Shadow Prowler

3. THE COMMISSION

Standing outside the inn, engulfed by the twilight as thick as cream, was a large carriage, harnessed to a foursome of ash-gray horses of the Doralissian breed. The horses were squinting sideways at the guardsmen and snorting nervously. Humans weren’t the only ones who wanted to spend the night behind the protection of secure walls.

I suddenly noticed that the windows of the carriage were blocked off with thick planks of wood.

An expensive carriage. Not the kind everyone can afford. And a four-in-hand of Doralissian horses cost an incredible amount of money.

We set off along the dark streets, and the only time I bounced was when the wheel ran over a cobblestone jutting out especially high from the surface of the road. The baron didn’t say anything, merely casting occasional gloomy glances in my direction, and I was left with nothing to do but listen to the clip-clopping of hooves from the mounted guardsmen escorting us and try to guess where they were taking me.

Who is it that wants to meet me? It’s obvious straightaway that whoever the lad might be, he must have plenty of influence-since he sent Frago Lanten himself to fetch me. I wonder what this unidentified individual wants from me? Payment for some inconvenience that I’ve caused him? I just hope he isn’t one of the magicians. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days in the skin of a toad or a Doralissian.

I chuckled quietly to myself, attracting the baron’s surly glance. It was hard to say which was worse, the body of a toad or the body of a goat-man. I would probably have chosen the former, because in Avendoom they were less fond of Doralissians than they were of toads. Suddenly the driver stopped the carriage and a pair of zealous guards swung the door open. The cool breath of night struck me in the face. Even in summer it is rather cool in Avendoom-since it is quite close to the Desolate Lands, the blessed heat only visits the city in August, and even then only for a couple of weeks, until the wind from the Cold Sea brings the rains. Valiostr is the most northerly kingdom of Siala, so the weather here leaves a lot to be desired.

“What’s this, then? A brief recreational stroll?” I asked the baron, trying to maintain my presence of mind.

“Stop wrangling with me, Harold. Just do as you’re told and all will be love and affection between us.”

I shrugged and jumped down onto the stone road and surveyed the surroundings. The little street was empty and the dark houses on one side hung over us like the Zam-da-Mort. There was a high wall running along the other side of the street. Right then. That meant we were somewhere on the edge of the Inner City.

Thin, tentative tongues of grayish yellow mist were already creeping out of the municipal drainage system. It was still timid, pressing low against the surface of the street, not yet daring to rise higher. But in a few hours’ time a thick blanket of the mist would cover the city, just as it did every night in June, and hang there until the morning.

On this occasion the darkness in the street was impenetrable, clouds covered the sky with their heavy carcasses, and the only light radiated from the guards’ torches and the oil lamps hanging on the carriage. The guards were peering hard into the darkness, holding their crossbows at the ready.

“Is he clean? No weapons?” Frago asked.

The guards hastily patted me down once again, took the lock picks out of the secret pocket on my belt, then extracted a slim razor from the top of my boot and nodded.

“Clean, Your Grace. Clean as a Doralissian on his way home after a business meeting with a dwarf. Yargi knows the thieves’ tricks.”

The guards on the horses burst into laughter. “Enough of that!” Lanten barked irritably. “Blindfold him and let’s get going.”

The guard who called himself Yargi took a strip of heavy, dark cloth out of his pocket and blindfolded me with it. Hands took hold of me by the arms, shoved me into the carriage, slammed the door shut, and the carriage set off again. I raised my hands to ease the pressure of the cloth against my eyes.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Harold,” the baron said straight into my ear, speaking very politely.

“Where are you taking me, Your Grace? Or is it a secret?”

“A state secret, you could say. But for now keep quiet and be patient. Don’t make me angry.”

“I beg your pardon, Your Grace, but what will happen if I make you angry?”

The darkness had made me talkative and sharpened my tongue.

“If you don’t come to an agreement with the man we’re going to see, then you’ll find yourself in my hands… And I’ll be angry.”

I decided it was better to be patient and say nothing for a while. It would be no problem for me to jump out of the carriage that was dashing through the streets and try to escape. I would have a few precious moments before the guards realized what had happened. But I didn’t really want to risk playing tag with crossbow bolts.

Meanwhile the carriage was bowling through the city at an excellent speed. The driver was evidently very skillful and he did not wish to spare the carriage, the horses, or the passengers. Now my entire backside took a battering on the potholes. But the baron wasn’t complaining. That must mean there was a good reason for all the hurry, and I gritted my teeth and tried to sit up straight when we heeled over on the bends. Actually, just once I did allow myself the pleasure of giving way, allowing inertia to throw me against Frago, and lifting the purse off his belt. I must say there wasn’t much in it, though.

Eventually we arrived. I was taken out and handed over to some men who took a tight grip on my elbows. Then they led me off somewhere. There was nothing I could do but move my feet, stumbling every time there were steps up or down.

All the time the baron was snorting behind me. Corridors, stairways, rooms, halls. Sounds. My feet walked across a bare stone floor, raising a hollow, resonant echo from the slabs of Isilian marble; they stamped across squeaking wooden floorboards. I had long ago lost count of the number of steps and stairways and bends in the countless corridors of the huge building through which I was being led. Torches hissed and sputtered close to my ear; sometimes we met someone as we walked along, but I could hear them hastily move aside, making way for us.

Finally a door opened and I felt the dense pile of a carpet under my feet. Without seeing it, I couldn’t say how much it was worth, but it had probably been made in the Sultanate, and that certainly meant a fair amount of money.

“Remove his blindfold.”

Frago, who was standing behind me, removed the damned rag from my eyes. For a brief moment I squeezed them shut against the bright light coming from a fireplace and dozens of candles and torches burning in the small room.

Then I studied the room critically, evaluating at a glance the Sultanate carpets, the candlesticks, the costly furniture made of timber found in the Forests of I’alyala, right beside the Crest of the World, the complete set of knight’s armor made by dwarf master craftsmen, which was standing in the farthest corner of the room. Not to mention the goblets and the tableware, which I think were all made of gold. Mmm. I could really cut loose if only I could have this place to myself for just a few minutes.

Only instead of one person, I saw several.

The little old man sitting in an armchair beside the hearth, muffled in a thick woolen blanket, was clutching a silvery staff encrusted with ivory in his right hand. A magician, as far as I could judge. An archmagician, in fact, bearing in mind that his staff bore four silver rings of rank. Or even more precisely, a master, since he had a small black bird sitting on the top of his staff instead of the usual stone.

The old man appeared small and puny. He looked like an old, fragile hazelnut, and he was shuddering in annoyance, as if the heat from the fireplace right beside him could not warm his ancient bones. It seemed that if you just prodded the magician with your finger, or a strong wind blew on him, he would simply fall to pieces.

A deceptive impression. A none-too-pleasant end lay in store for anyone who prodded Artsivus, archmagician and master, the head of the Order of Magicians. This man was one of the most influential figures in the kingdom and the king’s first adviser, although many, seeing the puny old man for the first time, might have doubts about the soundness of his reason.

The person sitting in the armchair opposite Artsivus and elegantly cradling a goblet of white wine was a woman, wearing the very expensive, magnificent, lightblue dress of a female inhabitant of Mirangrad. A rather risky choice of garment in our kingdom, especially since the war with Miranueh had not actually ended, but was only lying dormant for the time being while the two sides recovered from the bloody battles that had broken off five years earlier. Miranuehans are liked no better than the Nameless One in Avendoom, but I could see that the lady was not concerned about that.

The female stranger’s face was covered by a veil that completely concealed it from my curious gaze. And those golden eyes, though covered by the veil, still sparkled. Amazing. I had encountered this unknown noblewoman two days earlier, on that memorable night when I had a little job to do in Duke Patin’s town house. Judging from her jewelry, she must be the same woman who had ridden along the narrow street, surrounded by the king’s personal guards.

Standing by the wall was a man armed with a sword of Canian forge-work. This gentleman examined my humble person with disdainful curiosity, as if what he was looking at were, in the very best case, a rat. Although it was he who was the Rat. That was what his foes called him. Count Alistan Markauz, captain of the king’s personal guards, who had chosen a gray rat as his crest. He could always be recognized from his heavy knightly armor with the rodent’s head engraved on the breastplates and the helmet, which itself was in the form of a rat’s head. Vicious tongues had it that the Rat even slept and washed in his armor, but I believe this assertion was not entirely correct.

Alistan was the finest swordsman of the kingdom, the rock on which our most dear king relied. He was the head of the security service and a man of honor, defined in terms that only he understood, who hated and exterminated all who plotted evil against his glorious lord. His whole life was military routine, skirmishes with ogres and giants beside the Lonely Giant fortress, war with the orcs of Zagraba, and a couple of border wars with Miranueh when their king felt like moving on to bigger things after a few skirmishes with the western clans of the Zagraban orcs.

Having survived all these battles, Alistan Markauz had become the man he was at that moment-the king’s right arm and a bulwark of the throne. The soldier looked at me with his steely gray eyes, chewing on his luxuriant, dangling mustache, styled in the manner of the inhabitants of Lowland. I responded to his narrow-eyed gaze with a sour look and transferred my attention to the fourth person in the room.

Well, of course, when I say “person,” that’s something of an exaggeration. There, staring at me with arctic blue eyes, was a green-skinned goblin. The genuine article. One of those who live somewhere in the Forests of Zagraba, side by side with orcs and elves.

The goblins are an unfortunate and downtrodden race. They are no taller than the smallest of gnomes. That is, they come up to about my navel, no higher than that. From the dawn of time men, confusing things in the way they always do, believed that goblins were the orcs’ allies, and for century after century attempted to exterminate this universally persecuted tribe of Siala.

The systematic extermination of the race of goblins was so successful that this once multitudinous, peaceful race, which had suffered from the scimitars of the orcs as well as the swords and pikes of men, was almost completely wiped out. And when men finally realized the truth (that is, when they swallowed their pride and asked the elves), there were only a few small tribes left, hiding in the remotest thickets of Zagraba with the help of their shamans’ magic.

And so, we had even begun taking them into service. They proved to be very intelligent and resourceful, their little claret-colored tongues could be very sharp, and they were adroit and nimble, therefore perfectly suited for service as messengers and spies.

And in addition, the Order of Magicians was very interested in goblin shamanism, which derived from the rites of the orcs and the dark elves.

Shamanism, for anyone who doesn’t know, is the most ancient form of wizardry in this world. It appeared in Siala together with the ogres, the most ancient race. And therefore the magicians of men are tremendously curious about the primordial source, which was borrowed from the ogres by the orcs, then the elves, and then the goblins.

By the way, the little green-skinned lad on the carpet in front of me happened to be a jester. That was clear from his cap with little bells, his jester’s leotard in red and blue squares, and the jester’s mace that he was clutching in his green hand. The goblin was sitting there with his funny little legs crossed, occasionally turning his head, so that his little bells tinkled in a gay melody.

Noticing me studying him in astonishment, he laughed, with a bright flash of teeth as sharp as needles. He sniffed through his long, hooked nose, winked his blue eye, and showed me his claret-colored tongue. Magnificent! That was all I needed to really make my day!

I transferred my gaze to the final stranger in the room, sitting in the armchair in front of which the goblin had positioned himself. To look at, this man was very much like a prosperous innkeeper. Fat and short, with a bald head and neat, tidy hands. And his clothes were more than modest: the spacious brown trousers worn by ordinary guardsmen, and simple thick sweater of sheep’s wool, very suitable for the frosts of January-the kind knitted by the peasants who live beside the Lonely Giant fortress. I wondered if he felt hot in it.

All in all, the man in front of me was entirely gray and undistinguished. Especially if you failed to notice the thick gold ring with an enormous ruby on his right hand, and his eyes. Those brown eyes were full of intelligence, steel, and power. The power of a king.

I bowed low and froze.

“Just so,” Stalkon the Ninth said in a deep, resonant voice.

It was the voice I had heard when they led me into the room.

“So this is the thief famous throughout the whole of Avendoom? Shadow Harold?”

“Yes indeed, Your Majesty,” Baron Lanten, who was standing beside me, replied obsequiously.

“Well now.” The king patted the seated jester on the head and the jester purred in pleasure, imitating a cat. “You found him quickly, Frago. Far more quickly than I was expecting. I thank you.”

The baron lowered his head modestly and pressed his hand to his heart, although any fool could see that he was absolutely delighted to be praised.

“Wait outside the door, baron, if you would be so kind,” Archmagician Artsivus said from his chair with a cough.

The commander of the guard bowed once more and went out, closing the door firmly behind him.

“I have heard a lot about you, Harold,” the king said, looking intently into my eyes.

“I did not think my reputation was so great, Your Majesty.” I felt awkward in the company of the leading figures of the state.

“Ah, but he’s bold,” the jester declared squeakily, pulling yet another face at me and turning his eyes in toward his nose.

“And modest,” the mysterious woman said with a laugh, running the finger of a gloved hand along the edge of her crystal goblet. You always hear about women whose laughter sounds like music in all those silly love songs. I always thought it was just the bards singing through their hats. I never imagined it was true. And fancy hearing it in this company. She would bear watching, this one. Oh, not because Harold is so taken with a pretty lady. I like ladies enough-in their place. No, no, this lady was commanding, dangerous… different. You could tell just by her demeanor that she was the equal of anyone in the room-even the king. And they all knew it, too. Let us not say that cranky old Harold was suspicious… no, not suspicious, exactly… but she would bear watching, this one.

I felt like a cow at market, being discussed by two peasant buyers.

“Have a seat, Harold,” said the king, gesturing graciously in my direction, and I sat down in an armchair with a tall, carved back depicting some episode from the battle that took place on the Field of Sorna.

“With your permission?” the king asked casually, picking my crossbow up off the little table standing beside his armchair.

The knife, lock picks, and razor were lying there, too.

“Made by dwarves?”

Without even giving me time to nod, His Majesty aimed the weapon at the ancient suit of armor standing in the farthest corner of the room and pressed the trigger. The string twanged and the bolt whined as it flew straight in through the eye slit of the knight’s helmet.

The jester clapped his hands in a caricature of applause. Stalkon knew how to fire a weapon. In general there were many things he was good at. Especially maintaining a firm grip on the kingdom. The simple people adored him, although he had ruthlessly repressed the rebellions that had flared up several times during the spring famine. And everybody also knew that, in addition to the crown, His Majesty had inherited knowledge from his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. The great intellect of the dynasty of Stalkon was legendary throughout the land.

He hadn’t raised taxes excessively, but neither had he reduced them to paltry levels. He had loosened the traders’ and merchants’ leashes, but arranged things so that if they wanted to trade in Valiostr, then they paid taxes. He also took money from the guilds of thieves and assassins. He did not oppress the other races that were friendly to men, and they repaid him, if not with friendship, then at least with tolerance toward humans, and they obeyed the laws of the kingdom.

The king’s only mistake, or so his enemies whispered, was the idea of an alliance with the gnomes: When it was concluded the dwarves fell out with Valiostr and locked themselves away in their mountains. Of course, a small community of dwarves had remained in Avendoom, basically the most greedy of them, dreaming of raking in a little more gold from the sale of expensive craftwork, although even they disapproved of the fact that men had come to terms with the gnomes, the enemies of all dwarves. In this matter, however, I was on the king’s side. If the choice was between the swords that dwarves made for the richest inhabitants of the kingdom and the cannon that the gnomes made, naturally you had to choose what was more effective in battle and cheaper-the cannon.

“An interesting toy. But we’re not here now to talk about your crossbow,” the king said, setting the discharged weapon back down on the small table. “Could you tell me, thief, how you came by this item?”

The delighted jester took out a gold statuette of a dog from behind the armchair and showed it to me. My back was instantly bathed in cold, sticky sweat. Although I managed to hold my face in a mask of polite respect, a note of panic appeared in my voice. There in the goblin’s hands was the trinket from the duke’s house. So that was where Gozmo’s man had taken it. Good old Gozmo! If we happen to meet again, there’s a very unpleasant conversation in store for him.

So now all the clues pointed to me. Now I was implicated in a crime against the crown. The quartering they would administer would be regarded as the grace of the gods and the mercy of the king’s court. If only they didn’t do anything worse to me! I decided I had better say nothing and listen.

“Clever and cautious. Rare qualities,” said the woman, surveying me from behind her dense veil.

The jester giggled quietly at some joke only he understood, and scuttled round the room. Then, still clutching the statuette in his hand, he stood beside Alistan, copied his pose and serious expression, and froze, setting his hand on the head of the golden dog and transforming it into an improvised sword. I almost burst out laughing. It really was just like the Rat and very funny. The goblin certainly earned his pay.

“It was on our instructions, Harold, that you found yourself in the home of my most dear departed cousin. Before deciding if you were suited to a certain job, we had to test you. And a setting more ideal than my cousin’s town house, with a garrinch roaming around freely at night, is hard to imagine. Don’t you agree?”

“The royal treasure house would be even more ideal,” I blurted out.

Shadow Harold had nothing more to lose. It was obvious anyway that in the morning I would be taking the journey to the Gray Stones. I reminded myself once again to have a word with Gozmo when I got the chance-to thank him for palming off this “Commission” on me.

“Oho! Shadow Harold has a sweet tooth!” the goblin squeaked.

I cast a caustic glance at him, but he only laughed mockingly and stuck his tongue out again.

“I know that, Kli-Kli,” Stalkon replied to the jester, then he picked up my knife, drew it out of its scabbard and, as he studied it, asked casually, “What happened in the house that night? How did he die?”

I swallowed the spittle that had thickened in my mouth and launched into my story under the gaze of five watchful pairs of eyes. No one interrupted me, Archmagician Artsivus seemed to be dozing in his chair and, remarkably enough, the goblin’s face was thoughtful and troubled. When I finished my story, an oppressive silence filled the room, with only the fire crackling quietly in the hearth.

“I told you, Your Majesty, not to trust the duke,” Alistan blurted out angrily. For some reason he had believed my story straightaway, and now his eyes were glittering with fury. “I’ll double the guard.”

The king stroked his chin thoughtfully, studying me intently for a while without saying anything. Then he nodded his head abruptly, clearly having made up his mind.

“We’ll talk about my safety later, good friend Alistan. But first I have a proposition for our guest. Harold, do you know who the Nameless One is?” Stalkon asked, taking me by surprise.

“He is evil and darkness.” The question had perplexed me.

The Nameless One, the Nameless One. The one they used to frighten you with in your distant childhood, when you wouldn’t go to bed on time.

Alistan snorted, as if he had expected no more from a thief.

“That depends on how you understand the word,” the monarch said. “Evil. Hmm… But are you aware that, outside of Valiostr, the Nameless One is known only in the Border Kingdom, and then only because the orcs attack those lands with his name on their lips? Well, and perhaps also in Isilia, and somewhat in Miranueh, but there the Nameless One is no more than a terrible fairy tale. He is actually not entirely black evil, and far from being darkness, merely a very powerful wizard who settled in the Desolate Lands and has been dreaming for a long, long time of seeing Valiostr reduced to ruins.”

“By your leave…,” said the archmagician, breaking his silence and butting into the conversation for the first time. “Young man, let me tell you a legend that is really not a legend at all, but the plain truth… Five hundred years or so ago, when our kingdom was not yet so great and powerful, two brothers lived in Avendoom. One of them was a magnificent general, the other a talented magician who studied the various aspects of shamanism. At that time magic was still a mysterious art to men-it was constantly being improved, we were still learning, borrowing from the experience of the dark elves, orcs, and goblins. Later we added a little something of our own to produce what we have now. Unfortunately the stone magic of the gnomes and dwarves is beyond us. Hmm… But I digress… It happened in the final year of the Quiet Times, as that period is now known. The general Grok… I hope you know that name?”

I nodded. Everyone knew Grok Square and the general’s statue. The old man grunted approval, fidgeting in an effort to make himself more comfortable in his chair, and then went on with his story:

“In the final year of the Quiet Times an army of orcs attacked our city and attempted to take it by storm. The famous Avendoom walls did not yet exist then and Grok, in command of only a few thousand weary soldiers who were still alive after a number of battles, was holding back the onslaught of the enemy who had emerged from the Forests of Zagraba. Mmm… His brother did not come to support him. I do not know why, unfortunately history is silent on that question. A quarrel, envy, illness, some stupid accident-whatever it was, the most powerful magician of the time failed to come to the aid of the embattled warriors. But even so, Grok and his men held out. They stood their ground until the arrival of the dark elves. By which time the army of Valiostr had been reduced first to a thousand men, and then to something less than four hundred. After the victory the magician was seized and executed for treason.”

The old man stopped speaking and stared at the fire with his weepy eyes.

“What was that magician called?” I asked, intrigued.

“He bore the same name as his twin brother-Grok. It was a disgrace for the Order of Magicians. A terrible disgrace. We struck out the name of the reprobate from all the annals. After that he became known as the Nameless One. But he managed to survive. Or rather, his spirit survived. During his lifetime the wizard had studied Kronk-a-Mor, the forbidden sorcery of the ogres. The use of this form of shamanism can enable the spirit of a man who has died to live for a certain time without any physical body, and then inhabit a new one. And that is what happened. He went far away to the north, deep into the Desolate Lands, nurturing plans of vengeance. The power of the Kronk-a-Mor was so great that ogres, giants, and some orcs recognized the Nameless One as their lord and master. Although, to be honest, I have serious doubts concerning the orcs. As a race they are too cunning and independent; most likely it is simply convenient to make themselves out to be cruel barbarians and appeal to the Nameless One when they attack their enemies. High politics, the elfin houses call it! But as for the ogres, giants, and some individual humans, they are devoted, body and soul, to the Nameless One. These enemies of Valiostr would long ago have left their own lands to wage war against us, if they were not held back by the Lonely Giant fortress. And even though the Nameless One has acquired eternal life, so far he has not dared to invade Valiostr, because we were canceling out his power. That is, until the equilibrium was disrupted.”

“Well, all right…,” I began-there was something that didn’t quite add up in my mind. “Ogres, orcs, giants. What about those vile brutes that hunt in the streets of the capital at night? Do they also obey the Nameless One? And what about the mysterious Master that the duke mentioned?”

“I do not know,” said the magician, frowning. “Perhaps they are servants of the Nameless One, perhaps of someone else, and they escaped from the depths when the equilibrium of the magical source was disrupted.”

“By the way,” the king interrupted, “how much longer will my subjects have to put up with these repulsive beasts?”

“The council is doing absolutely everything possible, Your Majesty. We have prepared a spell, and by the end of the week not a single creature of the night will be able to enter our city. At least, that is my hope.”

“Why doesn’t the Order of Magicians destroy the Nameless One?” I asked, bringing the conversation back to its original subject.

“The Kronk-a-Mor gives the reprobate secure protection. Unfortunately, we understand nothing about the shamanism of the ogres. And we are unlikely ever to learn now. The Nameless One has waited for centuries, building up his power and gathering his army. Only the Rainbow Horn, a mighty artifact of the past, which was given to Grok by the elves who took it from the ogres in ancient times, has held the Nameless One and his army behind the Mountains of Despair. The elves say that the ogres themselves created this artifact to counter their own magic, to neutralize it if the Kronk-a-Mor should suddenly escape their control. The Rainbow Horn is the one single reason why the Nameless One has never dared to make war against us. In some way the Horn completely neutralizes his magic-” Artsivus began coughing.

“It is only while the Horn retains its power that the Nameless One dare not venture to pass the Lonely Giant. What can he do without his magic? This wizard should not be regarded as darkness,” the king continued. “He is simply a very talented magician who has made good use of his knowledge and now wants to take his revenge for being executed. Regard him as merely a little unbalanced by his hatred. And now that the power of the Horn has weakened over the centuries, the Nameless One is raising his head. I am certain that the enemy will soon strike a blow against our kingdom.”

“He is on the very point of striking,” Alistan said quietly. “Elfin scouts report that the Nameless One is preparing his army for a campaign. Thousands of giants, ogres, and other creatures are gathering from all across the Desolate Lands. In the Crayfish Dukedom they are forging weapons night and day. By next spring, or perhaps sooner, the Nameless One and his forces will be at the walls of the city. The Lonely Giant will not hold out, and I cannot even send them reinforcements.”

Stalkon nodded. “The orcs would immediately get wind of it. They would attack from the rear, and Miranueh is not in a peaceful mood just at the moment, either. The only possible help could come from the dark elves and the Border Kingdom, but if the orcs decide to attack, then they will attack the Borderland as well. The Nameless One is unlikely to enter any other lands, and so we cannot expect help from Garrak, or the Empire, or Filand. Isilia, as always, will remain neutral and sit things out without interfering. Miranueh will merely rub its hands in glee. We shall have to manage with our own forces.”

“And it is not only the Nameless One who has become active recently,” said the magician. “The orcs are raising their heads in the Forests of Zagraba, in the mountains trolls have starting attacking the dwarves’ settlements, a dragon has been seen on the southern borders. A dragon! It is more than two hundred years since the last one approached the borders of our kingdom. The world is teetering on the threshold of war. A terrible war.”

“I have begun gathering an army,” the king said with a frown. “By the end of the year I hope to put at least fifty thousand men in the field against the Nameless One. Some will have to be left on the borders with Zagraba and Miranueh. And there is also the militia, but that is merely a gesture of despair. We need to announce a levy, but I am afraid that there will be a panic, the prices of goods will shoot sky-high, and we shall have refugees. Thank the gods we have the dark elves on our side, as well as the gnomes and their cannon.”

“I beg your pardon, Your Majesty, I… I have no doubts concerning the gnomes-dump a sackful of gold pieces in front of them, and they’ll make war on their own grandmother-but the elves… Are you sure about them?”

“We have no need to lie,” said the woman, throwing back her veil. “I myself have seen the army of the Nameless One preparing for war beyond the Needles of Ice.”

My jaw dropped. The person gazing at me was an elfess. A genuine dark elfess.

The bewitching charm of the elves. It was invented by the same storyteller who thought up the goblins’ thirst for blood. It is only in fairy tales that elves are beautiful, only in fairy tales that they are immortal, only in fairy tales do they have golden hair, green eyes, melodic voices, and a light, floating step. And only in fairy tales are elves wise, truthful, just, and chivalrous. In real life…

In real life anyone who knew no better could take an elf from the forests of Zagraba and I’alyala for an orc. Because the fairy-tale beauty of the elves lauded to the heavens by drunken storytellers in the taverns simply doesn’t exist.

Well of course, there are some attractive faces even among this race, but they’re certainly no paragon of beauty. Elves look like people, except for their swarthy skin, yellow eyes, black lips, and ash-gray hair. And those protruding fangs put a real scare into the unsophisticated philistine and the lover of old wives’ tales.

Don’t believe in the kindheartedness of the elves. One day, if you are unlucky, you may be present at an elfin torture session, when they apply the Green Leaf to their closest relatives, the orcs.

That’s right. Orcs and elves appeared in Siala in the very same year. But the orcs arrived here just a little before the elves, for which the ashen-haired ones can never forgive them. And, apart from the ogres, the elves and the orcs were the first to be brought to Siala by the gods. The race of orcs was granted pride and fury, and the elves cunning and guile. But both of them received yet another gift-hatred. To this day they still make war, slaying each other in large numbers in the thousands upon thousands of bloody battles that take place in the boundless Forests of Zagraba.

The gnomes and the dwarves, Doralissians and men, centaurs and giants, and the multitude of other races that inhabit Siala only appeared later. But the first arrivals were the unsuccessful children-the orcs and elves. Afterward the elves divided into dark and light, although the only difference between them is that the dark elves employ shamanism, and the light elves use wizardry.

The dark and light elves are not hostile to each other; they simply regard each other with a considerable degree of contempt. Even now the dark elves cannot understand why their relatives use an alien magic, not original to their race. About two thousand years ago they found themselves unable to live together, and so they separated. The dark elves remained in the Forests of Zagraba, while the light elves moved away to the Forests of I’alyala, which lie beside the Crest of the World.

“Allow me to introduce you, Harold,” said the king, indicating the elfess. “This is Lady Miralissa from the House of the Black Moon.”

I bowed with restraint. A name with the ending ssa indicated that the elfess was from the Supreme Family of the house. In simple worlds, a personage of the royal blood. Well now, this was beginning to add up. Harold has a sharp eye.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, milady.”

“Likewise.”

“The pleasantries can wait,” the king declared. “We have very little time and you, Harold, will have to help us.”

“To stop the Nameless One?” I asked skeptically.

If that’s it, then the king or his advisers really have lost their grip.

“Yes,” said the archmagician.

Then everybody in this room is definitely deranged!

Alistan was observing me closely, trying to discover any sign of mockery of his king. I refrained. It was hard, certainly, but I refrained. The jester didn’t, though. The goblin burst into laughter and fell on the carpet, clutching at his stomach.

“The life of the kingdom is in the hands of a thief! Watch out that he doesn’t filch it!”

I personally didn’t find that at all funny.

“Quiet, Kli-Kli,” Alistan said sternly, keeping his eyes fixed intently on me.

“All right, I hold my tongue, I repent, I die.” The goblin flung his arms out in a tragic gesture.

“Of course, I am flattered by such an honor,” I began cautiously, trying not to provoke the lunatics. “But does it not seem to you that I have rather less power and experience than the Order and the Wild Hearts, and it will be rather difficult to stop this wizard single-handedly?”

The goblin tittered and collapsed onto the carpet again. “Oh, Harold!” said the jester, wiping away genuine tears. “Not only are you clever and bold, you are cocksure, too.”

“Then what does my task consist of, Your Majesty?” I carried on playing the fool, waiting for the moment when they might let me go.

And then I’ll run for it. I don’t give a damn where, anywhere will do, even the Sultanate, just as long as it’s as far away as possible. To lands where there are no insane kings, crazy jesters, and senile geriatric wizards.

“We need the Rainbow Horn,” the elfess said. “It is the only thing that can halt the Nameless One. I fear that even the army will not be able to stand against the full battle host of the Desolate Lands.”

“The Rainbow Horn?” I echoed stupidly. “What has it got to do with this?”

“I have already explained,” Artsivus said with a frown of annoyance. “Is your fear beginning to affect your hearing?”

“Understand this, Harold. The magic of the ogres is not ideal and in many ways it is crude, even though it is very powerful, but the law of equilibrium…” The elfess pursed her black lips ironically, exposing her fangs even more. And still she possessed an exotic beauty. “As time passes, the Horn loses its magical properties. It has to be…”

“Reactivated,” the archmagician prompted, staring into the flames that were merrily consuming the wood in the hearth.

“Yes, magically charged after a certain period of time. Otherwise nothing will remain of its special properties. The Horn is weakening at this moment, that is why the Nameless One has begun to stir beyond the Needles of Ice. We need you to get the artifact for the Order.”

“You mean you don’t have it?” I asked, astounded.

“That is precisely the point. We don’t,” the Rat exclaimed furiously. “And all thanks to the stupidity of the Order.”

“The Order acted out of the very best of motives!” the archmagician retorted sharply.

“Well, we’re certainly paying for them now!”

“Your job, milord Alistan, is to protect the king’s life and brandish that piece of ironmongery you carry, not to interfere in the business of the Order!” The old man was simply seething with indignation and his beard wagged in a way that reminded me of a Doralissian whose favorite horse has been stolen.

“That’s enough!” the king roared furiously. He didn’t seem anything like a good-natured innkeeper now. “Explain the thief’s task to him.”

“About three hundred years ago,” Artsivus began, speaking in a dull voice and casting a hostile glance at the captain of the guard from under his thick gray eyebrows, “the Council of the Order decided to use the Horn to annihilate the Kronk-a-Mor that binds the Nameless One to this world. We… we did not quite manage it…”

Alistan snorted loudly.

“We ought to send Your Magicship to Miranueh as a diplomat! Perhaps we would get the disputed lands then? Not quite…” The jester giggled, savoring those two words, but then his eyes met the magician’s stern gaze, and he shut up.

“Yes… Nothing came of our attempt. We tried to control the magic of the ogres, about which we knew absolutely nothing. A power flow was shorted out at the wrong point or an operon was shifted several degrees off the fifth astral position… Mmm, yes…” Artsivus realized that he had wandered into tangled thickets that were absolutely impenetrable to anyone but himself. “It was all out of control, and the sudden surge of magic struck Avendoom. Or rather, part of it. The part that is now known as the Secret Territory.”

“So that’s how it appeared…,” I drawled.

“Do you realize how grateful the inhabitants of the glorious capital of Valiostr would be if they only knew who was responsible for putting the Stain on the map?” The goblin opened his eyes wide, transforming them into two small blue lakes.

The archmagician sighed heavily-evidently I was not the only one already weary of the jester-and continued:

“The Order decided to put the Horn as far out of harm’s way as possible. They charged it, then took it to Grok’s sepulchre and left it there. And that, in effect, is the entire story.”

“And you want me to get the Horn out of the grave?” I asked in amazement. “But what do you need me for? Any gravedigger with a spade could manage a simple little job like that! And by the way, where is Grok buried?”

A tense, oppressive silence filled the little room. The elfess and Artsivus exchanged astonished glances. The Count of the Rat gave a crooked smile and looked at me disdainfully. I will pass over the jester and his drooping jaw in polite silence. The king was the only one who carried on as before, twirling my knife in his hands, sometimes glancing at me and trying to figure out if I was deliberately playing the fool.

“Hm-hmm. Young man, do you know any history at all?” the magician asked cautiously.

“It would be about as much use to me as a h’san’kor. I’m a thief, not a learned old maid.” I was getting seriously tired of this buffoonery.

These lads certainly know how to wind up a man’s nerves.

“Why, he probably doesn’t even know how to read,” the goblin declared with a pompous air.

I ignored that.

“The Horn is buried with Grok in the Palaces of Bone, Harold,” the elfess said in a quiet voice, and she shuddered as if her swarthy skin had been touched by a cold wind from beyond the Mountains of Despair.

That was when I burst into laughter, realizing that these five lunatics were hoaxing me.

“He’s gone crazy,” the jester said in response to my laughter, shaking his green head dismally so that the little bells on his cap jangled sadly.

“They’re joking, aren’t they, Your Majesty? They must be! Why Hrad Spein? Wouldn’t it be easier for me to draw up a new Vastar’s Bargain and invite dragons to protect our beloved homeland? Or tame a h’san’kor for you? Believe me, I could manage that far more easily and much more quickly than an excursion to Hrad Spein!”

“They are not joking,” the king said in a serious voice, and the next burst of laughter stuck in my throat.

Isn’t that just wonderful! All I have to do is go down into Hrad Spein to retrieve some stupid magical whistle…

“We need that Horn, Master Harold,” said the elfess, speaking to me tenderly, as if I were a capricious little child. “And we need it urgently. Before the onset of winter.”

“But why me?”

“Because only a tricky and cunning man will pass where a large troop of soldiers or magicians will get stuck in the mire. The finest thief in the kingdom, for instance. Yes, yes. Don’t try to be modest. We know far more about you than you think.”

“Does this mean others have already tried to get the Horn?”

“A hundred thousand demons! Yes!” Alistan clenched and unclenched his fists several times. “Do you really think we would have turned to a thief if there were any other way of getting into the damned catacombs? We sent the first expedition in winter. Of those who went down underground, none returned, and those who waited up above were cut down by orcs. The second party set out in early spring. In view of the failure of the first expedition, we sent an expedition of more than a hundred men. Experienced soldiers, eight magicians of the Order, plus support from the dark elves, who acted as our guides in the Forests of Zagraba… And, may the demons take me, nothing came of it! Eighty men went down into the burial sites, and only one came back out, as white-haired as a snow owl and completely insane. The remnants of the second expedition arrived in Avendoom a week ago. All eight magicians were left behind, underground. With seventy-one other men, more than half of whom were my soldiers!”

“And now you’ve decided a thief will be able to do what a hundred men couldn’t,” I summed up.

Wonderful, the big shots have failed to do the impossible and now they want a lowly thief to do their bidding. I wonder which brilliant mind came up with this idea?

“Can I refuse?” This was a purely rhetorical question, as Brother For likes to say.

“Yes, Baron Lanten is still outside the door. You can take a ride to the Gray Stones with him,” Alistan laughed.

I get it. So that’s the way it is. Either take your chances in Hrad Spein or rot in the Gray Stones-and who knows which is better? If it was up to me, I’d choose the Gray Stones, but I can probably risk it and try to trick the whole Council of Lunatics.

“I accept,” I said, nodding, and got up out of my armchair. “Can I go now? To carry out my mission?”

At least it seemed like I had a real chance to cut and run before they really had me on the hook.

“Of course,” the king said with a feeble wave of his hand, and his immense ring glinted as it caught the light of a candle. “You accept the Commission?”

At that point I sat back down in the armchair. I’d thought I was going to trick them all, thought I was the most slippery eel there, but they were the ones who had tricked me.

When a master thief performs a task for a client, he accepts a Commission, which renders the agreement between thief and client stronger than any amount of gold could. In accepting a Commission, a thief undertakes to carry it out (or, if he is unsuccessful, to return the initial pledge, together with interest on the total value of the deal), and the client commits himself to paying in full when the task has been completed.

The Commission is an inviolable contract between the master thief and the client. And it cannot be violated, torn up, or put aside without the agreement of both parties. As the masters say, you can cheat and break a contract even with darkness, but not with Sagot. The punishment will follow immediately-something like falling into the firm grip of the guards at the scene of the crime, finding yourself in prison, or running into a knife in a perfectly safe alleyway. Luck will simply turn her back on the night hunter. And the client will not flourish if he refuses to pay, without good reason. The patron of thieves turns a blind eye to the doings of footpads and petty criminals, but not to those of master thieves following sound and reliable leads.

To refuse the Commission meant confessing to my recent lie about being willing to cooperate and being sent to the most uncomfortable cell in the Gray Stones, with a grand view of the Cold Sea. To accept meant that I couldn’t make a run for it, because the Commission wouldn’t let me go. There was no way I could pull out of it. “What are the terms?” I asked Stalkon hopelessly.

“You must deliver the Rainbow Horn to the capital before the beginning of January.”

“The payment?”

“Fifty thousand pieces of gold.”

“As the pledge?” I tried to keep my voice steady.

Fifty thousand… well, of course, it’s not half the kingdom or the hand of the princess from the fairy tale, but it offers plenty of scope… Several generations could live well on that amount of money. The fortunes of certain barons and counts are no more than a third of the sum proposed.

“How much do you want?”

I thought for a moment, hesitating.

“A hundred will do.”

“You’ll get the money as you leave the palace. By the way, don’t forget your toys. Is that all?”

“I request you to pronounce the official formula. That is, of course, if Your Majesty is familiar with it.”

“I request Shadow Harold to accept my Commission,” said the king, speaking the official formulation of a contract between a thief and a client.

“I accept the Commission,” I sighed.

“It has been heard,” the elfess said with a flash of her fangs, and threw the veil over her face.

There was no thunder and no lightning. Simply, somewhere Sagot remembered what had been said, and now he would watch carefully to make sure the conditions of the contract were observed. Or if not him, then his servants would watch. The important thing was that the Commission would have to be carried out. If it cost me my life, I had to do it, because there is no running away from fate. And not to carry out the Commission was absolutely impossible. I couldn’t go off to Hrad Spein, hide somewhere near the entrance, and then say: Sorry, I gave it a try but it didn’t work out. They were right when they said Stalkon was clever; he had closed off all the escape routes and loopholes by offering a huge sum of money. And if I didn’t manage to pull it off, I would have to return the pledge and a huge amount of interest on the total sum of the deal. I didn’t have that kind of money, so that meant the terms of the Commission would be violated.

“Congrotolations, Harold!” Kli-Kli bowed elegantly in my direction. “Now you’re the king’s man.”

“I have questions.”

The words “Your Majesty” were set aside now until afterward. Now there was only a client, a master thief, and Sagot observing us from heaven, or wherever it is that he lives.

“Yes?”

“Am I going there alone?”

The thought flashed swiftly through my head that if I went alone, I’d certainly never get there. I’d either lose my way in the Forests of Zagraba or get clubbed to death somewhere along the way.

“No, but we have decided that this time the expedition should be small and it must travel in secret. Someone had eyes following the first expeditions. Servants of the Nameless One or someone else, we never found the informers.”

“How small a detachment?” I asked with a frown.

“Lady Miralissa and two of her compatriots will be your guides in the forest and will protect you with magic.”

“Stop!” It didn’t bother me in the slightest that I had interrupted a king. Alistan frowned, but I couldn’t give a damn. In the face of a Commission all are equal. “You mentioned magic… How many magicians of the Order will go with us?”

“Not one,” snapped Artsivus, suddenly emerging from his contemplations.

I paused for a moment, ruffled up my hair with a nervous gesture, and said, “I thought I just heard you say-”

“Not one,” the archmagician repeated just as firmly. “We’ve already lost eight of our best in those cursed Palaces of Bone as it is. All the magicians will be needed on the walls of the city if your undertaking ends in failure.”

Worse and worse. Why not just throw us into the orcs’ labyrinth? It’ll be easier on our nerves. There’s absolutely no point going into the Forests of Zagraba, and especially to Hrad Spein, without a good magician.

“In addition to your elves, you will also be accompanied by the ten Wild Hearts who escorted the Lady Miralissa from the Lonely Giant. And also milord Alistan. He will command the expedition.”

Alistan gave me a sour look. He clearly did not relish the thought of traveling in the company of a thief. The Rat and the Wild Hearts would make up a small, concentrated force capable of fighting off a small detachment of attackers if we ran into any along the way. So how many of us were there? Fifteen was the number. “Good. When do we set out?”

“The sooner the better.”

“Then at the end of the week,” I said, counting the days.

“What?” Alistan took a step in my direction. “You’re mocking us!”

“Me? Absolutely not.” I shook my head, making it clear to the knight that I didn’t have the slightest intention of mocking. “I need to buy equipment and make thorough preparations for the trek; I personally wish to come back alive from Hrad Spein. It’s a month’s riding, maybe two, to the Forests of Zagraba, and let’s say a month, allowing a huge safety margin, at Hrad Spein, and the same amount of time to get back to Avendoom. We can reasonably expect to be back here in November or December. Provided we don’t run into trouble, naturally. Your Majesty, I need access to the Royal Library.”

I can read perfectly well.

“What on earth for?” the old magician asked, astonished.

“I don’t want to go blundering into Hrad Spein like some incompetent idiot. The Nameless One himself could lose his way in there. I need plans and old maps. At least for what they call the human section. Grok isn’t buried in the lower levels, is he?”

“No, his grave is on the eighth level.”

I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. That was one little piece of good news at least. Trying to enter the levels of the ogres was simple suicide. There was no way I would ever reach them alive. I’d be gobbled up somewhere along the way. But I could risk going down as far as the eighth level.

“That’s good. I think there must be old plans in the library?”

“Yes, there are,” said Artsivus with a nod, then hesitated for a moment before adding: “Only, Grok’s grave isn’t shown on them, I’m certain of that.”

“Why not?” Miralissa asked in amazement, distracted from her contemplation of the fragile goblet of wine.

“The eighth level may not be the twenty-eighth, but it was still not built by men. Or for men. No one must know who lives there and what dangers await.”

“I can’t believe the magicians of the Order left absolutely no records of Grok’s grave and the booby traps in Hrad Spein,” I said, starting to feel nervous. “They must be somewhere, surely?”

“They are.” The old man nodded and wrapped the woolen blanket around himself even more tightly.

“Where, then?”

Would you believe it! First they insist that I carry out a Commission and then they make things difficult by keeping secrets of their own.

“In the old Tower of the Order.”

“And where is the old Tower of the Order?” I had to drag every word out of the old man with red-hot pincers.

“Somewhere in the Forbidden Territory of the city.”

That was when the fanfare sounded in my head, announcing that now I was in a right royal fix.

4. THE ROYAL LIBRARY

I’d promised the king I would go back to the palace after a week, so now I had an entire seven days to prepare for the dubious undertaking of a journey to Hrad Spein. Very first thing the following morning I set out for the Royal Library on Grok Square.

Naturally, to go in through the central entrance would be an act of great insolence and an open challenge to every nobleman in the kingdom, and so I maneuvered through the bustling stream of townsfolk who were already up and hurrying about their business and made my way to the right side of the gray building, were there was a separate entrance for employees.

I walked up to the cast-iron door and knocked loudly. But as always happens, my modest personage was ignored in the most shameless fashion. After waiting for a couple of minutes, I hammered again, with redoubled strength. Silence again. Has everybody in there gone to sleep, then? I can easily believe it, there are never many visitors, especially since entrance is restricted to nobles, priests, and members of the Order. Simple folk have no need of books, they’re happy if they can manage to feed their families. I waited for a while and then knocked yet again, so loudly that the racket frightened the pigeons on the nearby roofs, and the startled flock went soaring up into the cloudless June sky.

Eventually a lock clicked, a bolt squeaked, the door opened a crack, and an old man peered out at me with a short-sighted, angry expression.

“What’s all the racket about, you hooligan?”

I didn’t say a word, just held out the king’s ring before the old man had time to slam the door in my face. He screwed up his eyes and peered closely at the circle of gold, then opened the door and stepped aside.

“Why didn’t you say so straightaway? Come in then, if you’ve nothing better to do at home.”

There was no point in arguing, so I walked into the library, and the old man rapidly slammed the door behind me.

“They’re always trying to get me! But I’m too smart for them!” The old man giggled and grinned gleefully, exposing the worn stumps of yellow teeth.

“Who are they?” I asked in an effort to patch things up with the caretaker.

“Ogres!”

Well, how about that? The old man’s touched. He’s gone completely round the bend hidden away in here among all these books.

The old man nodded a few times, and then shuffled off along a narrow corridor into the depths of the building. I had no option but to go after him.

“What have you come for, then? To increase your stock of knowledge?” the old man asked querulously.

“Uh-huh.”

“A magician’s apprentice, I suppose.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, sure,” the old-timer chortled, not believing a single word.

For a minute we walked on in total silence along service corridors with dim light streaming in through narrow little steel-barred windows. Specks of dust glittered and sparkled as they drifted through the rays of sunlight.

“So tell me, apprentice, what the hell are you doing with that wasp hidden under your cloak?” the old man suddenly asked in a cunning voice, stopping and looking me straight in the eyes.

“I see you’re sharp-sighted,” I said, amazed. “How do you know about the wasp?”

“How do I know?” the old man muttered, walking on. “I served thirty years as a scout in the Wild Hearts. So I ought to be able to spot a lousy little crossbow, even if it is hidden.”

“The Wild Hearts? A scout? Thirty years?”

“Sure.”

Well now, how about that! The old-timer’s a genuine hero, a walking legend! But then what’s he doing in a place like this? Over their period of service the wild ones put together a fair-sized fortune, so they can relax and live out the rest of their lives in their own little houses with no worries or cares, and no need to slave away day and night, choking on old dust.

“You’re not lying?” Somehow it was hard to believe I was face-to-face with a genuine Wild Heart, even a retired one.

The old man snorted angrily and rolled up the sleeve of his greasy, moth-eaten, light green shirt to reveal a tattoo on his forearm. A small purple heart, the kind that lovers draw on walls, only this one had teeth.

The Wild Heart. And below it the title of his unit: BRIAR.

So the old-timer isn’t lying. No fool on earth would be stupid enough to tattoo himself with the symbol of the Wild Hearts, let alone the name of a reconnaissance unit. The Hearts would simply slice the rogue’s arm off, tattoo and all. And they wouldn’t bother about his age.

I whistled.

“Oho! And how many missions?”

“Forty-three,” the old man muttered modestly. “I got as far as the Needles of Ice with my detachment.”

I almost stumbled and fell. Forty-three missions beyond the Lonely Giant? That was impressive. This old-timer deserved a little respect.

“Was it tough?”

“You bet it was,” the old man replied, thawing a little. “We’re here.”

We left the dark, narrow little corridor behind us and entered an immense hall that seemed to go on forever. The vast numbers of tables and chairs for visitors were all empty, except for one, where a youth wearing the robes of the Order was sitting. He was leafing through a thick, dusty book, blowing his nose into a handkerchief every second. The snot-nosed juvenile took no notice of us.

An entire lifetime would be far too short to read everything that had accumulated in the library over the centuries. The huge shelves of black Zagraban oak soared way up high into the space under the domed ceiling, their tops hidden in darkness that not even the light streaming in through the tall lancet windows could dispel. There were thousands of books-hundreds of thousands-standing on the shelves, preserving the knowledge of thousands of generations of Siala on their yellowed pages.

There were narrow balconies winding around the walls of the library, so that visitors could climb all the way up to the ceiling to get the book they needed. There were books here that had been written by half-blind priests sitting beside a candle with its flame flickering in the wind: ancient tomes of the elves, who had created their manuscripts when the full moon shone and the black waters of the Iselina reflected the heavenly lamp of night as they flowed between the roots of gigantic trees. There were books here by the gnomes-written first on clay tablets, and later on thin sheets of metal, and finally printed on the printing press they invented, which was stored away somewhere safe in the Steel Mines. Scrolls written by human magicians; books created by the finest minds of Siala; books produced by nonentities and mediocrities. Learning of all kinds: history, culture, war, peace, magic, shamanism, life, and death. Legends of the gods, men, elves, heroes, stories of hundreds of animals and other creatures, of thousands of stars, and Sagot only knows what else. All the knowledge of the world was gathered together in this ancient library, which was based on the library at Ranneng, built almost nine hundred years earlier.

“Oho!” I exclaimed admiringly, throwing my head back to look up at the ceiling and trying to make out exactly where in the gloom the walls of learning came to an end.

I’d never been in any libraries before. Except for a few private ones, where I’d borrowed a couple of rare volumes from the owners for other, equally passionate lovers of literature.

“Oho’s about right!” the old man said as proudly as if he’d written everything in the place himself. “So what are you after, hooligan?”

“Are there any old plans of the city here?”

“There are a few, all right,” he mumbled.

“I need plans of the Stain. And plans of Hrad Spein-in fact, everything you have on the place.”

The old man whistled, pursed his lips, and snapped his fingers a couple of times as he gazed thoughtfully over my shoulder, then he fixed the gaze of his watery eyes directly on me. “So that’s the lay of the land, is it, my old mate? Why not ask for a map that shows the treasures of the dwarves or the gnomes while you’re at it? If you didn’t have that ring, I’d throw you out on your ear. I get all sorts in here asking about documents proscribed by the Order. No end to them these days. Pah! Right, let’s go…” The old man turned his back on me and started wandering through the shelves toward the mysterious inner depths of the library.

“No end to them?” I questioned him cautiously. “Who?”

“You, for instance. Why the hell can’t you all stay at home with the girls?”

“And who else?”

“There was one here yesterday,” the old-timer muttered angrily without turning round as he led me into a narrow little room with a wrought-metal door in the wall.

“He looked like you. Gray and tight-lipped he was, just like you. Came in the evening. And he stuck a ring under my nose, too. A bit different from yours, but it had just as much authority, you mark my words. Old man, he said, give me the plans of the Stain, he said. At least he hadn’t completely lost his senses, like you. He didn’t ask any questions about Hrad Spein. We’re here. Hang on, I’ll unlock the door.”

The old man began fiddling with a massive bundle of keys and swearing as he opened the squeaky old locks.

I was thinking hard. Who else has suddenly decided he needs maps of the forbidden district of the city? Has the king hired someone else to do the job as well as me? Doesn’t he trust me? Or are these people working for someone else? The Nameless One, for instance?

“What’s your name, pops?” I asked amiably, bending down to duck under the ceiling of a gray corridor that led deep under the ground, into darkness.

“Bolt,” the old-timer muttered, lighting the torch lying ready near at hand. “Crossbow Bolt, that’s my name. Mind you don’t break your legs, the steps are steep. All the forbidden books are kept in an underground depository. Let’s get what you want, then you can go back up to read it, otherwise I’ll freeze to death here.”

“I heard that the forbidden books couldn’t be taken out of the depository.”

“Hmm… I’d like to tell the Order where to stick their stupid rules. Those fat bloated wizards don’t understand a thing. If they’d ever fought ogres, like me, they’d soon drop all that stupid nonsense. Who needs this old junk? When you’ve read everything you want, I’ll bring them back. Careful, the step’s broken here.”

Hm. Bolt. I knew that in the Wild Hearts many soldiers were given nicknames to replace their real names. The nickname described the man, and men earned them for the specific quality of their service, actions, knowledge, or character. The Wild Hearts took pride in their new names.

Crossbow Bolt. So in former times the old man must have been a good shot.

We walked down into a dark hall that was small, but even so the torchlight was too feeble to illuminate it fully. The old man reached out one hand into the darkness, there was a loud click somewhere up above our heads, and the room was flooded with blinding sunlight. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut in sudden surprise.

“Aha, frightened, eh?” The old man giggled with delight. “Come on now, don’t be afraid. Come on, open those peepers.”

I slowly got used to the bright light. Like the large hall up above, this small one was crammed absolutely full of books and scrolls on metal shelves. And hanging from the high ceiling there was a blindingly bright round sphere, like a little sun.

“The dwarves invented it. Did you think they run around in the dark in those caves of theirs, smashing their foreheads against the walls? Oho noo… They put up magic lamps like this. Magic! Our Order’s never even come close to anything like it. The charlatans! But the dwarves put one of these candles in here, and about ten of them in the basements of the royal palace. Of course, I’ve got no idea how much money they took for it. But it’s handy all right.”

I nodded.

“Right, then. Stay here, and don’t touch anything or stick your nose into anything. I’ll go and get what you want.” The old man gave me a menacing look to make sure I understood what he’d said.

As soon as he was gone, I instantly shed my harmless pose and started strolling about, looking at the titles of the old volumes. My eyes slid along until they suddenly came to rest on a small shelf of magic scrolls. The following words were written in immense, ornate letters on the wall beside the shelf: BATTLE SPELLS! RUNE MAGIC. THESE SCROLLS MAY ONLY BE USED BY ARCHMAGICIANS OF THE ORDER, WHEN PERMISSION HAS BEEN GRANTED BY THE COUNCIL!

I couldn’t understand why rune-magic battle spells would be lying there so openly, entirely unprotected. Any light-fingered rogue-like me, for instance-could easily make off with these rolled-up sheets of parchment.

Carelessness will destroy the world yet. Just you mark my words!

I glanced round quickly, grabbed one scroll, with a black ribbon, out of the dusty heap and stuck it inside my shirt. Then I moved away, to wait for the old man. I’d acted like a petty thief, but I thought to myself that no one else was going to need the scroll for a long time, and it might come in handy in Hrad Spein.

The trouble with scrolls is that you can only use them once. After you’ve chanted the formula and worked the spell, you can simply throw the useless parchment away. The magic destroys the words, erasing them from the scroll and from the reader’s memory. But at least you don’t have to be a magician to work magic that has been written down on paper. You only need to know how to read.

I heard Bolt coughing somewhere behind the shelves, and then he himself appeared, carrying two books in his hands. One was huge and thick, in a brown buffalo-skin binding with worn gold embossing, the other was small and so old that I thought it would crumble to dust under his fingers.

“An ogre almost grabbed me back there,” the old man muttered, handing me the books I wanted. “The brute was hiding under the shelves. I had to give it a couple of kicks to frighten it off. Well, why are you just standing there like a block of wood?”

“Is that all?” I asked Bolt in amazement as I looked at the two books. I’d been expecting more.

“That’s enough cheek from you. The big one is plans of Avendoom, drawn four hundred years ago, and the little one’s about Hrad Spein. Written quite recently, but it’s in a terrible state. The other books are in orcish. You don’t happen to savvy their spiel, do you. Right! Then quit your moaning.”

The old man turned out the dwarves’ sun, took the torch out of its bracket, and started climbing up the steps. We walked all the way back in silence. Then, still without speaking, the custodian locked the iron door and showed me to a table, only not in the large hall. It was in a little cubbyhole, surrounded by books. Then he walked off, muttering something to himself.

I began my research with what was simplest and easiest. Setting aside the little book, I pulled over the weighty tome composed of maps of the city bound together into a single volume.

The pages of fine parchment rustled quietly under my fingers as I turned them in search of the part of Avendoom that interested me. The maps in the book were astoundingly precise and detailed. It was obvious at first glance that this was the painstaking handiwork of dwarves. Only those large but meticulous hands could possibly have traced the lines so precisely and lovingly.

As the pages flashed past my eyes, so did the streets of Avendoom and the city’s history. I found what I was looking for quite quickly. The Forbidden Territory. Of course, drawn at a time when the magicians of the Order had not yet combined forces with the Rainbow Horn to transform five whole streets into a cursed spot that was walled off from the rest of the city.

Well then, getting into the Forbidden Territory would be fairly easy. Only what was waiting for me in there? Three roads left the Port City, running in parallel toward the Artisans’ City: the Street of the Sleepy Cat, the Street of Men, and Graveyard Street. The last of these ran into the old graveyard that was still in use at that time.

Running at right angles to the Street of the Sleepy Cat was the Street of the Magicians, which opened out into the square where the old Tower of the Order stood. On the other side of the square the Street of the Roofers began. As I had expected, all these streets occupied a substantial chunk of the city, a lot more than I had been counting on, in fact. It was going to be a tricky business. But if I wanted to find Grok’s grave, I would have to get into the old Tower of the Order somehow. I couldn’t understand how the two previous expeditions could have set out for Hrad Spein without knowing where to look for the Horn. What had they been counting on?

I tried to memorize all the roads, buildings, and side streets. Call me a fool, if you like, but I never copy plans down onto parchment. What do I have a head for?

Round about midday I leaned back in my chair, exhausted, then slammed the large volume shut and pushed it aside. I stretched and yawned. I would tackle the little book on Hrad Spein next. Hrad Spein, the very worst haunted house ever, filled with the shades of demons, orcs, ogres, and elves. Well, at least we would have an elf with us. What a curious, rare beauty she was, although not a conventional beauty by any means. Not that she was my type-what a match that would be! Ho-ho. Mysterious though, fascinating secrets there. She would bear watching.

My stomach was quite shamelessly reminding me that it was feeling rather hungry. Bolt went by, and I asked him if he could bring me something to eat or go and buy something. The only answer I got was a furious glance and a stern lecture that I should stuff my belly at an inn, not a depository of learning.

Deciding to try a different approach, I took out a silver coin and set it spinning on the table. Before the coin even came to a stop, Bolt grabbed it and disappeared into the walls of books and scrolls. A little while later he came back with a huge amount of food and four bottles of sour red wine: he’d been generous with my money and bought enough drink for an entire squadron.

We dined right there, on the table. In half a day not a single other person had come to visit the library building, and as I gnawed on a tough, unappetizing chicken leg, I realized how lonely and miserable the old man must feel here. Meanwhile, Bolt reserved most of his attention for the wine. After my snack, I told the custodian to go away and let me get on with my work, and he picked up the bottles and the remaining food and left.

I pulled over the little book, which bore a title in black letters: Hrad Spein. A nocturnal mystery, shrouded in death. A history with conjectures. The scholarly work of the magician Dalistus of the Snow, the Order of Avendoom.

Well, at least it would make interesting reading.

Ornate letters and engravings, maps, drawings of mysterious, inconceivable creatures. The terrible tale took a grip on me, plunging me into an age of ancient mysteries.

“Hrad Spein” is a ogric name. Translated into the language of men it means “Palaces of Bone.” But the dark elves say that the human tongue is incapable of expressing the universal horror that the ogres invested in those two words. No one knows who created Hrad Spein, and in which age, whose thought and strength it was that bit so deep into the bones of the earth, creating those immense caves and caverns that were later transformed into the architectural wonders of the northern world and, later still, into a world of darkness and horror.

The first to discover Hrad Spein were the ogres, before they withdrew into the Desolate Lands. There were no orcs yet then, not to mention human beings. The ogres spent a long time exploring Hrad Spein, a very long time. That was where they solved the mysteries of the Kronk-a-Mor. Nothing is known about the origin of the ogres, but they appeared in Siala a lot later than the time when unknown builders first laid the foundations of the Palaces of Bone. They say that the potency of the ogres’ magic came from ageless catacombs, where they discovered the ancient writings of an unknown race that lived in Siala long before the ogres arrived.

Deep, deep under the ground the ogres came across gigantic halls and caves. They started using Hrad Spein as their graveyard, leaving their dead and placing terrible curses on the burial sites. Later, when the ogres moved away to the north, it was the bones of orcs and elves that found their final resting place in Hrad Spein. While constantly warring with each other above the ground, they also found time to create magnificent palaces below it, palaces of a beauty that stunned their contemporaries. And thousands of thousands were interred there, in the ancient burial grounds.

Exquisitely elegant ceilings, columns, frescoes, halls, statues, and corridors-that was Hrad Spein in those times. The orcs and the elves worked together. It was the only place where there was an effective truce between the feuding relatives. Neither side intruded on the lower levels of the ogres. Both races realized that nothing good could be expected from the ogres’ magic, and the upper layers of the palaces provided more than enough space for them.

But eventually the bloodlust of the orcs and the hatred of the elves had their effect, and blood was spilt in this place that was sacred to both races. Both of them started installing traps in their own territory to catch their enemies. The underground halls crackled with dark shamanic energy and were drowned in blood. In the end, neither orcs nor elves could feel safe in these places any longer. The Palaces of Bone were abandoned and subsequently the secret knowledge of the locations of traps and labyrinths in the lower levels was lost.

Hrad Spein became like a gigantic underground layer cake tens of leagues deep and wide. The levels of the ogres, the levels of the orcs and the elves. Halls, corridors, and caves. Burial sites, treasure chambers, and magical rooms. Everything in the Palaces of Bone became wound up tight into one gigantic, inextricable tangle. By the time the orcs and elves left the place, men had appeared in the world of Siala and they found their way to Hrad Spein.

They too did not dare go down to the lower levels. Amazing as it might seem, our race had the wits not to do that. Men took over the upper three levels for burying their warriors. Hrad Spein became legendary as the greatest burial ground in the Northern Lands. Only brave soldiers who had fallen in battle were considered worthy to be buried in Hrad Spein, and, of course, aristocrats.

But then, something happened. Nobody ever knew what it was exactly, or why it happened. In Hrad Spein the evil of the ogres’ bones awoke, protected by the dark shamanism that had lain dormant all these centuries on the lower levels of the underground regions. It awoke, rousing the dead-and someone else as well. And it rose to the very upper level, but did not emerge from the bounds of Hrad Spein, settling forever in the ancient palaces, and no one dared to go down to those places. Except for the magicians carrying the Horn to Grok’s grave.

Time went by, and the Forests of Zagraba swallowed up the entrances to this underground country, concealing the horror of night forever beneath the green crowns of their trees. Over the centuries the dreadful tales about Hrad Spein acquired even greater depths of horror and darkness. Only once, about forty years ago, did dark elves venture down into those places to leave there forever the head of the House of the Black Rose, but they were only able to carry the body of the warrior who had fallen in battle with the orcs as far as the fourth level. They abandoned his body there, amid the darkness and the horror, and retreated upward, fighting off the creatures of the night and losing soldiers as they went. In the end only a pitiful remnant of the elves managed to escape back into the sunlight.

And now I must set out to go to this dark place. With no help to rely on, no precise maps of the levels and the halls, no knowledge of where the traps are positioned, or even how to find Grok’s grave, which was not built by the overzealous magicians on the levels of men, but on the eighth level, one that was used by the elves. I just hope that Artsivus is right and in the old Tower of the Order I’ll be able to find at least some maps and a plan showing the location of the Horn.

When I was about halfway through studying the work of the magician Dalistus of the Snow, Bolt came back, after having taken on board a full load of wine, and joined me at my table. He started telling me about his life and how he served in the Lonely Giant fortress. About the battles with orcs and svens when he used to fire his trusty crossbow. I didn’t really listen to his drunken tale-telling, just nodded mechanically sometimes as I carried on studying the history of Hrad Spein. It was already evening before the old man, evidently weary already of his own stories and with nothing else left to say, asked if he could look at my crossbow. I tore myself away from the book and looked up at him in amazement.

“Well, what are you looking at me like that for? Are you afraid I’m drunk and I’ll hurt myself? Why, I was using a crossbow before you were even born, you snot-nose! Give me it, nothing will happen.”

I hesitated for a moment, then took the miniature weapon out from under my cloak and held it out to Bolt, after first checking that the safety catch was on, so that the metal arrow couldn’t be fired if the trigger was pressed accidentally.

The old-timer grabbed the crossbow out of my hands, clicked his tongue in satisfaction, weighed the weapon in his hands, and aimed it at something behind my back. He found the safety catch very quickly and immediately released it. I began regretting that I hadn’t disarmed the weapon. Then the custodian, apparently tired of playing with the crossbow, put it down beside him, poured a fresh glass of wine, and clinked it against the weapon. And now that he had a new and probably more appreciative listener, he went on with the story of his life at the Lonely Giant. I immersed myself in the book again and only emerged from my reverie late in the evening, when Bolt yelled piercingly right in my ear:

“An ogre!”

The old man’s howl was so unexpected and so loud, that I fell backward, together with my chair, and struck my head painfully against the wooden floor. Through the flash of pain I saw a heavy arrow bury itself in the table, after punching right through the book about Hrad Spein.

Bolt grabbed the crossbow and fired upward at something without even taking aim. I heard a cry of pain, fury, and amazement and flung my head back, expecting to see a genuine ogre for the first time in my life. But all I saw was my old friend Paleface standing there, his left hand clutching his right shoulder, which had a crossbow bolt jutting out of it.

I jumped to my feet, forgetting all about the pain in my head, grabbed the crossbow out of the drunken old-timer’s hands, and dashed across to the steps leading up to the balcony. Reloading the weapon on the run, I thought to myself that Bolt certainly deserved his nickname. Anyone who could hit the target at that distance, even in the shoulder, and without really taking aim, when he was as drunk as a lord, was a real master.

Meanwhile Paleface went dashing away from me into one of the dimly lit corridors on the second floor. I rushed after him.

The assassin was gone. One of the second-floor windows was wide open. I reloaded my weapon, walked up to the opening, and cautiously leaned out, ready to pull back at any moment if Paleface hadn’t run away, only hidden. But the night street was deserted, with only a few lamps burning, and I hastily slammed the window frames shut so that nothing else could stick its head in from out of the darkness. After expressing aloud my wish that the son of a bitch Paleface would be eaten by some especially hungry brutish creature that very night, I went back down the steps.

“Did the ogre get away?” asked Bolt, throwing up his arms.

He had already pulled the arrow out of the book, and now he was showering choice expletives on the entire tribe of ogres for damaging the old manuscript.

“He won’t get far. You winged him,” I reassured the old man.

Apparently Markun had given up waiting for Harold to join the guild and had decided to dispatch him to Sagot, to make sure the others wouldn’t rebel.

“Yes, I got him good,” the old-timer said with a solemn nod of his head, hiccupping and swaying in the gusts of an invisible wind.

“Thanks, Bolt, you’ve been a great help. It’s getting late, I’ll be going home.”

I’ve found out everything I needed and now, before I take my trip to the forbidden part of the city, I have to get a good night’s sleep.

“Come round again, old buddy,” said the ancient custodian.

I thrust a gold piece into the old man’s hand, hoping that none of the city’s petty rogues would ever learn of my shameful generosity, and went out into the night.