushing one into alliance with the other.” Dredger rubs his gauntlets together. The metal digits clink. “Uncertainty leads to fear, fear leads to a desire to own weapons of terror and irresistible fury. For pity’s sake, tell me you’re here to work in sales.”

  “Actually, I’ve had something of a change of career.” The spy hands Dredger one of Alic’s election flyers.

  Dredger hoots with amusement. “This is you? Alic? I’ve heard some of the lads in the yards talking about you. You might even win. Why ‘Alic’?”

  The spy shrugs. “A clean start.”

  “Well, what do you want? My vote? Or are you here to pick my pocket like the rest of your filthy political kinfolk?”

  “Campaign contributions.”

  “Of course, of course.” Dredger lumbers around to his desk, opens a drawer. “How much?”

  The spy counts on his fingers. “A few underwater breathing masks and suits. The use of your launch. A brace of flash ghosts. Waterproof guns. Thaumic goggles. Oh, and forty thousand silvers.”

  Dredger turns around slowly. His face is hidden behind his own breathing mask, but the spy can guess at
his expression. “That sounds like an… unconventional campaign. What the fuck are you playing at, San?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “San… Alic… whatever. Is this a scam? Are you trying to gull me?”

  “No.” The spy picks his lies carefully. “Like I said, it’s a fresh start, which means I need to resolve some old business, old debts. I owe a bunch of pirates out of Lyrix. They’ve got a job in mind that needs specialised equipment.”

  “And the silver?”

  “Some of it is for them. Some of it is for me–for the election.”

  “Just why,” asks Dredger, “do you think would I give you all that? Ask me for a few hundred, San, not a bloody arsenal on top of a fortune on top of… the rest of the stuff.”

  “Because you’re buying me. I’ll be your man in parliament. I’ll vote as you tell me, lobby as you tell me. Go against Kelkin if you ask me. Forty thousand is cheap for utter and complete loyalty. You have my word, Dredger.”

  “Cheap if you win. Bloody expensive if you lose. For both of us. I’d have to do unpleasant things to you, San, for the sake of my own reputation.” Dredger closes the drawer, moves over to a painting of a burning ship. There’s a safe behind it. He lays a gauntlet on the dial but doesn’t turn it. “Why are you doing this, San? Really? If you’ve got debts, there are easier ways to clear them. If you’ve got ambition, why chain yourself to me?”

  The spy takes a drink. “Right now, everything’s uncertain. Kelkin’s thrown the dice, and no one knows how they’ll land. And, like you said, that scares people. And scared people do stupid things. I’m doing this because of what I saw in Severast, my friend. I’m doing this so the people with your weapons of terror and irresistible fury shoot them in the right direction.”

  “You’re asking for a bribe on the grounds that you’ve found your principles?” Dredger puts a heavy bag of coins on the desk, then closes the safe. “It’s a thin cord you’re hanging by.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Terevant doesn’t know what is worse–the spine-shattering shocks that come when the old carriage runs over stones at speed, or the sweltering, airless heat of the cabin. It’s made in the traditional Haithi style, as befits the ambassador’s official vehicle, which means small windows and lots of furs against the cold of winter–a winter six months away and hundreds of miles north. On midsummer’s day in Guerdon, it’s an oven on wheels, slowly broiling them alive. Prince Daerinth withers in the heat, occasionally flapping a bone-white fan over his face. Olthic stews, his face purpling behind his beard. His massive hands flex as if gripping the hilt of an invisible sword, or strangling a thin neck.

  Terevant tries to read. He pulls out the book he found in the abandoned house that Vanth led them to, Sacred and Secular Architecture in the Ashen Period. A bookplate proclaims it the property of the Guerdon University Library, but it’s clearly a long time since this book was stored neatly on a shelf. It’s tattered, smeared with dirt and blood, and crammed full of loose notes. The notes are in several different styles of handwriting, and seem to be mainly concerned with the tunnels under the city. There are maps of tunnels, too, and on several someone’s drawn in the outline of the shape of the New City, overlaid on the older charts.

  “What’s that?” growls Olthic.

  Terevant hastily closes the book. “Some old guidebook.”

  The Festival of Flowers is a huge affair. Half the city decants itself to the countryside for a day or two. Ostensibly, it’s a religious celebration of the Keepers–a big ceremony where they invoke Mother of Flowers for the upcoming harvest, a place where farmers could recruit seasonal labour from the city. In the last century, though, the Festival’s grown and mutated, becoming a trade fair where Guerdon’s guilds can show off their wares; a pleasure garden full of amusements and delights; a recruitment fair for mercenary bands and a military parade ground. A hundred smaller festivals and exhibitions all rolled into one.

  The Festival’s always associated with nature, with sunshine and flowers and bucolic countryside, but the brochure map shows a temporary city bigger than most permanent ones. Tens of thousands of people decamp from Guerdon and the hinterlands to this fantasy of plasterboard and canvas. They come by ferry and train, or by carriage, or walk along thronged roads singing half-remembered hymns and well-rehearsed drinking songs.

  This year, no doubt, it’ll also be a political battleground. Every candidate will be there, giving speeches. Those not of Guerdon have a presence here, too; the government of Haith has a tented pavilion, and so does Lyrix and a dozen other nations. Looking at the map, Terevant notices that even some nations that no longer exist in the real world have their place in this wonderland–exiles from Severast and Mattaur have erected tents celebrating their defiance of Ishmere.

  It’s slow going along the roads–the carriage has to force its way through the crowds. Finally they roll into a secure yard at the back of the Haithi pavilion. Guards–living ones–help Daerinth disembark. Olthic jumps to the ground and strides off into the pavilion, shouting orders. Terevant tags along after him. Inside, the pavilion is dark and cool and mostly empty. There’s a display of marble sculptures, a paean to Haithi military triumphs. He touches one–they’re plaster casts, taken from marble artworks back home in Old Haith. Ersatz monuments of crumbling plaster, to impress upon Guerdon the eternal endurance of Haith.

  Terevant hears Olthic roaring at some subordinate, and decides to make himself scarce. He doesn’t have any official duties here anyway, not until later. When Lys gets here, he’ll complete the mission he began nearly a month earlier–he’ll take the Sword Erevesic from its hiding place and deliver it to Olthic.

  He slips out of the tent, back into the thronged field, past endless rows of food stalls and beer tents. The Festival crowds are somewhat different from the city folk. No Stone Men, for one. No ghouls that he’s seen. Fewer foreigners–he’d stand out even if he wasn’t dressed in a Haithi military uniform. A few people look warily at him, but there’s remarkably little trouble. Sunlight and laughter and merriment; the city relaxed for the first time since the Crisis. Even the electioneering is muted.

  He spots Eladora Duttin at the IndLib booth.

  “Miss Duttin,” he hails her. Eladora looks up from her papers. A dark-eyed boy slouches behind her; his eyes widen in alarm when he sees Terevant’s uniform.

  “Lieutenant Erevesic.” Eladora gestures at her young companion. “This is Emlin, my charge for the day. How are you finding the Festival?”

  “I just arrived. You’ve been here for a few days, I take it?”

  “My tolerance for whimsy is quite exhausted, yes.” She gives him a wan smile. “Emlin here may be a better judge.”

  Emlin doesn’t speak, he just shakes his head. Shy, or scared?

  Eladora continues. “I hope the ambassador did not take Mr Kelkin’s responses to his proposal personally. Mr Kelkin can be a bit, ah, b-brusque.”

  “Calling the Crown a magic crockery collection?” Terevant smiles, to show that he at least was not insulted.

  “Uh, that sort of thing.”

  “I’m sure he’ll survive. How are you finding The Bone Shield?”

  “Oh, I’m afraid I haven’t had much time to read of late. I’m scarcely halfway through.”

  Impulsively, he takes out the book on architecture or archaeology and shows it to her. “You seem to know a bit about history. What can you tell me about this?”

  “Gods below!” she swears. “Where… where did you get that?” She tries to snatch it off him, but he holds onto it tightly. “That’s mine!” she says.

  “It says ‘property of the university library’,” he points out.

  Eladora looks around. Emlin and several bystanders are watching the altercation with interest. She lets go of the book. “Mr Erevesic, I’d like to discuss that book with you–at your convenience, of course.” She digs around her purse, hands him a printed card with her address. “At your earliest c-convenience.”

  She’s shak
en, he thinks. The book means something–and whatever it is, she’s unwilling to discuss it in public.

  He bows, bids her farewell, and strolls off in triumph. The day is looking up–maybe the reanimation of Vanth wasn’t completely futile. He’s getting the hang of this intrigue business, while Olthic has shown that he’s not infallible.

  The thought buoys him up. He feels like he’s one of the colourful kites that soar above the Festival ground. The heavy book in his pack seems suddenly light, as if it too might go whirling into the sky on the warm breeze that blows across the vast Festival field.

  He buys a glass of beer at a stall, finds a table and takes a long drink. A week trapped in the embassy with Olthic has worn his nerves to the bone. The news doesn’t help either–it’s hard to reconcile the thought of apocalyptic war with the sunshine and merriment of the beer tent, but daily reports from the Bureau all confirm that Ishmere’s invasion force is moving north towards Haith. Part of him wants to rush back home, fight in the defence of the city alongside the honoured Vigilants of House Erevesic–get away from Olthic’s accusatory stare. But his duty is here, the Crown wants him here. Well, not here in this beer tent, exactly, but in Guerdon. And whatever else, it’s safer here. He’s rushed off to war before, and that ended at Eskalind.

  Lys will be here soon, he thinks. He can talk to her, let her clever mind unpick the tangle of his thoughts, tell him what to do. He always listened to her, unlike Olthic. He laughs–here he sits, surrounded by tens of thousands of strangers, in a city far from home, and still making endless pilgrimages to the grave of thoughts he’d buried years ago.

  Tens of thousands of strangers–and one familiar face. He looks twice to make sure, but there’s no mistaking that unfortunate nose. There, in the corner of the beer tent, sits Berrick. No wonder Terevant hadn’t spotted him earlier–the little man is clothed similarly to most of the crowd in the tent. Country farmers in their holy-day best, all dressed up for the last day of the Festival. Shiny buttons, muddy boots, fresh bright feathers in their caps.