Stonewielder

by Ian Cameron Esslemont

  ‘Manask and I can arrange to have you on a boat tonight.’

  Silent, Bakune shook his head in a negative.

  ‘No? You won’t go?’

  ‘I cannot leave.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Bakune smiled. ‘For reasons I’d rather not discuss.’

  The priest cocked a brow. ‘I see. So you will remain.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Very well. Suit yourself. Who am I to tell you what to do?’

  Bakune eyed the man, uncertain. ‘So … I may stay?’

  ‘Yes. Certainly. You should be safe here.’

  ‘Well … my thanks.’

  Now, Bakune turned the shot glass in his hand and thought again about his reason for remaining. That he was free now to act as never before. More free even than when he was the city magistrate, its Assessor. Then, he’d been constrained on all sides. Now, yes, he was a fugitive, hunted, but he could do as he wished. He could pursue lines of inquiry and take actions he’d only dreamed of months ago. What consequences could he possibly be threatened with now? The Abbot and his Guardians through their actions had only escalated matters. As, of course, all confrontation does.

  From beneath his unwashed hair he watched the crowded room. Yes, he was safe here. The tavern catered to sailors and petty merchants – all now stranded and waiting for the Guardians to relax the curfew and the injunctions against movement.

  Men and women from all nations of the subcontinent mingled here; even some who might be hiding origins from beyond the Ocean of Storms. Surely, then, such a concentration of foreigners deserved the close scrutiny of the Guardians. Yet he saw no signs of their surveillance. Unless, of course, they were somehow even more subtle and discreet in their methods than Karien’el.

  Which, from what he’d seen so far, he very much doubted.

  He sipped the fiery near-pure alcohol and winced. Lady be damned! Why were there no laws against serving such poison? He was about to rise when two men thumped down at his tiny round table. At first he flinched, thinking: Invoke the Riders and they appear. Then he recognized the two slouched, stoop-shouldered, lazy-eyed men as the guards Karien’el had tapped to shadow him. His composure regained, he regarded them narrowly. ‘Yes?’

  The one with the darkest brows and a fat moustache pointed to his glass. ‘You gonna drink that?’

  ‘What do you two want?’

  ‘I want one of those,’ said the other.

  ‘Well you can’t have it ’cause it’s mine,’ said the first.

  ‘Neither of you—’

  ‘Just ’cause you asked first,’ the second pouted.

  ‘That’s right. I showed ’nitiative. That’s why I’m the captain.’

  ‘What do you two think …’ Bakune tailed off as the first guard took the shot glass between his thumb and forefinger and downed the entire drink. Then he carefully brushed back his ridiculous moustache to the right and left using the back of his hand, and sighed.

  Like a cat. And so, to Bakune’s mind, the man became Cat.

  The other, who was regarding his companion with a kind of sour resentment, Bakune couldn’t tag with a name. The fellow was pulling at his thick lower lip, his eyes on the now empty glass, and at last he offered, ‘You ain’t the captain of me.’

  ‘I’ll just be going then,’ Bakune said, half rising.

  ‘Don’tcha have orders?’ Cat said. Then, to his partner, he added, ‘Course I’m captain. Chain of command! Chaos otherwise.’

  ‘Orders?’ Bakune asked. Then he remembered: Karien had placed these two under his command. Lady, no! He was the commander of these cretins! He sat back down.

  Cat shrugged. ‘Just thought maybe you might on account of all the bodies.’

  ‘Bodies?’

  Stroking his moustache, Cat directed Bakune’s gaze to the empty glass. Giving a sigh of defeat, Bakune raised a hand to the tavern-keeper. The other fellow’s hand shot up as well. Bakune signed for two. He sat with arms crossed until the shot glasses arrived. The two raised the glasses. ‘Your health, ah, sir,’ said Cat.

  Bakune leaned forward. ‘Listen … what are your names anyway?’

  ‘Puller,’ said the junior partner, wiping his wet lips.

  ‘Captain Hyuke at your service, sir,’ said Cat, his voice suddenly low and conspiratorial.

  ‘You’re no captain,’ Puller complained.

  Bakune used his thumb and forefinger to massage his brow. Blessed Lady! Puller and Hyuke? He preferred Cat and, what, Mole? ‘Listen … you two. No one’s captain until Karien gets back.’ The two exchanged knowing, sceptical looks. ‘So, how about sergeant, Hyuke … if you must?’

  Hyuke sat back grinning while he brushed his moustache. Then he cuffed his partner. ‘Hear that, Pull? I just made sergeant.’

  Bakune felt his shoulders sag.

  ‘’Nitiative,’ Hyuke added, nodding profoundly.

  Puller pouted into his glass.

  ‘So what was that about bodies then, Sergeant?’

  ‘Ah!’ Hyuke touched a finger to the side of his bulbous nose. ‘Been turning up at an awful rate. Used to be no more than one every few months, hey? Now it’s two a week.’

  Bakune felt himself clenching tight. A hot sourness bubbled up in his stomach. ‘Where?’ he said, his voice faint.

  ‘All over. Both male and female. All young, though.’

  Damn this monster, whoever he was! Taking advantage of the upheaval. ‘Thank you, Sergeant.’ He swallowed to wet his throat. Something took a bite out of his stomach.

  Hyuke was frowning at him. ‘You okay, Ass— ah, sir?’

  He waved a hand. ‘Yes. Now, are we safe here? Can we use this place?’

  Both nodded. ‘Oh, yes,’ Hyuke said. ‘Safe as the baker’s wife in the morning.’

  Bakune felt his suspicions stirring once more. ‘Why?’ he asked slowly.

  The partners exchanged uncertain looks. Hyuke opened his hands. ‘Because he’s busy baking …’

  Bakune just glared. Hyuke’s thick brows rose. ‘Ah! I see. On account this is Boneyman’s place.’

  ‘Boneyman … ?’

  The two watchmen shared another glance; it seemed they could communicate solely by looks alone. Hyuke shook his head. ‘Really, sir. You bein’ the Ass— ah … I’m surprised.’

  Bakune struggled to keep his face flat. ‘Please inform me. If you would be so kind.’

  ‘Boneyman runs the smuggling and the night market here in town, now that—’ Puller loudly cleared his throat, glaring, and Hyuke frowned, confused. Puller tilted his head to glance significantly to Bakune. Hyuke’s brows rose even higher. ‘Ah! Well … now that things have … changed …’ he finished, flustered.

  Bakune felt his gaze narrowing. Things have changed now, have they? Now that Karien’el has been marched off to war. So that was why so very few black-market cases ever came to me. So be it. All that is the past. The question is what to do now.

  ‘Things’ll be really bad next week,’ Puller complained.

  ‘How so?’ Bakune asked.

  The big stoop-shouldered fellow blushed, looking to his partner for help. Hyuke cleared his throat. ‘On account of the Festival of Renewal.’

  Of course! He’d lost all track of the time. The winter festival celebrating the Lady’s arising and our deliverance from the Stormriders! Banith will be crushed beneath pilgrims as usual – surely the Guardians will allow the shiploads of worshippers to dock! And the Cloister will be open to all devout as well. This monster will think he has a free hand that night. That’s when we will act! He nodded to his two men. ‘We’ll lie low until then.’

  Hyuke touched his finger to his nose. ‘Wise as a mouse in a kennel, sir.’

  Puller was frowning. ‘A kennel?’

  Hyuke leaned to him. ‘No cats.’

  The man’s round face lit up. ‘Oh yeah. Course!’

  Hyuke stood, brushed his moustache. ‘Thanks for the drink.’ He motioned to Puller, who remained slouched in his seat, unhappy ag
ain. ‘What?’

  ‘I still don’t see why you get to be sergeant.’

  Hyuke cuffed his partner. ‘Tell you what. You show some command qualities like me an’ maybe you can make corporal.’

  Puller straightened, his eyes widening. ‘Really? Me? Corporal?’ He stood and the two pushed their way through the crowd. ‘You think so?’

  ‘If you’re the best candidate.’

  Bakune watched them go. All the foreign gods help him. What did he think he could possibly accomplish? Still, he had to try, didn’t he? Yes. That’s all one could do. Follow the dictates of one’s conscience.

  He got up to return to his room, where the priest would no doubt be sound asleep despite the raucous crowd of the night.

  * * *

  They followed the track of the daemon migration. The carnage it wrought across the rolling Shadow landscape was unmistakable. So much for my fears of wandering lost, Kiska thought wryly. How long they walked she had no idea. Time seemed suspended here in the Shadow Realm. Or so it had seemed to her. But now change had struck. What the daemons described as a ‘Whorl’ had opened on to Shadow and drained an entire lake, obliterating their aeons-old way of life. That Whorl sounded suspiciously like the rift that had swallowed Tayschrenn. It even touched on to Chaos, or so Least Branch claimed.

  They’d been walking in a protracted silence. Neither, it seemed, knew what to say. She thought of asking about his past, but comments from him suggested that that was a sensitive, if not closed, subject.

  Then something moved beneath her clothes.

  Kiska shrieked her surprise; she dropped her staff, tore off her cloak, her equipment, her jacket. Jheval watched, tense, hands going to his morningstars. ‘What is it?’

  Kiska retrieved her stave, pointed to her heaped clothes and equipment. ‘There!’

  Jheval regarded the pile, frowned his puzzlement. ‘You were bitten? A scorpion perhaps?’

  Something beneath the clothes shifted. ‘Did you see that?’

  One of Jheval’s morningstars whirred to life. ‘I’ll finish it.’

  ‘No!’ Gently, she prised apart the layers until she revealed her blanket and the few odds and ends wrapped in it. Kiska felt an uneasy sourness in her stomach. The sack! Some thing inside?

  Kneeling, she untied the blanket and gingerly unrolled it. The dirty burlap sack was exposed. Something small squirmed within.

  ‘Do we let it out?’ Jheval asked.

  Kiska rocked on her haunches. ‘I don’t think so. I don’t think we should yet.’

  ‘Well I’m not carrying it.’

  She gave him a hard stare. ‘You haven’t been, have you?’

  The man had the grace to look chastened. He brushed his moustache. ‘I was just saying …’

  ‘Never mind.’ Raising it gently, she tied the sack to her belt. Perhaps there it wouldn’t get crushed – if it could be. She drew on her jacket, her bandolier of gear, shoulder bags and cloak and started off again. ‘Come on.’

  After walking for a time she regarded the man who was pacing along beside her, hands clasped behind his back. ‘So you participated in the Seven Cities uprising.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And now you are here hoping to buy some sort of pardon.’

  Jheval waved a hand deprecatingly. ‘Oh, not a full pardon. I don’t think I will ever be granted that … but it would be good not to have to worry about my back for the rest of my life.’

  Now Kiska wondered just what crimes the man had committed against the Empire. Or, in a case of bloated vanity, he may just fancy himself an infamous wanted criminal. Or he was just plain lying to impress … her. She cleared her throat. ‘So. You served in the army of this Sha’ik?’

  The man stopped dead. ‘Served? I? I …’

  ‘Yes?’

  A cunning smile crept up his lips and he waved a finger. ‘Now, now. You see a mystery and you thrust a stick in – what will emerge? A lion or a goose?’ He walked on. ‘You thought you’d found a weakness, yes?’

  Thought?

  ‘But all that is over,’ he said, waving a hand again. ‘For a time I was a true believer. Now, I’m just embarrassed.’ He slowed suddenly, shading his gaze. ‘What is that?’

  Kiska peered ahead: a dark shape in the midst of the daemons’ wide migration track. Some sort of abandoned trash? A corpse?

  Jheval picked up his pace. Kiska clasped her staff in both hands, horizontal across her waist. Then the stink struck them. She almost gagged. Rotten fish; an entire shack of rotting fish. A shoreline of putrescence. ‘Gods!’ she said, turning her head and wincing. ‘What is that?’

  Jheval pressed a hand under his nose. ‘Perhaps we should go round.’

  The dark shape moved. It seemed to heave itself. Jheval growled some Seven Cities curse, started off again. Kiska followed.

  Closer, the shape resolved itself into the disintegrating, putrid remains of a very large fish. A fish that at one time might have been as large as a full-grown bull. Two extraordinarily large ravens stood atop the corpse – both looking very glossy and well fed. But that was not what captured Kiska’s and her companion’s attention. What they stared at was the scrawny old man in rags attempting to drag it.

  He was yanking on a rope tied to a grapnel stuck in the fish’s enormous bony jaw. Kiska and Jheval stopped and watched. The man was making no progress at all that Kiska could see, though a track did extend off behind the carcass.

  Jheval cleared his throat.

  The man leapt as if stabbed in the rear. The ravens let out loud squawks of surprise and protest, launching themselves to whirl overhead. The old man spun round, glaring. He was dark, his frizzy hair mostly grey. ‘What are you looking at?’ he demanded.

  Kiska did not know where to begin. Jheval pointed. ‘That’s a big fish.’

  The old fellow hunched, peering suspiciously about. He held his arms out as if trying to hide the huge corpse. ‘It’s mine.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You can’t have it.’

  ‘I assure you—’

  ‘Get your own.’

  ‘I don’t want your damned fish!’ Jheval shouted.

  The old man put a finger to one eye, nodding. ‘Oh, yes. That’s what they all say … but they’re lying!’

  Jheval caught Kiska’s gaze. He tapped a finger to his head. ‘Let’s go.’

  Kiska followed, reluctant; it seemed to her that there was more here, that none of this was an accident. In her earlier visits to Shadow she’d had the impression that the Realm had been trying to tell her things. That everything was a lesson, if she could only understand the language.

  The old man straightened, astonished. ‘You would go?’ He waved both hands at the fish. ‘How could you abandon such a prize? Surely you would not turn your backs on such an opportunity?’

  ‘It is of no use to us,’ Jheval said.

  ‘Use?’ The man shouted, outraged. ‘Use! Is that your measure? Utility? Have you not longed all your life to catch the big one?’

  Overhead, the ravens’ raucous cawing sounded almost like laughter.

  Kiska glanced back. The man was staring after them. As it became clear they would not stop he ran round the carcass to follow but something yanked him back to fall on his rear and he let out a startled squawk. The rope, she saw, was tied round his waist.

  ‘Wait,’ she called to Jheval.

  The Seven Cities warrior halted. He hung his head. ‘Kiska. He’s a mage lost in Shadow and gone insane.’ He faced her, hands apart. ‘I’ve heard of such things.’

  ‘We can’t just leave him …’

  The man shrugged, unperturbed. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well I’m not going to just walk away.’

  She found him lying on his stomach, kicking and punching the dirt, crying, ‘It’s not fair! Not fair!’

  ‘What’s not fair?’

  He stilled, turned his head to look up at her, smiled crazily. ‘Nothing.’ He sat up, brushed the dirt from his tattered grimed robes.
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  Peering down at him, Kiska sighed. She pointed to the huge fish, its exposed ribs, saucer-sized eyes milky and half pecked out. The two midnight-black ravens had resettled on its back and now paced about searching for morsels. ‘It’s dead. Putrid. Useless. Drop the rope and come away.’

  The old man gestured helplessly. ‘But I can’t.’

  ‘You can’t? You mean you won’t.’

  He shook his head, bared his grey uneven teeth in what might have been meant as a cringe of embarrassment. ‘No, I mean I can’t. I can’t untie the rope. Could you … maybe …’

  ‘Oh, for the love of Burn!’ She turned the handle of her stave and its blade snicked free. She stabbed the rope, slitting it.

  The old man sprang up. ‘I’m free! Free!’ And he giggled.

  Kiska backed away, uneasy. It occurred to her that she might just have made a serious mistake. But then the old man threw himself down on the slimy putrescent carcass, hugging its jaws. ‘I don’t mean you, my lovely one. No, no, no. Not you! I won’t go far. I promise. There could never be another like you!’

  The ravens cawed again, protesting.

  Her stomach clenching and rising with bile, Kiska continued backing away. ‘Well … good luck.’

  She rejoined Jheval, who’d been watching, arms crossed. As they walked he jerked a thumb backwards. ‘You see? What did I say? Crazy as a sun-stroked rat.’

  Walking with her staff across her shoulders, arms draped over it, Kiska reflected that that may be so, but at least the crazy mage was free of the trap he’d made for himself. Not that he might not blunder into something worse, here in Shadow.

  The track had become soft underfoot. The surface was brittle, dried in patterns of cracks; the wheel-tracks deep slit ruts. Ahead, the flat horizon was one dark front of churning black and grey clouds. Lightning glowed within.

  ‘You are looking for the lake?’

  Kiska and Jheval jumped, spinning. It was the old man. Jheval glared at Kiska as if to say, Now look what you’ve done!

  ‘What are you doing?’ Kiska demanded.

  He peered up at her, his beady yellow eyes narrowing. ‘I should think that’s obvious. I’m following you.’

  ‘Look,’ Jheval said. ‘What do you want?’