by Ian Graham
‘Loyalty’s a flimsy thing,’ grunted Ballas. ‘Fear, though, is far tougher.’
‘And you will make Jonas Elsefar fear you?’
‘If needs be,’ said Ballas, nodding.
‘And if he has no children you can threaten?’
Ballas didn’t reply. Not immediately. Through the window, he saw Crask returning to the door. Behind him was a squat, white-haired man, with a broad face locked in a scowl. He moved with great awkwardness, supporting himself upon a pair of wooden crutches. His legs were only half-capable of taking his weight. He advanced laboriously, swinging his legs forward, rocking himself upon them—then swinging them forward once more. There was an ungainly agility to this procedure, as if he had performed it all his life. His legs were tied at the ankles, so that they could provide a single pillar of support.
Ballas watched him approach the door.
‘Children? Loved ones?’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Nah. I’d need only to tip woodworm upon his crutches. Or kick him into a pool of water.’
The door opened.
Crask emerged. Moments later, the quill-master followed.
Jonas Elsefar’s eyes were green-hazel, and burned with a steady distaste—as if everything appalled him. His mouth was thin-lipped, but wide; silver stubble glittered on a solid jaw. His shirtsleeves were rolled to the elbow, exposing forearms latticed with veins: the consequences, thought Ballas, of using the crutches. Dark ink blotched his fingers.
His gaze darted from Heresh to Ballas. He paused, eyeing the big man closely. Then he coughed.
‘This man—’ he tilted his head to Crask ‘—says you have a job for me. Something you’d rather not make official. Something you’d sooner keep from my masters—and have me do on my own.’ He rolled his shoulders, as if relieving sore muscles. He glanced at his crutches. Then he sniffed. ‘I am the best copyist in Druine. The fastest, the most precise. From dawn till dusk, I labour in there—’ he jabbed a thumb towards the copying house ‘—making copies of all manner of documents. Scholarly treatises, legal texts, prayer sheets and architectural plans—I can reproduce exactly anything you’d care to put on a parchment. I can even create forgeries that seem of equal—even greater—authenticity than the originals.’ He looked at Ballas. ‘As such, I do not sell my talents cheaply. As such—’ he paused ‘—I do not sell them at all. My employers insist I work only for them. You must approach them, if you wish to use my talents.’
The quill-master spoke rapidly. When he finished, he spat on to the ground.
Ballas watched him closely. ‘You said you copy prayer sheets—’
‘Yes,’ interrupted the quill-master, ‘and many pieces of a religious nature. Hymnals, the works of theologians, collections of psalms—’
‘You labour for the Church?’ said Ballas.
Elsefar looked at him. ‘The Church? No. They send various pieces to my employers, to be copied—as do many people. My dealings with the Church are those of a whore with her bedfellow: I perform a service, they pay me, and beyond that there is nothing.’
‘Does it trouble you,’ said Ballas, ‘that you act as a whore for the Church—when they once would’ve killed you?’ Elsefar frowned. ‘What are you speaking of?’
Ballas looked to Crask. ‘Doesn’t he know of your association?’
‘I thought it wisest to keep it quiet,’ said Crask. ‘In the copying house, every ear was pricked …’
‘You copied forbidden texts,’ said Ballas, gazing intently at Elsefar. ‘And this man smuggled them.’
‘We never met,’ Crask said to Elsefar. ‘But that was the usual arrangement, was it not? It was safer for all, if we knew nothing of each other.’
The quill-master looked closely at Crask. ‘Did you know Cappel Beck?’
‘The name is not familiar,’ said Crask. ‘I worked most frequently with Aldras Cagrille.’
‘Cagrille, Cagrille,’ murmured Elsefar—then nodded. ‘I remember Cagrille. He was captured, was he not?’
‘Captured and hanged.’
‘But you were not?’
Crask exhaled. ‘Through good fortune, rather than fair planning. When the Church apprehended me, I possessed only false texts; they imprisoned me for twenty years. But beyond that: nothing.’ He glanced uneasily at Ballas. The big man said nothing.
‘You were lucky,’ muttered Elsefar, shifting slightly. ‘Many men went to the gallows. Or a cage elemental. A few found themselves upon the Penance Oak.’
‘They were dark times …’
‘But it was a darkness we chose for ourselves.’ A strange smile flickered on Elsefar’s lips. ‘And now, you are here to ask a favour, yes?’ He looked Crask up and down. ‘What do you want from me?’
Lugen Crask glanced at Ballas.
‘We can’t talk of it here,’ said the big man. ‘We have to go somewhere quiet.’
‘Very well.’ With his dragging, forward-swinging steps, Elsefar led them along a narrow street to a windowless wooden building. Inside, upon a bare floor, two dozen beds were set out. The blankets were spun from coarse wool. Odours of decay hung in the air—of damp fabric, rotting; and of wet wood, crumbling to splinters.
Crask took them to a bed in the far corner.
‘This,’ he said, gesturing along the room, ‘is my home.
Once I lived in a fine place, on the town’s rim. There I was warm and comfortable, and was left mercifully alone. Here, however, I dwell alongside my fellow copyists. It is not a pleasant existence. A man such as me—’ he glanced at his legs ‘—craves solitude. For, in company, one is forced to taste mockery—to hear, again and again, the same jests, the same insults.’ Grunting, he sat down on the bed. ‘I shall not pretend I am contented.’ He propped his crutches against the bed. ‘Now: we have silence. So tell me your business. Do you have something you want copying? Something ornate, something delicate? Something requiring a fine touch?’
‘Once,’ said Ballas, ‘you copied maps. That’s true, yes?’
Elsefar nodded. ‘Maps of every nature. Maps charting smugglers’ routes, and watercourses, the paths of ancient armies, the ways trodden by the Four … Druine’s geography has disparate significances for many men. They seek different things from the Church’s land.’
‘And the land that isn’t the Church’s?’
Elsefar blinked. ‘All land is the Church’s,’ he said. ‘Belthirran isn’t,’ replied Ballas.
The quill-master smiled. ‘That is true … if you consider Belthirran a land at all. For all we know, it might not exist. It could be merely an idea, a dream, a phantom thought …’
‘There are maps showing a way over the Garsbracks to Belthirran,’ said Ballas.
‘Such maps once existed.’ Elsefar nodded. ‘I copied many of them—and each was different to the other. If each was to be trusted, there had to be a million safe tracks over the mountains. And Belthirran would have been overrun by travellers.’
‘I am seeking such a map.’
‘For what purpose?’
‘That’s my business,’ said Ballas sourly. ‘Were there some maps you thought more trustworthy than others?’
Elsefar shrugged and said nothing.
‘I have to find the one that you reckon is best,’ Ballas persisted.
‘None survive,’ said the quill-master. ‘When the Church grew aware of the trade in forbidden texts, we—that is, everyone with a hand in the business—thought it wise to destroy all the evidence. I can recall making a bonfire of my own parchments. There were many pieces that greatly pleased me— pieces in which my skills were strongly evident, pieces that would have bolstered my reputation … The flames, smoke and dark ash upset me. It was one thing to sell such documents; but to obliterate them?’ He shook his head. ‘Of course, the Pilgrim Church confiscated some documents, from other smugglers and quill-masters. Perhaps they still exist. Perhaps, in holy fervour, the Church incinerated them. It is impossible to tell.’
Crask looked at Ballas. ‘I told you it was so,’
he said, folding his arms. ‘Our journey has been wasted.’
‘Many journeys end in failure,’ commented Elsefar. ‘Be they journeys of the body, or of the soul …’
‘I have to find a way over the mountains,’ said Ballas suddenly. ‘I have to find Belthirran.’
A silence descended. Then Lugen Crask began to laugh.
‘I ought to have guessed. Yet … yet it is such an absurd idea, I had no inkling … You wish to escape the Church by hiding in Belthirran—in a land that might not exist. That might, as Elsefar says, be mere rumour.’
Ballas ignored the former smuggler. ‘If I’m to stand a chance, I’ve got to find a map, and it must be the one most worthy of trust.’
Jonas Elsefar grew very still. ‘Like your friend,’ he said, flicking a gesture at Crask, ‘I think you are mad.’
‘Help me,’ said Ballas, ‘and you’ll be rewarded. Get me a map—’
‘As I said, there are no maps. But perhaps—’ Elsefar paused. ‘Perhaps you will not need one.’ His gaze grew contemplative. He looked past Ballas, as if some thought hung visibly in the air. ‘Maybe I can help you … for a price.’ His gaze drifted to Ballas. He looked the big man over from head to toe. ‘You are not wealthy,’ he observed.
‘If you need money,’ growled Ballas, ‘I’ll find some.’
Elsefar shook his head. ‘I was about to say that you are fortunate, for your poverty does not concern me. I have an errand for you.’ Taking his crutches, he struggled to his feet. ‘On Blackberry Row, there is a tavern: the Scarlet Ghost. Behind it, you will find a park—just a patch of grass, a pond, some trees … Go there at eveningfall. We shall see how we may benefit one another.’
Using Crask’s money, Ballas rented a lodging room in the Scarlet Ghost and stabled the horses. Inside, with Crask and his daughter, he waited for darkness to settle. Despite the tedium, no one spoke.
Ballas knew why.
For days, a question had preoccupied Heresh. Now it preoccupied her father, too. Ballas saw it in the old man’s glances—his eye-flashes of fleeting scrutiny; and, when he believed Ballas was not looking, in his protracted stares, as if every aspect of Ballas’s appearance, from his face to his clothing, might yield some insight into his true character.
Lugen Crask knew Ballas was a killer. But now he wanted to know … needed to know the extent of his ruthlessness.
Only after their meeting with Elsefar had this curiosity truly emerged. Ballas knew the exact moment. Crask had been mocking him for seeking Belthirran. Mid-sentence, his voice had wavered, his laughter thinned—that had been when Crask had realised the danger he was in. For he had understood, suddenly, that he knew Ballas’s plans and that, with such knowledge, he posed a threat to Ballas. For if Crask were to inform the Wardens—or if the Wardens were to extract the secret from him—Ballas’s chances of success would be jeopardised.
In the lodging room, Crask’s silence was fraught, nervy— the silence of a man whose life depends upon a dice-roll.
Ballas wondered idly what he would do with Crask, and his daughter, when their usefulness was finished. He had scarcely thought about the matter.
He shrugged inwardly. Either way, it was of no odds.
Evening seeped through Granthaven’s streets.
Ballas left the tavern and strode into the park. It was a clear night. Moonlight silvered a long thorn-hedge, a few leafless larches and a pond, its surface ice-plated. At the park’s edge, though, darkness gathered. It was most dense between two large, squarish buildings: a block of hard blackness, into which the moonlight sank and vanished, like a piece of bright jewellery tossed into a fathomless sea.
A hunted man, Ballas mistrusted darkness. It unsettled most men, one way or another. But if they merely feared it concealed some mysterious threat, Ballas had to assume that it really did. When a slow dragging noise, punctuated by a clack after dull clack of one hard object upon another, drifted from the darkness, Ballas did not act as most men would have: he did not ponder the noise’s source and wait for it to reveal itself. He slowly drew his dagger and approached it.
As he drew close, Jonas Elsefar appeared. On his crutches, he hauled himself into the park. On his forehead, sweat glimmered—each bead a blob of molten silver. Muttering, he sagged back against a larch, exhausted.
Ballas grew still. Tilting his head, he listened; but he heard no noise except Elsefar’s breathing.
‘I haven’t been followed,’ gasped the quill-master.
‘You are certain?’
‘Of course.’ Muttering, he lifted the flap of a hip bag. Then he took out a whisky flagon. ‘Every winter,’ he said, ‘the cold seems sharper. Every winter, I feel that I am nothing but ice. It is one of the perils of age. Most men fear infirmity; but I am already infirm. To occupy my mind—my ageing brain—I must find a different complaint. So it is the weather. In the winter, it is the cold; in summer, the heat.’ He took a deep sip. An expression of relief crossed his face. ‘I would offer you a mouthful,’ he said, recorking the flagon, ‘but you must keep a clear head, if you are to fulfil your part of the bargain.’
‘Yes, the bargain,’ muttered Ballas. ‘What’d you have me do, Elsefar—and what do I get in return?’
‘I cannot offer you a map of the mountains,’ began Elsefar, slipping the flagon back into the hip bag. ‘But I can give you the name of a man who has crossed them. A man who claims that, if the elements had not conspired against him, he could have reached Belthirran.’
Ballas stared heavily at him. ‘A guide?’
‘No,’ said Crask. ‘Like myself, he is old—his exploring days will be over. But he understands the mountains. I have copied many accounts of the journey to Belthirran. Most, I mistrusted. They had the false lustre of fiction. And their authors were not men of integrity. They sought fame. They sought money. They were liars, intending to profit from the trade in forbidden texts. But this man? He did not want fame. In fact, he avoided it, as if it were something noxious. He wrote his account anonymously, and scarcely a soul knew it was his work. And he did not want money, for he was already rich.’
‘Who is he? A merchant? A Servant of the Church?’
Elsefar smiled. ‘Later,’ he said, raising a finger. ‘Once your work is done.’
‘And what is this work, Elsefar?’
‘Work that a man such as you—’ a gesture took in Ballas’s form ‘—will be very familiar with.’
Ballas frowned.
‘Killing,’ whispered Elsefar.
Ballas blinked, surprised. He hadn’t thought about what Elsefar would demand in exchange for his help. But even if he had given it thought, much thought, he wouldn’t have expected what the quill-master had just said.
‘You reckon I am a killer?’ He gazed firmly at the quill-master. ‘That I go easily to blood?’
Elsefar nodded. ‘You have a murderer’s sheen,’ he said. ‘Killing does not particularly please you. You do not think it a sport. But when needs must, you do not hesitate. In your eyes there is a clarity, like that of a bird of prey. Something watchful. Something unflinching. I confess that it disturbs me. For I am weak, and in matters violent, the thoroughfare runs only one way.’ He shrugged. ‘Your colour is red, my friend. Not sunset red, or the red of a rose. But the red of the wilderness. And,’ his voice took on a casual tone, ‘there is this to consider.’ He drew out a furled parchment. ‘Read it,’ he said, proffering it.
Ballas took the scroll. Unrolling it, he peered at the quill-script: the letters swirled neatly, and on the top four rows they were larger than elsewhere, the ink more thickly daubed.
Decree of Righteous Annihilation:
Issued by the Pilgrim Church’s Most Devout Servants
On the fourteenth day of the twelfth month
In the year five hundred and twelve, after the Melding.
Ballas breathed out.
In his chest, his heart thudded—it banged upon his ribs like a fist. Licking his lips, he glanced at Elsefar.
‘R
ead it,’ repeated the quill-master. ‘I assure you, it is genuine.’
By Order of the Blessed Masters, the decree continued, the man named as Anhaga Ballas, who has caused the highest offence to the Four, the Pilgrim Church and Druine is, by whatever means, to have taken from him his life, which, like that of any mortal, was once divine, but has now become a thing abhorrent.
Unto every citizen, regardless of rank, wealth, age or sex, falls the duty, in accord with the Four’s will, of killing Anhaga Ballas. To this end, no method is prohibited—for the action is holy. To this end, no contrivance of circumstance, or duplicity, or manner commonly thought blasphemous, is prohibited—for the action is holy.
Anhaga Ballas is in height six feet and eight inches, his hair is black, like raven feathers; his eyes are of a green-brown hue, and he is of a heavy build. His features are broken, the nose naught but disfigured gristle, his face scarred upon the cheeks; and, upon his forehead, is a wound, shaped like a week-old moon, and this shall become a scar. His voice is deep, and when he talks his accent is that of the southern region of Hearthfall.
Upon the provision of proof of his death, a reward will be administered to those who, by that deed alone, will have cleared from their souls the marks of all previous sins.
By Order of the Blessed Masters.
‘The Blessed Masters,’ said Elsefar softly, ‘are seldom guilty of understatement. But here they excel themselves. They are desperate to see you dead, Anhaga Ballas. Decrees of Annihilation are seldom issued. They are dangerous—all across Druine, men who bear the mildest resemblance to yourself will be in jeopardy. Dozens may die, so that your death might come about.’
‘Where did you get this?’ Ballas felt his sweat dampening the scroll.
‘Where but the copying house? It arrived yesterday morning from Soriterath. We have been instructed to quill two thousand copies, and spread them throughout this part of Druine. They are to be be mounted upon every church gate and cathedral doorpost. And, so that sinners may join the hunt and absolve themselves, they will be nailed to the walls of every alehouse and every brothel bedchamber. Soon, every class of man, and woman, will be watchful. And they won’t grow lax or forgetful: the Blessed Masters have seen to that. You will notice that your crime has not been specified. This will provoke curiosity. What has he done, to deserve a Decree of Annihilation? Your ill deeds will become rumour. Every mind that thinks rarely of anything but gambling and ale will suddenly turn philosophical: what crime could be so bad? Eventually, the nervous will start to fear you. The brave will wish to prove their strength by killing you. Soon, superstitious gossip will spring up: Anhaga Ballas will become more than a man—he will be demon-possessed, an emissary sent by dark spirits, he will be Gatarix reborn … Your death will be desired with greater and greater strength. And, in time, your death will come. No man can elude a whole nation’s wrath. Not for ever.’
