The Grave thief

CHAPTER 31

'The great and good, squabbling like spoilt children,' Ilumene said with contempt as he glared back at the Scholars' Palace. At the duchess's request he had taken Ruhen for a walk, leaving her at the table, arguing with Styrax.

He turned his head to look up at the child now perched on his shoulders. 'If they keep on like that, Lord Styrax will strike them down like the God of Vain Men.'

His comment provoked no immediate response. Ilumene could feel the child watching the ongoing negotiations with his usual silent intensity. Evening had fallen with the stealth of a panther, suddenly sweeping down on the valley. When lanterns had been called for, the duchess had demanded a blanket for Ruhen as well.

Somewhat to Ilumene's chagrin, none of the Litse attendants had followed him when he left the terrace. Only the powerful and the scholars merited watching; apparently Ilumene wasn't considered either.

'Tell me,' Ruhen said. His voice was soft and elusive to the ear, like the susurration of autumn leaves in the breeze.

'The story? Didn't you write it?' He chuckled and took the dirt path that followed the valley's perimeter. 'In that case, there's a certain know-it-all king out west who owes me ten gold Emins!' He headed towards the tunnel entrance that would take them back to Byora once they had all capitulated. The Devoted, especially the Knight-Cardinal, had been thrown by the news, but had yet to actually surrender. What they were arguing about now was anyone's guess, but Ilumene didn't care. The first time he'd met Knight-Cardinal Certinse he'd been one of King Emin's faceless bodyguards; the intervening years had not diminished the Devoted leader's ability to waffle on endlessly whilst smiling all the while — but Ilumene was grateful that his natural Farlan arrogance meant the man hadn't bothered to remember the faces of the Narkang bodyguards.

He cleared his throat theatrically. 'Right then, the story of the God of Vain Men — you'll like this one. It's heretical, for a few reasons, which is why I'd thought it one of yours. There once was a rich man in the kingdom of Pelesei who found an old shrine on his land-'

'It's a lie,' Ruhen interrupted.

'A lie? What's a lie?'

'Tell me about Pelesei.'

'Pelesei?' Ilumene was struggling to keep up. 'Pelesei was the Kingdom of the Crescent Peninsula, far to the south. It was destroyed by plague two millennia ago; now it's just a motley collection of fifty-odd small city-states.'

'Why's it remembered?' Ruhen asked.

He snorted. 'Because of the stories based there, more than anything else.' He paused. 'Are you saying that every story about Pelesei was made up? But Rojak must have told me a dozen or more-'

'My herald knew.'

'Knew what?' Ilumene asked. 'Piss and daemons, what! That Pelesei never existed? Don't tell me that; it can't be true.'

'It did exist, a long way south.'

Ilumene didn't speak for a moment as he thought the matter through. 'But the stories are fiction, so the only thing it was notable for was — existing a long way away? So no one much travelled there… it's a much more exciting setting for a story if it doesn't trade much, because it means anything might go on and no one's likely to correct you. No wonder Rojak used it as a setting. The minstrel loved his lies, but those that changed history were always his favourite!'

He laughed loudly, his voice echoing back from the wall of the valley. Here it was nearly vertical, but twenty yards ahead the slope became a little shallower; it would be possible to climb bits of the cliff there — not that there was anywhere to go or any sort of path to the top… As they approached, Ilumene saw futility hadn't stopped someone: a glow of light illuminated a figure slumped on a rock ledge with Its bare feet hanging over the edge.

'Looks like he's dead or drunk,' Ilumene commented, getting as near as he could without actually climbing himself. He peered forward. 'It's that mage who popped up yesterday,' he said to Ruhen. 'Our friend in Scree's dogsbody.'

'Dog needs a master.'

'So who's his master now?' Ilumene wondered aloud. 'Might be he's a Menin man all the way through, but who'd trust a necromancer? Styrax wouldn't, so he knows he'll never reach an inner circle there. His best bet would be Lord Larim; don't all Chosen of Larat put together a coterie of acolytes?' He felt the little boy on his shoulder nod.

'So why isn't he down in Ismess trying to make nice to the new Lord of the Hidden Tower? He's adaptable, from what we saw in Scree. If I was Larim I'd want the odd-footed git in my coterie, to make the others second-guess themselves as much as anything else. There's nothing more likely to cause trouble than mages thinking they've got a secure position.'

Ruhen pointed up at the figure on the ledge, which hadn't moved. Most of Nai's body was wrapped in the thick blanket against the evening chill; only his head stuck out. 'Light,' the little boy whispered.

'Fuck me,' Ilumene exclaimed, 'look at that!'

Nai flinched at the raised voice. He stared up at the cloud-covered sky for a moment before looking down at the pair watching him. He rubbed a hand over his face, brushing his hair out of his eyes, before pushing himself a little more upright. 'Not good language for a little boy to hear,' he said, with a slight slur to his voice. 'What you want?'

'How about a light?' Ilumene called.

Nai flinched and cast a guilty look at the lamp beside him. Almost immediately the light dimmed considerably and began to flicker in the normal fashion.

'Fine spot you got there,' Ilumene continued, grinning evilly. 'Perfect for a quiet drink.'

Nai raised the flagon beside him and saluted Ilumene. It looked as if the half-gallon flagon had very little left in it.

'There other spots like that?'

'Ah, no.' Nai looked around at the valley, although there was little to see in the deepening gloom. 'Well, maybe, don't know really.'

'You just picked a ledge and got lucky?'

Nai nodded enthusiastically. 'Figured I'd find a quiet corner to finish my beer. I didn't feel it till I got here. The dead area's about twice the height of a man.' He laughed abruptly. 'Sure I read some-where magic was heavier than air.'

Ilumene felt a tug on his ear; Ruhen wanted to move on. 'I'll leave you to your beer then,' he said, giving the necromancer an ostentatious salute. 'Your lord's won back there, but you've got a few more hours until they admit it.'

As Nai looked back at the Scholars' Palace, Ilumene continued down the path as quickly as he could, trying not to attract the necromancer's notice — he might be one of those drunks with the tendency to recall inconvenient details the next morning, and this was one crowd they didn't want to stand out in.

The path was stony underfoot, there was a smattering of gravel as much to mark the way as anything else, and it made enough noise for Ilumene to be able to talk without fear of Nai hearing them. 'Didn't expect to see that,' he said. 'I'd heard the whole valley was a dead place.'

'Palace,' Ruhen contributed.

Ilumene stopped dead. 'Scholars' Palace?' He pursed his lips. 'You've got a point there; his explanation doesn't hold water, does it? The upper floors are much higher than where he was sitting.'

He turned back to make sure: the ground sloped, but Nai's position was nowhere near the same height as the upper floors of the building he'd just left.

'So that just leaves us wondering if he knew about that place in advance, or was told to look for cracks in the glaze. Where's your money?'

Ruhen didn't answer. Ilumene guessed the child was thinking. He had a clump of Ilumene's hair bunched in his little fist. The boy was a strange one, displaying the traits both of a child and an immortal. He had noticed more than a few childish mannerisms slipping out unconsciously, which made him sure there was a trace of the mortal soul remaining. When Ruhen had ordered him to tell the story of the God of Vain Men, it hadn't been just a reassertion of dominance on the part of Azaer; just as the body the shadow wore needed clothes and food, so the sound of a voice telling a story satisfied some ill-defined need within the child.

So this is me playing Dad; didn't see that coming!

'Why choose?' Ruhen said eventually.

'You think they're both true?' Ilumene shrugged. 'Could be right, I suppose. Lord Styrax sending him fishing is the simplest answer, but Nai was part of Zhia Vukotic's inner circle. No reason she's not still got her hooks into him — he plays the middle ground which is where she's happiest too.' He started walking again, resolving to keep going for as long as he could, but juddered to a halt.

'What do you think Lord Styrax is up to here?' he asked abruptly. 'If he's got Nai checking the boundary of the library, it must interest him more than we realised. What if he's got something up his sleeve?'

'Have faith.'

'Hah. Emin always said, "Better to have faith in your preparation". If it's all right with you, I'll think it through a bit more.'

'Good.'

Ilumene waited, but there was no further advice forthcoming. Damn it, do you deliberately act like Emin to goad me, or was Rojak right in saying you're defined by your enemies?

'If he does have something planned, then it's a worry — it could pull everything here out of balance. Linking Lord Isak to Lord Styrax pits the two greatest powers against each other; the Farlan will only win a war on home soil, but they still have to last long enough. If Styrax gains a significant edge he might roll up the West too fast for us to exploit. The Devoted aren't ready for a saviour, the balance has to be maintained.'

'And if it cannot?'

He slipped Ruhen from his shoulders and gently placed the little boy on the ground before kneeling before him. 'You'd abandon your plans?' he asked, stunned. The shadow was patience itself, its steps slow, but played out over years, decades, even centuries. 'I've never seen you step away from anything before.'

'There was never need.'

Slowly Ilumene nodded. 'You can't control them; by your very design the players are beyond the playwright's power. What contingency plans can we prepare? We can't insert prophecies into the Menin history!'

'What am I?'

'A child,' Ilumene began hesitantly, aware the obvious answers would direct him, however foolish they sounded. 'A boy, a saviour, a mortal… a son.'

'A son and a saviour.'

'The Devoted are primed to worship a saviour,' he breathed, realisation dawning, 'while Styrax's only weakness is his son — but you can be both, and preserve the balance that way?'

He paused for a dozen heartbeats while he thought it through. Eventually he shook his head. 'No, this goes against every instinct I have. No general abandons a successful tactic for the untried, let alone one his forces are ill-suited for. Your disciples are all carefully positioned, your plans primed to bear fruit at specific times — how can we change now?

'Before offering battle a general must place himself beyond the possibility of defeat; it is a crucial precept of war. To throw away years of preparation flies in the face of everything I ever learned about warfare. And you have always told me to treat this as a campaign.'

Ruhen was quiet for a while, long enough for Ilumene to wonder whether he had overstepped the mark. Rojak had told him many stories of those servants of Azaer who had incurred the shadow's wrath. King Emin's secret scribes wandered the Land, collecting tales of hauntings and horror, and Ilumene knew that not all of them were people who had opposed Azaer — some had merely failed him. Their endings were the worst.

'Even the most perfect fruit may decay,' the child said at last. There was something in his voice that Ilumene had not heard before, and it made the hairs on his neck rise. With every passing day Ruhen grew faster and faster, growing into the powers he had possessed as a shadow, but it was in a very human manner. After countless centuries of incorporeal weakness, the shadow had grown impatient with its few months of helpless childhood. 'Consider the forces we play our games with. Corruption is inevitable. We must not fear it.'

Ilumene smiled. 'So speaks the festering remains of Rojak's soul.'

Ruhen nodded, shadows dancing in his eyes.

'Of all my curses, womanly and immortal, I reserve especial hatred for you.'

Nai jerked awake again. He could see no one in the dark valley, but that was not necessarily a good sign.

'Ah, Mistress Zhia?' he ventured in a croak, his throat dry.

'Don't give me "Mistress Zhia", you stub-footed worm,' came her velvety growl in his left ear.

Nai flinched, half-falling off the ledge before his fingers found purchase on the stone. He turned all the way around, still seeing nothing more than black stone and the extinguished lantern beside him.

This time the voice sounded in his right ear. 'Your idiocy is boundless; redeem yourself soon or I will pull out your intestines and hang you with them.'

Nai was ready for it this time and managed not to shy away. In the alcoholic haze of his mind, the necromancer reflected that it would be frighteningly easy for her to carry out the threat.

'I'm here as you told me to be.'

'Did I tell you to announce it to the whole fucking valley?' Zhia snapped. 'Forgive me for omitting the order to stay sober and not be seen doing something supposedly impossible!'

Nai glanced around guiltily. He couldn't see the empty flagon; he must have knocked it off the ledge as he dozed.

At least 1 didn't attract any guardians, he thought with a small sense of relief. She really would have killed me then. A gust of wind whistled over his body and he pulled his leather coat tighter around himself. He didn't respond to Zhia's words, knowing anything he said would only further enrage her.

'I didn't show you this spot just so you could announce it to everyone present; for your sake I hope you didn't risk it for no good reason.'

'No Mistress,' Nai said quickly, glad for the chance to change the subject. The snarl of an infuriated vampire had done wonders to clear his head. 'There is news: Lord Styrax's men took the Fist this afternoon.'

'I know that,' she scoffed. 'He does like to show off. The foolish boy has been playing with daemons again; he got five of them to incarnate and smoked the garrison out. I felt it happen all the way back to Byora. Tell me what he's doing in the library.'

'The library?' Nai looked confused. 'Negotiating the surrender of the quarters, you know that.'

'So far from his troops, in a place where he can't use his greatest weapons? Don't be stupid. However wrecked it may be, the Litse Army in Ismess is far larger than the guard he brought — Styrax remains vulnerable all the time he is in here even if he does have his wyvern somewhere nearby. Is he planning on staying more than a day?'

'I believe so,' Nai said hesitantly. 'I overheard him talking to General Gaur earlier; I got the impression he had some research to do here. He was warning the general to keep an eye on Kohrad.'

'Anything more?'

'He gave me a project: to walk the perimeter of the valley and mark the places where I could feel energies in the air.'

There was silence for a few moments. Nai half-turned to look up at the cliffs behind him and was rewarded with an icy blast of wind whipping past his eyes.

'If you find any, be sure to tell me also.'

Nai nodded, though he was unsure what to make of the order. There was a trace of the vampire in the air: her delicate scent, so faint it could almost be a memory evoked by her voice. Zhia's understanding of magic far surpassed what Nai could learn in his lifetime — it might be that when he returned in the morning, this ledge would just like the rest of the valley. Perhaps magic could be driven a little way into the perimeter from outside; or perhaps energy simply surrounded her like a diving beetle's bubble of air.

'Is there anything else, Mistress?'

'You're the one making the report,' she said, drily.

'Ah yes, of course. Knight-Cardinal Certinse is giving the orders in Akell; he arrived a few weeks ago.'

'Specifically here, or passing through to Embere?'

'I do not know.'

Zhia paused. 'I hear he's got four or five legions with him; that's more than he'd need to take over Akell; Sourl doesn't have the guts to rebel against his superior. I can't believe he'd pull so many troops out of Narkang lands just for that, and that man is ambitious. More likely he has some grander plan that requires actual tangible control over the Order, rather than just official control. The best way to do that is with Raland's goldmines, and Telith Vener is in control there these days. He'll have accepted Certinse's authority over the Order when Certinse was in distant parts and Duke Nemarse ruled Raland, but not now.' She paused to think, but Nai could tell by her tone that Zhia was satisfied with her logic.

'Anything more?'

'There is some sort of magical link between the duchess's bodyguard, Sergeant Kayel, and our friend Major Amber.'

'Curious, I saw nothing of that through Lady Kinna's eyes.'

'It is very faint — it is like each carries an echo of the other in their shadow. You would only notice it in the presence of both.'

'Kayel and Amber,' Zhia mused. 'That's an interesting twist.'

'You know Kayel?'

'Only through Kinna's eyes — but clearly he's far more than a bullying sergeant. Keep your eyes and ears open. I want you to stay here as long as Styrax does. Make yourself useful in whatever manner you can, and report to me an hour after dusk each day — understand?'

'I do.'

'Good.' She hesitated a moment and her voice softened. 'Nai, this is more important than you can begin to imagine. You will have to trust me that your safety is best served by keeping me informed. Now go, before you are missed.'

Zhia released the stream of magic and sighed, feeling the energies dissipate into the night air. She sat, high up on the cliff, motionless, untouched by the howl of wind, almost as if she were encased in a glass bubble. The piece of rock she sat on was roughly oval, and some ten yards across, the only flat piece of ground in the desolate environment of Blackfang's upper reaches where it was impossible to travel even fifty feet in any direction without having to climb.

Nothing protruded above the outer ring of cliffs. Within, the surface of the mountain was a jagged wilderness protected from the worse of wind erosion. There were occasional small tufts of grass and patches of moss clinging precariously to the rock, but they were few and far between. Not many birds braved the treacherous gusts and lack of food to nest here; it was a desolate, inaccessible place.

It was a useful place to lurk unmolested.

'You heard?' she said after a long pause. She had abandoned her usual silk dress in favour of more practical hunting breeches and tunic, though they were decorated with embroidered sprays of blue flowers. Her long-handled sword was slung across her back, housed in a leather scabbard etched with a pattern that echoed that on her clothes. Furthering the image of martial readiness, her abundant hair was fastened back with long silver pins set with sapphires.

'I did,' Koezh replied from the small cave behind her. 'How far can you trust him?'

'Not at all.' A small smile crept onto her lips and she turned to give her brother a look. 'He's as honest a man as I know, but with no allegiance except to himself.'

'So if he finds anything as he walks the perimeter, he'll tell Lord Styrax.' Koezh sounded weary. 'There can only be one reason why Styrax has given him such orders. Whether he knows exactly what he's looking for or not, he knows the dead space is not natural.'

Zhia agreed, 'He's guessed halfway, and he'll stumble upon the rest.'

A light flared inside the cave, illuminating its cramped interior. Koezh sat upon one bedroll looking at the glass sphere which emitted the light. A small hamper and a few thick leather-bound books were piled beside it. Zhia's bedding was piled against the opposite wall.

The vampire looked grave. 'So all we can do is wait.' He gestured to the few belongings beside him. 'It's been a long time since we played camp like this.'

He was ready for battle, dressed in a full suit of ancient black armour, except for the helm and gauntlets, which lay on the rock floor next to him. His hate-filled sword was suspended on a pair of thick iron pins that he'd driven into the rock above his bedroll. Without the ward surrounding her, even Zhia would have found it uncomfortable to look at the weapon Aryn Bwr had instilled with the fury and grief of his heir's murder.

'It has been millennia,' Zhia replied with a slight edge to her voice, 'and I for one see no reason to repeat it now. It will take him days of research before he can make his move. If you wish to camp out, Prince Koezh, that is entirely your prerogative.'

'We cannot know how long it will take,' Koezh replied with a tone of infinite, infuriating patience. 'You don't know how far along he starts, and we cannot lake any risk. He is not a man we can buy off or threaten as we did Deverk Grast; even if he knew the whole story he would still go through with it. We cannot risk anyone taking possession and we cannot trust the guardian to stop him — quite aside from the destruction it would unleash upon the innocents of Ismess.' He gestured towards her bedroll. 'All this you know, so come and sit with me.'

Zhia scowled, falling into long-abandoned habits of the younger sister but well aware that her brother was right.

'Even if we hand it to him later, we must be sure first,' she admitted, joining him inside the cave. The icy gusts tore at her clothes for a brief moment while she exchanged one ward for the other. 'I reserve the right to blame you for a poor night's sleep, however.'

Koezh inclined his head. 'Mother always said one must always accept a lady's blame. I believe the principle holds true even if one suspects it is misplaced anger.'

'Your meaning?' Zhia asked coldly.

Her brother smiled. 'Avoiding a certain young man seems to have put you on edge. It's all very sweet. Shall I sing to you to help you sleep?'

'If you do I'll cut my throat and you can wait by your damn self,' she snapped, turning away from the laughter on his face.

'Suicide by petulance; a lesser-know joy of immortality.'