The Enemy Within

by Christie Golden

  The salve burned and stung, and tears poured down Dagmar’s mutilated face. When she had finished, Rozalia left, closing the door behind her. At the sound of the slam, the cats became alert once more. Purring and rubbing along the length of the prisoner, they moved slowly up her body to again attack her face.

  Dagmar began to scream.

  “Is she coming around?” asked Malken as Rozalia entered the dining area. Rozalia jumped.

  “Malken! What are you—” She had been about to say “What are you doing here?” but realized how offensive such a statement would seem. She had never before seen Malken at Darkhaaven for two nights in a row. “I am surprised to see you here,” she amended.

  Malken had been guzzling a glass of wine. His mask was that of a woodland satyr, and red liquid trickled from its thin-lipped, grinning mouth. From behind its slanted eyeholes, Malken’s own eyes sparkled with mirth at her consternation. “I’ve been able to take more time away from my other duties recently,” he explained. “Is she coming around?”

  Rozalia shrugged skinny shoulders. “A day or two more, and she’ll dance on the table if you want her to.”

  “Permission to enter, Lord Malken?” came a smooth voice. Startled again, Rozalia glanced up to see one of Malken’s most trusted servants standing in the doorway. Galbrai was smiling slightly, the gesture crinkling the crisscross of scars on his face and illuminating his restless eyes. “I have the week’s donations—and something you should see. If I may?”

  Malken waved the henchman forward. Galbrai shrugged out of his gray cape, leaving it in a pool on the rich carpeting. One of the cats common to Darkhaaven, a small tortoiseshell, hastened to him. Purring, she rubbed his leg. He picked her up, carrying her in one hand, a large sack in the other. Approaching Malken, Galbrai plopped the sack on the table. Malken smiled at the sound of coins resettling.

  “Poor Seetah,” he said, indicating the cat. “She misses you so when you are gone. Why don’t you take her with you on your collection rounds?”

  Galbrai scratched the purring creature behind the ears. “She wants attention too much. She distracts.”

  “Ah, but she is an extra pair of eyes and ears. Had Raphael and his group of careless fools had their cats to keep watch, they might not have been surprised.”

  Galbrai grinned malevolently. “My own eyes and ears do just fine.” He set the cat down. Opening the sack, Galbrai rummaged around and came out with a small pouch. He handed it to Malken. “That is the baker’s donation for the week.”

  Malken slowly opened the pouch. A frown crossed his features. “Let’s hope he does better next week.” Disgustedly, Malken withdrew the item in the pouch and glared at it. It was a still-bloody finger, with a simple gold wedding band on it.

  Malken worked at the band, managing to get it off. He tossed it back to Galbrai. “This should be worth a little something, at least. Have it melted down. As for the baker, next time it’s the hand. A third time, and he won’t have to worry about paying us at all.”

  He spared the severed digit a final, annoyed glance. Turning to one of the great cats chained to the walls, Malken smiled. “Here, girl—catch,” he said. The finger flew through the air to vanish in the cat’s hungry mouth. A pink tongue crept out to lick silver whiskers.

  Greedily, Malken rummaged through the sack. “Excellent, excellent,” he approved as he found the rest of the pouches filled to his satisfaction. “You have such winning ways, Galbrai.”

  Smiling, Galbrai bowed mockingly. Malken withdrew approximately half of the small pouches; the rest he left in the sack. He retied the sack, which was still heavy with coins, and rose, jingling it slightly. With a reluctant glance at the half-empty bottle of wine, he gestured to Rozalia. “Come, my dear. It’s time for us to visit the mayor. And then—some sport.”

  Tristan couldn’t see. A thick substance caked his face, gluing his lashes to his cheeks. He swore softly and scraped at the caked-on fluid, wondering what it could be. He must have dozed in his laboratory, he told himself, and toppled a bottle of some sort of potion.

  But no, that wasn’t it—now that he had come more fully awake, he realized he was in bed. Then what—? He worked his face, feeling bits of the substance flake off until he could blink his eyes open. He gasped softly.

  He was in a bedroom, but not his own. Several candles smoked in chipped and dented holders, giving off the reek of cheap tallow, which mixed with an overwhelming scent of equally cheap perfume. Neither odor did much to cover the smell of stale sweat. The room the candles illuminated, a boudoir, was small and cramped, the furnishings battered and painted with gilt that was already peeling off. The bed was soft, far too soft to provide any support, and smothered in sheets that bore old, yellowed stains.

  Tristan glanced down at himself and received another shock. The material that had caked his eyes shut and crusted his clothing was dried blood. Rolling over, he gasped in revolted horror and scrambled backward, falling off the bed in his terror.

  Sprawled on the bed was a corpse, the grisly source of the blood that had sealed shut his eyes. Her eyes had been savagely sliced out, along with her nose, ears and lips. The bloody features were arranged in a horrible parody of a face on the pillow beside her—the pillow on which Tristan had slept. Tristan recognized the monstrous mutilation as the traditional “signature” of the killer—of Malken—of Tristan’s own unaware, unwilling body. The knife, the weapon that had removed her organs of sight, sound, scent, and speech with diabolically surgical precision, was now buried to the hilt in her white throat.

  Tristan covered his mouth with his hand and willed himself not to vomit, but his stomach rebelled. He staggered over to the window and emptied his stomach into the alley below. Pale, shaking, he forced himself to look back at the girl. As he turned around, he saw the message his dreadful enemy had left for him.

  A large but low-quality mirror had been turned to face the bed. The one word message, five-inch letters written in blood, sneered: SUPPRIZE!

  Tristan cried out brokenly, angrily, and reached for a something to hurl at the offensive letters. His hand fell on a smooth heavy object. He raised it, intending to smash the mirror, then stared at his reflection, realizing the item he clutched in his white-knuckled hand was his own walking cane.

  A sharp knock came at the door. Tristan’s heart leapt.

  “Raina?” came a female voice sharp with fear. “Honey, everything all right in there?” A pause. Tristan froze, his heart pounding. The rapping was repeated, with more urgency. “Raina? Raina, answer me!” The doorknob rattled, but the luckless prostitute had locked the door. Malken, no doubt, had promised to pay handsomely for privacy. The sound broke Tristan’s paralysis, and he leapt for the window.

  He knew he hadn’t killed the girl, that Malken had done it, but the law did not recognize such distinctions. They would condemn him for the murder at once if he were found in here with blood quite literally on his face. Tristan paused only to tear off the blood-soaked tunic—a bright green monstrosity he had never before seen—and abandon it. He slipped out the window. Behind him, he heard voices outside the door and then a mighty crash as the door was forced. The knight fled, running swiftly and silently, casting fleeting glances at the ill-lit street signs in a desperate attempt to figure out exactly where he was.

  One sign proclaimed the street “Candlewick Way,” and Tristan realized he was in the Merchant’s Quarter. He was trying to place the street in his mind when he heard the reedy sound of a whistle—a guard’s whistle. He risked a look backward to see a guard climbing out the same window from which Tristan had just emerged. “There he is! Heading down Candlewick Way!”

  Tristan ducked into an alley, merged with the shadows as best he could, clutched his cane tightly to his chest, and quickly muttered an incantation with the feverishness of a prayer.

  When the three guards skidded around the corner scant seconds later, they were faced with the unthinkable. The alley ended in a blank wall after ten yards. They had lost
sight of their quarry for only an instant, and he had certainly gone in here. All that met their baffled gazes, however, were piles of rotting trash and one irate pigeon, which whirred up at their approach to perch on the neighboring roof.

  The lieutenant in charge of the party sighed and sagged against the building. “Captain Skolsson isn’t going to like this,” he moaned. “We nearly had him! We were that close!”

  One of the sergeants put away her sword and began to tentatively probe the sides of the buildings. “Maybe a trapdoor?” she hazarded. The commanding officer brightened, and he and his second-in-command joined her in the search.

  “Are we even sure it was him?” asked the second sergeant, dropping to all fours to inspect the ground.

  The lieutenant nodded miserably. “Definitely. That’s the second corpse I’ve seen, and the markings were the same. Gods, what a sick thing he is.”

  “Could be an imitator,” said the first sergeant, finishing her inspection. “The man we chased didn’t fit any of the descriptions.”

  The lieutenant nodded. “Maybe. I don’t know. Only thing I know is we let a murderer escape, and it happened on my watch.”

  The pigeon listened with interest and watched them continue to futilely explore the empty alley. At last, they gave up. With relief, Tristan watched them go. So intent was he on what was happening below, he failed to notice his own peril until it was almost too late. Just in time, he caught a glimpse of the black-and-white cat directly behind him, crouched to spring. His heart leapt, and he surged forward into the open air. The cat hissed angrily, its ears flat and tail lashing.

  Twice tonight I’ve cheated you, Malken, Tristan thought with satisfaction. Tristan dived and swooped, finally rising above the rooftops of Kantora and heading north toward Faerhaaven.

  Mahai 9th: Malken orchestrated this terrible, tragic display to frighten me, Tristan scribbled in his diary after a few hours’ sleep, but it has had precisely the opposite effect. I may not have the knowledge—yet—to divorce myself from this fiendish creature, but I do know how to keep him unaware of me.

  Tristan flipped back through the diary, mentally going over the spells he had tried thus far—all without success. The spell interrupted by Sigfrid’s arrival had proved not to work at all. It had been a spell that would show Tristan’s true nature. Upon looking at himself in the mirror, he found that nothing had changed. The one consolation was that he now knew with absolute certainty his true nature was, at least thus far, still that of Tristan Hiregaard—not Malken the Cat. Provided, of course, the spell had worked. He had also cast a magical ring of protection around himself before sleeping. Obviously, that had not worked either. It would have protected Tristan from outside attack—but Malken appeared inside the circle, and the spell failed.

  He rose and began to dress. Just as he reached the door, a folded piece of parchment was slipped underneath it. Tristan opened the door to a startled Guillaume. “Good morning,” Tristan greeted him, bending to pick up the note.

  “Oh—good morning, sir,” replied the servant, recovering his customary poise. “Captain Skolsson was just here; he gave me that note for you. It’s the fifth one he left, I think.”

  “Fifth?” Tristan didn’t remember receiving any. When at Faerhaaven, Tristan worked with single-minded intensity; when not … “Is he still here?”

  “He just left, sir. Someone could ride after him; he won’t have gotten far.”

  “Yes, send someone after Captain Skolsson. I’ll meet him in the main receiving room.” Good timing, Sig, he thought. While he was still intent on continuing his quest for a spell to separate himself and Malken, he could take a few minutes to see what Sigfrid had come up with. He hastened to dress and drink his magical tea before going to meet Sigfrid. If the young soldier had information for him about the Claws, Tristan wanted to be sure Malken didn’t know about it.

  “Sig, you look dreadful,” he exclaimed as he entered. “Care for something to break your fast?”

  “You don’t look so good yourself,” Sigfrid retorted. It was true. Both men looked pale and tired, as if they had aged years in the last week. “And yes, thank you, I’ll have something to eat.”

  Sigfrid, despite his words, barely touched his food as they talked. “Have you read my messages?”

  Slightly embarrassed, Tristan answered, “Honestly, no. I’ve been too caught up in my projects.” Sigfrid said nothing, but his mouth thinned in disapproval.

  “You’d better read them before we start talking, then.” His tone was not the one usually assumed when he spoke with Tristan, either in public or in private, but Tristan put it down to the strain evident on the younger man’s face. Whatever he had been involved in recently, it had taken a harsh toll.

  He was eating an apple when he picked up the first note, but the words grabbed him and he continued reading, the fruit still held in his hand.

  Tris—

  The Paw of the Cat is a rookery, not an orphanage! Captured a girl—hope she’ll talk.

  —S.

  Tris—

  We need your help—don’t know if I can handle this on my own. While I was here last night, a Claw visited the prison. Later, a cat with poisoned claws killed the girl. Horrible poison—more later. Contact me soon.

  —S.

  Tris—

  Renfred was killed and Dagmar is missing after they buried the girl. Found the Claw who came to visit the orphan in prison—tracked him—need to talk to you NOW!

  —S.

  TRIS—

  For mercy’s sake contact me!

  —S

  Tristan raised shocked eyes to Sigfrid. “I was growing a little impatient,” understated Sigfrid. “I know you’re busy.…”

  Tristan had originally planned to continue his search for a spell, but he knew where he was needed. The quest could wait a day.

  “Fill me in, Sigfrid,” he said.

  The night was thick with mist, and a steady drizzle pattered down on Tristan, Sigfrid, and Luath. No doubt, thought Sigfrid glumly as he adjusted his rain-heavy wool cloak, the flowers would be blooming on the plains tomorrow, enjoying the rare rain. He, however, was thoroughly uncomfortable. The great hound, too, looked as if he wished to be home before a blazing fire.

  They were standing in the back of the Red Horse, the pub where Sigfrid had gotten his first look at the Claw with the scars and the restless eyes. Earlier that afternoon, Tristan had contacted Sigfrid. When Tristan arrived with his hound trotting happily at his heels, Sigfrid had raised an eyebrow curiously. Tristan had smiled, a hard, satisfied smile. “Cats don’t like dogs very much. I hope Luath’s scent will keep them away.”

  “They certainly bothered me when I was a dog,” protested Sigfrid.

  “Ah, but you weren’t a dog. You had the scent of a human. That would be enough to attract Malken’s attention. Luath, however,” he said, wrinkling his nose as the scent of wet dog wafted up to them, “smells entirely like a canine.”

  Sigfrid pointed down the alley. “That’s where the child handed him the gray cloak. He seemed familiar, somehow, but I don’t know what he reminded me of.”

  “I do,” said Tristan shortly. “We pursued three or four similarly cloaked figures outside the Merry Mermaid the night Enoch and Hannelore were killed.”

  “That’s right!” exclaimed Sigfrid. “And only the coins of highest value were taken. I remember now.”

  “Why clutter yourself with copper if you’ve come collecting for gold?” said Tristan in a hard voice. “Come on. I want some answers.”

  Luath was well trained, and for all his hulking size, stayed quiet as his master and Sigfrid went from pub to pub, store to store. They did not go by the back alleys, but entered the buildings properly, by the front doors. When questioned, expressions ranged from uncomfortable to terrified, but everyone professed ignorance. Sigfrid expected as much, but was surprised at how swiftly Tristan’s temper seemed to rise.

  As they walked out of the seventh shop with no more information t
han they had had when they started, Tristan swore under his breath. “They have to trust us. The only way we can put an end to this extortion is if we have information, damn it!”

  “Easy, Tris,” Sigfrid soothed. “You’ve got to remember these people are frightened for their lives.”

  They had reached the local bakery. “This is where the scarred priest went inside for a little bit. He came out empty-handed,” said Tristan.

  “Any sounds of a struggle?”

  “Nothing.”

  Tristan pounded heavily on the door. “We’re closed,” came a voice thin and high with fear.

  “I know,” snapped Tristan. “This is Sir Tristan Hiregaard and my second-in-command, Captain Sigfrid Skolsson. We have some questions for you. Open. Please,” he added.

  They heard the sound of locks being pulled back, and the door eased open a crack. “What do you want?”

  Tristan was in no mood to pamper a frightened baker’s fears and stepped boldly forward, forcing the door open with his shoulder. Sigfrid and Luath followed. Tristan got right to the heart of the matter. “Were you visited last week by a man dressed as a priest of Sehkmaa?”

  The baker, a pale, round man with a face as doughy as the bread he worked, went even paler. A small gasp escaped him. “Why, no,” he said, stammering. “I make donations, of course, as do all who honor Sehk—”

  Tristan’s eyes, almost as restless as those of the man he was pursuing, swept the area. He saw nothing out of order—a large table in the back upon which the bread was worked, ovens, their fires cooled now, and various other implements necessary to a trade in baking. He scrutinized the baker himself with equal alertness, observing the fact that, late as the hour was, the man was still dressed. Tristan’s eyes narrowed as his gaze fastened on the man’s left arm. The baker was very careful to keep it behind his back as he spoke.

  Without a word, Tristan’s hand shot out and seized the baker’s arm, grasping it painfully and bringing the hand into view. “What happened?” The extremity was swathed in bandages, and Tristan could see that the fourth finger was missing.