The Cold Commands alffh-2

by Richard Morgan

  The King s man shrugged and turned away. Suit yourself. In here.

  Along the alley, he made a coded knocking on the narrow wooden door of a silent, darkened frontage. They waited. After a longish moment, the door opened on greased hinges and a burly figure in tunic and butcher s apron gestured them inside.

  Go on through, he told them. Stairs at the back. Eighth and thirteenth are dodgy.

  They went down a long, darkened corridor that stank of blood and grease, and up the rickety wooden stairs, counting. There were rooms beyond, candlelit, with pig carcasses hung and cuts of meat laid out on tables. Men worked away with knives, carefully not looking up as they passed. The King s man led them through it all to a back room lit only by bandlight falling in through a pair of broad sash windows. Bare boards, a few grain sacks stacked in corners, and a big wooden tub of what looked in the bluish light to be pig s blood and offal. The King s man waited until they assembled around him.

  All right, this is it, he said tensely. We go out one of these, and drop. I ll take you across the rooftops until we hit the Citadel curtain wall. After that, you re on your own. It s bedrock there, the crag the place is built on. Plenty of handholds, but it s a long climb. You sure you want to take that bloody great spike you re carrying up with you?

  It s lighter than it looks, Ringil told him.

  The King s man pursed his lips. Still going to get in the way going over. There s a chink in the battlements, old damage from the last time the Drowned Daughters beat the drum. But it s narrow, and so are the corridors up to the invigilator levels. Blade that long on your back, I don t know if I d

  I don t care what you d do. If this goes bad, I m not going up against the Citadel s men-at-arms with nothing longer on me than a sneak blade.

  The King s man glanced at Taran Alman for a moment. Alman shrugged. Gestured get on with it. The King s man grimaced.

  All right, then. Your choice. Now listen carefully. The senior invigilators quarters are on the far side of the keep so

  He knew. He d studied the floor plans of the place, along with the charcoal sketch of Menkarak s face smug-looking fucker was Egar s passing comment for a solid couple of hours before he left the cell. He knew the route, the probable exposure points, the few available bolt-hole options. He had it all by heart.

  Piece of cake, he d lied briskly to Archeth and Rakan as they went out to the stables together. I broke into tougher nests than this robbing krinzanz storehouses in harbor end when I was a kid.

  Yeah you didn t have the dwenda prowling around harbor end, snapped Archeth, not fooled. Whatever stopped Jhiral s assassins is going to be waiting for you, too. You watch yourself in there, Gil. Don t you get stupid.

  Who, me?

  He d winked at Rakan, but the young captain only looked away, troubled. And then the three of them took their mounts out to the palace gate to meet Taran Alman in shared, somber silence. is your best way out as well, The King s man finished up. This side of the keep is mostly slave quarters and storage, so the watch is pretty light. Handful of men, spread thin. There s supposed to be a sentry posted near the cracked battlement, but he won t be on site tonight.

  Remarkable. And how exactly do you know that?

  The King s man nodded at the wooden tub. Because he s in there. I put him there myself, six hours ago. Your path has been laid, northman. It remains only for you to walk it.

  Ringil spared a fastidious glance for the tub, playing it mostly for Rakan. He would have given a lot for half an hour alone with the Throne Eternal captain right now, preferably in a room without a corpse and a little better furnished than this, but, well, at a pinch, those grain sacks over in the corner, for example

  His mouth quirked. He put the image away.

  Peeled his cloak, unslung the Ravensfriend, dressed himself again with the sword and scabbard out in the open. Went to the nearest window and dragged up the sash a solid three feet. It moved as if on well-oiled wheels, no more noise than a gusting wind. The cooking-fire smells of the city blew in, competing with the stink of slaughter already in the room. Ringil peered out.

  The nearest roof was a short drop below, backed right up to the wall of the building they stood in. The wider roofscape extended off into darkness, blocks and slopes, and narrow gaps they would evidently have to leap. Barely visible beyond, the Citadel loomed on its crag like some huge, hunched vulture, roosting.

  He sighed. Come on, then. Let s get on with it.

  Fleet-footed across the jumbled topography of the roofs, just the two of them now, Ringil following the King s man, close as a second shadow. Flat roof, sloping roof, garden space, gap the route snaked back and forth, seeking advantage. In and out of shelter against chimneys and stumpy separating walls, pausing crouched while dim figures moved about or voices came and went on other rooftops in the smoky gloom. Leaping up and onward as soon as they were clear.

  Once, they heard a young woman s voice, singing soft and haunting from a window under the eaves, lullaby or lament, Ringil couldn t tell. And once, huddled against a cooling chimney stack, they heard a fragment of a children s tale come up the vent from the hearthside below. and when the handsome young Emperor heard this, he saw at once, like a blind man given sudden sight, that she had been true all along, and he was ashamed for his anger. Her quiet constancy melted the cold out of his heart, and he went down on one knee to fit the fated ring upon her finger. And her father, the blacksmith, was freed immediately from his bondage, brought to the palace, and honored for his faithful service with a medallion of rank bestowed by the Emperor himself before all the lords and ladies of the court. And everywhere in that great city, there was rejoicing in the justice that a common man and his daughter could

  Pressure on his arm. The King s man nodded, and they were off again. Leaping four-foot gaps across narrow alleys and the heads of people who never looked up. Balancing along the roof spine of a derelict storehouse, where the slates on either side were either gone to naked rafters, or too degraded to risk walking over. A couple of small fires glowed below in the ruined space, cloaked figures gathered close around; mumble of voices. Smoke coiled up through the rafters, blew in Ringil s face. He gagged and tried not to cough. They were cooking something pretty awful down there.

  Now the Citadel and its crag blocked out the whole sky ahead. They cleared one final alleyway, a little wider than the others, a five-foot leap this time, and landed on a shallow sloping roof, huddled in against the rising crag the Citadel was built on. They went up the slope, crouched low. The King s man raised his hand, fist clenched. Gil eased to a halt and peered forward. There was a final, treacherous three-foot gap between the top end of the roof and the skirts of the crag. The King s man perched near the edge, getting his breath back. He nodded over to where a collection of gnarled bushes grew out of the rock.

  You make the jump here, he said softly. Grab the bushes. They should hold

  Should? Fucking should?

  It got him a quick, involuntary grin. The King s man leaned a little closer, finger raised close to his lips.

  Will hold, he amended. Done it myself a couple of times. There s a slope beyond, it s scree and dust, and it s steep, but you can just about stand on it. The first holds are right above you. And up you go.

  Ringil tipped back his head to take in the bandlit loom of the crag, the way it bellied out just below the battlements over their heads. Looked like about a hundred feet. Mostly flat, then harder work toward the top. He flexed his hands a couple of times.

  You got your signal? the King s man asked him.

  He nodded. Touched his belt where the Kiriath flare was tied on.

  Remember how to use it?

  Indelibly. Archeth had walked him through how you coaxed the thing to life a dozen times or more, ignoring his protests that he d seen Grashgal and Flaradnam use the devices often enough in the war. Just keep your eyes peeled.

  Yeah, we ll be watching. The King s man did something peculiar with his hand at chest height. Only later would
Ringil realize it had been a horse-tribe salute. All right, then. Whenever you re ready.

  Ringil backed down the roof a few feet, took the run up, and leapt. Momentary flight, the black gap yawning below him, and then the bushes took him in their rough, slapped-face embrace. He screwed up his eyes to protect them against gouging

  Grab!

  His hands closed, he got thin twigs and started to slip. Grabbed again, got a decent-sized branch, planted his feet, felt one foot slide out from under, grabbed again, got a second branch, feet again, got purchase

  Hauled himself in.

  He hung there for a moment, breathing. Maneuvered himself around the bushes and onto the slope the King s man had mentioned. Discovered that steep was something of a euphemism.

  He spared one accusing glare back to where the other man crouched on the roof watching, but the distance and darkness made it impossible to make out expressions. He gave it up, found the first hold, and swung himself up into the climb.

  It went easily enough at first. Wind and rain down the numberless march of centuries had sculpted baroque cups and folds and ledges into the crag. There was space to brace himself and rest his hands; once or twice there were places he could actually stand on his boot tips, leaning into the wall with his sweaty forehead cooling against the rock and his aching arms at his sides. Small, wiry bushes grew from outcrops and gave him extra purchase. A basin-sized cup presented itself and he was able to get his whole arm in up to the elbow he leaned jauntily there for a while, one boot jammed in a crack below, the other swinging free. Peered down past his toes and saw how far he d come.

  Piece of piss. Nice quiet little climb.

  In his youth, he d scrambled and clambered around the ornately worked architecture of Trelayne s noble houses and decaying warehouse districts, with harbor-end toughs and the City Watch in cursing pursuit as often as not. In the war, he d scaled the cliffs at Demlarashan to escape a reptile peon horde and had run climbed reconnaissance in the mountains of Gergis and the Kiriath wastes with high-caste Scaled Folk hunting him. He was pretty much nerveless when it came to heights and dubious holds. More dangerous things were usually trying to kill him.

  Twenty feet below the Citadel battlements, the rock bellied out and the going got suddenly tougher. The cups and ledges shrank to grudging finger-width purchase; the folds became vertical and smooth. He d expected something like this it was the same kind of rock as in Demlarashan, so he d seen it before. But the darkness made it hard to pick a route except by touch, the angle he had to lean back at took an increasing toll on hands already numbed and aching, and his imminent arrival at the battlements meant he could not afford much noise.

  He came over the curve of the belly, panting, clinging by fingertips, scrabbling with one boot for a bracing hold, and the other leg hanging heavily down. Sweat in his eyes, fingers slipping by tiny fractions each time he grabbed he spotted the jagged crack in the battlements, saw he d come too far over to the left. Between where he was and where he needed to be, the bellied rock of the crag extended smooth and whitened in the bandlight, smugly devoid of decent features. Oh, okay, there was a crack over there in its surface, relic presumably of the same eruption and earthshaking that had split the battlement stone above, but it was a long fucking way off. Fingers slipping now, he lashed about with his foot, stubbed a toe badly on a spur, lashed again and got momentary purchase, pushed and leapt for the crack Missed.

  He saw his fingers brush the lip of the crack, saw them fail to grip, and his mind went blank. Rush of rock past his eyes, the kick of his guts in his throat

  Something dark, something cold reaching out.

  Salt in the wind, said a high, chilly voice somewhere. Out on the marsh.

  And later, he d swear he felt thin, freezing fingers wrap around his wrist, jerk his hand upward to the safety of the hold.

  Thecloud across his mind cleared, as if blown away by strong winds. Deep pulsing in his neck and chest. He was hanging from the crack in the rock by one hand, swung over to the right, both feet jammed awkwardly in below. He had no idea how he d done it.

  Never mind how you did it, Gil. Move!

  Hand over hand, up the crack, leaning right, boots stuffed in below at whatever twisted angle he could manage, fighting his body s attempts to hinge out sideways over the drop. Five feet of climb, and then he could reach up and clamp one hand onto the first of the fractured, dressed stone blocks in the battlement wall. He found a place where an entire block had pulled loose and tumbled downward, leaving a gap-toothed hole in the stonework. Above it, the wall had slumped apart along the line of the fracture. He got a grip with both hands, heaved himself into the gap as far as his chest, then hauled the rest of his body wearily after. He squeezed himself sideways into the space.

  Piece of piss. He was panting it to himself, cackling quietly. Nice, quiet. Little climb.

  He wedged his way upward between the fractured ends of the stonework, stopping every other move to free up the Ravensfriend s sharp end. Finally, he could poke his head over the battlements. Empty triangular courtyard below, a dry fountain in the center, and a cloistered walk on the far side. Memory of the map told him there was a corridor exit off to the left.

  As promised, no sentry in sight.

  He gave himself a minute or so to regather fighting strength and poise; then he swung bodily over the wall and dropped cat-footed to the courtyard floor. He slipped rapidly to the cloistered wall, and there the shadows swallowed him.

  CHAPTER 41

  Lamplight gleamed off the black iron loops and bulges where Angfal s bulk hung from her study wall. Tiny glass optics, thumbprint-small, burned green and yellow at her from scattered positions along the Helmsman s casings, like a forest full of mismatched eyes, watching her in the gloom. The roughly spider-shaped gathering of braced members and swollen central bulk up near the ceiling in the center of the wall never moved it never would, it was bolted in place with Kiriath riveting but it gave the constant impression of being poised to leap, or maybe just fall clumsily down on top of her. There was a haphazard, chaotic air to the way the engineers had installed Angfal, and it was a perfect match for the chaos of papers and books and chests of junk that littered the study. The Helmsman dominated the space. Its voice could have come from any given part of its misshapen body, or, for that matter, from any shadowed corner of the room.

  You choose an interesting time to report these matters to me, daughter of Flaradnam. What exactly has delayed you this long?

  Like Manathan, Angfal spoke in inflections that suggested a friendly maniac in conversation with a small child he might at any moment give a shiny coin to or just kill to eat. Hard to read much human into the tone. But to Archeth s long-accustomed ear, the Helmsman sounded genuinely worried.

  I ve been busy, she said.

  So it seems.

  She struggled not to feel defensive. Things are difficult at the moment.

  I m sure they are. Krinzanz is an insidious drug.

  That s not what I m talking about! I ve been at court

  Remarkable in itself, yes. Well done. Nonetheless, daughter of Flaradnam, you should have come to me sooner with this.

  I ve got a name of my own, you know.

  Even to her own ears, it sounded childishly sulky. But she was worn ragged and moody and tired, just in from parting company with Ringil at the river, filled with doubts and an anger that could find no clear focus, sprawled here behind the study desk, glowering up at Angfal s inscrutable, optic-spotted coils and cursing the stubborn will that kept her from raiding the krinzanz tincture in her larder. Want of the drug chewed along her nerves like tiny rats.

  Are you, then, so keen to cast off association with your father s people?

  Cast me off, didn t they? She kicked irritably at a pile of books on the corner of the desktop, clearing space for her legs. A couple of the tomes fell to the floor. How many fucking Kiriath do you see in here?

  I see half of one. Behaving badly.

  Yeah, well. Sh
e examined her right thumbnail, which she d recently bitten down to the quick. She couldn t remember doing it. Doing something, at least. We can t all sit sagely on the wall, sharpening our ironic wit and letting the world go to shit. Can we now?

  I believe you have just acknowledged the mission your father s people owned.

  And abandoned.

  Nonetheless

  Just use my fucking name, will you? She jumped up out of the chair, leaned on the desk with both hands, glaring up.

  Is that so much to ask? That s all I m asking, Angfal. Just ditch all this daughter of horseshit. You think the fact my father was Flaradnam the Wise makes any fucking difference to anything that s happening now, anything that I m likely to do? You think I want to be reminded every fucking time I come in here that, that

  She blinked, rapidly. Stared down at her hands.

  After a moment, she sat down again.

  Just use my name, she said quietly. All right?

  There was a long pause.

  You should have come to me sooner with this, Archeth Indamaninarmal.

  She coughed out a laugh. Yeah, okay. Got that. But I thought you would have known. Would have I don t know kept track of current events or something. Manathan seems to know everything that goes on around An-Monal. Anasharal can eavesdrop on conversations a hundred yards away, for all I know he can do it over miles.

  He cannot hear you now.

  No? She settled back into her chair. You sure of that?

  I have seen to it that he cannot.

  A tiny dripping in the pit of her stomach. Are you saying I can t trust Anasharal?

  There was a long pause, not something Angfal was prone to when he had the upper hand in a conversation.

  I am saying. The response seemed dragged out.

  That he cannot hear us now.

  Archeth blinked and sat up. It was hard to be sure, but she thought the light in the scattered optics had shifted, brightening in some, dimming in others. Yellow became green became yellow. Her eyes darted back and forth, trying to capture memory of what each optic had looked like before. She had never seen anything like it happen before, in Angfal or any other Helmsman.