Shadow Prowler

12. IN THE DARK

I don’t think I lay there unconscious for very long. When I opened my eyes and looked up at the sky, the stars had hardly moved at all and the moon was still bright, not yet pale in anticipation of morning.

I groaned and tried to sit up. Surprisingly enough, none of my bones seemed to be broken. Naturally, I was highly delighted. If I’d broken my leg or-Sagot forbid-my back, I’d have been lying there waiting for the dawn to come.

I hadn’t fallen very far. The ceiling was very close-if I just stood up, reached out my hand, and jumped, I could reach it with my fingers. I seemed to be in some room on the third floor. The floor was supporting both me and the collapsed section of the roof, on the rubble of which I had made such a successful landing. If I’d gone on down through all the floors to the ground, the king would have been unlikely ever to see me again.

I got to my feet and cautiously moved my arms, still not believing that I wasn’t hurt. I had to get out of there; that child’s crying was having a bad effect on my nerves.

Stop!

What crying?

It felt like I was suddenly fastened to the floor with a single gigantic nail. I started feverishly trying to understand where the thought about a child’s cry had come from.

Yes, there was something there. Something on the very borderline of my consciousness as I was falling into the darkness. Something that had woken me, called me back from oblivion.

Crying. That familiar child’s crying.

As if in reply, and in confirmation of all the laws of universal beastliness and my own anxious fears, I heard a quiet sobbing in the dark corner of the room. Feeling rather far from my best, I nervously took out the magical trinket and held it out in front of me at arm’s length.

The old room had walls with peeling wallpaper, a scraped and battered wooden floor, and a little girl standing in the far corner, gazing at me with her green eyes.

She was no more than five years old. Golden hair in unruly curls, plump rosy cheeks with the traces of tears, rosebud lips, a dirty, torn little dress, bare feet, and a tattered plush toy-either a dog or a mouse-in her hands. A charming little child who could model for the frescoes in holy shrines.

Except that her still eyes were filled with the anticipation of a snake, the hatred of a wolf, and hunger of an ogre. And lying beside her was my glove, the one I had abandoned in the judge’s house.

The little girl sobbed.

Moving very, very slowly, I bent down to pick up my crossbow from where it was lying on the floor. At the precise moment when my fingers closed on the weapon, the little girl sobbed for the last time and then gave a quiet, malevolent laugh.

I froze. So we had met at last. This was the Jolly Weeper in person.

The eyes of the creature-I can’t carry on calling it a child-glinted, a wall of rotten air struck me in the face, and I went flying back against the opposite wall. The magical light started blinking and fading rapidly. It was swiftly getting dark in the room, with only those green eyes radiating light, hypnotizing me and suppressing my will, flooding my brain with a sticky mist of calmness.

“Don’t sleep! Shoot!” someone’s cool, imperious voice ordered, and the mist in my head began dissipating rapidly.

My ears were assaulted by a shriek of protest. The creature could feel that it was losing control over me. I could move again now and, taking my aim at those poisonous green eyes, I pressed both triggers of the crossbow almost simultaneously. The first, ordinary bolt stuck the laughing creature in the shoulder, spinning it halfway round, but it only gave a triumphant little chuckle and continued moving toward me without even pausing.

The magical bolt of fire followed its ordinary brother home and struck the creature in the chest.

A bright flash of fire liberated from its magical captivity, a rumbling sound, and a squeal of protest.

One… two… three… I took my hands away from my face and cautiously opened my eyes. The room was empty. The light from the magical trinket was gradually growing stronger, timidly illuminating the old room and the carnage that had been wrought in it.

The Jolly Weeper had disappeared; there wasn’t even any ash left behind. Either the fire had really destroyed it, or the vile creature had cleared off to somewhere a bit less hot. To be quite honest, it was all the same to me, as long as it was nowhere near me any longer.

“Thank you, Valder. You popped up at just the right moment,” I mumbled, but there was no reply.

Walking out of the room, I saw a wooden stairway leading downward. I had no more desire to travel across the ancient roofs. I had enough bruises already and I didn’t feel like tempting fate yet again.

I slipped out onto the Street of the Magicians. The final drops of time were draining away into the sand. One hour, or even less, and the horizon that was still dark would flare up in the bright flash of an irrepressible summer dawn.

I started moving faster, slipping through the shadows, forward-to where the narrow street broadened out into a small square.

I didn’t even notice how I got there. I simply stopped, enveloped in the cloak of shadow cast by an old two-story house with no roof. Opposite me there was another house, the final beacon of human habitation before the empty square.

And there ahead of me the appalling two-story stump of the old Tower of the Order stood in mute, agonizing reproach, alone and dead. The power of the Kronk-a-Mor had not spared it; there was nothing left of the structure’s former grandeur and elegance. The black blizzard had made short work of the once-beautiful creation of the magicians of the Order.

“What have you done, Zemmel!” Valder groaned.

Yes, an appalling catastrophe had taken place here, and I certainly didn’t envy those who had been nearby when the raging elements had broken free of control. There wasn’t a single stone left on the square, it was absolutely bare, surrounded by the skeletons of houses and flooded by the light of the setting moon, like some meadow in a fairy tale.

The tower had once had not just three, but many floors, and when the explosion happened, the debris should have been scattered right across the square. But it wasn’t there. The square was clean and empty. As if the rubble had just evaporated.

“How long are we going to go on standing here? Time’s wasting.” The sudden sound of a voice from the dense darkness of the house across the road startled me out of my mournful thoughts. I stared across the road in amazement.

The words had obviously been spoken by a living man, not some insubstantial phantom.

“Calm down, Shnyg. Or do you want to end up like good old Rostgish?” a repulsive, squeaky voice replied.

“Calm down Shnyg, calm down Shnyg,” the first voice grumbled. “It was Rostgish’s own fault. He let his guard down and let a dead man get his teeth into him. Let’s get those plans then cut and run.”

“Just how do you suggest we get into that damned tower? We have to think the whole business through, or we won’t get out of this alive.”

“You do the thinking, Nightingale,” Shnyg said angrily. “Morning’s already on the way, it’s time to get out of here.”

“Shut up, will you! I’m thinking,” Nightingale barked, and Shnyg shut up.

Right. I know those names. The two master thieves Shnyg and Nightingale work for the guild, and that means they work for the slimebag Markun.

They’re not such bad lads, really, but their work’s a bit sloppy.

And I knew Rostgish, too, may he rest in the light. He appeared in Avendoom a couple of years ago and attached himself to this pair. Not a master thief. He drank too much. Those must have been his remains that I came across on the Street of the Sleepy Cat.

I wonder what in the name of Darkness they want in the Forbidden Territory?

“Have you got the plan?” Nightingale hissed.

His shrill, squeaky voice was painful to hear, but the thieves didn’t seem to think there was any need to hide, and they made enough noise for the whole street to hear. “The one we got from the Royal Library? Here it is. Light it up.”

“What with?” Nightingale muttered. “That damned Rostgish had all the lights.”

Aha! So they were the ones that the old man Bolt was talking about. “Gray and untalkative.” Shnyg and Rostgish must have gone to the library. The old man would have remembered Nightingale.

They’d stuck some important gent’s ring under Bolt’s nose, hadn’t they? Ah, I never thought to ask the old man about the ring, I thought it was all a senile old fool’s imaginings. I’ll have to go back and have a proper heart-to-heart talk with him. So who was it that sent them?

“We have to get those cursed maps or whatever else before that skunk gets there ahead of us.”

“What are you so nervous about?” asked Nightingale, as calm and rational as ever. “Harold won’t try sticking his nose in here any time soon.”

“That Harold has really got up everyone’s nose. Markun boils over at the very mention of his name, and the client said we should do away with him if it came to it. And the individual our client serves-which means that we do, too-is beginning to express his dissatisfaction.”

“Do away with him?” Nightingale said with a nasal snigger. “Have you completely lost your wits, Shnyg? That lad might look feeble and skinny, but I’ve no intention of tangling with Harold. We do the job, hand over the Commission, take the money, and clear off to warmer parts. For the high life beyond the mountains. No one will ever find us there. We don’t want to be hanging about with the Darkness.”

“Do you think it’s that easy to get away from the Master?” a mocking voice asked, and I shuddered.

I would have known that voice anywhere, out of a thousand. It had changed a lot, lost that lifeless, dead tone, but I still recognized it. It was the voice of the same being that had spoken with the duke and then killed him. That winged creature of the night.

“Don’t even think about trying to run. You will only go when he lets you go, little man. You are faithful to the Master, aren’t you?”

“I am faithful.” Nightingale’s voice sounded hoarse and frightened. “We are faithful.”

“Yes, yes, Your Grace, we are faithful to the Master,” Shnyg confirmed in an ingratiating tone.

There was a quiet laugh of satisfaction in the darkness, and I thought I glimpsed a brief flash of golden eyes.

“Clever little men,” the creature drawled. “Get the maps and destroy them, and then you can clear out of here to anywhere you want.” There was a note of undisguised contempt in the emissary’s voice.

“B-b-but, Your Grace…,” said Shnyg, clearly very surprised. “The client said to bring the papers to him. We can’t just-”

Shnyg broke off his tirade and started wheezing for some reason, and his partner gasped out loud in fright.

“The Master is not used to hearing ‘we can’t.’ He needs servants who can! Those who are incapable of carrying out an elementary assignment are not worthy to serve him; they are useless!”

Shnyg’s wheezing became a charming gurgling.

“May I be allowed to remark that Shnyg did not at all wish to seem to be useless!” Nightingale started keening. “We’ll go and get those papers right now!”

I heard the sound of a body hitting the ground and Shnyg wheezing in relief as he tried to force some air back into his lungs.

“You know that your client also serves the Master, and the Master says that the maps of Hrad Spein must be destroyed, otherwise they might fall into the hands of the king and his attendants. Tell that to the fool whom you call your client. He may be rich, but that does not mean he can think he is a link of Borg. Let him remember the deceased Duke Patin.”

“We understand everything now, Your Grace,” Nightingale confirmed. Shnyg was still coughing. “We’ll tell him everything you said.”

“Wonderful, and now set about it! Surely you don’t think I would need your help if I could enter the tower?”

The emissary didn’t bother to wait for an answer to his question. Something even darker moved across the dark gap of the house. There was another glint of gold. The emissary slowly ran his gaze along the dark street and as it slipped over the spot where I was standing, it hesitated for an instant, but moved on before I even had time to feel frightened. With a clap of his black wings, he melted away into the night.

Silence descended on the street, only occasionally interrupted by Shnyg’s desperate coughing.

“Damn… kha-kha! Damned bloody beast. Kha-kha! He almost… kha-kha!… choked me!”

“What did you expect?” Nightingale snarled. “Spouting nonsense like that to him? Be grateful you’re still alive!”

“The Darkness take that damned creature! And the Darkness take you, too! And the Darkness take me, fool that I am, for listening to Markun, who’s bound us hand and foot to this Master of his. The Darkness take this client, and his damned papers!”

Shnyg was overwhelmed by a new fit of coughing. But just at that moment something looking very much like a human figure made its appearance on the stage of this ongoing spectacle. It was approaching slowly from the direction of the Street of the Roofers and its direction made me feel uneasy, because it was moving straight toward us.

Even worse than that, I was almost directly in its path! I had to dash across the street, to the house where the two thieves were: The darkness was thicker there, and so it would be much easier for a scoundrel like me to hide.

But I wasn’t able to skip in through the door, since the thieves were coming out of it at that very moment. I managed to dart to one side and press myself back against a wall. But master thieves are masters because they can hear the very slightest rustle.

“There’s someone here,” Shnyg whispered, and I drew my dagger out of its scabbard with a quiet rustling sound.

Nightingale and Shnyg started listening, but then they noticed the approaching stranger whom I had already seen. “Shhh. Look,” Nightingale whispered.

There was certainly something to look at. The figure approaching us was a man. A perfectly normal one. Except that he was semitransparent-the tower and the stones of the roadway were quite clearly visible through him. He was wearing a magician’s robes and leaning on a magic staff…

“Look at this,” the phantom muttered to itself. Its voice sounded twice or even three times, creating a strange echo. “They’ve all abandoned me. The traitors. Where are they? Where? I wander and wander, searching for them. I’ll find them.”

The phantom repeated this little jingle over and over, turning its head from side to side and examining the area, evidently hoping to find the aforementioned traitors. It had a blurred spot instead of a face, but I didn’t have the slightest doubt that this magician could see everything perfectly well. I was scarcely even breathing. And neither were Shnyg and Nightingale, standing a little farther away.

The phantom halted a few yards away from us and began turning its semitransparent head again.

“I wander and wander. I’ll find them. I’ll find them.” It paused for a moment and then said in a very perplexed voice: “I’ll find them. Aha! That’s where they are! They’re hiding! I know you’re there! I’ll find you. I’ll find you.”

He held out his staff and started waving it from side to side, like a blind man, and slowly moving closer. That was when I realized that if I didn’t do something quick, the crayfish sleigh would be coming for me. In another ten seconds he would reach me, and that would be the end. I had just one chance, an incredibly stupid one, but I decided to take it, especially since it was time to get rid of my unwanted competition in the shape of Shnyg and Nightingale. I stepped forward out of the darkness onto the moonlit street so that the thieves were behind my back, and I heard one of them swear in amazement.

“Fire!” I yelled, and then dropped onto the surface of the road, putting my hands over my head.

Without even pausing to think, the magician fired a spell at the spot where I had just been standing. Something went screeching through the air above me. A intense impact, screams of terror and pain from the unfortunate thieves. The phantom had hit the target-which was not me. I didn’t wait to see what had happened to the servants of the Master, and there was certainly no point in loitering in the street in front of this new danger. I leapt up, darted round the muttering magician, and set off across the square toward the tower, zigzagging and hopping like a hare driven insane by the spring sunshine.

The screaming stopped: I don’t know whether the thieves were dead or they had enough sense to stop making noise, but I personally didn’t feel the slightest pity for them. It was them or me. Or that damned mumbling phantom would have done for all of us.

Oh yes, about him. The mumbling behind my back stopped, the air howled again, I leapt to one side and saw a sphere of mist go flying across the square, leaving a smoking tail in its wake, hit the surface of the street and bounce like a child’s ball, then explode with a boom against a house in the distance, leaving a fair-sized hole in its wall.

I changed tactics: forward, hop, sharp left, forward, hop, sharp right, hop, a sudden stop, sharp right, forward again. Like a flea on a frying pan.

Surprisingly enough, this tactic worked. Another three balls of smoke went hurtling across the square and exploded far away from where I was. Once I had to flop down on my belly again in a most inelegant fashion, when a magical charge struck the Tower of the Order, but didn’t explode, and then bounced back on a changed course directly toward me.

I saw the misty charge growing bigger as it flew straight at my face. There was no time to jump aside, so I dropped, and as soon as the sphere flew over my head, I jumped up again, because the tower was already very close.

The damned phantom, may the gkhols gnaw on his bones, was howling over by the Street of the Magicians, while I feverishly searched for the door. I had to run along the wall illuminated by the moonlight, and expose myself in full view to the raging specter. It was closing rather rapidly, muttering malevolently, intent on finishing Harold off.

Yet another charge flew into the building just above my head but, like the previous one, it bounced off and flew back in the opposite direction. Evidently the tower had retained some of its magic even after the cataclysm that had overtaken it, and nobody could knock down its walls simply by flinging spells at them.

Sagot be praised, I finally found the door! I tugged feverishly at the bronze ring… But the door wouldn’t budge. There weren’t any locks at all, so lock picks were no good here, and that cursed phantom, who was hidden from me behind the wall, would soon appear again and continue his wild bombardment.

I tugged at the door again, then kicked it and swore angrily. Time was running out. On one hand there was the phantom, and on the other, morning was already treading on my heels. I cast a quick glance at the stars. Only the Northern Crown and the Summer Bouquet were still bright in the sky, the other constellations had faded and were barely visible. The moon was growing paler, literally before my eyes, and a few moments later the light illuminating the square became diffuse and pale.

In twenty minutes it would be dawn.

It was the end. Without some kind of miracle, I would never leave the territory, that was certain. I could already consider myself a dead man! If that insane phantom didn’t finish me off first. The magician’s muttering was very close now.

Could I hide in the tower? Perhaps I would be able to hold out there until the next night! I clutched at a final slim straw of hope and strained every last muscle in a desperate attempt to open that damned door at least a crack.

Hopeless. No, I couldn’t get in there; all my efforts had been in vain. I was just about to run for the shelter of the houses when Valder’s voice suddenly said: “Open, it is I.”

The door swung open smoothly, graciously inviting me into the dark interior of the dead building.

“Soo, that’s where you are!” a triumphant voice echoed right in my ear. I jumped forward into the safety of the building and the door slammed shut, leaving me in total darkness.

“Don’t worry,” Valder replied to my thoughts. “He can’t get in, the door won’t let him.”

“Who is he?” I asked, taking out the magical light.

“I don’t know, I’ve never seen him before.”

“Can I wait out the day here? Is it safe in the tower?”

“Alas, my friend. In this part of Avendoom nowhere is safe.”

Sagot! So in twenty minutes it will all be over.

Holding the bright trinket out in front of me, I inspected the interior that I already knew from my dream. Nothing had changed, except that the walls were covered with soot, and there was a human skeleton lying on the floor.

“An old friend,” Valder whispered sadly.

A friend? Ah, yes! The archmagician. What was his name? Ilai? No… Ilio.

I had to go up. To where Artsivus had said the archive was kept. Grab the plans of Hrad Spein and run-and I had just had another one of my crazy little ideas. Valder chuckled inside my head in approval of my plan.

I flew up the black marble staircase that wound round the central column like a gigantic snake. The light of the magical trinket picked images out of the darkness-frescoes that told the history of the Order. Now the second floor and the door leading to the archive. I happened to raise my head, and saw the broken end of the serpentine stairway pointing up into the predawn sky. This was all that was left of the mighty Tower of the Order.

Bursting in through the door, I found myself in a long, wide corridor. The light picked out decayed Sultanate carpets under my feet, elegant carved furniture, tapestries on the walls, and hundreds of doors.

May the Nameless One take me! Which one is it?

“Go on! The archive hall is farther along!”

I broke into a run. The corridor seemed endless; the magicians of the Order had obviously done something with the space in order to expand the inner premises of the tower a little.

“Stop!”

I had almost rushed past it. The wooden doors were standing slightly open, as if someone had left the archive in a hurry. Perhaps that was what had actually happened, and the magician who had returned from Hrad Spein and carried the maps through the Forbidden Territory had never got as far as the Order. Wouldn’t it be funny if he had never got as far as the tower, and there were no maps here?

The magic light began to fade.

“What’s happening?”

“The magic of the tower’s smothering it. It won’t be any more help to you. Hurry!”

I entered the huge room. There was almost no time left now.

Hmm. Not bad. The Royal Library would be green with envy. Even it didn’t have this many magic books and ancient tomes. Shelves upon shelves upon shelves. Books upon books upon books. And it was all permeated with magic. A stranger could wander about in here for hours and still not find what he was looking for. May a h’san’kor devour my dear departed granny.

“Straight on!” Valder barked. “Left! Follow these shelves, turn left again at the end! Straight on. Farther, farther, farther… Stop! Turn round! There it is!”

Panting hard, I looked down at the elegant crystal table with nothing standing on it except a large black casket, decorated with silver deer. Its lid was raised slightly and I could see a bundle of papers. There it was, my goal!

I grabbed the treasure with trembling hands and stuffed it into my bag. Now it was time to get out of there.

“Vukhdjaaz!” I howled as loud as I could. “Vukhdjaaz, it’s me!”

For a few moments nothing happened, and I started getting very nervous, afraid that my plan wouldn’t work. And then my old acquaintance appeared straight out of the bookshelves. A real little charmer. And I must confess that if anyone had told me only a few hours earlier that I would be glad to see him, I would have twirled one finger at the side of my head and told the madman where he could go.

“Well? Have you got the Horse?” he asked, his green eyes glittering furiously.

“Take me to the edge of the Forbidden Territory, please, to the start of the Street of the Roofers,” I said in a rather polite and cultured manner.

But demons are obviously not taught to be polite and cultured.

“Have you lost your mind, manling?” Vukhdjaaz hissed, grabbing me by the sides of my chest. “Or drunk a drop too much? Do I look like a carriage driver?”

“I have to get out of here!” I had no time for arguing with this creature. “Take me where I ask, and you’ll find out where to get the Horse!”

The demon gave me an angry and suspicious look, obviously wondering which way to devour me, then suddenly opened his fingers and let me go.

“All right, I’ll take you where you want to go, but if you trick me I’ll suck the marrow out of your bones.”

“A deal.” I took a deep breath.

“Are you ready, manling?”

“Yes.” Without even looking, I grabbed a couple of ancient tomes off the nearest shelf.

What can I say, it’s a professional habit. I could sell those books to people who appreciated them for huge money-why not earn a bit extra, since I hadn’t been able to stick my nose into the gnomes’ bank?

“I’ll just take…”

Vukhdjaaz grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and pulled me up against him.

Clack!

In the first instant the wall leapt toward me. In the second something gray flickered in front of my eyes and my ears felt as if they were stuffed with cotton wool. In the third, I was already standing beside the magic wall, blinking in amazement.

“… a couple of books,” I said, completing my interrupted sentence.

“You already took them,” the demon snorted. “Well? Where is it?”

“Come to the Knife and Ax tomorrow at exactly one minute after midnight and I’ll give you the Horse.”

Vukhdjaaz gave a muffled growl and bared his huge teeth. “I can tell you’re lying!”

“Why would I?” I asked, shrugging my shoulders and squinting up nervously at the sky. About two minutes to dawn at the most. “You can always find me. Come, but at precisely the time I said, otherwise the Horse might no longer be there.”

“Don’t try to tell me what to do, you little snake! I’ll be there!” the demon growled, and disappeared into the wall of the nearest house. He didn’t even remind me about sucking the marrow out of my bones.

I breathed a sigh of relief, carefully set the books on the top of the wall, clambered up onto it myself, and was about to climb down when I remembered a piece of unfinished business.

“Valder, you have to go now.”

“Good-bye,” the archmagician’s voice replied immediately.

“Thank you. Live in the light.”

I felt something disappear from inside me. The archmagician was gone.

I jumped down from the wall, then reached up and took the books lying on top of it. Well, that was that. I’d done something no one else had ever done-gone right through the Forbidden Territory. Of course, I’d cheated a bit and obtained help from a demon, but your average philistine didn’t have to know anything about that.

I was just about to go when I heard a shout from behind the wall:

“Harold, save me!”

I jumped up, grabbed hold of the top of the wall, pulled myself up, and saw who was calling me.

It was Shnyg, hobbling and stumbling along the Street of the Roofers and repeatedly falling over. So he’d survived, the tenacious son of a bitch! He must have raced the entire length of the street to get here in time.

“Shnyg, old buddy, do you need my help?”

“Harold! Don’t leave me!” he shouted.

I’m not exactly overflowing with love for neighbors who would like to stick a knife in my heart, but there was a good reason to help Shnyg… if, of course, he was willing to tell me about his client and about the mysterious Master.

“Quick!” I barked. “Speed up! Dawn’s almost here.”

There was despair written all over the thief’s simple face. With all his might, he forced himself to go faster.

“Now,” I said, honey dripping from my words. “All you have to do is tell me who your client is, and what you know about the Master. Then, my friend, I’ll quick pull you right over the wall.”

Shnyg stopped and wailed, “I can’t do that, Harold. He’ll kill me sure! Please! Help me over and we’ll make a deal!”

But then the pink dawn flooded the horizon, dispelling the darkness. I jumped back swiftly, sliding down off the wall onto the ground, and out of the corner of my eye I saw blinding-bright rays of crimson light come bursting out of the unfortunate thief in all directions. There was a muffled howl, and then silence. Oh well, I probably couldn’t have trusted anything he said, anyway.

I picked the heavy books up off the ground, hugged them against myself, and set off through the awakening neighborhoods of the Artisans’ City.

In this part of the city they got up very early. These hard workers left sleep behind when other people were still dozing. If you want to make money, get up early. Funny, the rich sleep late and they earn more than these poor slobs will ever see.

The baker had lit his stove long ago, and there was a pleasant smell of fresh bread and dough coming from his house. The milkman was hurrying on his rounds, pushing along a huge cart loaded with metal canisters. A tinsmith was on his way to the Port City. An old house painter yawned widely as he wandered along, still not fully awake.

“Go on, get out of it!” said a frail old woman, waving an equally old and tattered broom at a drunk lying on the ground. They don’t like idlers in the Artisans’ City.

I think that after the announcement that the demons of night had been driven out of Avendoom forever, the number of drunks who didn’t get home, but fell asleep on the way, increased sharply. The city went on living its life without paying any attention to what was hidden behind the white wall of the Forbidden Territory. In two hundred years people can get used to even more terrifying neighbors than that.

“Well, there’s evil there right beside us, but it stays on the other side of the wall, it doesn’t come out here and bother us. So that’s all right. Our grandfathers lived here, our fathers lived here, now we live here. And our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be all right, too!”

That’s the way almost every one of them thinks.

Sometimes when I hear these simpletons it makes me feel really angry. It’s just like sitting on a powder keg with a lighted fuse out in the open air and hoping for a shower of rain. I understand that there’s nothing that can be done with this ulcer on the body of the city, the mysterious Stain. But you can’t just close your eyes and hope that the gods will save you! Because…

Damn it! I was tired.

The Artisans’ City was behind me, there weren’t many people out on the streets, and I had no problems as I walked through a part of the city that was still half empty at this early hour of the morning. A few of the locals gave my tattered and dirty clothes a dubious sideways glance, but on this particular occasion, I really couldn’t care less about them. My less than joyful expression frightened off the most curious of them and I plodded on quite calmly all the way to Cathedral Square.

Here I was met by the familiar senior priests. It looked as if these old ruins had not even left their posts since the last time I’d seen them. Both of them regarded me with expressions of something less than delight. However, they hadn’t been put there to think but to carry out a very important and responsible assignment-to repeat the same phrase over and over again, like parrots from faraway places.

“Do you struggle with the Darkness within you?”

Oh, that’s exactly what I was just talking about!

“I exterminate the Darkness,” I replied wearily, keen to get the irrepressible cathedral staff’s idiotic and pompous nonsense over with as soon as possible.

“Then enter and address Them,” the second priest told me, in a voice that sounded rather feeble and uncertain.

Probably my appearance wasn’t conducive to long theological discussions.

“I’ll address them straightaway,” I muttered, heading toward the living quarters of the priests of Sagot. And thinking in particular of someone who took gold pieces for idiotic pieces of advice.

The knight-and-ogre fountain was still gurgling merrily, throwing up jets of sparkling water. There were priests bustling around the statues of the gods. The morning cleanup, before the worshipers arrived. One of them was carefully wiping Sagra’s face with a rag, another was laying a bouquet of flowers at the feet of the attractive Silna. They took no notice of me.

I stopped in front of the archway that brought back rather unpleasant memories. After a moment’s hesitation, I took a step forward.

Nothing happened.

No over-clever creature of darkness tried to grab hold of me. And no one threatened to suck the marrow out of my bones.

Strange.

Maybe something had happened? I strolled backward and forward, waiting for someone to do me the favor of grabbing me. Nothing. Right, the Darkness take that Vukhdjaaz! I gave up and took myself off to For’s chambers.

On the way I came across several priests who were extinguishing the torches that had burned all night. The servants of Sagot took no notice of me; they had apparently been informed of my impending visit. I walked up to the familiar door, pushed it open, and barged into my teacher’s dwelling. He had clearly not gone to bed, but sat up at the table all the time I was away. The table, by the way, was empty, with not a single crumb of food, which was another strange thing. For must have been worried about his wayward pupil after all.

“So there you are,” he said with a start when he caught sight of me, but gave no sign of being glad. “Did it go well?”

I dumped the bag containing the papers and books on the table in front of him.

“Oho!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t expect that. Will you tell me what it was like?”

“Later,” I mumbled. “A bit later. Wake me up when it gets dark.”

And with those words I pulled off my dirty clothes, flopped onto the bed, and sank into the welcome embrace of sleep.