Night of Knives

CHAPTER TWO

The fisherman set down the rind of bread and left his bowl of soup steaming on the table. He went to the window where a rag of cloth fluttered in a frigid south wind. From beside the fire, his wife turned towards him. ‘What is it, Toben?’

He pushed aside the rag, stared to the south for a moment. When he turned back to her, his eyes were downcast. ‘I’ve got to go out, love.’

‘Now?’ She lowered the sweater she was mending to her lap.

‘Aye.’

‘There’s no fish to be caught by the light of this moon.’

‘True enough — it draws other things.’

‘You’ve never had to go out any of the other times.’

‘No.’ He came to her, gently drew the sweater from her hands. ‘Things aren’t as they were before. They’re all out of balance.’

She raised a hand; he took it and she grasped tightly. ‘Don’t go out,’ she whispered, fierce. ‘Please don’t. I dread it.’

He bowed to kiss her eyes, each sightless, each staring. ‘Sorry, my chick. I must.’

’Then you know you go with my love.’

‘Yes, dear one.’

The fisherman drew on the sweater. He shovelled embers from the hearth into a brazier, then filled a short clay pipe and lit it with an ember from the fire.

‘Good-night, love.’ He smiled. ‘Sing for me, won’t you?’

She raised a hand. ‘You know I do. Come back quickly.’

‘I will. Soon as I can.’

She turned her head to listen to the door, heard the wind moaning through the rocks, the ocean heaving itself against the shore with slow, insistent pressure. The door latched shut. She lowered her head and folded her hands in her lap.

The wind blew steady and chill. Clouds raced overhead — the leading banners of a solid front filling the entire south horizon. Beneath the silver eye of the newly risen moon nothing moved among the shacks perched on the barren southern shore of Malaz Isle except the fisherman picking his way down to the wave-pounded shingle. In the lashing wind his brazier flamed like a beacon. For a moment he stopped to listen; he thought he heard the hint of a hound’s bay caught on the wind. Squinting towards the south he grimaced: along the dark horizon of cloud and sea blue-green lights flashed like mast-fire. Lights that sailors claimed lured men to their doom.

He found the surf had risen almost within reach of his beached skiff. He set the brazier into an iron stand at the middle thwart, put his shoulder to the bow, then jerked away as if stung: scaled ice covered the wood like a second skin. He mouthed a curse and laid a hand against the wood. The ice melted, beading to condensation over the age-polished wood and steaming into vapour the wind snatched away. Singing low under his breath, the fisherman shoved against the prow. The skiff skimmed over the stones and he pushed on, wading into the surf up to his thighs, then clambered in.

While he pulled on the thick wood oars, he chanted a song that was old when men and women first set foot upon the island. The humped, time-worn bedrock hills shrank into the distance as if the raging wind itself had swept the island away.

With one oar he turned the skiff amid the waves, then turned around to face the stern, bow to the south. Between the skiff and Malaz, now a dark distant line at the north horizon, the sea rose in slow heavy swells as smooth as the island’s ancient hills. Hail lashed white-capped waves all around, yet none touched the fisherman’s grey hair as it tossed in the wind. Deep ocean surge, tall as any vessel, bore down on him, ice-webbed, frost and spume-topped. But they rolled under his bow as gently as a meadow slope while he crooned to the wind.

Out of the south the storm-front advanced, thickening into a solid line of churning clouds. Driven snow and sleet melted to rain that dissipated long before reaching the skiff. Lightning crackled amid the clouds while beneath emerald and deepest blue flashed like wave-buoyed gemstones. The fisherman saw none of this; facing north, teeth clamped down on his pipe, he droned his chant while the wind snatched the words away.

Kiska soon lost track of the fellow who had popped up so suddenly before her at the wharves. Again, she smelled the Warrens in that, and hoped the possibility of a tail never occurred to him. If it had, he’d be right behind her now, waiting, watching from a path in the Rashan Warren of Darkness or perhaps even Hood’s own demesnes, the Paths of the Dead. Though on a night like this accessing either of those seemed imprudent, even to her.

The trail of her target and his guards led her inland through the warehouse district, continuing on into the poorest quarters of rag shops, bone Tenderers, money lenders, and tanneries. If her quarry kept on in this direction he would soon confront an even fouler neighbourhood, the Mouse — the filthiest, lowest, and most disease-infested locale in the city.

At the first muddy lane bridged by plank walkways, her mark’s trail turned abruptly northward. Kiska was not surprised by the sudden change in direction; she imagined their disgust at the redolent sewage and rotting kitchen refuse awash in stagnant water that percolated from a nearby marsh. She could have pursued them easily enough through the maze of alleys, especially now, as many of the ways were nothing more than glutinous paths through the blackened wreckage left by last summer’s riots. But it was mainly because she’d grown up in this quarter, spent her life clawing out of it, that she was reluctant, always, to enter its ways again.

The trail led on up a gentle grade leading to the wealthy merchant centre. It crossed market lanes and angled more or less straight north, up cobbled arcades past shop fronts, closed and shuttered now against the coming night. Through the cloth merchant district it continued on, climbing hills northwest into the Lightings, the old estate quarter. Most of the manor houses stood vacant behind tall gates. Now they served merely as provincial retreats for the aristocratic families that had transferred their interests north, across the Strait of Winds, to the Imperial court at Unta.

The evening had cooled rapidly. A frigid wind from the south, out of the Sea of Storms, gusted down from the isle’s meagre headlands. The cloud cover remained unbroken, sweeping northward like driven smoke. Her heavy cloak billowed, snagging as she kept to the ivy-choked iron fences that lined the district’s boulevards. One edge of it remained tight against her side, however: the right side, held straight by the crossbow stock disguised inside her cloak.

Kiska paused in the shadow of an ancient pillar, a plinth for the marble statue of a Nacht, the fanged and winged creature once said to have inhabited the island. The streets were deserted. The last souls she’d seen, other than glimpses of her target and escort, were a few stragglers. Hunched under shawls and scarves, they’d hurried home as night lowered.

Tonight. This night of all possible nights. Shadow Moon; All Souls’ Fest; the Night of Shadows. Its titles seemed endless. Kiska had grown up hearing all the old legends, tales so imaginative and fabulous she rolled her eyes whenever her mother dragged them out. That was until a few days ago, when she’d overheard that by some arcane and unspecified means a Shadow Moon was predicted for tonight. Since then she’d eavesdropped on talk that lingered around gruesome stories of monstrous hounds, vengeful shades, and that local haunt, the Deadhouse. Any mention of those precincts brought wardings and whispered hints of even darker legends; tales of fiends so malevolent to have once inhabited it, as if borrowing something of its ancient brooding essence — Kellanved, Dancer, Surly, and the dark heart of the Empire to come.

From the stories she’d overheard, it seemed to her that everyone had an ancestor or relative who’d disappeared during a Shadow Moon. As good a night as any, she figured cynically, to run out on a harridan wife or ne’er-do-well husband.

Right now her own mother was no doubt barricaded in her room, eyes clenched shut, mouthing prayers to Chem — the old local sea cult — for the safety of her and her own. If she’d spoken to her within the last few days, she probably would have attempted to keep her indoors this night, just as Agayla had done during the riots of the Regent’s new laws. But she’d grown up ignoring her mother’s prohibitions on almost everything, so why heed them now? Especially when this was the first Shadow Moon in her lifetime.

Those she followed walked the deserted lanes boldly. For them tonight held no dangers. If they knew of the legends — which was doubtful — they would probably view it as nothing more than a quaint local custom during which souls, monsters, and fiends purportedly took to the streets. Her home’s backwater superstition shamed Kiska. Yet what if she did break off the surveillance? Run to hide in a sacred precinct or temple? If she abandoned the pursuit now she could already imagine the Claw commander’s sneer. After all, what more could one expect of local talent?

Ahead in the distance, flattened by the overcast gloom, her quarry and guards continued to climb the cobbled street. Ground fog rose now, swirling in the wind, as her target rounded a corner and vanished. Kiska kept behind cover. For all she knew they could be waiting just ahead. She could walk right past them and not know until cold iron slid between her ribs. Or, more likely, a knotted silk rope snapped about her neck like a noose.

Kiska tightened her cloak, tried to shake off her dread like the rain from its oiled weave. She would simply have to proceed under the assumption she’d yet to be spotted. Her nerves would rattle to pieces otherwise.

The corner revealed a carriage way, twin gullies pressed into the stones by centuries of wheels. The party had disappeared. Down the way, between tall walls, stood a massive gateway of carved wooden doors. Kiska knew what lay beyond. The E’Karial family manor. Smallish, compared to some of the town’s grander estates, but comfortable, or so it had looked from the outside on her nocturnal wanderings. It was also long abandoned. If this were a meeting, Kiska imagined its participants couldn’t have planned a more isolated location. Of course, it could also be that some massively ill-informed scion of the E’Karial family had arrived to inspect their inheritance.

She took several slow breaths, then crossed the carriage way to the mouth of the lane opposite, where ivy hung so thick she could hardly see through it. At each step her back prickled under imagined dagger-points. But the ivy-choked walls swallowed her without incident. She jogged to another alley, this one plain mud, that she knew led to a postern gate behind the estate. Edging around the pooled rainwater and fighting the thorny brush that snagged at her cloak, she nearly missed the recessed entry hidden in the shadows.

She knelt at the moss-covered door, rearranged her cloak, and listened. Raindrops pattered from leaf-tips, the wind rustled overhead through branches and, no more than a distant murmur, the ever-present surf punished the island’s shores. The door stank of rot while the arched recess retained the must of long-damp humus. She didn’t plan to open the door, of course. One glance was enough to tell anyone that was no longer possible: a portion of the wall’s weight had settled onto the frame. If she pushed on the rotted planks she’d probably tumble right through into the rear garden. This was simply a lower profile for listening than poking her head over the wall.

She heard no one and gave it long enough: fifty heart-beats. Most likely they were inside the estate. Time to try the wall. She stepped out of the recess and appraised the blocks and the vines that smothered their rough surface. No problem. For cover, she climbed up to where three aruscus trees rose as a clump within the compound. Head and shoulders above the top, she studied the landscaped garden. It looked even worse than the last time she’d seen it. Raised beds now held only dead stalks and weeds. A central tiled patio shone dully under the cover of dead leaves. And there, side by side on a marble bench so white it glowed in the night, two men sat. Kiska froze.

She’d heard nothing because neither spoke. Both looked to the southern sky. For all she could tell they were quietly studying the clouds. The one on her right was the man she’d followed, hood back, shaved scalp dark as rich loam, a long queue draped forward over one shoulder. The other was an old man, ghostly pale, white-haired, thin shoulders hunched like folded wings, his head tilted at an angle. They sat like that, statues almost, and time stretched. Couldn’t they move, speak, or do something? She wondered how long she could hang there on the wall, toes jammed against a crack.

Presently, after what seemed a full bell’s time, but was only one hundred and fifty heartbeats, silver light broke through the night as the moon shone through a cloud break. The old man threw back his head, barked a harsh laugh. He sounded vindicated. The man from the message cutter answered, his tone grudging, non-committal; he still studied the night sky. Kiska strained to catch their words, but the branches soughed and rattled overhead.

After a few more exchanges, the old man clutched the other’s arm and snarled something. The second rose, brushed the hand from his cloak. He spoke softly to the older man who remained unresponsive then he walked away to the front of the grounds. The old man remained seated, head sunk as if he were a seer searching for patterns among the cracked tiles and leaves swirling around them. Kiska eased herself back down the wall.

What had she just witnessed? Nothing more than a simple meeting between estranged relations, or two who once were friends? Clandestine, yes, but that alone was no crime. The rendezvous had an aspect of ritual about it, an observance of some sort. The old man might be a shunned relation. Perhaps she’d stumbled onto some business the E’Karial family wanted kept hidden, a skeleton in the garden, so to speak. She should make inquiries. Collecting leverage was, after all, part of the job.

From somewhere far off, in the town, a dog howled at the now brightened moon. The call’s ferocity chilled Kiska, reminding her of the demon hounds that figured so prominently in Shadow Moon legends. If that damned baying kept up all night, as it probably would, she could imagine tomorrow’s tales down in the market, stories of narrow escapes and terrifying visitations of huge supernatural beasts. People would believe what they wished to.

She was about to push her way back through the wet leaves to the alley mouth when a noise from behind the wall brought her around: tiles clattering. She hesitated, wondered if she’d imagined it, then jumped back up for a second look. The bench was vacant, but next to it knelt the intruder from the wharf, the man who’d so earlier surprised her. He straightened up from a bundle at his feet and disappeared into nothingness as though the shadows had wrapped themselves around him. Kiska stared, awed. Warren magic. It took her a few moments before she recognized what he’d left behind crumpled on the patio: the old man, lying face down.

Kiska dropped and spun, pressed her back into the vines on the wall. Droplets showered her. Had he seen her? Was she next? She pulled out her long knife. Hilted for parrying, it was the heaviest weapon she carried other than the crossbow, which she now swivelled from her hip to cover the alley. An adept, that was plain. But which Warren? His disappearance resembled Rashan’s blotting darkness, only somehow different. And that scared her the most. An awful thought struck: what if this man were a Claw? He seemed skilled enough. Terror gripped her: the arrival of an unknown high official, Claw bodyguards, a covert visit… had she stumbled onto the Imperial Regent’s housecleaning? If so, she was finished. What was the old saying? Claws only travelled on business! She almost laughed aloud but instead took comfort from the feel of her glove wrapped tight around the knife grip.

Time passed and eventually, though with an odd reluctance, Kiska had to admit that she wasn’t about to be murdered. She might as well discover as much as she could of what had happened here. She sheathed her gauche and jumped once more onto the wall. The old man’s body still lay behind the bench. No one was about. Moonlight played raggedly over the ruined gardens. A second howl burst out of the night causing her to flinch. Gods! It sounded as if the blasted beast was right at her shoulder!

Who kept animals like that? Kiska decided that before dawn she’d knife that dog if someone else didn’t get to it first. Cautious, she lowered herself down into the enclosed yard.

The old man was thrust twice through the back. She wondered if this piece of work was by order of her target. Had he offered the old man a proposition? One that could not be turned down? Perhaps he was unaware of the murder. The Claws, or someone else, might think this meeting should never have occurred. She nudged the body over and began rifling through its clothes.

She slipped her hand inside the tunic, still warm with blood. The man snatched her wrist and his eyes snapped open. Automatically, she yanked out her gauche and shoved it into the man’s chest, leaning her full weight onto the blow. It was a mortal thrust, she was certain of it, but still he stared and held his grip. A death rictus? Horribly, he smiled and opened his mouth. A stream of blood welled out, blackening his chin. Steady, unnatural pressure pulled her close. The bloodied lips turned down reprovingly.

‘But I am dead, you see,’ he whispered wetly, ‘and the Shadow Moon is risen.’

Facing a horror she’d been warned of but never actually believed, Kiska’s training — sketchy, only informal — crumbled and she screamed.

Temper was wrestling with the corroded lock on his door when someone murmured his name from down the hall. He jerked up from examining the stubborn lockplate. Corinn waved from behind a door barely opened. He straightened, would have shouted hello, but something in her tight expression silenced him. She waved again, impatient, and he ambled down the hall. At the door he grinned, tried to look in past her. It was the room Anji and a few other girls used for their whoring. He arched one brow. ‘Well, I thought you’d never-’

‘Just get in here, damn you,’ she hissed, pulling open the door and yanking him in.

Despite the woman’s obvious anger, Temper felt himself grinning idiotically. They stood close in the cramped closet of a room. Her tongue, sharp as a Darujhistan rapier, cut everyone who dared come close. But here, nearly touching her, Temper was suddenly very aware of the depths of her deep brown eyes, and the filigree detail in the black tattooing that ran from the tip of her nose to her forehead.

He sometimes fancied catching interest in those eyes, sidelong, hidden, but tonight concern tightened them. He’d daydreamed of just such an encounter, usually when drink softened his judgement or loneliness emptied his chest and he desired someone to talk to. But now he felt awkward and self-conscious while she looked straight at him and shook her head.

‘You just had to show up tonight, didn’t you.’

For an instant, Temper felt like a wayward husband finally dragging himself home after a three-day binge. He laughed, pointed back to his room. ‘Corinn — I live here. Where else am I supposed to go?’

‘The barracks! You’re supposed to have stayed. Why didn’t you just… Oh, never mind.’ She waved for silence. ‘Listen to me. We’ve only a minute. What I’m going to say and do, I’m doing to save your life. Understand?’

Standing so close, he caught the dusky hint of her scent — perfume of some unknown flower? Foreign spices? Incense? She was half-Napan, someone had once said: half as dark. He blinked, swallowed. Here he was, an old warhorse long out to pasture, yet flaring its nostrils at a passing mare.

‘Saving my life? Corinn, I’m hitting the sack and a bottle of Kanese red. That is, unless you’ve something else in mind…’

Her eyes flashed with anger. ‘You damned idiot. I’m trying to save your worthless hide.’ She raised a fist, opened it palm up. A small badge lay there on the pale lined flesh, metal painted and enamelled in the sigil of a stone arch over a field of flames. The badge of the Bridgeburners, the very regiment of the man downstairs, once of the Third Army. An army that Dassem, with Temper at his side, had led in Falar and the Seven Cities.

All he could think was: so it is the smell of smoke that surrounds her. A dusky scent that took on a lethal edge in the face of that small badge. ‘Aw, no,’ he groaned, ‘Hood, no. Why? What do you want?’

Footsteps sounded from the hall. Corinn leaned close. ‘I want you to do as I say because I know who you are. I recognized you. I was at Y’Ghatan. I saw the Sword broken. I know.’ She took his arm, her hand warm and hard through his shirt. ‘Stand aside tonight and it will remain our secret. Just… stand aside.’

The door swung open behind him. He turned. The man with the burn scars stood in the hall, two of the men he’d sat with behind him, crossbows levelled. The man eyed Corinn who answered his gaze with a short nod. ‘He’s unarmed,’ she told them.

All Temper could think of were her words: I know who you are. Did that mean she’d been sent? Been watching him? He was stunned, as if everything he’d hidden from this last year now crashed upon him like an undermined wall.

The man’s gaze was deceptively bland. ‘My name is Ash,’ he said, his voice soft. ‘Sergeant Ash. You, on the other hand, are my prisoner.’

They sat him at a rear booth beside Coop, opposite Trenech and old Faro Balkat. The old man appeared asleep, sagging against the wall, eyes staring sightlessly. A drop of saliva hung from purple-stained lips. Oddly, Trenech was gently propping him up with one huge hand. Temper glared at Coop, who appeared more confused than worried, then turned to watch Ash. He claimed to be a sergeant but was probably an officer. In the centre of the room he conferred with Corinn and a few others.

‘What will they do?’ Coop whispered.

‘I don’t know.’ At first Temper thought they’d come for him, that they’d finally reached his name on the long list Surly kept of her enemies. But now he wondered.

‘What happened?’ he asked Coop.

Out came a cloth and the brewer wiped his glistening jowls and forehead. ‘I blame myself,’ he stuttered. ‘I can’t believe it. They made me send away all the staff. How could I have fallen for that?’

‘For what, man. What?’

Coop blinked at him. ‘Thieves, of course. A pack of damned thieves!’

Temper choked down a laugh. He turned away, tried to catch Corinn’s eye. ‘No, Coop. I think it’s something more than that.’

Corinn met his gaze, but her face remained flat, as if she didn’t know him. He gave the ghost of a nod in response and looked away — straight into Trenech’s eyes. The hulking fellow stared at him, or rather through him. Sweat beaded his brow. His right hand clenched the table in a white-knuckled grip.

Temper had spoken with the fellow only a few times. He thought him slow-witted, like an infant in a giant’s body. Was he terrified by all this, or mindlessly enraged? Temper imagined he ought to say something reassuring but didn’t know what.

Turning his head slightly, he studied the men. The majority, some thirty or so, sat gathered towards the door, voices low as they whispered among themselves. Closer, in the flickering light of the fireplace, Ash, Corinn, and a dozen others sat together at two tables. Of these, Temper guessed the average age to be around the mid-thirties. They adjusted the straps of their armour and weapon belts. Some smoked short clay pipes. None spoke. Temper identified three Wickan tribesmen, moustached, wearing studded boiled-leather hauberks with mailed sleeves; two dark Dal Honese, one with the raised cuts of facial scarification on his cheeks, the other’s right eye a pale milky orb; one Napan, short and thick-set like a stump, his bluish-toned skin faded to a silty green; two dusky men from Seven Cities in mail shirts under long surcoats that they adjusted and belted snug; and the rest probably Quon Talian, in army-standard Malazan hauberks, one with rows of blued steel lozenges riveted over the leather. Every one of them possessed a crossbow, either at his back, on the table, or at the bench beside him. Short swords hung sheathed at belts and shoulder harness. Veterans, and probably all Bridgeburners as well.

The others were the street-sweepings and thugs Temper had identified earlier. Many carried curved short swords sheathed pommel-forward, Jakatan style, while on others Temper identified plain Talian long knives, curved Dal Honese daggers, and on two, long double-edged Untan duelling swords. They wore a mishmash of armour, the heaviest of which amounted to nothing more than boiled-leather vests or padded long shirtings.

Some pulled at their leathers, obviously uncomfortable in them. Temper looked away in disgust: city toughs, not a veteran among them. What could Ash hope to accomplish with these? And Corinn? Head down, she spoke with the sergeant. Temper eyed her hard, hoping to raise her head by the heat of his gaze. He knew she was a mage, but was she really a Bridgeburner cadre mage? He thought they’d all died during the campaigns of Seven Cities and Genabackis.

He sighed, rubbed his eyes. All the gods above and below. Seven Cities. Y’Ghatan. He could almost smell the desert’s faint cinnamon scent, feel the punishing heat. That day, that betrayal — returned like a stab to the chest, and he shuddered. He remembered how the dust had risen in choking clouds that scoured his throat and blinded vision; the hordes of robed Seven City defenders. He saw Dassem, unbelievably thrust through, supported by Hilt. He recalled the glimpses he’d caught of Dassem stumbling, holding his chest. He’d said something to Temper, some joke or farewell lost amid the screams and clash of battle.

Temper unclenched his jaws and eased his tension in a long slow exhalation. So now both he and Corinn knew of each other. What was it she wanted from him? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps this was just a warning that he should keep his head down and not interfere or she’d reveal who he was. Like she said, maybe she was just trying to save his sorry ass. Leaning forward, he tried to catch her eye across the room.

A dog’s howl cut through the stone walls like the concussion of Moranth munitions. It rose and fell, deep, resounding, the most savage and lustful call Temper had ever heard. Corinn flinched as if bitten, snapped a panicked glance to Temper, then turned away. The young toughs peered about, their eyes wide. The veterans’ hands twitched towards their crossbows.

From the corner of his eye, Temper caught a sly, disturbingly cretinous smile grow on Trenech’s fat lips. Temper swallowed to wet his own suddenly dry mouth. Here he sat, prisoner to a gang of ruthless criminals or deserters — betrayed by a woman, beside a fool, a mindless drooling wreck, and a moron the size of a bhederin — on the most locally dreaded night of this generation. Could things possibly get any worse?

Faro Balkat’s eyelids flickered open, revealing orbs rolled back to whites. As calmly as if ordering another drink he announced into the silence: ‘The Shadow Moon is risen.’

Kiska wondered if she was hallucinating, for she suddenly found herself lying at the narrow bottom of a deep defile. Streamers of cloud threaded across a ribbon of sky high above. Wind tossed hot dust in her face, soughing down the curves of the canyon. She rubbed her eyes. What had happened? Barked laughter jerked her to her feet.

A man slid down the side of the canyon using his hands and feet, digging his elbows to slow his descent. At the bottom he fell, tumbling, robes flapping around pale shins. It was the dead old man. He lurched to his feet, closed on her. Kiska ran. He yelled a word and she stopped, legs numb. He came around to stand before her, grinning like one of the Nacht statues in the gardens and alleys of Malaz. Kiska could still move her arms so she punched him across the mouth and he fell back in surprise. With that she was free and she ran on around the curve of the canyon.

Two sinuous turns later the channel ended in a cul-de-sac of stone layered like folded cloth. Snarling, Kiska threw herself at it. She scrabbled and grabbed for hand and footholds. After she had climbed only an arm’s length the rotten layers crumbled beneath her like brittle old leather, and she slid down, scraping her side and chin. She lay gasping in the dust.

‘Nothing’s as easy as it seems, is it? Would that I had kept that in mind.’

Kiska yelped and lunged to her feet, drawing her knife.

The old man sneered, brushed dirt from his robes. ‘I’m dead. Remember?’

Kiska didn’t allow the point of her blade to waver. ‘Where are we? What’s going on?’

The man’s wide crazed grin returned. He opened his arms, looked about. ‘Magnificent, isn’t it? This place?’

‘What have you done to me?’

‘A place,’ the old man continued, ‘whose existence has been theorized for the last millennia. A place whose characteristics I deduced from ancient sources. A place — a Realm — that, should it belong to anyone, belongs to me. My realm which I should rule, suzerain. The Path of Shadow.’

The man’s a gibbering lunatic.’Send me back. I don’t want to be here. I want to be back home, on Malaz.’

He raised one crooked finger. ‘Ah. But you are, you see. You’re still on your wretched little isle. And at the same time, you are here. Two realms overlapping. Two places at once. What is called a Convergence.’

‘I don’t give a shit what it’s called. Send me back!’

The man’s lips moved but his words were obliterated by the bellow of a beast that echoed through the maze of canyons surrounding them. Shards of stone clattered down around them. The hairs of Kiska’s arms and neck stood on end. That was no dog…

The man darted his gaze to the sides of the canyon, his face falling. ‘Less time than I’d hoped.’

The blade quivered in Kiska’s hand. She wanted to run, to scream, to plead for help. ‘Time for what? What’s-’

The man silenced her with a wave. ‘Listen to me. My name is Oleg. Many years ago a man came to me. He claimed to be interested in the arcanum of my research. We worked together. We shared knowledge. His prowess and grasp of Warren manipulation astounded me. I, who admit no peer in such mastery. He-’

The old man jammed the heels of both hands to his eyes then let out a wordless scream of rage. ‘He betrayed me! He stole my work and left me for dead!’ His fists slipped down to his mouth. ‘A life’s work,’ he moaned, staring at some scene. ‘Gone. Obliterated. Wrenched from me like a limb. My sight. My power of speech.’

‘Send me back, Oleg,’ Kiska whispered. ‘Please.’

Throwing his face up to the sky, he yelled, ‘You… will… not… succeed!’

Kiska stared, stunned by the extravagance of his madness.

Ignoring her dagger, he took her by the shoulders, stared with eyes like pits in which things writhed. ‘That man was Kellanved, Emperor of Malaz. He returns tonight to this island. The Claws and their mistress no doubt think he returns to reclaim the throne, but all who believe such things are fools. He returns to attempt to re-enter the Deadhouse. They are after another, far greater prize. He and Dancer.’

Oleg’s hands were hot on Kiska’s shoulders. She struggled but he held with a grip like a beast. For some reason she could not bring herself to use the weapon in her hand — perhaps because she did not want to know just how useless it was.

Oleg continued, his eyes white all around. ‘Should they succeed, this realm where we stand, Shadow Realm, will be theirs! Long ago Kellanved and Dancer entered that cursed place you call the Deadhouse and there discovered a strange thing. Strange discoveries that have taken him a hundred years to understand.’

He ducked his head with a grimace. ‘That and my work, of course. But now they are ready. They must be stopped. Tell — tell the man I met — the blind fool! Tell him that now I have entered Shadow, I have seen it all. I was right!’

Kiska twisted herself free, backed away. ‘But how can I?’

Oleg opened his mouth but a dog’s howl, titanic, penetrating, swallowed up his words. Kiska snapped a look behind her, expecting to see the beast about to close its jaws around her neck. She saw instead that what stood behind her now was not a steep cul-de-sac, but two sinuous paths forking off at a wind-sculpted rock shaped like a tree. She turned back to Oleg.

‘What’s happening?’

Oleg pulled his hands through his wild hair. ‘The strain of deflecting them is exhausting.’ He spoke as if he were alone. ‘Not much longer now.’

His eyes focused on Kiska. ‘Tell him — that man — transubstantiation must be the time of striking. Entombment is the way to end one such as him! Tell him Kellanved plans to lose all in order to gain everything. I can foresee now that his victory will be sealed by his defeat. Tell him such is what I say.’

‘What in the Queen’s wisdom is that supposed to mean?’

Oleg shuddered convulsively. ‘He must not succeed! The Throne is mine! Our time is finished.’

‘But wait, I-’

Kiska’s vision blurred, the landscape darkened. She staggered, fell. A moist wind brushed her face and distant surf pulsed like a slow heartbeat. Oleg’s corpse lay at her feet amid the shards of broken tiles. She pressed hands to an aching head. What had happened? Had anything? She knelt on her haunches beside the corpse, touched the blood soaking its clothes. Wet and tacky still. What had all that been? Some kind of a spell, an illusion? A madman’s insane gibberish?

‘Damn you,’ she whispered to the now inanimate husk. ‘What have you done to me?’

She glanced around. How long had she stood entranced? Broken clouds rolled overhead and patches of rain swept down, fiercely cold. Every now and again the stars shone through, but faintly, as if cowed by the fat silver moon that squatted just above the horizon. She turned away from it, shaken by the old man’s words.

Should she wait out the rest of the night in the brush next to the estate wall, or run to tell someone what she’d heard? But who? Mock’s Hold and the Claws? Hardly. According to Oleg they were one of the powers contending this night. One group among many in a field far more crowded than even they knew. And right now she wasn’t sure she wanted to just blindly approach them. Where then? Sub-Fist Pell? He’d handed over all authority to the Claws without even lifting his fat ass from his chair! No, there was only one person on the island who could possibly make any sense out of all this: her aunt Agayla. She’d know what to do. But still…

She studied the body. It looked obscenely flat, as if deflated by the loss of blood and secrets. Maybe all that talk was just the last reflexive outpouring of a madman. A lunatic schemer to the end. Comforting, that thought. Yes, that was it, most likely. Anything else… well, it was all too outrageous.

She turned her sight towards the inland hills. Low patches of cloud hugged them. The storm appeared to promise nothing more than a series of flitting shadows and numbing rain. Shivering and worn out, Kiska pulled at her wet clothes and pushed her flattened hair back behind her ears. It was just the sort of dreary night that always depressed her. She wondered how much time had passed and whether she might catch a glimpse of her quarry — the man Oleg had demanded she approach — between here and Agayla’s. It might yet be possible. And what if she did manage to find him again? What should she do? Walk up to him and tell him she had a message from a ghost?

She turned away and grunted at what she saw behind her. There stood the fellow in the dull grey cloak, his head cocked, studying her. He stepped forward. Up close he was rather shorter than she’d thought. She slipped her right hand into her cloak, onto the crossbow’s grip. He raised his closed hands before him, a shoulder’s width apart. She saw nothing between them, but recognized a garrotist’s stance.

‘Who are you?’ she called softly. She resisted the urge to raise a hand to her throat. He advanced, silent. She stepped backwards, considered her options: how far to the wall? What cover was there? Just how fast could this fellow be?

The marble bench and Oleg’s corpse passed on her left as she retreated. ‘Who are you!’ she shouted, damning any pretence to secrecy now. He smiled a tight predatory grin and kept advancing. What made the assassin so cocky?

Raising his arms up higher than his head, as if he could just walk up and throttle her, he stepped over Oleg’s corpse. Or rather, stepped through it. His foot disappeared. She snapped up the crossbow and fired, but the bolt shot right through what was just an image evaporating into shadows.

A self-damning ‘Shit’ was all she managed before wire closed around her neck from behind. Ice-cold pain knifed though her flesh. She couldn’t breathe. She wanted to scream, plead, cry, anything. But nothing could escape her throat.

The assassin leaned close, his chin on her shoulder. ‘I was going to pass you by,’ he breathed into her ear. ‘But you persisted. None of this concerns you. You were mere clutter. Now I send you to my master.’

She felt the fists to either side of her neck tense for a final yank. She arched her back, flailed her arms, kicked, but nothing shook him.

Then something swam into view before her like a fish rising from lightless depths. A body and face took form — Oleg. The shade pointed past her shoulder and its lips moved. The wind sighed words in a guttural language. A cry and an eruption burst beside her. She spun in darkness, limbs flying wildly. From close by screaming filled the air, and Kiska felt herself slammed into the wet loamy ground.

She opened her eyes slowly. Her clothes felt hot and damp. She was sick with dizziness; her ears rang and throbbed. Had she passed out? No, the roaring echo of thunder still reverberated while steam rose from her cloak. She lay in the north planting bed of the E’Karial estate, alive, unhurt even, or so it appeared. Raising herself onto all fours, she hoisted herself upright, wobbled, groggy, then pushed her way through the brittle stalks and grasses onto the patio.

The marble bench lay on its side. Beside it a hole in the tiles steamed in the misty rain. A true lightning stroke? Or magery? The corpse lay where it had. Of the assassin nothing could be seen.

She cursed, or tried to. A cross between a cough and a croak was all she could manage. She slapped at the heated fabric of her cloak. How could she have survived that? Pushing back her hair, she staggered to the overturned bench. It was too heavy for her to lift so she simply slumped onto one carved marble leg. Her fingers traced the gash across her throat. Hissing a breath, she yanked her hand away and studied the glove. Blood showed dark, wet and glistening in the moonlight. Maybe she hadn’t survived.

That struck her as hilarious. She laughed, then gasped at the pain. Hood’s breath! It hurt just to swallow. Perhaps that was a good sign. After all, did shades feel pain?

She took a long slow breath, felt the air scrape like a wire brush down the raw flesh of her throat. This was definitely news to take to Agayla. The cover of the Shadow Moon was being used to settle old scores. She’d have to get going. Someone was bound to investigate. This was an aristocratic district, after all.

Slowly, her hearing returned. She thought she caught distant sounds: the baying of a hound. Yes, fierce bellowing. And, from far away, shrill cries that could have been screams. Her own hurts faded as it occurred to her: perhaps this night everyone might be too busy to care.

After Faro spoke Sergeant Ash glanced to Temper’s booth. His gaze, hooded, merely flicked to one of his men, then returned to the parchment he was studying with Corinn and a few others. That man, another Bridgeburner veteran Temper figured, pushed himself up from his table and strode across the common room, his tread loud in the silence.

‘Shut the old man up.’

He wore a hauberk of iron lozenges riveted into boiled leather, and a bare pot helm of blackened steel. The tip of his nose had long ago been sheared off. A thin moustache hung down past his chin. He appeared bored, as if he didn’t care much either way, and in this case Temper could tell that appearances weren’t deceiving. He would slit Faro’s throat if he spoke again. Beside him, Coop gaped up, mute with shock. Trenech stared blankly. The man’s hand closed on the horn grip of a dagger shoved into his belt.

‘We’ll keep him quiet,’ Temper said, quickly.

The man hesitated, looked them over, then grunted and sauntered away. Coop stared. ‘My God! You don’t think he’d have-’

‘Shut up, Coop.’

Coop flinched, hurt. Temper squinted sidelong at Ash and the others gathered around the far table. They were studying something — a map?

The howling rose again, further away this time. The men looked about, at the walls, each other. To Temper the tension in the room seemed as thick as the hanging curtains of smoke. Faro stirred again, as if dreaming uneasily. Gently, Trenech clenched the old man’s shoulder and Faro murmured something: garbled nonsense, or another language. Trenech seemed to understand. He squeezed again, nodded.

Temper’s attention was pulled away by benches scraping and boots stamping the stone floor. The men were readying to leave. Ash stood by the door giving orders to five men. Sergeants, Temper decided. With twelve veterans and another thirty or so hired swords, they had a force of some forty men. Plus Corinn; a true cadre mage would be invaluable. Yet what could they hope to achieve? A limited tactical goal? But what could that be on this island? All he could come up with was the Hold, but that made no sense. Nothing worth anyone’s life would be found there. Unless it wasn’t something they were after, but someone… the visiting official. Assassination? But no one took forty armed men on an assassination attempt. That left… kidnapping? Temper shook his head. Ludicrous!

Ash, followed by Corinn, approached their booth. Standing close, the man concentrated on adjusting his armoured leather gauntlets. ‘You have my word you’ll see the dawn if you sit here and make no trouble.’ He glanced up. ‘Understand?’

Only Temper nodded. Coop squeezed his cloth in both hands and Trenech stared past Ash at Corinn. He looked as if he were about to ask her a question.

‘Very well,’ and he stalked away. Corinn lingered, sent Temper a hard do-as-he-says look. He simply eyed her, uncertain how to respond. She gave a last quizzical glance at Faro as if she were studying him for the first time.

Temper watched as the squads filed out. The brazier flames jumped in the gusts of damp air blowing from the door. Corinn hung back until nearly all had exited. Their eyes met across the smoky room. She gave a small apologetic shrug then left. Four men remained. All looked to be mere hired swords, street refuse as far as Temper could discern. Two more guards were likely outside and would be spelled as the night progressed. The four sat at a table roughly halfway between the front door and the rear booth. Out came a set of bones. For a time all that could be heard was the wind outside, the snap and crackle of flames, the tossed knuckle bones clicking, and the guards’ low talk. Temper studied the men. What were his chances? Could he count on Coop? On Trenech?

He’d seen the hulking fellow break up fights for Coop. He’d just tuck a drunk under each arm and toss them out. But hired swords? He glanced over at Trenech and nearly swore aloud; the fool was dozing! Mouth open and wet, eyes closed, he breathed long and deep; his broad chest rose and fell like a blacksmith’s bellows. Temper glared irritation. Everyone seemed mad this night.

The guards laughed, leaned back. One, the youngest, rose from the table and swaggered to the booth. The skinny lad wore a long leather hauberk, slit at its sides, that his legs kicked as he walked. His thick curly black hair stuck out from an undersized helm. He hooked his thumbs into his belt and sneered down at them. Just a youth, Temper reflected sourly, the faintest blond down pale on his upper lip. But his kind were dangerous, with too much to prove to themselves.

‘Where’s the good stuff, innkeeper?’ Coop stared, eyes wide. The youth scowled, shifted a hand to the knife at his belt. ‘Don’t fool with me or I’ll use this.’

Temper nudged Coop who started as if jerked from a dream. ‘The pantry,’ he gasped, ‘through that door. Glass bottles.’

The youth went to the door, opened it, and returned carrying a brown bottle. He paused at their booth. ‘You storing ice in the kitchen, old man?’

His brow furrowed with puzzlement, Coop shook his head.

Scowling, the guard returned to his table.

‘What is it?’ Temper whispered to Coop.

‘Moranth distilled spirits.’

Temper stared back at the innkeeper. ‘Gods, man. That’s pure alcohol. How long have you been hiding that?’

Coop lowered his eyes. ‘Sorry, Temp. I use it to fortify the liqueurs.’

‘They’ll be blind in a few hours, but I can’t wait that long.’

Coop opened his mouth but one of the guards shouted, ‘Quiet back there, damn your eyes! No whisperin’.’ Coop snapped his mouth shut. Temper half sat up, but decided against blindly charging in and eased himself back down. He’d wait and watch a few minutes more.

While they played their game of bones the guards tossed back shots of the spirits, gasping as it seared their throats. Temper silently cursed them for amateur fools, the most useless hands out of a bad lot. Of course there was no way Ash would’ve spared good men for this duty; he needed everyone he could muster for whatever lay ahead. Fists clenched on the table, Temper could stand the inaction no longer and called out to them across the room: ‘You don’t really expect Ash to come back, do you?’

Coop gaped at him.

All four guards turned, their eyes glistening through the brazier’s hanging smoke.

‘Shut your Hood-cursed mouth.’

‘Been paid already have you?’

The youngest jerked up from the table. Another pulled him down, growled, ‘Shut that mouth or I’ll pin your tongue to your jaw.’

Temper grimaced into the haze. He was almost disappointed he hadn’t goaded them into action. At least then it would all be over, one way or another. Waiting was not his strength. Fifty more heartbeats and he’d charge them. That bottle would do well as a weapon. He had to get moving; he wasn’t even sure where Ash and his gang were headed.

Coop’s boot nudged his. Temper glanced over. The innkeeper, pale-faced and goggle-eyed, stared down at the floor. Temper followed his gaze. Fog, like the advancing lip of a tide, covered the stone floor in a layer no thicker than a thumb’s width. It was welling up from behind the small pantry door. That dark stairwell down into cold cellars no one ever enters. Solid’s Mercy! Never mind the storm outside: what was gathering right here around them now?

Faro suddenly jerked upright, making Coop yelp. His eyes, clear and aware, made Temper glance away; they opened onto depths far greater than those of any cellar. Faro murmured to Trenech, ’Shtol eg’nab lemal.’

It was a language Temper had never heard before, though it reminded him somewhat of Old Talian. But Trenech understood. His eyes snapped to the front of the room.

The young guard jumped to his feet. ‘Shut that old-’

A hound’s roar tore through the air of the common room, exploding from just outside the door. The guards froze, glanced to the door then each other. Their eyes gleamed wide in the firelight. A scream sounded then, a man’s cry of utter horror and hopelessness, ending in sobs even as the guards erupted from their chairs. Weapons scraped from sheaths and the guards whispered among themselves, then the oldest of them edged to the door. His free hand hovered at the latch.

‘Bell?’ he called. ‘Bell? You there?’

The latch ground as he opened it. He pulled the door towards him and looked out. A cold wind blew in, whipped flames and sent the clouds of smoke and fog swirling. Temper heard rain hissing down.

The guard shouted up the stairwell. ‘Bell? Theo?’

A sigh from across the table brought Temper’s attention around. Faro murmured to Trenech, ‘Soon, my friend. Very soon.’ The man now spoke thickly accented Talian.

Trenech nodded. They ignored Temper and Coop, who sat, eyes bulging, the rag pressed into his mouth.

From across the room, the youth came snarling to the table, his knife out. His pale face glistened with sweat. He waved the knife first at Trenech, then Temper, but when they didn’t flinch he turned his attention to Faro. To get at him he’d have to reach in past Trenech, and Temper could see he was unwilling. The knife shook in his hand. He quivered with nerves, frustration and fear. This, knew Temper, was the moment a man could snap.

‘You shut him up or by the Gods I swear I’ll kill the bastard. I will!’

Temper nodded. Trenech and Faro acted as if no one had spoken.

‘Eli!’ the older guard called. ‘Eli, get back over here, damn you!’

Hunching, the youth edged away, his boots scraping the floor. The door was eased closed and the four conferred. It sounded to Temper as if they were arguing over just who would go outside to check on their companions.

The low fire in the massive hearth guttered then, and went out. No one said a word. The braziers and low torches now supplied the only light, dim and smoky-yellow. The fire hadn’t been blown out or smothered. Rather it seemed to Temper as if the flames had been sucked back down into the very stone itself. A damp cold bit at his ankles. There was sorcery gathering as of a slow summoning, an upwelling like the pressure behind a geyser. Temper had felt its like on a hundred battlefields; soon it would burst.

Low under his breath, Temper hissed to Faro, ‘Stop it. No sense making things worse.’

The old man blinked his rheumy eyes as if he were fluttering on his own knife-edge. ’Things,’ he announced, ‘will become much worse if you do not leave this place at once.’

Temper gaped and pushed himself back from the table. What was the old man up to?

Eli had heard. ‘That’s damn well it!’ he shouted, and came marching across the room.

Temper shot an appeal for help to the other three guards. They looked on with lazy indifference. None moved to help.

Eli waved the knife. ‘Get out of the damned booth.’

Faro didn’t even seem aware of the threat. He stared off into space.

‘Come on,’ said Temper, trying to sound reasonable, ‘the old man’s booze-addled.’

The blade swung to him. ‘You,’ breathed Eli, his eyes dilated, ‘can shut the Abyss up.’

Temper said nothing. At first he’d been hopeful, seeing that no veteran had remained behind. Now he wished one was here. Any veteran of Imperial engagements, marine or otherwise, would smell the danger, the oddness, the charged atmosphere. It reeked of the Warrens; of sorcery. And all any poor foot soldier could do in the face of that was run for cover.

Faro broke the stalemate. He announced, unbidden, ‘You have all been warned.’

Eli lunged into the booth but Trenech’s hand grabbed his arm. He gave a sharp twist and Temper heard the snap of bones, then Coop’s scream. Trenech released the arm and Eli straightened, gaping at the ragged end of bone poking out from the meat of his forearm. He threw his head back and loosed a shriek that ended when Trenech chopped a hand across his throat. A lash of hot blood droplets whipped across the booth as he toppled backwards.

Coop screamed again but Temper clamped a hand over the brewer’s mouth. He held himself motionless, staring into Faro’s glazed eyes.

A stunned pause, then the trample of boots as the three remaining guards rushed Trenech. Curses, a hoarse yell, a crash as a body slammed into one of the heavy oak tables. Then silence. It had lasted barely an instant.

Coop struggled in Temper’s grip then froze. Faro was staring across the table. His lips climbed into a satisfied smile. Temper released Coop, who lay his head on the table, whimpering.

‘Leave now,’ Faro said. ‘Shadow — and Others — come. The Heralds announce. We must be ready.’

Temper swallowed, nodded. Coop took breath to speak but Temper covered his mouth again and edged out of the booth, dragging the man after him. Trenech stood with his back to the room, blocking the front entrance like a granite obelisk.

Temper pulled Coop to the back door but across the floor lay all the guards, dead, crushed by blunt blows. The brewer took one look at the mangled bodies and fainted dead away.