The Serpent Tower

Chapter Twenty

Rik lay in the secret area of the cart beneath the piles of salted beef carcasses. The smell of meat filled his nostrils. It felt as if fatty residues were clinging to his skin and hair. He held his breath for as long as he could and then breathed shallowly to try and avoid taking in the overpowering stink.

In his mind’s eye it was difficult not to picture the Tower looming closer and the gaze of the strange gargoyles about to fall on him. He tried to keep calm, to avoid thoughts of what would happen to him if he was caught. The best he could hope for if he was found out was to be shot as a spy, the worst was torture and bizarre sorcery.

He cursed his own folly for agreeing to do this. All the reasons that had seemed so clear and strong earlier now simply seemed like folly; his anger with Rena, his fear of Asea and the Nerghul, his lust for wealth and position, his desire to prove himself. The only thing he was about to prove was that he was an idiot. He stifled the surge of self-pity.

It was not too late to change his mind, he told himself. All he had to do was tell the drivers he could not go through with it. He could run off down the hill and hope no one on the wall would shoot him. Of course, then he would have to deal with Asea’s vengeance and the consequences of his previous actions at Achenar, and he would need to elude the Nerghul too.

Every turn of the wheel, every bump in the road, took him closer to those glassy walls and the sentries on them. Worse, it took him closer to being within the tower itself. Those walls were the jaws of the trap. Once inside, he was committed irrevocably. He was doomed if he was caught and he was entirely on his own. There would be peril at every step.

As ever, he felt fear, but the old excitement had started to flow too. He would be inside the Tower, where it would be death if he was caught. What of it, the thief of Sorrow thought? That was the way it had always been. The penalties had never been any less when he burgled the mansions of the rich. The reward of the captured thief was always the same. He was doing something he had done for much of his life, and something he was very good at.

His heart raced, but now it was as much with the thrill of the coming escapade as with outright terror. It was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. He knew then, as the ghosts of old emotions gripped his soul, that he was going to go through with this. If he lived to tell the tale he would be a hero, and if he failed, then he failed. He would be too dead to care.

He was whistling in the dark. It would be better to concentrate on his preparations. They had timed this correctly. It was late in the afternoon. Darkness would fall shortly after they were inside. This would be among the last carts of the day to enter the Tower. He would lower himself into the courtyard and join the porters there. He would do his best to keep out of sight and then he would make his way within the building and see what he could see.

The cart stopped and he heard voices speaking. He realised that they were at the gate already, and the guards were checking them through. Fear filled him. Perhaps the soldiers would sense the nervousness of the drivers. Perhaps their guilt was written on their face, or Tomar’s men were even now betraying him to the Tower watch.

He tightened his grip on his poisoned weapons. If the worst came to the worst, he would kill a few and then turn the blade on himself. He did not want to face torture. He wanted a quick clean death.

Even as that thought crossed his mind, he knew that he would hesitate. Much as he hated things in this life, certain times had still been sweet. There was much he still wanted to do.

He cursed himself again for ever having put himself in this position, but then thought what choice had he ever had. There was a certain inevitability about it all now, as if every choice he had ever made, every road he had ever walked, had led him to this.

He almost sighed as the cart started moving once more. At this very moment, he would be undergoing the baleful scrutiny of the guardians within the walls. He felt nothing, sensed nothing and he prayed to the Light that this was a good sign, that he had passed undetected.

Every minute he expected to hear the sound of alarm drums and horns, of men rushing to capture him, but he heard nothing but the rumble of wheels on cobbles and the shifting of the cargo on the boards above him.

He relaxed then tensed his muscles, loosening them, untying the knots the strain of lying here for the past hour had put in them. He wanted to be limber and ready to move when the time for action came. His chances of survival depended on it.

The cart came to a halt. Moments later it bounced under the weight of men clambering on to unload it. He wriggled towards the exit hole, felt his feet touch empty air, pushed his legs through. There was a sickening dropping sensation. He hit the ground as silently as he could. It was dark. He smelled meat and sacks of grain and other provender. He knew that he was within a large storage shed.

Now was the worst part. He could see feet and legs on the far side of the cart. He could hear voices talking above him. It would be very easy to be caught. He glanced right. There was a small gap between two massive stacks of grain bags. He offered up a small prayer of thanks. The driver at least had kept his wits about him and parked the cart where he should. He swung his small duffel bag over his shoulders, scuttled over and dived into the gap, moving as quickly and quietly as he could into the gloom between the rows.

So far, so good, he thought. He was inside the Tower and he was still free. He hunkered down to wait in the shadows. Soon it would be full dark and he would have more chance of going about his business.

Rik moved through the warehouse. It was dark now but he could see, his half-Terrarch eyes piercing the gloom better than any human’s. The large doors were closed but there was a small postern gate as he had been told. It was locked. He felt a surge of claustrophobia and the old fear of being trapped, then he reached within his tunic and pulled out his lock picks.

As a boy, Koralyn had made him practise picking locks in the dark, and beat him for every failure. Rik had never expected to feel gratitude to the old bastard, but he did now, as the mechanism clicked and the door opened.

The moon glared through the clouds. The glow of the Tower easily provided enough illumination for him to see by. Storm force rain fell. Droplets splashed down into puddles. Green rings broke the reflection of the tower in the water. The massive bulk loomed overhead, mountain large, seemingly impregnable.

Who was he to think he could pierce its secrets? It’s hellish green glow underlit the clouds.

There was a smell in the air of ozone and something else.

What was going on here tonight, he wondered? Was this a sign of the power Ilmarec had gathered, that he was ready now to destroy Azaar’s army. What sorcery did he plan?

Rik was still in shadow himself and he intended to stay that way. He could make out a few people moving across the courtyard and sentries silhouetted against the walls.

He studied his surroundings. In the darkness the tower had a weird glow, phosphorescent like the scum that sometimes floated in the water at the effluent outlets of a Sorrow alchemical works. The runes set in the structure’s side grew brighter and then faded, and he was more than ever reminded of the fact that the Tower was the product of alien sorcery. The cycle of increasing brightness and then fading became more obvious and more pronounced. This had never happened before.

He exhaled a long silent breath and tried to calm his racing heart. He visualised the maps Asea had provided and attempted to relate them to this benighted space. Satisfied that he knew where he was going he made his way to the outer wall, touched its cool surface with his left hand, and walked for a hundred paces along its curve.

“Hey you,” said a voice. “What are you up to?”

Two large men were walking in his direction, heads down, shoulders hunched against the rain. He cursed himself. He should have taken the time to put on his Tower Guard uniform then these men would not be bothering him.

“Yes,” said Rik, trying to keep his tone of voice non-committal and imitate a local accent. He put his hands together as if in a gesture of obeisance and apology. In reality he was making sure he could grip the hilt of the poisoned dagger in its drop-sheath. “What do you want?”

“What are you doing here?” asked the larger of the two men. He was slightly the better dressed of the two and had a head servant’s bullying manner with underlings.

“Just getting a breath of fresh air, sir,” said Rik. “It was stuffy inside.”

“Stuffy was it? You should be back in chambers. If you sneaked out for a smoke…” He sniffed the air ostentatiously. “Well you know how his Lordship told us all to be within by Bell Ten. I’ll have your hide, my lad.”

Rik stared at him. The man stepped back a little. Rik wondered if the speaker sensed how close he was to death. Rik measured the distance between them. He could get one man with the knife, but he was not sure he could take out the other before he could give the alarm.

“No smoking,” said Rik. “I never touch the weed. Anyway, hard to get a light in this rain.”

The other servant was looking at him strangely now. “Who are you?” he said. “I don’t recall seeing your face around before.”

“New hire,” said Rik confidently, stepping forward a little.

“I didn’t hear anything about any new hires,” said the larger man. “And I should have been told. If Bortha has been hiring behind my back, I’ll have his guts for garters. He’s supposed to consult with me about any hires.”

Rik knew how it was. Working in a place like the Tower was a good job. You had to bribe the head servants if you wanted in.

“Bortha said there wouldn’t be no trouble,” he said, deeming it better to go along with the story that the man had already placed in his own head.

“Did he now? We’ll see about that. You just come along with me and we’ll have a little chat with Bortha.” The man laid a heavy hand on Rik’s arm. He was very strong, stronger than Rik had expected. He allowed himself to be pulled toward the man, let the knife slide loose from its scabbard. As he came alongside the servant, Rik drove the blade into the man’s side. The servant slumped forward, gasping, the poison already starting to take effect.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Rik asked in as normal a voice as he could. His fingers trembled on the knife hilt. “Quick! Help me!” he said to the second servant.

The man moved closer and Rik sprang forward and grabbed him, moving behind the man, locking his free hand on his throat. He put one hand over the man’s mouth to stifle his screams and drove the knife into his heart. There was no sense in relying on the poison. It might already have been all gone from the blade. The man slumped forward dead.

Rik started to tremble as reaction set in. This quick stealthy sort of killing was not something he liked. He had killed in battle many times, but there was an additional strain involved because of the need for silence and the proximity of guards and sorcerous guardians.

Be calm, he told himself, and breathed deeply. Think.

Swiftly he moved back to the wall. Of course, he had lost the exact location in the scuffle. He glared around frantically. His heart raced. At any time, more servants or more sentries might come and find him. He doubted he would be so lucky a second time.

He froze, trying to decide what to do. Should he go back for the bodies and drag them into the warehouse? If he left them lying there, surely someone would find them. On the other hand, every heartbeat he stood here was another heartbeat in which someone might notice him.

He leaned against the wall until the fit of trembling left him. There was blood on his hands, particularly the one that held the knife. He put the blade down carefully and tried to wipe it off on the wall, leaving a series of bloody smears and handprints. It came to him that he might have left similar prints on the outside, a tell-tale sign, along with the corpses, that would let the inhabitants of the Tower know where he had gone.

Another thought occurred to him. What if he had nicked himself with the knife? What if he had somehow accidentally poisoned himself? He checked his hands for cuts and found none. He paused and listened to his pounding heart and rasping breath, trying to detect any signs of either slowing or becoming abnormal. It was long minutes before he decided that there were none, and that he had better get on with his mission.

It was only then that the realisation began to sink in that he had extinguished two human lives as casually as he might have swatted flies. Perhaps Asea was right about him, and right about the Shadowblood.

He pushed the thought aside. Under these circumstances such a heritage could only be an advantage.

The Nerghul pulled itself over the lip of the cliff. Huge walls of glass-like substance loomed over it, wet and slick and gleaming. It was not the walls that troubled the creature, it was the enormous power surging through them. The Nerghul sensed the presence of an intelligence within, tapping that power, one that it would be foolish for it to challenge.

It paced along the narrow ledge, considering. Its experience of the other night had taught it caution. It had taken hours crouching in the darkness among the old ruins to heal its injuries and that place had not been nearly as well defended as this. Still, the scent of its prey led here and it needed to kill, the way a lover needs the caress of its beloved.

There was something strange in the air this night. The flow of power around the Tower was odd. It surged and sank, peaked and troughed. The Nerghul felt the unease of the intelligence chained within the walls. It felt that unease itself the way an animal senses a coming storm. It sensed moments of weakness in the defensive wards, and moments where to touch those walls would mean instant death.

It crouched down to wait for another trough. When the moment came it sprang, reaching the top of the wall with ease. A moment later, it knew the defences were working again, but now it was inside, and it sensed the nearness of its prey.

Soon it would be time to kill.