The Ragged Man

by Lloyd, Tom

  Again he heard a tiny whisper somewhere behind him, this time more like the rustle of pages, and so faint it was nearly drowned out by the frantic drumming of his heart. Each of the tallboys had glass-fronted shelving at the top, filled with leather-bound books. Nothing within them moved.

  He waited a while, standing still and listening until he was forced to breathe deeply. Immediately there came a different sound, like fingertips being brushed gently against the wallpaper of the far wall. When he looked the sound faded to nothing, leaving him uncertain whether he’d heard anything at all.

  ‘Ah, my imagination’s playing tricks on me now,’ Cardinal Eleil declared rather more boldly than he felt. ‘You’re a foolish old man whose hearing isn’t as good as it once was, nothing more.’

  He opened one of the glass cases and ran his fingers down the spines of the books. ‘I refuse to pander to my imagination,’ he said aloud, finding the book he was looking for, ‘so I’ll look up that rune instead.’

  He flicked through the pages of the book with forced briskness, finding the section he was after easily enough. His familiarity with Elven runes was only very basic, limited to what he’d learned over the years within the Serian. The knife he kept in hand, underneath the book. It was an ornate weapon with a slim guard, gaudy but wickedly sharp.

  Heretical academics frequently used the runes in their correspondence to each other, often using them for code, though sometimes the cardinal suspected it was mere pretension on their part. The closeted idiots had no conception of the dangers their research could result in. The Serian had saves thousands of lives over the course of his service, stopping reckless and foolish academics playing with forces far beyond their control.

  ‘Aha,’ he announced to the empty room, ‘here we are. Azhi? Azhai?’ he read, fumbling slightly over the pronunciation since the book was written in Farlan, ‘and it means . . . oh. Well, not a lot.’ He sighed and glanced up at the room to check. It was still empty.

  ‘Azai; a concept requiring context, potentially implying weakness or absence,’ he read aloud. ‘Other possibilities are substitution, usurpation, manipulation or corruption. At its most basic it can mean the shadow of something.’

  His eyes flicked up to the mirror and he gave a gasp. At the corner of his vision he saw a faint movement on one side - too quick to catch, indeed, could have been the flash of an eyelash or trick of an ageing eye - but it had looked as though someone peeking through a window had ducked to the side of it.

  He checked the room again, knife held ready, but there was absolutely no one there ... but still he imagined soft whispers on the edge of hearing from the far corners of the room. Heart hammering, feeling both foolish and terrified at the same time, he moved back to the mirror and edged carefully around it, as though wary of something reaching out from the reflection. There was nothing there; the reflection showed an empty room and nothing more —

  He turned away, but as he did so he glimpsed a face, grey and formless in the glass, as though staring straight over his shoulder. Cardinal Eleil yelped with terror, dropping the book as he tripped over his own feet in his haste to turn. Behind him there was nothing, no man or shadow beyond those cast naturally.

  The room was grey now, a layer of gloom covering everything as twilight began its reign over the Land. With shaking hands Cardinal Eleil looked down at the book, but he couldn’t bring himself to retrieve it. It could stay there for the night happily enough. Only his trembling knees that threatened to give way underneath him prevented him from fleeing the room entirely.

  The ageing cardinal gripped the mantelpiece in an effort to steady himself, but as he did so the whispers from the far corners of the room increased. A fresh lurch of panic surged through his body. He looked into the mirror and for a moment thought he could see a faint shadowy face in the gloom, smiling malevolently over his shoulder. Then the image faded and he realised he’d been holding his breath out of fear. He put both hands on the reassuringly solid mantelpiece and bowed his head, his eyes closed as he drew in heaving breaths of air.

  ‘It’s pronounced “Az-ae-ir”,’ came a murmur in his ear.

  A moan of terror escaped his lips as pain flared in his chest. His eyes flashed open again, but this time the mirror was empty. A chill whisper of breath brushed his ear and Cardinal Eleil fell, his chest wrapped in burning agony.

  Ilumene leaned forward over the bed, a cruel smile on his face and a dagger in his fingers. The tower bedroom was dark, lamps still unlit though Blackfang’s shadow made the twilight even darker. Ruhen lay on the bed, fully dressed and laid out like a corpse, but as Ilumene watched his eyelids flickered and his lips twitched. There was a slight movement in the small boy’s cheek, then another. His eyebrows trembled . . . At last his lips parted and Ruhen gasped for breath, as though returning to life.

  ‘Old ones still the best, eh?’ Ilumene said with a grin.

  Ruhen turned his head to look at the big soldier from Narkang, the ghost of a smile on his face. He nodded solemnly as shadows danced in his eyes.

  Venn turned to the yellow eye of Alterr and listened to the silence around him. He stood at a tall arched window, opened wide to admit the cool night breeze. Capan stood at his side, and behind them were two of his best fighters. Each of the Harlequins was silent and motionless, waiting for the signal that their Oracle was satisfied.

  His three companions still wore their brightly patterned clothes. Their white masks shone in the greater moon’s weak light, while the bloody teardrops on their faces looked perfectly black.

  ‘Lomin sleeps,’ he said after a long moment. ‘It is time.’

  They had entered the city during the day, walking straight through Lomin’s formidable defences, and shown every courtesy by the guards on the gate. Venn had enjoyed the curious looks he’d received: a man in black with tattooed teardrops on his face travelling with a group of Harlequins. They’d erred on the side of caution and assumed he was to be treated with all possible respect, an intoxicating sensation for Venn after years of living in the shadows, of acting with all humility and resisting the urge to ever walk tall. Such respect from every person they met was more than welcome.

  Venn slipped out of the window and balanced on the sill before pulling himself up onto the roof with barely a sound. They were in the house of a local merchant and they needed to avoid alarming the man’s guards. Within a minute he was joined by Capan and Marn, one of the few female Harlequins under his command - though there was little to distinguish between the sexes within the clans. Marn stood a few inches above both Venn and Capan, and from her lithe movement Venn guessed she would push even him in combat.

  ‘Kail, follow us at a distance,’ Venn called down quietly to the last Harlequin, who had just come out onto the window sill. ‘We can spare your blades easily enough. Watch our backs in case I am more flawed than I realise.’

  Kail pursed his lips, but acquiesced, going back under cover. Venn didn’t believe the Wither Queen’s request had any hidden agenda, but caution was rarely punished. Like all Harlequins Kail was careful, and Venn knew nothing would escape his attention if there was anything to see.

  With Capan and Marn trailing him, Venn ghosted along the peak of the roof, spending as little time as possible in the moonlight. He hooked an arm around the neck of a stone gargoyle looking over the street and dropped beneath it. Its reaching claws provided an easy handhold and Venn hung by one arm as momentum carried him past. He kicked out and felt his toes touch the jutting capstone of the house’s double-height rear door. He let go, and for a moment he stood flat against the wall, on the balls of his feet, his arms pressed out wide as he caught his balance.

  Then he dropped, pushing off the wall so he fell freely, grabbing the capstone as he reached it and spreading his legs to catch his feet on the stone door jambs to silently absorb the force.

  A second kick to the side allowed him to reach the sill of a window beside the door and from there he dropped the remaining few feet to the ground. He
stepped back and checked the street for watching faces, but it was deep into the night and there were none. His descent from the roof had been virtually silent, with nothing more than a shoe scuffing on the stone.

  The others followed, perfectly mirroring his actions.

  Lomin was a compact city of tight, weaving streets and alleys, so close to the Great Forest that the inhabitants didn’t have the luxury of expanding beyond the city’s current boundary. The local laws were enshrined on the assumption of periodic siege, so nothing was permitted outside the thick stone walls, and the city elders had gone so far as to connect many of the largest buildings within the city to provide a second line of defence, should it ever be needed.

  Venn was already within the inner city, where most of the temples could be found, and from there it was a simple thing for the Harlequins to make their way to the Grand Square in the north-western corner, avoiding Lomin’s Keep, the ducal residence.

  The Grand Square itself was a misnamed, misshapen amalgamation. Centred on a monument to a past duke, it presently consisted of three expanses of open ground: the market to the north, the Temple District, that straddled the western piece, and a chaotic mass of open-air taverns and eateries in the southeast. There were some buildings in the Temple District, but they were all small and well spaced, so it looked more a part of the square than the rest of the cramped city.

  Apart from the multi-level many-roofed Temple of Nartis that marked the boundary between the secular and spiritual parts of the square, the temples were all single-storey constructions. Several were strung together and enclosed garden-shrines that the locals flocked to, but this night even the Temple of Etesia, Goddess of Lust, was quiet. The red and purple lanterns hanging from the temple’s eaves swayed gently in the breeze, and Venn heard only soft snores from within as he passed.

  He slipped into the jagged shadows of Vasle’s temple, any sound masked by the burble of water. The newest addition to the district was directly ahead of him, facing the cross-shaped Temple of Death on the edge of the square. The Wither Queen’s wooden temple looked poor by comparison; but for the sharp grey-blue painted spire rising from the centre of the peaked roof it could have been a sombre-looking barn.

  The roof and walls were black and the shutters covering the windows grey-blue. It looked far from welcoming, not least because of the dead garlands hanging from each corner of the temple.

  ‘Spread out, keep a watch for soldiers while I deal with the temple,’ Venn commanded Capan and Marn.

  Neither Harlequin argued as he set off, skirting the building to ensure there was no one awake nearby. The temple had been guarded earlier, but only by two soldiers stationed on the nearer side, either side of the door. He slipped on a black hood and crept forward, using the spire as a guide.

  When he reached the last piece of cover Venn paused. He had no doubt that he could kill both soldiers with ease, but he didn’t want to risk them shouting as he did so. He climbed the low building he was hiding behind and crouched on the thatch roof, keeping the peak between him and the guards as he drew his swords. Then he walked along the roof’s supporting beam until he was at the peak and peered over the top: the two guards were lazing almost exactly where he’d pictured them.

  Venn took a deep breath and launched himself forward, cresting the roof and sprinting down the other side, leaping from the edge with one sword raised. He landed a little from the nearer guard and slashed his sword into the man’s neck as he passed. The man had barely begun to turn when Venn opened his throat; he released his sword, dipped his left shoulder and rolled, bringing his legs under him and pushing hard to drive him onwards. He was back on his feet and lunging forward at the second guard in the same moment, but the man had not moved more than an inch when Venn’s slender sword pierced his heart like a stiletto.

  The former Harlequin made up the ground in a flash and grabbed the soldier by the arm just as the man’s knees realised what had happened and gave way. Venn punched him in the throat to crush his windpipe and ensure quiet and he sank to the ground without a sound.

  Venn looked around. There were no startled faces or vengeful comrades watching, just Rojak chuckling away at the back of his mind.

  He pulled the bodies into the shadows of the recessed doorway and retrieved his swords, sheathing one as he went around to the rear of the temple. He was keen to get out of sight of Death’s temple as soon as possible - though it was unlikely any priests were awake at this hour, all of Death’s temples lacked doors and the torches were kept burning outside and would need replenishing from time to time.

  At the back of the Wither Queen’s temple he found an annex, half the height of the temple. The door was locked, but Venn placed one finger into the lock and put his other hand on the Skull of Song hanging from his waist. In half a dozen heartbeats he felt the slight click of the lock opening as Jackdaw did his work.

  He slipped through the door and closed it behind him, finding himself in a small kitchen. On his left was a pallet where a young girl sprawled, still asleep. He put a hand over her mouth and stabbed down into her heart and her eyes flashed open, the whites shining bright as she struggled for one moment of utter panic before falling limp.

  The priestess through the next door was lying face-down on her bed, a naked youth beside her. He stabbed the boy, then dropped down to kneel on her back and yanked her head back hard enough to snap her neck. The lovers died within an instant of each other.

  Venn checked the main body of the temple quickly. There were only supposed to be three people inside and he’d taken care of three people . . . He spent a minute standing at the entrance listening, trying to ignore the beat of his heart. It was pitch-black inside and he could see nothing at all. Once he was certain he was alone he ordered Jackdaw to cast a faint illumination around the room and saw eight rows of pews running down the centre of the room, icons of the other four Reapers on the side walls, a bedroll in a corner, still done-up, and little else. Long hanging drapes covered the walls, except where an icon or lamp had been fixed to the wall, leaving the bare wood visible.

  The altar was a table covered in cloth, too dull in this light to be plain white, below a larger icon of the Wither Queen. Venn examined the image of the Reaper Aspect, which depicted her as tall and imperious. Her bearing was a little more regal and a little less cruel than the God he had met.

  He sniffed; there was decay in the air. It took him a while to trace it, until he spotted a cage of some sort. As he got nearer he realised there was a dead dog in it - no doubt it had been diseased when they brought it here as some sort of tribute, but even in the dim light Venn was able to see it had been dead for a while.

  ‘When you are a God, minstrel,’ Venn said softly, ‘your temple will look like this.’

  He didn’t wait for a response from Rojak as he dragged the bodies of the soldiers inside, dumping one with the novice and the other with the priestess. It was unlikely he would be fooling anyone, but there was no point advertising what he’d done. Once he’d finished Venn went around the drapes in the main room and Jackdaw set them all alight before doing the same in the two smaller rooms.

  Confident the blaze would soon take the whole building Venn headed for the refuge of the dark narrow streets beyond the Temple District. At the Temple of Tsatach he hesitated, but the cordon of bronze fire-bowls around it were all burning low, the light they cast fitful. He weaved his way between the stone pillars that supported the shallow bowls, but stopped when he reached the other side when he spotted a unit of armed men dressed as Penitents of Death.

  They hadn’t seen him yet, but Venn had no illusions; it would take them only moments.

  A shame for you I didn’t come alone, Venn thought, advancing towards the penitents.

  The first man to notice him took a step back in surprise, his mouth opening to cry out, but no sound came. Marn darted out from behind him, leaving her leading sword in his throat. She pivoted around the man and slashed across the face of the next penitent to turn her
way. The group had barely registered her presence when Capan danced forward from the other side, his blades swinging in unison. One fell, then another in the next swift stroke. Venn himself was already moving, slicing across a wrist, dodging sideways around a spear, cutting across a man’s mouth . . .

  He didn’t wait to watch the penitent fall but kicked the one he’d winged and drove him back into the last man standing. Before either could recover their balance Marn had finished them both off with an elegant double swipe.

  Venn didn’t see any point in hanging around waiting for more temple troops to arrive. He led the Harlequins into the tight, twisting streets and on to find Kail. As they arrived, Kail stepped out from a covered walkway, dragging with him a woman with dyed coppery hair and a split lip, cradling a broken arm.

  ‘Your instincts were correct,’ Kail informed Venn with a bow.

  ‘A devotee of the Lady?’ Venn wondered aloud. ‘What is your argument with us?’

  The woman spat on the ground at his feet.

  Venn could see she was trying to fight pain and shock. ‘I do not have time for this,’ he declared. ‘Bring her.’