by Ian Graham
Elsefar took the scroll from Ballas. Yet the big man could still feel the parchment against his skin.
The park seemed utterly silent. Ballas gazed at the shadows. They no longer struck him as sinister. He wished only to embrace them. To stride into them and be consumed by whatever hazards they concealed. He hungered for oblivion …
Yet the sensation passed.
He grunted. ‘Have you copied the Decree?’
‘Not yet,’ said Elsefar. ‘Fulfil your half of the bargain, and I will not do so. Naturally, we are not the only copying house in Druine that has been assigned this job. Sooner or later, everyone will know of you. But perhaps a little time can be bought. Do as I ask and the Brewhouse Street copying house will not be transcribing the Decree.’
For a short time, Ballas was silent.
‘You spoke of killing,’ he said eventually.
From his hip bag, Elsefar pulled out a square of parchment. Upon it, penned in dark ink, were three faces, each exquisitely drawn: the quill-work was so vivid that the faces seemed on the verge of moving—the lips twitching with speech, the eyes blinking. Underneath each face was a list of places: a mix of taverns, brothels, gambling dens and houses.
‘These are the men I want you to kill,’ said Elsefar.
‘Who are they?’
‘My employers.’
Ballas glanced up.
Elsefar nodded. ‘I know what you are thinking. A man in my circumstances ought to be grateful for whatever work he finds. After all, what use is a cripple?’ He clenched his jaw. ‘Do not presume these men purchase my services out of charily. They employ me because I am the best there is. The fastest, the cleanest of hand … Yes: the best, if not the most modest. In a single day, I do the work of forty men—but for a single man’s wage. And that is the problem.’ He glanced at Ballas. ‘I am not permitted to leave their employ. I wear no shackles, yet I am still a slave. My employers supply my lodgings—my damp, stinking, flea-infested room. For this, I pay rent—a rent that scarcely leaves me enough money from my wages to buy food. If I could, I would seek cheaper lodgings, away from the copying house. But there are none cheaper than those provided by my employers. So I am trapped. My rent is paid not in advance but in arrears: thus I am always owing money … If I were to leave the copying house, I would be in debt and then—my employers are ruthless. Damn it!’ Elsefar smacked his crutch-ferrule upon the grass. ‘Why do vulgar men dress up their brutality, their primitive schemes, in such elaborate garb? Does it make them feel intelligent?’ He looked evenly at Ballas. ‘They want me to stay at the copying house. They know that only the threat of death will keep me there. So that threat is made. They disguise it as some convoluted system of rents and wages … Yet if I go, they will kill me. It is that simple. Now, Anhaga Ballas: will you kill them—and release me?’
Ballas thought for a moment. ‘How do I know you are not lying about the explorer? About the man who says he has crossed the mountains?’
This amused Elsefar. ‘I am hiring you to commit murder,’ he said. ‘In itself, that is a crime. I could hang for it. What is it they say about shared guilt encouraging trust and honour?’ His expression darkened. ‘If you wished, you could betray me. You could inform the Wardens—which is not likely, I admit. But if you were captured who is to know what you would say in the moments before your death?’
The last sentence rang in Ballas’s ears. He knew what
Elsefar was driving at. He was Ballas’s best chance—his only chance—of finding someone who could lead him to Belthirran. What choice did Ballas have but to trust him?
‘If you are lying,’ said the big man, ‘I will find you, and kill you.’
‘I know, I know,’ said Elsefar. ‘And because of that alone, you know I will not betray you.’ Struggling closer, the quill-master prodded the list of locations on the parchment. ‘These are the favourite haunts of my employers. The chances are that you will find them there.’ He looked up at Ballas. ‘I presume we have made a deal?’
‘Yes.’
‘Be true to your colour, Anhaga Ballas.’
The first two killings were not difficult.
From the parchment, Ballas chose as his first target a square-jawed, heavy-browed man named Brander Shan. Shan was a gambler. His haunts, identified by Elsefar, were those where a man could test his luck, and his powers of judgement. A warehouse where bare-knuckle bouts were fought. A long oval mud-track where dogs raced in torchlight. And a few outwardly ordinary houses inside which dice-games were played.
As Ballas trod from place to place, seeking his quarry, he wondered whether Shan was having a good night. Was he thriving? Was Mistress Fortune treating him kindly? Or was he cursing his ill luck? Would he consider his death in keeping with the evening’s flow—a mere tightening of his general gloom?
Ballas found Shan in the Grinning Wolf—a loud, smoke-clogged tavern, with a circle chalked on the floorboards.
Shan sat near the circle’s edge, drinking. He was bigger than Ballas had expected. And Elsefar’s sketch hadn’t captured the cold, dull cruelty of his eyes. Shark’s eyes, thought Ballas. The eyes of a creature that follows its compulsions— its hungers and thirsts—yet never experiences pleasure. Only satisfaction.
Ballas couldn’t hope to kill him in the common room. It was too crowded and, once the deed was done, he’d have no chance of escaping.
So he walked behind the tavern and, clambering over a high wooden fence, stood in the shadows of the pissing yard— and waited.
Drinker after drinker came out of the rear door to relieve themselves upon the muddy ground. With every fresh footstep, Ballas touched the knife tucked behind his belt. He felt his throat grow dry, his heart thud. It had been a long time since he had killed in cold blood. A long time since he had premeditated another’s death. It did not thrill him. It gave him no sense of power. It was a means to an end, nothing more. He thought only about the reason why he had to kill. What the killing would bring him. He thought of the explorer Elsefar had mentioned. But mostly he thought of Belthirran.
Ballas was recalling his dream of the Land Beyond the Mountains … was seeing again the fields and cattle and distant buildings … when Shan appeared.
Ballas sank back into the shadows.
A second man followed Shan. They stood side by side, pissing on to the frozen mud. They talked of insignificant things—women, ale, a cockfight they had just seen. The second man finished pissing but did not return to the tavern. He lingered near Shan and continued talking. Ballas cursed, silently. Then shouting sounded from the tavern.
‘They’ve started,’ said the man, moving to the door. ‘I don’t want to miss a second of it.’ He glanced at Shan. ‘Which bird did you bet on?’
‘The darkest one,’ replied Shan, slurring slightly.
‘Bastard,’ muttered the man. ‘I wagered on the other. Which means, in short, that I have lost. This is your night, Brander. All the luck is yours. How much have you won already?’
‘I haven’t been counting.’
‘Pah! Usually it’s the losers who don’t keep track …’
‘A man cannot stay lucky for ever,’ remarked Shan.
The other man went into the tavern.
Shan fumbled his childmaker back into his breeches. As he turned, Ballas strode forward—and slammed the dagger into Shan’s lower back. The man gasped, his body tensing. Looping, a forearm around his throat, Ballas jerked him backwards and snapped his neck. Shan’s corpse slithered to the ground. Stooping, Ballas wrenched out the knife. Then he climbed over the fence, into the street.
As he walked away, he heard laughter from the pissing yard.
‘Hey, Brander,’ came a man’s voice. ‘Feeling worse for wear, eh? Come on, get up! You’ve won again! It was a short enough bout. The dark bird was savage. I’ve never seen anything like it.’ There was a pause. Then: ‘Shan? Sweet grief! The Wardens—summon the Wardens!’
Ballas picked up his pace.
Ballas found the second
man at the first place he looked: the copying house. The man was seated behind a desk in a small office, adjoining the room where, during daylight hours, the scribes worked. Now, except for the second target—named Caggerick Blunt—the copying house was empty.
He was thin, bald-headed. Sagging folds hung under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept for months. Judging by his list of haunts, he did nothing but work: if he hadn’t been in the copying house, he would have been in any one of a number of warehouses, or at a second office, further across the city.
As Ballas stepped through the door, Blunt looked up.
‘Yes?’
‘Egren Callen?’ asked Ballas, on purpose giving the name not of the man seated in front of him but of the man he intended to kill after him.
‘Who are you?’ Blunt squinted.
‘A messenger from Soriterath. Are you Egren Callen?’
‘No.’
Ballas muttered, as if this displeased him. ‘Where can I find him? I have something for him.’
‘Tonight, I believe he is at his home, on Harvest Street.’
‘Where is that?’
Speaking briskly, Blunt gave Ballas directions. Yet gradually, his voice slowed. Uncertainty flickered in his eyes. He peered intently at Ballas’s face … at his forehead. His uncertainty changed to recognition.
Raising his fingers, Ballas touched the crescent-shaped scar.
‘Yes,’ he said, softly.
Springing forward, he drove a right hook hard into Blunt’s cheek. The man’s eyes rolled back and then he clattered to the floor. Moving around the desk, Ballas kneeled by the unconscious form. Drawing his knife, he cut Blunt’s throat. Blood sprayed from an artery, speckling Ballas’s tunic front.
Grunting, Ballas rose. He wiped his dagger blade clean on his leggings. Then he left the copying house.
That had been twenty minutes ago. Now Ballas walked quickly over the paving slabs of Harvest Street. Ahead stood a three-floored building, crafted from dark brick. Though not vast enough to be considered a mansion, it did exude wealth. It was surrounded by an eight-foot wall of weather-scrubbed stone. Beyond that, a few poplars speared towards the night sky. The poplars and the wall had been described by Blunt. Ballas halted. He had reached Egren Callen’s home.
A set of gates were set into the wall, forty paces away. Two men were on sentry-go. In informal garb, they were not Papal Wardens—yet they were armed, each bearing a knife and a short sword. Part of a private guard, Ballas realised. Muttering, he backed into the shadows of a shop doorway.
The final killing would not be as easy as the first two.
If he approached the guards, he would be seen, and he doubted that could overpower them both—not if each carried a sword. And if he did succeed, the noises of combat would alert the other guards who were undoubtedly patrolling the grounds around Callen’s home. Ballas tapped his fingertips lightly with his knife, thinking.
Then he released a deep breath.
The only way into the grounds was over the wall. Tucking his knife into his belt, Ballas left the doorway and ran noiselessly across the street.
Despite the grandeur of Callen’s home, the wall was crudely constructed: a sharp-edged mass of interlocking stone lumps like the drystone walls found in some of Druine’s rural regions. That was good, Ballas thought. At least there would he hand holds.
The big man spat on his hands. Then he jumped and grabbed the wall’s upper edge. Grunting, he began hauling himself up. But his own weight surprised him. He felt like he had an ox’s bulk. His muscles strained, and grew hot. He felt his face flaring red as blood gathered under his skin. Swearing softly, he hung motionless for a few heartbeats. Then he let go, dropping back to the ground.
He glanced towards the gates. The guards were talking among themselves. They hadn’t heard his descent. Or the rubbing of his clothes against the stones.
Ballas looked up at the wall.
‘Come on,’ he urged himself in a half-whisper. ‘Don’t be so bloody weak.’
He jumped up again. This time, using his upward momentum, he dragged himself on to the top of the wall. Through the poplars, he glimpsed half a dozen figures, moving slowly through a large, well-kept garden. He could see scabbards at their hips. And knife sheaths strapped to their belts.
He swung down from the wall and hid behind a poplar bole.
Ballas felt a dull pain in his hands. His palms were bleeding, cut open by the stones. He wiped them on the back of his leggings. Then he wondered how he was going to leave the grounds. Over the wall again? Or through the gate—for, after the killing, he’d have no real reason to be discreet?
It did not matter—not yet.
Keeping close to the wall, and the poplars’ shadows, Ballas crept swiftly around the grounds, keeping his gaze on Callen’s home. The building was in darkness, every window a patch of black. Cursing, Ballas wondered if Blunt had been mistaken. Perhaps Callen was not at home that night?
Then, to the rear of the building, he saw a lit third-floor window. The window was hinged fractionally open and the curtains hung slightly apart. Crouching behind a holly bush, Ballas listened. At first he heard only his own breathing. And noises of the night: a cart rattling along a distant road, a breeze stirring the poplar branches. Then he made out another sound, coming from the window. Though faint, it was clear— and unmistakable.
A woman’s groans. They sounded over and over, rhythmically and with increasing speed. They did not spring from suffering, merely from a type of near-painful pleasure.
The woman was rutting.
In the darkness, Ballas felt his loins stir. His tunic was blood-splashed and he had killed two men that evening. Soon he was to take the life of a third. Yet arousal touched him. He felt his throat go dry.
Maybe, when all the killing is done, I’ll find a woman for myself, he thought. It’s been a black evening, and I deserve a little light … the light that glints in a whore’s eyes. He wondered, suddenly, if there would be whores in Belthirran. And taverns. And ale and wine and whisky.
Then he thought of the Pilgrim Church: of the Wardens he had killed, and those he had not encountered but who would be hunting him; of the Lectivin Nu’hkterin, and of the death of Gerack upon the Penance Oak.
Ballas felt suddenly uneasy. Frightened, even. It lasted only an instant. Yet it was enough to assure him that it didn’t matter if there were whores in Belthirran. Or drinking houses. Only that he could find the Land beyond the Mountains.
He blinked.
Never before had he suspected that a desire to avoid pain could be more powerful than the desire to attain pleasure.
He spat on to the grass. Then he looked up at the window. The woman’s copulation sounds continued.
Rising, Ballas completed his circuit of the building, trying to find a back door that might not be guarded. There was none. Swearing, he moved close to the building, and stole towards the front door.
There was a single guard—a tall man of middle years. His face had the stark slenderness of an axe blade. His eyes were tiny, and glittered sharply as he surveyed the grounds. He looked attentive, vigilant. He chewed slowly upon something. Tobacco, perhaps. Or a knot of flex-weed. One hand rested on his sword hilt.
Ballas watched him carefully.
He could easily surprise the guard. If he moved fast enough, he could plunge his knife into the man’s throat. Then he would be able to enter Callen’s home. But, of course, the killing would draw the other guards’ attention. They would attack. He would have no choice except to fight.
Ballas drew a breath. He carried only knives. He’d have little chance against six or seven swordsmen. It would be necessary to steal the slain guard’s sword. Then, because he couldn’t fight all the guards at once, he’d have to vanish into the darkness and pick them off one at a time.
A difficult task. Yet he had no choice.
Standing upright, he started to draw his knife. Then he paused.
The thin-faced guard was calling to a companion
. ‘Ghallarin,’ he said, his voice loud in the quiet air. ‘You got any more tobacco?’
‘What?’ replied a guard, a hundred yards away.
‘Tobacco—you got any more?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Lend me some, will you?’
‘I’ve already given you a gobful.’
‘I’ve used it …’
‘Bloody hell—things don’t last long with you, do they? It’s the same when you’re drinking. One instant the tankard is full, the next it’s all gone. Tell me, do you ever taste it? I don’t think so. You might as well be supping salt water …’
‘Just bring me some more tobacco,’ said the thin-faced guard, irritated.
The other guard sighed, audibly. ‘Come and get it yourself,’ he said. ‘I’m not your bloody servant.’
It was if some god of killing had blessed Ballas. As if it had, in return for the blood he’d shed, made things easy for him. The guard moved away from the door and strode towards his friend. Seizing his chance, Ballas emerged from the shadows and opened the door. The hinges were well oiled, and silent. As he crossed the threshold, into a pitch-dark anteroom, he glanced back. The thin-faced guard was still walking towards his colleague. The other guards continued their patrols. They hadn’t seen Ballas. They did not even suspect anyone was there.
