by L J Chappell
‘That’s not a very reassuring answer.’
‘I don’t have to reassure you: I am not your parent.’
‘How do you know which way to go?’
‘Mostly, we’re following that path,’ Slorn pointed at the beaten trail that led upwards away from them. ‘And I have my compass, just to make absolutely sure.’ He patted the side of his jacket, where his compass presumably lay snug in a pocket.
Despite Kiergard Slorn’s confidence, the light was starting to fade as the sun slunk behind the mountain tops, and it was becoming colder. He had urged them all to carry as little as possible, so they could travel as quickly and as far as they could before darkness fell. But if he had been hoping to get over the pass and descend back into civilisation before that happened, then they were impossibly far from their destination. They had not even reached the pass yet, but were still climbing further and further upwards, and there was no sign of any more level stretch ahead – nothing which indicated that they might begin their downward journey soon.
‘We have no thicker clothes,’ the mage said, ‘no food and almost no water. What can we hope to do?’
‘You can hope to save your breath,’ Slorn told him, ‘and move as quickly as you can.’
‘This is madness,’ the mage commented, muttering under his breath.
The muscles in his legs were sore from climbing, his hands and feet ached with the cold, and their situation was beginning to appear gradually more desperate. Even if they could somehow find a sheltered spot ahead, they weren’t carrying anything to make a fire.
It seemed more and more likely that Kiergard Slorn was simply pushing them onwards and upwards towards their deaths.
3
It was her job to kill Lord Skollet, half-brother of the hereditary ruler of Urthgard. He was widely rumoured to be both more intelligent and more pleasant than the majority of his family, and he exercised several roles within the kingdom. The trade missions, the fisheries, the Secret Police and the Inner Guard all reported directly to him. He was a powerful man and she had expected him to be cautious, perhaps with full-time protection: probably not a difficult target, but certainly awkward.
Unfortunately, he was dead before she even arrived on the island and that was bound to have some impact on her future.
She was good. She knew that, both from what her Masters had told her and from the fact that she had become Adept shortly after turning eighteen. Not the youngest ever, but one of the youngest. After that, she had hoped for two or three years of simple jobs with no problems and no complications. But this job had been tricky from the start.
Skollet was a powerful political figure locally, and she was far from home in a city and a land where the Guild had no presence. It was reassuring that the Masters thought she was good enough to handle the job, but they would also want to evaluate just how well she managed alone and far from any support. The contract had been lodged at the Guildhouse in Arafel, her home Guildhouse, even though Anhelm or even Emindur were both far closer to Urthgard. The Guildmasters had selected her.
And now things had gone wrong.
She reassured herself that, even if the assignment was a test, she hadn’t failed it – hadn’t done anything wrong. It wasn’t her fault that Skollet was already dead, and she couldn’t bring him back to life in order to kill him again.
Her difficulties with this contract had started before she had even reached Urthgard.
She had quickly discovered that all the regular ferries to Lanvik were running a simple overpriced shuttle service between the mainland and Stormhaven instead. All the private vessels for hundreds of miles around, including the fishing fleets, were treading that same route, bulging with pilgrims from every land she could think of. This was the year of the Emerald Crown, the solstice was next week, and it seemed that the whole world was heading for Tremark. It had been the wrong time to try and reach nearby Urthgard.
Eventually, she had paid an excessive amount for passage to Stormhaven and squeezed herself aboard a fat inshore vessel, barely capable of making the crossing, together with a hundred pilgrims from faraway Emmersby. Before they sailed, she found a corner on the deck where she could sit with her back against her bag and try to keep warm against the northern chill. The captain had estimated that the crossing would take four hours.
As they waited in the harbour, her fellow travellers had danced and sung happy religious songs around her. But after they set sail and the little boat began to be tossed about on the waves, the pilgrims became wretched figures huddled together, clinging onto the ropes and railings. Lines of them hunched over the railings, throwing up over the sides of the boat or, more often, into the wind – Emmersby was a small and landlocked country. Four hours later, the sight of Stormhaven was greeted by a chorus of desperate cheers.
From Stormhaven, in contrast, she found very cheap passage to Lanvik with a local merchantman that was simply ferrying back and fore between the two sides of the island. Full with pilgrims on the journey east, it then sailed back again nearly empty, over and over again. After next week, the week of the solstice, the demand would presumably reverse and the boat would ferry all the same people back home again, no doubt at the same inflated price. Their entire business was probably sustained by the profits from these short few weeks every three years.
Naturally, there was no Guildhouse in Lanvik.
Hell, there was no Guildhouse on the whole island, either in dark and miserable Urthgard or in the larger and more populous (but probably equally dark and miserable) Kingdom of Tremark on the east coast.
She found plenty of accommodation in the hostelries of Lanvik at reasonable rates, thanks to the same lack of demand that had facilitated her passage from Stormhaven, and chose a simple, clean place that overlooked the harbour.
There were eight rooms on the first floor but the only other occupant apart from her was a farmer from some remote province, come into town to arrange the sale of some livestock. He was overdressed all the time, anxious to avoid being taken for some rustic simpleton, and always wore what she presumed were his best clothes. That same anxiety forced him to talk to her, explain himself to her, even though he was clearly nervous around people he didn’t know. He smelled of northern trees and mud.
She decided to eat out, not simply to avoid her new neighbour, but also to gather information.
It was in the inns and taverns of Lanvik, as she first dined and later sampled the other available diversions of the town, that she discovered Lord Skollet was already dead: murdered, in fact, a few days earlier. Across a number of establishments of varying quality and reputation, she gathered what information she could: it wasn’t difficult. Skollet’s murder was the only interesting thing that had happened here for years, and everyone had made it their business to find out what they could and then to form an opinion about it.
Later, after the taverns had rung last orders (or, she suspected, “last orders” for anyone who wasn’t a regular), she returned to her room. She sat in the badly upholstered armchair that faced the window, firmly shuttered against the wind and the cold, and tried to determine how much of what she had heard was fact and how much was speculation and supposition.
Skollet’s body had been discovered by his household staff in the morning. The details of how he died were unclear, and there were several versions, but she assumed that the death had been untidy since the staff had known immediately that he had been murdered. They had called the Watch, and the Watch had locked down both the palace and the surrounding district.
Apparently they now had a mage locked up in prison, in isolation.
He had been seized by the Inner Guard, though reports varied as to whether this had taken place in the palace itself, in the streets around it, or as he attempted to board a ship at the harbour. No-one was exactly sure what had incriminated this mage, but they were all confident that he had no staff with him.
A mage without a staff – that was unusual: so unusual that perhaps he wasn’t really a mage, b
ut someone disguised as a mage. Since disguising yourself as a mage would only attract attention, her instinct was that this man was a decoy. The whole notion of a mage sneaking about at night and killing people in their beds didn’t sound like their style at all, not from what she had heard.
But maybe that was so obvious that it was what everyone was supposed to think.
A mage without a staff, behaving unusually, might be supposed to indicate the mage’s innocence: suggest that he had been set up, whoever he really was. And if that was the case, was this mage actually guilty after all?
But whether things were they way they first appeared or were a bluff, or were a double-bluff, it didn’t seem to matter to the townspeople of Lanvik. She had found them universally convinced of the mage’s guilt, and the main focus of their speculation now centred on how difficult it might be to execute him.
The truth of the situation was important to her, though.
It was her business, literally, and she wanted to understand the circumstances and consequences of her first unsuccessful contract: her first failure.
Who was this mage?
If he was guilty, then what was his motive and how had he done it?
What was the evidence against him, if there was any? Where and when had they taken him captive? If it was inside the palace, then that would be pretty damning. Or perhaps the exact manner of Lord Skollet’s death had indicated the hand of a mage.
On the other hand, if he was a decoy, then who was he a decoy for? Perhaps the whole ludicrous affair was misdirection, while more significant events took place elsewhere …
Her contract was void now, but she would stay a little longer and find out what she could about this prisoner, this mage. The principal payment was forfeit, of course, but the additional costs of a few extra days would be covered by the retainer.
There was a dedicated prison in Lanvik that held a number of debtors, minor felons and other miscreants, but they had chosen to incarcerate the mage in the old castle – a large black stone monstrosity near the city walls. She considered breaking in, to find the mage and talk to him in secret: perhaps kill him before she left Lanvik, depending on what he told her.
But she might be able to strike a deal with the local authorities.
Her methods of questioning were probably more effective than theirs – they were only amateurs, after all. Unless they had a role in the affair, she should be able to reach an accommodation with them. Talking with them would also give her an opportunity to find out what had happened, and what they knew.
As there would be no-one of any consequence awake at this hour, she would have to wait until tomorrow.
More than an hour before dawn, she was awakened by a commotion inside the hotel. People were moving through the ground floor, doors were crashing open and slamming shut and there were raised voices. As well as the heavy stamp of boots, she heard the sound of metal on wood and metal on metal, so the newcomers were probably in uniform – the City Guard, most likely.
By the time they reached her door, she was dressed and waiting for them.
When a gloved fist hammered three times on her door, she opened it and asked: ‘Can I help you?’
The startled officer apologised for disturbing her; searched the room; asked where she had been for the last few hours and how long she would be in Urthgard. When she explained that she was about to take a ship to Tremark, for the Festival, he warned her that all traffic from the port would be delayed. The whole town was being searched, he explained, starting with the premises of any foreign visitors or delegations.
She learned from him that the mage had now escaped his prison. No-one had seen anything, but a number of his guards were dead – the rescue had not been effected by magecraft, but by more traditional and brutal means.
It seemed that she was not only late for the kill, but now she was late for the killer as well.
It was not so early that there was any point going back to sleep, so she went downstairs to wait for breakfast. Everyone else in the hostel was awake and had the same idea: she found a quiet corner to sit and watch the others from. Her neighbour from the countryside smiled nervously at her when he appeared, wearing the same clothes as yesterday: her nod was friendly, but not friendly enough that he felt welcome to join her at her table.
After she had eaten, she dressed against the cold and went back out into Lanvik.
Last night, the streets had been dark, and that had helped conceal the true nature of the place. Now, in the daylight, there was nothing to hide the dirt, the aging rubbish discarded in the streets, the cramped, narrow, lanes squeezed between dark and oppressive buildings. Everything seemed in poor repair and run-down: squalid.
There were Watchmen, Guardsmen and Police everywhere. She stopped and talked to a few, offering them the friendly ear of a young and receptive visitor, and let them impress her with how much they knew. They had closed off the entire harbour, she learned, and were now searching all the vessels already docked. And they had established barriers and checkpoints on the roads that ran north and south. Officers had been posted on the little ferries that flitted back and fore between the towns strung out along the coast.
But despite all this activity, they had found nothing so far and no-one had seen anything.
If they hadn’t found them by now, it didn’t seem likely that the city authorities had any chance of recapturing the mage or of apprehending his rescuers, in which case there was nothing to be gained by staying here any longer. She would take the first ship out of Lanvik, as soon as the restrictions were lifted, and hope that the pilgrim traffic didn’t inconvenience her too much.
All the frustrated Watchmen she talked to seemed certain that the mage had simply disappeared – vanished – and most of them explained that by referring to the mage’s undoubted magical abilities. She was unconvinced, though: it seemed unlikely that anyone capable of vanishing in such a fashion would have chosen to first languish in the city’s prison for so many days.
Rather than “vanishing”, it was much more likely that the mage and his rescuers had simply gone somewhere that no-one thought to search for them.
She looked across to the sharp and snow-covered peaks of the “impassable” mountains that loomed over the town – the Black Dragon’s Teeth – and wondered.
Chapter Two
A Company of Thieves
1
Even if the sun had not been setting behind them, they were climbing through a pass between two steep rocky cliffs so jagged shadows left everything around them dark and only half-visible. Fortunately, the sky was clear above them so there was at least some light to see, even if that also meant it was bitterly cold. Forty minutes after they last rested, they spotted the first wooden pole ahead of them.
‘There!’ Bane pointed.
The sight of it seemed to lift all their hearts and there was renewed energy in the way they struggled forwards.
‘What is it?’ the mage asked.
‘These poles have been driven into the ground to show where the path is,’ Garran explained. ‘Even in summer, the pass can be covered in snow and difficult to find. The poles stop travellers from losing their way, or wandering into deep drifts.’
‘It means the highest point of the pass is only a mile or two ahead,’ Kiergard Slorn added. ‘It also means that the snow here is no deeper than it sometimes lies in summer. And that makes it passable, though not easy.’
‘But it’s dark, and it’s night. We’ll never get over the pass and down into Tremark.’
‘We won’t have to,’ Slorn assured him. ‘Count the poles. We can stop after fifty three.’
‘There’s the next one,’ Bane called from the front, pointing. He had passed the first pole and was peering forward into the half-darkness. Thankfully, given the poor light, they didn’t need the poles to navigate: they were still following the path that had been beaten through the snow ahead of them. It seemed that whoever had travelled this way before them had gone further than this.
They pushed forward into the night, cheeks stinging from the cold, and counted off the poles: three, then four, then five.
The mage had no idea what awaited them after fifty-three poles but Slorn had promised that they would stop then, so he didn’t really care. By now, he had followed the example of the others and almost completely covered his face so that only his eyes were visible.
Seven poles, then eight, then nine. And each one brought them closer to stopping, to resting.
Even though the snow on the path was packed down by the time he reached it, from time to time his feet would sink into it, or he would stumble and fall: throw out one arm to balance himself, or sink to one knee. So his clothes and his boots were cold and wet. Whenever he paused to catch his breath, he found the muscles of his arms and legs shivering and cramping.
‘Almost there, wizard,’ Thawn encouraged him from behind.
Twenty-three, twenty-four. Fifty-three had sounded like an impossibly large number, but it was a finite number and a finite goal. Twenty-five meant that they had come almost half-way since that first pole; and that hadn’t been too long ago.
The cold was bad.
In prison, he felt frozen all the time and had thought he might die from it, but prison had never been as cold as this. Even through his gloves and boots, he could hardly feel his hands and feet. But he could force himself onwards, force himself through the pain, as long as he knew there was an end to it.
Up ahead, Bane was still shouting out each time he spotted the next pole. Lifting them all.
At pole thirty-eight, they had to stop and climb, grabbing at outcrops of rock and pulling and pushing themselves up and becoming wetter and colder as they did. But at the top, where the path levelled off again, there was pole thirty-nine.
After that short climb, simply trudging forward through the half-darkness and the cold seemed much easier for a minute: difficult, almost beyond him, but not impossible. He looked down and concentrated on his feet, kept moving them one step after another. One-two, one-two, keep on going.
