I looked around and spotted a pair of young men lounging against a wall. They looked bored enough to have been settled there for a while.
I approached, pushing my hood back in the hope it would make me look less mage-y.
“I’m looking for a man,” I said.
The young guy on the left, light-skinned and blond enough that he must have had some Brythanii in his ancestry, smirked.
“We don’t do that sort of thing. You want the Street of Gods. Someone there will do you if you’ve got the coin.”
I ignored that. “His name is Uwin Bone. He was supposed to meet me around here half an hour ago.”
“You’re late then, aren’t you?” The second young man said. “Guess he didn’t want to wait.”
For some reason, that made them both snigger. Little shits.
I was going about this all wrong. I had been out of the Warrens too long. The only thing I was achieving here was entertaining these two idiots for a minute or two.
I should have kept my hood up.
I conjured seething mage light around my hands. The two young men stumbled back, bumping into the wall, all humour suddenly drained from their faces. The mage light wouldn’t harm them, but they didn’t need to know that.
“Do not try my patience,” I growled. Right now, I felt so battered this was about as much magic as I could manage — any spell put a strain on your body, and in my state it felt like some quack physician was having a good poke at my every scrape and bruise. If they didn’t go for this, I was going to get a right kicking.
Luckily for my ribs, the stories of mages who could set your lungs on fire or turn your guts into a nest of living snakes had clearly had some impact here.
“That’s his place,” the blonde one said, pointing at a warehouse on the far side of the street. “Honest. But we haven’t seen him. Have we?” He turned to his friend, who nodded, then quickly shook his head, then nodded again, as though he didn’t know what the best answer would be.
I loomed closer, despite the twinges in every part of my body.
“You wouldn’t lie to me?”
“No,” the second man said, spitting in fear, then looking terrified as a couple of stray spots of spit sprayed my cloak. To be honest, they could only make my outfit cleaner at this stage.
I held their gazes for a few seconds, then nodded. They turned on their heels and fled. I let the mage light fall.
Ow. That had almost been too much for me. I was in a bad state.
I might be aching, but that’d been the most satisfying thing that had happened to me all day.
I turned to look at the warehouse. If my new friends had been telling the truth, Uwin Bone hadn’t shown up, despite his appointment with Benny. Hopefully, that just meant he had heard that Benny had been arrested and the job had failed. If not, it could be bad news.
I shouldn’t have let the two men go so quickly. They had said that was Uwin Bone’s place, but had they meant the corner or did they mean the warehouse itself?
The small warehouse windows were blacked out with paint or tar on the inside, and when I tried the door, it was locked. I stood back to consider it.
Maybe the best way in would be through the delivery doors facing the docks, but those would certainly be watched.
Anyway, I was a mage. Doors meant nothing to me. I resisted the urge to laugh in a hollow and dramatic manner. Putting on my most innocent expression, I leaned against the door and placed my hand over the lock. I drew in magic — ow, again — and released the lock.
Or tried to, at least.
It didn’t click, and I didn’t feel anything give.
I let my eyes lose their focus, breathed in slowly, and peered towards the lock.
A tight cluster of red sigils were clamped around it. A mage-lock. Bannaur’s balls!
A mage-lock was a type of ward specifically designed to counter any magic that might be brought against it. Even at my best, I wasn’t sure I could have broken it, and if I had, it would have set off an alarm. But I was a Warrens boy still, and while I might not have Benny’s aptitude with locks, I had picked up a few tricks. The lock was not the weakest part of any door. That was the hinges, and while the solid wood of the door might have blocked me from physically reaching them, solid objects were no barrier to magic.
I reached in and wrapped my magic around the hinges, then sent a surge of pure heat into them.
I staggered with the effort and almost fell to the cobblestones. The heat sheared through the hinges, sending trickles of smoke into the air from the surrounding wood. The door toppled backwards, hitting the warehouse floor with a crack and a cloud of dust.
Subtle, Nik.
Any idea of sneaking in was now gone, so I decided to make the whole thing public.
“Hello!” I shouted. “Anyone there?”
Contrary to popular belief, mages weren’t bulletproof, and the last thing I needed was a musket ball through the head.
There was no answer from the warehouse, so I edged my way in. The air was full of grain dust, and I soon saw the reason. A pile of grain sacks had toppled over and burst. I was immediately grateful that someone had paid for morgue-lamps in here. A naked flame could have sent the whole place up in an explosion, and that would have been the end of everyone’s favourite freelance mage.
But why hadn’t someone tidied up the mess or at least tried to re-bag the grain? That was wasted profit lying there, and no merchant wasted profit.
I moistened my dry lips. This isn’t right.
I made my way around a wall of tea chests, holding as much magic within me as I could without turning every bruise into a flaming pit of needles. There was nothing less intimidating than a bent-over, limping mage muttering, “Ow, ow, ow,” with every step. I was all about the look, me.
Behind the tea and the fallen sacks of grain were the kind of second-hand goods that were only second-hand because they had been liberated from their original owners by that great cult of redistribution otherwise known as the Wren’s criminal empire. I noticed a couple of fine examples of Mycedan-tat that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Thousand Walls.
Silence always seemed louder in a large space. It was like the silence itself echoed back from the walls. I was preternaturally aware of my own breathing, the brush of my wool cloak against my skin and shirt, and the shuffle of my shoes across the floor.
Even if Uwin Bone was up to no good elsewhere, surely someone should be here? Mycedan-tat apart, there were a good few items here that an ambitious thief might make off with. I doubted that even the Wren’s fearsome reputation would be enough to scare off the stupider members of Agatos’s underworld.
“Hello?” I called again. “I’m looking for Uwin Bone.”
The sound of my voice in the voluminous space freaked me out.
He’s here, a voice whispered in my head. He’s just not answering.
Pity, Nik. Stop it!
I crossed the warehouse, stepping carefully around liberated valuables, my senses open to the magic surrounding me, searching for wards or traps or furious high mages. A couple of objects were obviously cursed, and strange, sickly-yellow magic swirled slowly and ponderously around a box. I gave it a wide berth. There was no sign of the light green of life nor of the flow of raw magic towards a point, which would indicate a hidden mage drawing in power.
Behind the dust and the grain and the smell of sacks, boxes, and spices, another smell was asserting itself, a sharp, bitter, cloying smell that caught in my throat and clung there.
I kept moving, one pace at a time.
Uwin Bone was behind a second wall of chests. What was left of him. He had been attacked with the same animal ferocity as Silkstar’s Master Servant.
“Denna have mercy,” I whispered. The words tasted like bile. I felt my stomach turn. I clenched my hands so hard they hurt. I should have been numbed to this after this morning, but I wasn’t. Maybe nobody could be. All I could do was stare as my legs shook under me.
There
were those four parallel slashes again, clearly made simultaneously, but Uwin Bone’s head had been taken completely off. The slashes across his torso had cut all the way through to his spine. I couldn’t even see one of his lower legs. There was blood everywhere, coating the desk and papers on the far side of his body, soaking the rug, beneath my feet…
I stumbled back, leaving thick, tacky footprints on the clean floor beyond the rug. I kicked and scraped my shoes on the nearest clean rug. Get it off. Get it off! But it was too sticky and viscous.
Old blood, I thought. That much blood wouldn’t dry fast even in the hot, dry air of the warehouse. And there was so much of it, everywhere. In pools, in sprays… I forced myself to look away, keeping my eyes focused on the far wall.
I had to think. I had to get my mind clear. First, the Master Servant, then Uwin Bone. Both killed in the same way. Why? And how?
And if the blood was old, Bone could have been killed while Benny and I were still under arrest, or at least not long after I had visited Benny in gaol. Perhaps even soon after Master Servant Rush had been killed. Someone — something — had covered up their tracks quickly. A loose end, cut away.
I couldn’t help it. My eyes drifted back down to the body. Were Benny and I loose ends, too? Were we next?
What the Depths had we got ourselves into?
And what in the names of all the dead gods was I doing standing around here looking as guilty as a dog next to an overturned bin?
Being found with one torn apart body could be seen as bad luck. But two? People had seen me coming here. I hadn’t been subtle with the door. Some lowlife would have gone scurrying off to alert the Wren the moment I popped the door off its hinges.
Pull yourself together. Move! Get out of here.
If I hadn’t been caught up in the Wren’s affairs before, I was now.
My legs took some convincing to get moving, but when they did, I shambled like the summoned dead towards the broken door as fast as I could manage.
And not a moment too soon. I was scarcely out of sight around the corner from the warehouse when I heard angry shouts arise behind me.
You idiot. You bloody, stupid idiot! I told myself.
I had lost my only lead and got myself into even more trouble.
Forcing myself up, I headed along an alley, away from the Tanneries and the body that lay there, mute but accusing.
Chapter Seven
It didn’t matter who you were. Shit like that would shake you up. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t be fully human.
I was trembling, and my breath was coming too short and fast. My fingers and face felt numb. Something or someone was out there who could rip people into ragged flesh. It was the brutality that hit me. I had seen dead people. Death wasn’t a stranger in the Warrens. I had even seen people killed, although thankfully not often, but I had never seen anything so unquestioningly savage. It sent waves of cold and hot flushing through my body. I stopped and slumped against a wall.
It – they – whatever – had killed the Master Servant — Master Servant Rush, Captain Gale had called her. Then they had killed the only person who knew their identity. Were we next, Benny and me?
No, I told myself. We were supposed to be blamed for the murder of Master Servant Rush. If we were murdered, the Ash Guard would know someone else was behind it. We were safe for now. Unless we got too close. Until the Ash Guard found enough fabricated evidence to convict me and the City Watch started chopping off Benny’s hands for burglary.
Bannaur’s bloody balls!
I had to find who was behind this, and fast, but I didn’t even know where to start with Uwin Bone gone.
Think. Calm. Take the time you need.
I would achieve nothing running madly around the city. Right now, Galena Sunstone was expecting me. Her non-existent ghosts seemed an absurd distraction, and the idea of wasting a whole night in her pantry when I should be tearing the city apart looking for the murderer almost made me want to cry. But it would give me time and quiet to think this through, and I needed the money.
I leaned on the wall, forcing myself to take long, slow breaths while my heart slowed and sweat dried on my skin.
Benny’s not going anywhere. The bureaucracy of Agatos was slow. It could be weeks before he went to trial.
With a last shudder, I pushed myself away from the wall and made my way out of the Warrens towards the Upper City.
Morgue-lamps were spreading their green-tinged glow across the paved streets and plazas here. The gently flickering light made shadows sway on the walls and flagstones.
The lamps weren’t officially called ‘morgue-lamps’, even though that was the name most people used. The Maradarians called them ‘The Light That Shines from the Ever-Watching God’, but that wasn’t their official name either. It was just a pile of bollocks. If Mara was watching, he wasn’t doing it from the morgue-lamps. Right now, I half wished he were. Then he could shout a warning if anything came for me out of the shadows.
Depths, Nik. Calm down. You’re safe.
The Senate, who maintained the morgue-lamps, just called them, with the usual overabundance of imagination that afflicted bureaucracies, ‘lamps’.
No one quite knew where the name morgue-lamps came from. One theory was that it was because their greenish light made everyone passing under them look like a corpse. The more popular story was that the Senate had the slowly decaying leg of the dead god Talifa secreted in the depths of Horn Hill and that it was the magic released by the rotting god that powered the lamps. It was a nice story, but I didn’t buy it. With that much magic, you could make the whole city float away into the clouds. You wouldn’t waste it on a few streetlights. My theory was that it was a combination of some invested artefact and a clever spell that gathered raw magic and distributed it to the morgue-lamps. To me, that was a whole lot more impressive. I just wished they were brighter.
By the time the Sunstone house came into view, it was a relief. Despite knowing, rationally, that no one was coming after me, I couldn’t help but dig my nails into my palms at every figure emerging from the dark and every unexpected sound. The familiar sight of the fluted marble columns that flanked the Sunstones’ door and the doorknocker in the shape of a ram’s head dropped the tension from my shoulders. The heavy door was painted golden yellow, but in the light of the morgue-lamps it looked sickly and drained of colour. I had always thought that the house tried too hard to boast an extravagant wealth that wasn’t matched by reality. The Sunstones were rich, no doubt, particularly compared to me, but they weren’t sailing on the same ocean as the likes of Carnelian Silkstar.
I took a last, calming breath. Along with my other injuries, I was sure I had developed a blister on my left heel, and I was feeling sorry for myself. I hoped Galena Sunstone was the type to take pity on a poor mage and at least spare something to eat.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t the one to open the door when I knocked.
The man waiting inside was a good twenty years older than me, with the kind of solidity of flesh that came more from eating too well for too long than from physical labour. He was dressed in purple and yellow robes that worked together in the same elegant way that a pool of vomit goes with a Kendarian rug (and, trust me, I’d had plenty of chance to witness that this morning).
“You’re the mage,” he grunted.
I was still wearing the stupid mage hood-and-cloak. I resisted the urge to make a sarcastic comment. I needed this job. See? I did have some self-control.
“And you must be Mr. Sunstone.” Galena’s husband had been away on business, so I hadn’t actually met him before.
“The Estimable Larimar Sunstone,” he said, putting emphasis on the ‘estimable’.
Great. I had known Sunstone was a merchant, but I hadn’t realised he was a member of the Estimable Guild of Master Merchants. A more pretentious and stuck-up bunch you wouldn’t find anywhere in Agatos. Well, if you excluded the mages and the priests.
I didn’t reply, because there reall
y wasn’t much to say about that.
He stood in the doorway, looking me up and down.
“My wife’s position,” he said, slowly, clearly selecting his words carefully, “is such that it is necessary for her…” He paused, rubbing at his lips.
“She needs ghosts to impress her friends?” One of us needed to be straightforward.
Sunstone’s fleshy face tightened. “I have important connections. I have looked into you, mage.”
“And you just want to tell me what fantastic reports you’ve heard.”
“No.”
Looked like today really wasn’t flatter-a-mage day.
The Estimable Sunstone glanced behind, then leaned closer. “I think you are a fraud. I think you’re taking advantage of my wife’s … requirements.”
That hit closer than I was comfortable with. I searched his face, but there wasn’t a lot of give there. He didn’t like me. Fine. Not many people did. To be honest, at times like this, I didn’t much like myself either. Better this than the alternative, though. Better than being a high mage’s acolyte.
I had been honest. I had told Galena Sunstone I didn’t think she had ghosts, and she’d wanted me to keep looking anyway. If the Estimable Sunstone didn’t like it, that was between the two of them.
He must have read my expression, because a controlled fury tightened his eyes.
“Your time is up. Find these ghosts tonight, if you can, and deal with them, or leave.”
Shit. I hoped I managed to keep the dismay off my face. I had relied on keeping this job for the full week. I smiled my most confident smile, which was undoubtedly undermined by my swollen lip.
“I had better get on with it, then, hadn’t I?”
I stepped forwards, forcing him to either move aside or us to collide. He made the right choice and let me in, but I felt him watching me the whole way to the kitchen pantry.
Shadow of a Dead God: A Mennik Thorn Novel Page 8