‘Well, I nearly did.’
Spindle drew his crossbow from beneath his cloak. ‘I say we give him lots of room.’
Picker nodded. ‘Oh yeah. Plenty.’
*
It was all very confusing for Ebbin. He knew that he had to get back to Darujhistan – though why, he didn’t really know. It was some sort of instinct, or overwhelming certainty. Then a girl appeared in the middle of the plain and claimed to have been sent by Aman. Even more strangely, somehow he recognized her, though he was sure he’d never seen her before in his life.
Then they set out on a damnably trying walk. His legs ached beyond anything he’d ever experienced. The soles of his feet felt as if they’d been hammered all over by truncheons. And he was having hallucinations. Sometimes it seemed as if the entire Dwelling Plain was one huge urban conglomeration of square flat-roofed mud buildings all jammed together. Smoke from countless hearth fires rose into the night sky while he and Taya walked the giant city’s narrow crooked ways.
Of course, Ebbin realized … the Dwelling Plain!
Far ahead, glimpsed through the narrow gaps in the tall mud walls, there sometimes reared some sort of domed edifice like a monument, or immense temple. Its pallid stone glowed with a pale blue luminescence that seemed somehow familiar. At other times the great urban sprawl lay smashed in flaming ruins all around, the victim of some sort of titanic upheaval.
When they entered Raven Town he was desperate for a rest, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to demand that they stop. And the girl, Taya, was pushing him along like some sort of draught animal and constantly shooting quick looks behind. It seemed as if she was actually frightened of something.
Could it be … him? No, that would be too terrible to imagine. Too awful.
And there, on the main street through town, within sight of the closed city gate, who should stand waiting wrapped in a shabby cloak but Aman himself? Ebbin stared – he’d never seen the man stick his head outside his shop, let alone leave it.
Aman waved Taya onward then wrapped one crooked arm round Ebbin as if supporting him. Ebbin tried to tell him what he’d seen, all the horrors, but somehow he couldn’t force the words past his throat. Aman started force-marching him along in his own slow crablike limp. Ebbin glared ferociously at him as if he could somehow send his thoughts to him but the man just patted his arm. ‘There, there, good friend. It’ll all be over soon enough.’
What would be over? This nightmare of a night? Or far more than that? Ebbin dreaded the answer. As they closed on the gates the great iron-bound leaves improbably swung open to greet them, and there was Taya. She waved them in.
Aman frog-marched him onward. Like Taya, he too was glancing behind, squinting with one eye, then the other. What was back there? Ebbin tried to look but the shopkeeper forced him on. They passed through mostly empty streets. In one of the market squares the early-morning vendors were busy setting up their stalls and arranging their goods. Ebbin and Aman marched through with no one paying them any particular attention. Taya was still with them. Sometimes she shadowed them closely and Ebbin caught sight of her glowing white robes. At other times she was nowhere to be seen.
They reached the main east–west thoroughfare that ran alongside the Second Tier Wall. Aman hugged Ebbin closely, as if afraid he would run off, but the scholar was too confused to muster any sort of resolution. At times he didn’t recognize any of the streets they walked. Tall white-stone buildings faced the roads, great estates, their façades richly decorated with scrollwork. Fanciful miniature creatures, some winged, peeped out amid the scrolls and stone forests.
And Ebbin recognized the style. It was the fabled Darujhistani Imperial baroque.
But perhaps this was all nothing more than his own deluded wish fulfilment. He wondered, terrified, whether the horrific events in the mausoleum had finally driven him over the edge. Perhaps he was mad. His peers, the scholars and researchers of the Philosophical Society, had already dismissed him as such.
He remembered a chilling definition of insanity he’d read in some wry old commentator’s compendium: when you think everyone around you is mad, that’s when you should start to suspect it’s actually you.
They reached the ruined old gates to the estate district and here another figure awaited them. This one appeared to be no more than a dark shadow, a tall man in tattered clothes, a ghost. Ebbin flinched away but Aman marched him right up to the wavering, translucent shade.
Taya, now with them, curtsied to the ghost. ‘Uncle,’ she murmured.
Aman bowed mockingly. ‘Well met, Hinter.’
The shade arched a brow in lofty disparagement. ‘Aman. We’d thought you dead.’
The hunched shopkeeper waved to indicate his bent body. ‘Who could have survived, yes?’
‘Indeed.’
‘All is in readiness?’ Aman enquired.
‘All is ready,’ the shade responded tartly, ‘since I am left with no alternative. He comes?’
Aman shook Ebbin by his shoulders. ‘Oh yes. He comes. Always a way, scholar. There is always a way. If it is nearly impossible to break in – then perhaps one must reverse one’s thinking, yes? I am sorry, scholar. But no one has ever escaped him.’
The shade turned away. ‘Not true,’ it murmured. ‘One did.’
Aman sniffed and rubbed his lopsided face. ‘Him. I never did believe that.’
*
Spindle and Picker followed the masked man up the Raven Town trader road, all the way into town. It was eerie the way no one was about. Dogs ran before it. Early-morning merchants and farmers turned sharply to take side streets, or quickly entered shops and buildings lining the way. The man had the entire road to himself. Picker passed men and women crouched in the dirt beside it, hands covering their faces, shuddering. Picker yanked a hand away from the face of one old farmer only to provoke gabbled terror and tears.
The fellow strode majestically along right up to and through the open Raven Town gate. A city gate that should not be open. Picker signed to Spindle to check out the west gatehouse, then slipped into the east. Blend, she knew, would keep tabs on their friend. Inside she found the guards dead, thrust through with swift professional cuts. Their young little sprite? Or another? An organization? Their guild friends?
She exited to see Spindle, who signed that on his side all were dead. She answered in kind. Together they trotted on after Blend. They found early risers in the streets but all were silent, all turned to face the walls. Picker pulled one burly labourer round only to find him weeping, his eyes screwed shut.
At the spice-sellers’ square they found the morning market already set up in a maze of carts, mats laid out and stalls unfolded, but utterly silent and still. People crouched, hiding their faces, or lay on their sides as if asleep. Picker swallowed to wet her throat, tightened her sweaty grip on her long-knife. Then Spindle touched her shoulder and pointed up to the paling clear night sky.
‘Would ya look at that.’
*
Ambassador Aragan awoke with a start and a curse. He flailed about, searching for a weapon.
‘It’s all right, sir!’ a familiar voice yelped, alarmed. ‘It’s me sir!’
Aragan sat up, blinking in the dark. ‘Burn’s teats, man! What hour is it?’
‘Just dawn, sir.’
‘This better be good, Captain.’
‘Yes, sir. It’s the Moranth mission, sir. They’re fleeing the city.’
Aragan gaped at the captain, then shut his mouth. ‘What?’ He threw himself from his bed, searched the floor. Captain Dreshen held out his dressing gown.
‘This way, sir.’
Dreshen led him to what had originally been a front guest bedroom but was now an office of trade relations. Here night staff crowded the windows looking over the city. Aragan pushed his way through to the front. The pre-dawn was a paling violet in the east, the brightest stars still blazing above. His heart sinking, Aragan saw the obscene green streak over the setting, mottled moon. He mad
e a sign against evil, though he knew the gesture was meaningless. After all, every escaped cow and dead chicken was blamed on the damned thing, so there was no way of knowing what influence, if any, it might be exerting on anyone’s life.
Movement caught his eye. Winking, glimmering, flashing high over the city. Quorl wings – a flight of the giant dragonfly-like creatures taking their Moranth masters west, to the Mountains of Mist, which some called Cloud Forest. Aragan was reminded of the Free Cities campaign to the north and similar night flights and drops over Pale and Cat.
Even as he watched, another wing took flight, heaving up from rooftops around the quarters of the Moranth embassy. The quorls turned through the air, wings scintillating like jewels in the pre-dawn light, and arced to the west. Aragan watched them go, feeling both terrified and exhilarated. He pushed away from the window, faced his aide. ‘Rouse the garrison, Captain. Order full alert.’
The aide saluted. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘And fetch my armour.’
*
Picker ducked reflexively as quorls swooped overhead, sending stalls toppling and garments and powdered spice flying.
‘Dammit to dead Hood!’ Spindle swore. ‘Is it a drop?’
Picker covered her eyes from the stinging spice. ‘No. A pick-up. They’re runnin’.’
‘Fanderay … maybe we should too.’
‘Not yet. We’ve been hired to recon. So—’ She broke off as a whistle sounded. ‘That’s Blend. This way, c’mon.’
They halted at the corner of a wide boulevard. Blend stepped out of shadows to meet them. ‘You lose him?’ Picker asked.
‘Hood, no. Walkin’ right up aside the Second Tier Wall, plain as day. Headed for the estate district.’
‘You see them quorls?’ Spindle asked.
Blend eyed him as if he were demented. ‘You two hang back. I’ll tag along.’
Picker nodded. ‘Right.’
Spindle handed over a satchel. ‘Take this … insurance.’
She held the bag away from herself. ‘This what I think it is?’
‘Yeah.’
She shot him a dark look. ‘Been holding out on us?’
‘No more than anyone else.’
‘That’s not an answer,’ Blend growled.
‘I know.’
*
An old woman was shouting herself hoarse in the narrow crooked paths through the Maiten shanty town west of Darujhistan: ‘Pretty birdies! Pretty birdies! Look all at the pretties!’ In the twilight before dawn the garbage-sorters, beggars and labourers groaned and pressed their thread-thin blankets to their heads.
‘For the love of Burn, shut up!’ one fellow bellowed.
The women, already up preparing the meals for the day, fanned their cook-fires and watched the old woman pointing to the lightening sky as she staggered up and down the alleys. They looked at one another and shook their heads. There she went again. That crazy old woman – proving all the clichés their men kept mouthing about old women who lived in the most rundown huts at the edges of towns. Someone should let her know what an embarrassment she was.
And where did she come by all that smoke, anyway?
‘Almost now! Almost!’ the old woman shouted. Then she fell to her knees in the mud and streams of excrement and loudly retched up the contents of her stomach.
The women pursed their lips. Gods, the menfolk would never let them live this one down! Someone ought to guide her to the lake and set her on a long walk up a short pier.
Problem was – the women knew she really was a witch.
*
The fat demon, who was about the size of a medium breed of dog, sat dozing amid the tumbled broken rock of the ancient ruins. Grunting, it coughed, then choked in earnest, flailing. Clawed fingers thrust their way into his mouth, seeking, then withdrew holding a long pale fishbone.
The demon sighed its relief, adjusted its buttocks on the rocks and cast a cursory glance to the stone arch opposite. It froze.
Oh no. Nononononono. Not again!
It launched itself into the air. Its tiny wings struggled to gain purchase, failed. It bounced tumbling downhill, gained momentum, succeeded in lifting its dragging feet from the weeds and took off slowly and heavily across the city like an obscene bumblebee.
Once more it had that word for its master. That most unwelcome word.
*
She’d been irritable of late. Distracted. Short-tempered. If Rallick were the type of man to be dismissive of women he might’ve characterized her as catty. Not that he would dare intimate such a thing to Vorcan Radok, once mistress of Darujhistan’s assassins. And so it was some time before he finally worked up the determination to mention the topic of the professional killings in the Gadrobi district. He alluded to it over dinner. Her gaze in response had been withering. She sipped her wine.
‘And you think I’m responsible? Taken work on the side?’
‘I don’t know who did it,’ he responded, honestly enough.
But that had been enough to break the spell between them. She retired alone and he sat up late into the night in turn damning her as an unreasonable prickly woman and damning himself for allowing anything to come between them. When he finally lay down she was asleep – or pretending to be.
She’d been sleeping poorly lately. Tonight she tossed and turned, even murmured in a language he’d never heard before. So he was not surprised when she rose naked and padded across to the open terrace doors to stare into the blue radiance that glowed over Darujhistan. He came up behind her, set his hands on her shoulders. ‘What is it?’
‘Something …’ she breathed, head cocked as if listening to the night.
‘Should I—’ She lifted a hand for silence. He stilled, trusting her instincts.
Then, astonishingly, the skin beneath his fingers flashed almost unbearably hot. For an instant it was as if he held the spiny, gnarled back of a boar, or a bull bhederin, and Vorcan flinched backwards, brushing him aside like a child. ‘No!’ she ground out. ‘How could …’
She went to the bed, began throwing on clothes.
‘What is it?’
Dressed, she stopped before him. Something new was in her dark eyes. Something that stole his breath, for real fear swam in those deep pools. ‘Leave the estate now,’ she told him. ‘Do not return. Do not try to contact me. Go.’
‘Tell me what it is. I’ll—’
‘No! You will do nothing.’ She pressed a smooth dry palm to the side of his face. ‘Promise me, Rallick. No matter what happens, what comes, you will not act. No contracts, no … attempts.’ She rose on her toes to brush her dry hot lips to his. ‘Please,’ she whispered.
He nodded, swallowing. ‘If you insist.’
She backed away from him into the darker gloom of the bed-chamber, those dark eyes holding his. He dressed quietly while listening to the night, trying to hear what she might’ve heard. But he detected nothing – as far as he could tell it was merely an unusually still and quiet night.
Downstairs, Vorcan’s one servant, the butler-cum-castellan Studlock, who never seemed to be off duty, let him out. Rallick listened to the many locks being ratcheted back into place behind him, then set out into the night.
*
In the tallest tower of his grounds, Baruk stood looking out over the estate district of Darujhistan. For a moment he looked not upon the night-sleeping buildings as they lay now but upon another city, one of a profusion of towers much like his, all aglow with a flickering ghostly blue illumination. And amidst all the towers, rearing far more immense, a great dome encompassing Majesty Hill. Then he passed a shaking hand before his eyes and glanced aside, down to where a shivering, whimpering Chillbais crouched, terrified, but not quite so terrified as to not be chewing on a loaf of old bread.
‘Was he waiting?’ Baruk mused. ‘Waiting for Anomander to be gone?’ He drew his hand down his chin. ‘I wonder.’ He went to the door, turned as a final thought struck him. ‘You are free to go, Chillbais. Your service is done.’
He pulled the door shut behind him.
Fat loaf of bread jammed in his mouth, the demon peered about the empty room. Free? Free to go where? Free to do what? Oh dear, oh dear. Free perhaps to be enslaved by something far worse? No, no, no. Not I.
Chillbais waddled to a clothes chest, struggled up over the side to tumble in, then pulled the top closed.
*
Aman dragged Ebbin to the ruins atop Despot’s Barbican. Here, he turned to face the way they’d come, a fist tight on Ebbin’s shirt.
‘Why are you doing this?’ Ebbin asked in a plaintive whisper.
Aman slapped him. ‘Quiet. Your turn will come.’
‘He is near,’ the shade of Hinter said.
Aman tilted his crooked head in order to look skywards. ‘The moon is not right,’ he warned.
‘Soon,’ answered the shade.
Taya ran up. Her gossamer silks blew behind her like white flames. ‘He is here.’
Aman pushed Ebbin to his knees, then lowered himself on to one knee. He shook Ebbin, snarling, ‘Bow your head, slave.’
Ebbin could not have kept his head erect if he tried; something was hammering him down. Some unbearable pressure like the hand of a giant was squashing him as if he were an insect. A whimper slipped from him as he glimpsed the dirty bottom edge of a dark cloak before him.
‘Father,’ Aman murmured. ‘We remain your faithful servants.’
Ebbin whimpered, shaking. This was not for him. Such scenes were not to be witnessed by such as he. The pressure – the iron hand grinding him into the dirt – eased, and he caught his breath.
Aman straightened, yanked him up. ‘Stand now.’
He complied, but would not raise his gaze beyond the mud-spattered edge of the cloak. So, now it was his turn. A hand would clasp his arm or shoulder and the mask would be pressed to his face. He would be blind behind it, unable to breathe. He would die choking. And then … and then … what? What was this thing before him? Would he then become … it?
Some force compelled Ebbin’s gaze upwards. His eyes climbed to the oval gold mask, now a glowing circle of reflected light. The mysterious mocking smile engraved there was sly now, as if he and it shared some hidden knowledge unguessed at even by those surrounding them.
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