Fanah merely cast him a disbelieving glance. He noticed one large wooden slat hanging from the twine that ran above the stall’s crowded counter; the face of the card appeared to depict empty moiling smoke. ‘What is this?’
The stall-keeper leaned out, arms akimbo. ‘Ah!’ he said, knowingly, ‘the new House. Shall I wrap you a set?’
‘No,’ Fanah answered, annoyed. ‘The damned thing’s blank.’
‘Not at all, good friend,’ the merchant responded, completely undeterred. He plucked it down and offered it. ‘Look more closely.’
Fanah had given the errand all the time he could spare, but he paused as his eyes caught movement on the face of the card. He peered more closely. ‘The House is undefined as yet,’ said the stall-keeper. ‘The talents say the new manifestations are searching for their final form.’
Fanah watched, fascinated, as the painted face seemed to coil and shift under his gaze. Rather like clouds, or fog, he thought – or shifting shadows. Yet as he bent closer, a shape did persist behind. Low, and broad . . . running?
‘My compliments to the artist,’ he said. ‘The light seems to move across the—’
A guttural, growling snarl like stones grating yanked Fanah up straight. The stall-keeper peered up and down the street, startled. ‘That’s a damned big dog,’ he muttered, annoyed, and a touch worried.
The growling rose to an avalanche roar and the stall began to vibrate. Charms and amulets clattered to the cobbles. Fanah backed away. A few people nearby paused, searching for the source of the noise. The rest simply ran away.
The stall erupted skywards as if the beast had somehow sneaked under the wheels and leaped up. Boards burst; the stall-keeper was thrown backwards. Fanah backpedalled beneath a shower of the cheap trinkets until his buttocks hit the opposite building’s wall. A creature the size of a pony shook itself, snorting and growling, among the wreckage of the stall. Huge it was, yet recognizably a hound, though of monstrous size. Its scarred hide was a tawny brown, going to cream towards its chest. Its sides and legs twitched and bunched in cables of muscle. Amber claws scratched and grated across the cobbles as it shifted left and right, sniffing in a great bellows-like testing of the air. Then, to Fanah’s horror, its pale glowing gaze lowered to him. One great lunge of its powerful back legs shot it over the street and Fanah fell to his knees, hands over his head, awaiting an agonizing death under its enormous maw.
And he waited. Yet nothing happened. He dared to lift his head for a look. Charms and trinkets rattled as the stall-keeper sat up from among the litter of his wares. ‘Where . . . where is it?’ Fanah breathed.
‘It’s run off,’ the stall-keeper offered, none too sure himself.
Fanah tottered to his feet. ‘Gods . . . what . . . who would . . . I’m late for work.’ He patted himself as if to ascertain that he was all there, then staggered onward.
‘Hey!’ he heard the merchant shouting to the empty street. ‘Whose was that! Who owns that monstrous thing? Who’s gonna pay for my stall!’
*
Ganoth Amtar lay drunk in an empty looted building that had once been a temple to some long forgotten god or cult. How appropriate it was too, he reflected, that he should occupy such a ruin, seeing as he himself had once been a priest in the cult of the Enchantress here in Heng. But he had fallen away from the order, or rather the order had moved away from him. Too complacent, he thought his fellow priests and priestesses in their comfortable sinecures, warming their wide bottoms next to fires and eating far too well. And he had not been discreet in voicing his disapproval and contempt. Where, he’d demanded, was the fire that drove proselytizing the faith? Where was the passion of their convictions? Nowhere that he could find. More effort went into vying for promotion and prestige than into care of the flock . . . and he had not been discreet in voicing his contempt of this too.
And his reward? Demotion to the most degrading of duties. This was his reward for his concern over the welfare of the order? Well, damn them to the mysteries they claimed to worship, then, he’d decided, and walked away from it all.
Though it broke his heart to turn his back upon his faith.
He tipped the tall earthenware jug to his lips once again, spilling much down the front of his already stained robes. So does the derelict lie within derelict precincts, he told himself, and lifted the jug in salute to the far murky corners where the moon’s slanting light failed to reach.
Yet he was not alone. Other shapes huddled in the dark; some his fellow casualties of life’s vicissitudes, others refugees or rendered homeless by the siege. All starving and freezing in the cold of the coming winter.
Ganoth saluted them as well; the needy, the flock that any true priest should tend rather than padding his own nest. He drank again, almost choking on the vile sour dregs.
And something shifted in the darkened gloom of the old temple’s far corner. As an ex-priest, he recognized it for what it was. The hairs on the nape of his neck stirred in recognition of the phenomenon. Only in the highest ritual invocations had he seen it, and then as a shimmering across a still pool, or a flickering on silvered glass: an opening to a Higher Realm.
He stood, tossed the jug to crash among the broken building stones. His neighbours grumbled their complaints. Across the moon-dappled mosaic floor, shadows stirred and spun in a chiaroscuro dance. Show me! he implored the darkness, throwing wide his arms. Give me revelation!
The shadows shifted then, seeming to retreat, revealing a half-glimpse into a murky desolate landscape of a rocky plain, and a gigantic creature leaped into the temple and howled to the sky.
Stones fell in that brassy roar. Every other occupant of the abandoned building jumped to their feet and ran amid screams and shouts that Ganoth barely heard over the great rolling braying.
Beautiful it was, and horrific. A hound of unearthly size, its pale sides much scarred by battle, its flanks quivering in anticipation and bloodlust. Ganoth recognized its attitude as well: the beast was tensed, on the hunt. It lifted its blunt muzzle, larger than Ganoth’s head, and sniffed mightily, peering this way and that.
Its pointed ears pricked then, and it growled a thoaty rolling of tumbling rock, and started across the mosaic floor where its claws scraped and gouged the stones, and leaped high into the air as if to clear a wall but disappeared instead into the stones as if passing through a window.
In the silence Ganoth stood panting, his heart drumming. Thank you! he breathed, transfixed. Thank you. He fell to his knees, arms wide to the dark, his face lifted to the shifting shadows above. Thank you!
* * *
In the next few days sightings were reported all over Li Heng; nearly every ring of the city’s nested circles experienced its share of the panic. Silk was kept busy investigating each encounter. There seemed no logic nor purpose behind the visitations. Witnesses spoke of the monster crashing through walls and disappearing into alleyways. Several deaths were blamed on the beast. Yet when Silk investigated he found that not one of the mortalities was directly caused by the creature. One old man’s heart gave out in fright; an old woman fell down a set of stairs in her panic and died of her injuries; a child was kicked by a terrified mule; a wall collapsed on a family. Not one citizen had been bitten or torn apart – at least none that had yet been found.
The sightings were separated by great distances. No trail of wreckage could be traced between the encounters. It was as if the thing were popping up randomly all over. Or, Silk was now coming to suspect, people were simply jumping at shadows.
It seemed even to be becoming fashionable to have caught a glimpse of the monster. Descriptions varied wildly. So-called ‘witnesses’ swore the thing was a daemon with blazing furnace eyes, or a shaggy furry beast with jaws that could tear the head off a horse; a prairie lion mated with a daemon; a monstrous jackal; or Ryllandaras’s cousin Trake himself.
At the scene of the most recent appearance Silk was bemused to find the floor of the house littered with cards – the sort talents used
for their divinatory readings. Curious, he plucked one from the litter of shattered glass and fallen bric-a-brac, broken candles and goose down from a torn cushion. It was wrinkled and thin, of cheap pressed plant fibre paper. On a dusk-shrouded hillside a muscular figure, naked from the waist up, worked hunched over the construction of a stone structure of some sort. He knew enough of the Dragons to recognize the Mason of Darkness.
He went to where the witness, the owner of the establishment, waited under guard. He showed the woman the card. ‘You had these out?’
The terrified woman nodded, clutching at her throat. ‘Yes,’ she managed, hoarse. ‘Was doing a reading.’
‘A reading? For whom? Have they fled?’
She shook her head. ‘Oh, no, sir. Was no client. Just looking ahead. Querying the future.’
Silk lost interest and turned away.
Stepping over the remains of the door he paused, tilted his head. He remembered another meeting involving a card of the Deck of Dragons; that visiting mage, the haughty one with the poorly kept hair. What was the name she’d given? Lady Night? She’d claimed to be investigating some manifestation involving the deck. Obviously, she’d brought this about. He’d lost track of her. But now he’d keep a lookout. If this thing hadn’t eaten her already.
Later that day he gave up hunting down reported sightings and went to find Koroll. Tracking the inhuman mage proved far easier in the intent than the reality. In the end, he was driven to the embarrassing expedient of shouting down the tunnels for the half-Thelomen giant.
He waited in the darkness beneath the city. The torch he held sizzled and popped as its resins burned. He cocked his head, trying to listen. The silence was profound. Such a contrast to the streets above. Movement made him start at the dark. But it was just rats scampering along with their fat rolling gait as they ran up the tunnel. Their eyes reflected the torchlight like lamps in miniature. He ignored them as he would ignore anyone else sharing the passage with him.
Heavy steps announced the approach of something large. It occurred to him that perhaps he ought to raise his Warren, just in case. He was about to when a low, powerful voice spoke from the dark: ‘You needn’t yell.’
He eased his shoulders, lowering his Warren. ‘I was calling.’
The entire circumference of the tunnel ahead seemed to shift as something filling it closed upon him. It resolved into the walking hut that was Koroll. ‘Well, I am here.’
‘Any luck?’ Silk asked.
‘In what?’ Koroll seemed genuinely puzzled.
Silk looked to the ceiling just above his head. ‘In locating the beast.’
‘Ah. That. No.’
Silk struggled to stifle his annoyance. ‘Then what are you doing down here?’
‘I have been listening to the darkness.’
Silk’s brows rose in open irritation. ‘Really. Listening. Amazing. And what does the dark tell you?’
‘That we are not alone down here.’
‘Fascinating. I never would have suspected that.’
‘Really? You should open your mind, friend Silk.’
Silk clenched his teeth, granting Koroll the point on that exchange. ‘And the location of this presence?’ he asked, his voice tight.
‘Ah!’ Koroll gestured, inviting Silk along the tunnel. ‘That is the problem,’ he said as he shambled along, ducking arches and timbers. ‘My considered opinion is – everywhere and yet nowhere.’
Silk wondered whether the giant had struck his head on these obstructions once too often. ‘That’s no help, Koroll. Sounds like cheap mystical claptrap to me.’
The giant peered down at him, perhaps frowning, though his facial tattoos and the strange lines of his angular features made it hard to tell. ‘Really?’ he said, wonderingly. ‘Well, it is the best I can do.’
Silk looked to the arched ceiling. Gods help us.
Koroll brought him to Ho, who was kneeling, examining a pit where the floor of one catacomb tunnel had collapsed, opening on to yet another beneath.
‘Poor workmanship,’ Silk sniffed.
Ho straightened. He dusted his dirty torn trousers and shook his head. ‘This is new.’
‘The creature?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘What word, friend Koroll?’ Ho asked.
As this section of catacomb was taller than most, the giant crossed his thick arms. He nodded as he considered for some time. Silk fought the urge just to walk away. ‘I’ve decided,’ the other announced, ‘to tell a story.’
‘Wonderful,’ Silk muttered into the dark.
Ho, he noticed, shot him an annoyed glare before turning back to Koroll. ‘Please do,’ he invited and he squatted, arms crossed over his knees, to listen.
The giant pursed his thick lips as he searched for where to start. Silk felt his shoulders falling in despair, but he remained.
‘Know you the wars of Light and Night?’ Koroll began, eyeing Silk.
Silk nodded, even opened his mouth to tell them Shalmanat had confessed that she’d been an officer in the Army of Light, serving one of its champions. But he stopped himself in time; these two, having been with her for so long, must be aware of that already.
‘Well,’ Koroll continued, ‘what few know is that there was a third party in the wars. A third tribe of Tiste.’
Silk nodded at this as well; he’d heard rumours of such.
‘They were the Edur,’ Koroll said, ‘the Tiste Edur. For a time they formed an alliance with the Andii but there was a falling-out, and in a great betrayal the Edur slaughtered many Andii. In turn, they themselves were hunted down and driven into the wilderness. Their homeland was shattered and broken in a great struggle. That homeland, or place of their power – the translations vary – was known as Emurlahn. Into it were exiled all the daemons, beasts, and horrors of that great war and it was irrevocably sealed off, and a guardian was set upon its borders to keep watch over them. A champion who could not be defeated. And so has it been inaccessible to all.’
Now Silk felt the hairs on his forearms stir and his breath shorten. Broken, she’d said. Sealed away. ‘Are you saying . . .’ he began, hesitating.
The giant was nodding his agreement. ‘It may be that someone has found a way in.’
Silk discovered that he was shaking his head. ‘No. This is preposterous. Too much. There must be some other explanation. Why go to such lengths . . .’ He could not stop shaking his head. ‘A hundred other more mundane explanations could suffice here, surely. Some rogue summoner, for example.’
‘Perchance,’ Ho murmured, sounding completely unconvinced.
‘In any case,’ Koroll rumbled on, ‘all the stories are in agreement that this realm, or homeland, possessed guardians. Heralds, one might even name them. Freely running creatures that attacked any and all who dared trespass or meddle in that place. And invariably,’ Koroll now glanced about at the murky tunnels surrounding them, ‘they are described as a pack of monstrous hounds.’
Silk felt almost dizzy as he remembered the character of that explosion in his mind. A bestial howl emerging from the Warrens and sending them shuddering with their power. Yes, bestial. But unlike anything he’d ever heard before. Monstrous and utterly terrifying. He licked his cracked dry lips and breathed into the dark, ‘Shalmanat fears this to be the case . . . What must we do?’
‘Find the one who has done this,’ Ho said. ‘Find this mage and get rid of him. Or, failing that, destroy him.’
‘But anyone with such daemons at his beck and call—’
‘I do not believe these things answer to anyone,’ Ho interrupted, sounding even more grim. ‘And are all the more dangerous for it.’
‘So we will search out this mage,’ Koroll said into the silence that followed Ho’s last comment. The giant raised his jagged profile and stared off into the dark. ‘And he is canny, this one. Good at hiding.’ He tilted his head then, as if struck by a thought. ‘Good at hiding in shadows.’
Chapter 10
PUNG CONTINUED TO
keep Dorin close. He was virtually confined to quarters in the rooms beneath Pung’s personal suite on the upper floor of the main building. Perhaps, Dorin reasoned, it was a precaution against any assassination attempt; or perhaps it was just to keep an eye on him.
Yet disturbing rumours and stories of the state of the city under the siege continued to come drifting in from the pickpockets and toughs who patrolled the streets. Stories of the markets closing one after the other. Of empty stalls. Of citizens being willing to sell anything for food – even themselves. Such stories turned Dorin’s thoughts to Ullara and her family. How was she faring under such terrible conditions? One morning he’d had enough of sitting about while the entire city seemed to be sinking around him, and he straightened from his chair and headed for the door.
The creaking of wood announced that one of the biggest enforcers had roused himself to peer up from his tankard of beer and perpetual game of tiles or dice. ‘Where’re you going, knife-boy?’
‘For a walk,’ he threw over his shoulder as he exited.
He headed for the main entrance. No one called or chased after him. He stared down the two truncheon-carrying fellows at the wide double doors and kept on walking on to the side street that led up to one of the Outer Round’s main avenues.
On this boulevard he took immense pleasure from simply being out and taking in the sights. Yet the streets struck him as very different from the ones he had made his own not so long ago. As reported, they were disturbingly empty. Shop fronts were closed and shuttered. No one was out hawking any wares at all. The few people he spotted were hunched in dirty cloaks, their gazes wary and frightened, their pace quick as if fearful of being chased.
His wandering brought him close to the base of the north curtain wall and here a gang of youths crowded the battlements. They were taking turns slinging stones at some enemy. They groaned at apparent poor shots while cheering lucky ones. Puzzled, Dorin stopped at the base of the first stairs he came to and called up, ‘Who are you shooting at? I thought the north was clear.’
A very young lad, no more than a child, ragged and looking near feral, stopped for a moment to eye him as if he were an idiot. ‘The godsdamned turncoat Crimson Guard is what! Where you been lately?’ He returned to his slinging.
Dancer's Lament: Path to Ascendancy Book 1 Page 22