by William King
Ahead of him now he could see the go-down. It was as big and black as he remembered. The stink of the river filled his nostrils. The warehouse area was relatively quiet, so much so that the comparative silence seemed to ring in his ears, like the quiet on a battlefield once the fighting was over. Overhead, fireworks burst, exploding like flares. He felt now like he had often felt before going into combat. There was a tightness in his stomach and a dryness in his mouth. He held his hands up level and looked at them. They were steady.
“Now I know you are going to steal something,” said Leon. The pipe was back in his mouth now, rolling from side to side. “You always do that before you do the business.”
“It’s nice to know I am so predictable,” said Rik, eyeing the side of the warehouse. He had already decided he needed to make his entry through the roof. It was merely a matter of getting up there. There were several ledges on the river side, designed for lowering things into barges from. The rest of the building was like a fortress. The walls were thick, the doors heavy and multiply locked. Doubtless there would be watchmen inside and perhaps even attack dogs or ravager wyrms. They were sometimes let loose inside warehouses at night. He thought he had the means to deal with these. It was armed men he was worried about. Not for the first time he wondered about what he was doing. He knew it was crazy but that did not seem to affect his determination in the slightest. The lust to possess those books had taken over him completely.
“The night is not getting any younger,” he said. He opened the cloak and unwound the rope around his chest. Below his costume he was wearing a black tunic and britches. He took out some soot from a tobacco pouch and rubbed it on his face and hair.
“Now there’s a blast from the past. I never knew you still had it,” said Leon. Rik knew exactly what he meant. It was the same rope and grapnel they had used on many a night in Sorrow. The grapnel was wound round with the Old Witch’s finest spells of silence and stealth. The rope was spidersilk, light as a feather and twenty times stronger than normal hemp. “I think I will come with you.”
Rik shook his head. “No, this is personal. If you want to do something useful take my costume and mask. We might need it to cover our getaway. Keep watch here but make sure no one sees you. If you hear anything inside cause a distraction, it might help.”
There was no need to explain to Leon how to do that. He had done it many times before. “Fair enough. Be careful.”
“I’ll do my best.” Rik whirled the rope and then hurled it. The grapnel caught on the edge of the roof. He tugged it to make sure it would bear his weight. It held easily enough. He began to scamper up the side of the building. Soon the ground looked a long way below him. Leon seemed to have vanished. A moment later, he saw why. A bobbing lantern light announced the coming of a watchman.
Rik froze. The lantern came slowly closer. He could make out some cloaked figures now. One of them held the light, several more held clubs. Briefly he considered pulling up the line behind him, but decided the motion would probably draw exactly the attention he was trying to avoid. Instead he just hung where he was, praying that the grapnel would not work its way loose. His arms were sore and a little tired now. It had been a long time since he had done this, and it was using muscles that he had forgotten existed.
The watchmen were almost directly beneath him now. They paused. His heart pounded so loudly now he was surprised they did not hear it. Had they spotted his line? If so a swift tug by the whole group on it might bring him tumbling down. Or if they just looked up…
“This is the place,” said Jazeray. He had a look on his face that Sardec did not like, a self-satisfied smirk, the look of a glutton contemplating a feast. They passed within, into a place that reeked of cheap perfume and human bodies pressed too close together. As they entered, masked faces turned to look at them. Sardec noted two somehow familiar costumed figures had just entered and were glancing at him. One was massive and hulking, the other was tall and thin. Soldiers, he thought, soldiers from the camp, and felt another surge of shame that one of his men might have seen him here. How could he keep their respect?
A tall woman wearing a stage mask of Memosine, Patron Saint of Lovers, came forward to greet them. Her clothes were rich enough for a factor’s wife, but he knew that was not what she was. She performed an intricate and extraordinarily well-timed curtsy before them, graceful as a dancer, and said; “Welcome to my house, masters, what is your pleasure?”
“A private room and a deck of cards,” said Jazeray. “And your best wine, and girls.”
He said it as if one was no more important than the other. Perhaps to him they were not. He looked like a Terrarch well-used to depraved pleasures.
“At once,” said the woman, whom Sardec took to be Mama Horne. She led them swiftly up warped stairs lined with old prints. Overhead a massive chandelier illuminated the whole saloon. As the Exalted receded from view, conversation became louder, and music started to play again. Sardec realised that their appearance had quite an effect. In his state of inebriation that pleased him.
Sardec looked around the room. For a human brothel, he thought it was relatively luxuriously furnished, certainly more so than the chambers he had at the Inn. A massive mirror dominated one wall, and nicely carved, heavy furniture filled its centre. In each wall was a door. One led to the corridor, the others to bedchambers with mirrors on the ceiling, and huge double beds.
“It’s the best room in the place,” said the brothel-keeper.
Jazeray nodded to Mama Horne to indicate that it would do, and moments later the wine appeared, each dusty bottle being carried by a lively and very scantily dressed young woman.
“Tell Ari I am prepared to win back my money,” said Jazeray. Mama Horne nodded as if this were not unexpected. A shiver passed up Sardec’s spine. Surely, Jazeray was not prepared to gamble with humans. That was taking slumming a little too far.
He looked at the girls and wondered what exactly he was expected to do. Several of them noticed his glance and immediately moved towards him. He backed away slightly, doing his best to ignore the amused smirks of his companions. Why had he allowed himself to be talked into coming here, he wondered? Only one of the women did not seem interested, she seemed distracted, and she was by far the prettiest, at least to his eye. He walked over and took a seat beside her?
“What is your name?” he asked, a little harshly. His breathing was heavy.
“Rena,” she said.
Rik considered trying to hastily pull himself up onto the roof but decided that might just draw attention to him and if so he might easily be trapped up there while they summoned help.
Instead he just hung there and listened and watched. After a few heartbeats, he noticed that they had paused to swig from a wine bottle. Rik cursed again and hoped they were not going to take up residence below him. If they decided to sit there all night, drinking, he would have to do something desperate.
The watchmen put the cork back on the bottle, mumbled a curse and moved on. Rik continued his slow climb to the warehouse roof. This was the easy part, he reminded himself sourly. Perhaps he really ought to turn back. He knew he could not though. He wanted those books back, and he was prepared to do whatever it took.
Cautiously he pulled himself over the edge of the roof, and unhooked the grapnel. He paused and waited. He muttered the charm the Old Witch had taught him long ago. He sensed nothing. He glanced at the watchposts on the visible corners of the roof. Either the Elder Signs of Warding there were so old they were inert, or they had never been truly activated. At least he hoped that this was the case, and that a silent alarm was not being given even at this moment.
The roof itself was angled, and covered in slate tiles. They were slippery, and he knew he would have to be cautious. If one of them was loose, and in his experience there were almost at least some that were, it would be all too easy to send them tumbling into the alleyways below. If that happened at the wrong time, it could get the attention of the watchmen. He tried to
tell himself it was unlikely, but he had known many men hung or burned when given away by equally unlikely events. And there were worse things that could happen. If the workmanship was bad, or the supports of the roof rotten, the whole thing might crumble beneath his weight and send him crashing to inevitable death on the floor of the warehouse.
He reeled up the rope and slowly and painfully began the process of crawling towards the skylight. He splayed himself almost flat to distribute his weight as evenly as he could and then moved spider-like towards the skylight and peered through it.
The outside was kept relatively clean by rain but there were a few recent smears of bird-shit that he wiped away with edge of his tunic sleeve. There was nothing he could do about the grime on the inside. It obscured a good deal of his view but still he made out what he needed to. There were lights on inside the warehouse. He cursed but decided to push on. He had come too far now to turn back.
He produced his knife and inserted it under the edge of the window frame. Carefully, cautiously and as quietly as he could, he sawed away at the edges. He was glad of the noise of the fireworks, the crowd and the music now. It would cover what he was doing. He just hoped there was no one directly below him to wonder at the dust-fall inevitably created by his actions.
Eventually he got the frame loose from its setting and slowly removed it. The hole was just big enough for him to work his way through. Someone broader of shoulder or larger of gut could not have made it.
He worked his way back down the roof and hooked the grapnel into position around one of the gargoyles, wrapping part of the rope around it to make sure it would hold, then tested it to ensure it could take the strain. He moved back to the skylight. He fed the rope down into the gap till it landed atop one of the high piles of bales he had seen on his visit. So far so good, he thought. This would, he hoped, bring him in at a height where no one would notice. He worked his way into the hole now. Hoping that he had gauged things right and he would not get stuck, praying that nobody below would notice him and shoot a bullet up his backside, he held the rope and was all too aware of the void below his feet.
He told himself that it was all right, the bales would break his fall if anything went wrong but he knew there was a drop nearly ten times the height of a man below him if he had miscalculated.
He took a deep breath and began to lower himself into the shadows.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Rik clambered down the rope till he hit the bales. They were soft and gave beneath his weight, swaying slightly underfoot. If he made a wrong move he would send them all tumbling down. The dust in the air tickled his nostrils and he fought down a near uncontrollable urge to sneeze. He wound the rope around a bale and then tied it. He did not want to lose the grapnel now. Even up here he felt exposed.
Near the trade door a lantern burned. There was a glow too from the counting house and another from a distant corner. He wondered what was going on over there. Maybe it was a place for the watchmen to take their meals. There was no way of knowing.
He checked for ways to the ground. They were not easy to find. The island of bales he had landed atop was high and flat. His best way down would be to leap from it to the next island which consisted of sacks terraced to just about a man’s height above the ground.
He caught the scurry of rats, and the distant murmur of men’s voices. There was something different and strange about them but he could not put his finger on exactly what.
If he stayed here much longer there was the possibility of his freezing up entirely or losing his nerve and clambering back up the rope. He checked all his weapons were in place and then forced his limbs to move.
The jump from the island of bales to the island of sacking was not far, a mere six feet or so, but the height made it daunting as did the less than firm footing. As he stood upright the bales moved, making him sway slightly.
He tried not to think about the forty-foot drop to hard ground beneath him. He sprang out over the ledge. The force of his leap unbalanced the bale and sent it tumbling downwards. His own nervous momentum sent him sprawling atop the sacks. These too slithered around under his weight.
A cloud of dust rose, tickling his nostrils and the back of his throat, threatening to make him sneeze. He lay atop them, heart pounding, listening to see if anyone had noticed. There were no shouts, no warning cries. The sound of fireworks and music had covered his mistake, or so he hoped. He checked to make sure the line was still in place and was grateful to see that it was.
Now he scampered down the sacks, trying to be quiet, but the grain-filled bags crackled beneath his boots. The noise was just loud enough to set his nerves on edge. When he reached the bottom of the terracing, he halted again and listened, like a deer that hears the howling of wolves.
Once more he appeared to have gone unnoticed. He wondered how much longer his luck could hold then gently lowered himself to the ground.
He heard footsteps coming closer and cursed. Had he been spotted? Was this someone creeping forward to ambush him? If they were trying to be stealthy, they were doing an appallingly bad job. Unless, of course, the walker was meant to distract him while others crept up behind him. Rik fumbled for his knife while he glanced over his shoulder. No one was there.
“Get a move on, Tresh! We’re waiting to win our money back!” The shout came from the far corner of the go-down. Rik realised now what had disturbed him earlier. The accent was that of a hill-man.
“I’ll be right back,” said another voice, obviously drunken, equally obviously belonging to a hill-man. There was the sound of a man making water and a sigh of relief and then the footsteps receded again.
What in the name of the Shadow was going on? Why were there hill-men in the warehouse? For a moment the mad thought raced across Rik’s mind that they were robbing the place too, but he dismissed it after a moment’s consideration. Robbers did not pause to play cards in the commission of their raids. These men sounded quite at home here. There was obviously some connection between the hill-men and the factor.
His plan, such as it was, had already gone awry. He had hoped that Bertragh and his bodyguards would leave and after that the place would be empty save for a watchman or two, and he would get a chance to overpower or elude them and check out the counting house.
He had been far too optimistic. It sounded like these men were planning on staying here for a while. Perhaps the best thing to do was simply to give the whole damn thing up and head back the way he came. If caught, the best he could hope for would be to be handed over to the City Watch and hanged as a thief. He froze and considered what to do next.
He had come this far. He might as well go just a little further. He would check out the counting house. It was just possible the lantern had been left on by accident, and there was no one in the place. If that were so, it would be a Light-blessed opportunity to be about his business.
He stalked forward, heading from aisle to aisle. He paused as another man walked past to relieve himself or perhaps simply to check out some noise. Rik held his breath. The man wore the colours of the Agante. This was getting worse and worse. He remembered what had happened to Vosh only too well.
Slowly, painfully, he crept closer to the door of the counting house. The light was on, but he heard no sound from within. He moved forward towards the door and froze when a voice broke the silence.
“It is what we were seeking. These are Alzibar’s books.” Rik paused. His every instinct screamed for him to leap back into one of the aisles and get out of there. The voice made his flesh crawl. It had a cold inhuman quality to it that yet held a note of evil triumph.
“Good. The Masters of the High Lodge will be pleased, Zarahel.” This voice belonged to Bertragh. Rik paused. It sounded like Bertragh or his companion had deciphered the manuscript fairly quickly. If he waited just a little longer he might get some clue as to exactly what it contained. And what was that about masters?
Another realisation hit him like a hammer-blow. Zarahel was the na
me of the hill-man prophet the Foragers had been sent to find. What was he doing here? Recovering his books, by the sound of it.
“Let us hope so. We must still get back to the mine and awaken the god. Then let the interlopers tremble.”
“Alzibar claimed no one but an Exalted could work this ritual.”
Zarahel laughed softly. “He would say that. Even if he was a Brother, he was a Terrarch. Men worked such sorcery long before they stole our world. I will need adjuncts but I can perform the ritual. Have no fear.”
“But can you control the god once he is awake?”
“If these books contain the truth, yes.”
“You are gambling your life on that ‘if’.”
“If I am successful we shall be able to sweep the damned demon-loving Terrarchs from these lands. Then Uran Ultar will reward us for keeping the faith.”
“That is not the Brotherhood’s plan,” said Bertragh. There was a sharpness to his voice that he perhaps did not mean to be there. Whatever the one called Zarahel was proposing was at odds with what he expected. “I think that you over-reach yourself.”
“Perhaps, my friend. Perhaps. But think…you are a man as well as a Brother. Do you not dream of being free, of casting off the Terrarch yoke. This is our chance.”
What were they talking about, Rik wondered- did they really think the Old God would reward them? Did these madmen seriously believe they could reawaken Uran Ultar?
He understood now why the sorcerer had been in the mine. It was some sort of entrance to the hell in which the Ultari dwelled. The mage had been trying to make contact with the ancient demon race.
No! He had made contact. He had succeeded in awakening at least one, and it sounded like there were far more where that one had come from. Given how terrible a foe that creature had been, an army would be far, far worse. He realised that in his shock he had stopped paying attention to what Zarahel and the factor were saying. He concentrated once more.