by Tom Lloyd
It was bare and empty – nothing she could see, at any rate, and very little room for anything to be hidden. The rock was typical mage-working; nearly flat with an almost organic flow to the mineral. Unfortunately that also meant a lack of decoration, detailing or anything else the Monarch was looking for.
‘There’s nothing here, should we go down the tunnel?’
‘Check the walls more closely, look at the pillar, do something!’
The scribe, through fear or natural obedience, didn’t question her command and went first to the pillar, his nose almost touching the stone as he ran his fingers over its surface.
‘Wait, what’s that?’
Gerail’s head whipped around. It wasn’t a scribe who’d spoken, it was one of the brown-jackets. He raised his lantern and peered forward, then touched something on the wall with his finger before Gerail could stop him. She saw nothing but heard him yelp an instant later and jerk his hand away.
‘What is it?’
‘Cut misself!’ he whined, inspecting his finger then sucking at the tip.
‘What did you see?’ she insisted.
‘Thought I saw a, ah …’
He tailed off as it suddenly became obvious – a wavering thread of light that drifted forward from the rock like some sort of plant on a sea current. The brown-jacket backed off, finger still in his mouth, then made a strange choking sound. He dropped his lantern and clutched at his throat, wheezing frantically, but no one moved to help him as more fronds emerged from the wall. There was a judder of light as the lantern struck the ground and almost went out before the spilled oil caught light and flared yellow.
Gerail felt her guts turn cold as some sort of shape was illuminated on the bare blank rock. A whimper behind told her she wasn’t the only one to see it – the shape was a creature, unlike anything she’d ever come across, with long, angular limbs and legs detailed in a blink of shadow.
Without warning, the fronds twisted and jerked forward. An indistinct mass of glowing mist pulled itself free of the wall and ran the nearest soldier through. The impact was real enough; a gout of blood and a shriek erupted across the room. Gerail raised her mage-pistol and fired. The icer’s crisp shaft of white slammed dead-centre into the apparition, briefly arresting its movement but doing no obvious damage even as a chunk of stone burst from the wall behind it.
The apparition scuttled forward, as bulky as a lion in the low room but with long bladed limbs. Two soldiers died in the next instant, another a few seconds later. Then those who remained were all firing. Staccato flashes of light and booms assailed Gerail as the demon was thrown jerkily back. But still it would not stop; still it was not hurt; still it threw itself across the room. Through the chaos of noise and movement it eviscerated a scribe in one deft stroke before killing again and again. Gerail’s head filled with the hammer blow of gunshots and the screams of her troops, running feet and the wet chop of flesh.
She never even saw her death, just a blur of white amid the whirl of lantern-light and shadows that danced around the chamber. Then the noise and clutter and light receded and there was only the cool deepest black as it enveloped her.
Chapter 7
It took ten days to travel the length of Parthain and reach the narrow bay where Jarrazir lay. Perched on the foredeck, Lynx watched the city unfold from the morning mist. This wasn’t his first visit to Jarrazir. In the years since he turned his back on his homeland, Lynx had been many things – mostly a mercenary in the messy little skirmishes that passed for war in the little republics and principalities that dotted the five inland seas. He’d travelled south too, all the way to the ocean coast there, but found the heat and scouring winds too much for him.
There was little work for him there anyway. The raging ocean tossed away human lives like a feckless, careless god and was treated as such by the locals, their efforts focused more on survival than war. While few there knew of So Han and its violent efforts at conquest, and even fewer cared, he had stayed only a few months. Enough time to turn nut-brown in the sun, contract an illness that had lingered for a year in one form or another, and find employment on a slow spice barge that traded with the tribes inhabiting the scorched deltas.
Trade on Urden kept to the interior, centred on the calmer inland seas and huge Duegar canals that crossed the continent. Lynx had been a canal-barge guard several times in the last decade. It was a good job for rootless, drifting men of violence such as himself, their sedate travels taking them across the continent, and few raiders were so bold as to try and raid the barge-trains that plied the canals.
While he’d never managed to keep to any job for long, there had been some remarkable sights that had stayed with him long after he’d moved on. Arriving in Jarrazir on the Ongir Canal was one of those, most particularly when it reached the Bridge Palace.
In his mind he recalled the surging whisper that seemed to draw the barge into the vast echoing tunnel beneath the walls of the palace. A susurrus of breath as the barge was swallowed into the red-glazed maw and dark gullet that ran for almost two hundred yards before finally opening out on to the lagoon beyond.
In his dreams that journey had evolved into the shrouded veil between this life and the next. The red tiled walls and forbidding black pillars; the centuries-old mosaic that covered the arched belly of the palace and flocks of white-winged bats that roosted there.
The scent of night jasmine brought him out of his reverie. Lynx didn’t need to turn to realise Toil was standing behind him. The faint scent she wore was an affectation perhaps, but one he’d found himself craving since the day they met. It seemed incongruous for this fearless, muscular relic hunter and assassin that she might wear a delicate scent even when covered with the grime of travel, but Lynx was starting to understand it.
We’ve all got our own ways of handling this strange life we lead, he realised, and hers is to cover the stink of travel, of animals and dirt and fear. A small smile crossed his face. He’d just remembered something else about Jarrazir – smoked eels stuffed with garlic, fished from the canal and the supposedly bottomless lagoon that served to connect canal and bay in the centre of the city.
Yeah, we’ve all got our ways, Lynx reminded himself.
He looked up at Toil, the woman scrutinising the city as though trying to pick out a single figure on the docks beyond.
‘Going to tell us any more about what we’re doing here?’
‘Might be there’s nothing for you to do,’ she replied.
‘Not much of an answer.’
Toil shrugged. ‘I’m no seer, I can’t say what’s going to happen. Ask Estal if you want a reading.’
‘I’m not asking that,’ he said, swallowing his irritation, ‘but there’s a plan. There’s stuff you know and aren’t sharing.’
‘It’s too early for sharing anything.’ She shook her head. ‘Want me to tell you a few things that may end up not having any significance at all? How would that make me look then?’
‘Human?’
‘Hah.’
‘Tell me the lot then.’
‘You’re not my boss, remember? To him you’re the hired help, one of the guns I might need to call on and not even a very senior one of those.’
‘To him,’ Lynx repeated. ‘And to you?’
Toil sighed. ‘Really? You want to have that conversation now?’
‘Nope.’
‘What, then?’
‘If things go to shit, chances are I’ll be one of those standing right beside you. Prefer not to be in the dark when I do that.’
She smiled at that. ‘You handled it pretty well last time things went to shit down in the dark.’
That brought Lynx up short. ‘There going to be more of that?’
‘Maybe.’ She looked back up at the city ahead. ‘That much I’ll tell you. There might be some light petting with the deepest black, sure. Best you decide ahead of time if you want to hang back in that case. Of course, hanging back may not be the easier option if it really does go
to shit.’
‘Aren’t you little Miss Sunshine today?’ Lynx sighed.
She grinned unexpectedly. ‘Ah, Lynx, this is the fun bit! That first step into the dark, the jolt of excitement and fear because you don’t know what’s coming next. Isn’t this what you’re really here for?’
‘No, that’d be the smoked, stuffed eel they eat here.’
‘Eel?’ She screwed up her face. ‘You’re a madman, my Hanese friend.’
The bulk of Jarrazir city occupied the eastern shore of the bay. To reach that they had to pass through an inlet less than a hundred yards wide and defended by a pair of huge mage-carved towers. The outer faces of the towers were rounded and had arched openings all the way up for ballistae – while huge trebuchets stood at the very top within a perimeter wall.
Lynx was more interested in the carved inner faces of the towers, however, which depicted the ancient pagan gods that had been the patron deities of Jarrazir until the five gods had been recognised. Now they were beloved emblems of the city. Despite centuries of fierce piety the Monarchs of Jarrazir kept those heads prominent on the city’s flag that hung from each statue before him, each halved red and white with a beast on each side. On his left, looking down at the ship as it passed between the towers, roared the face of the Urlain, a mythical bear-like creature with stone scales for skin, while on the right the great serpent Holoh watched, fangs half-unveiled.
The former signified unwavering power and fortitude, Lynx recalled reading once, while the latter represented elegance and intellect. It was the serpent that filled him with faint trepidation – reminding Lynx far too much of the golantha they had faced while trying to cross the great rift in Shadows Deep.
Three miles in length and half a mile at its widest, the narrow shelf of land on Lynx’s left nestled in the lee of three steep-sided hills and boasted the mansions of the oldest and richest families of Jarrazir. The sprawl of great houses was overlooked by the three palaces of the Lesser-Royals on the waterfront, while a squat fort atop the largest hill behind surveyed them all.
Ahead of him was the mouth of the lagoon and the peaked towers of the Bridge Palace straddling the Ongir Canal, but their ship veered right, towards the merchant districts instead. There was no challenge as they crossed the bay, just fishing coracles fleeing ahead of them. The ship had been scrutinised as they passed the towers and Lynx guessed it had done this route many times before, for all that it would rarely fly the state flag of Su Dregir.
The city’s deepest docks stood to the right of the lagoon, naturally leading to the merchant’s district of Sentrell behind. Eateries and teahouses studded a dockfront of limewashed merchant offices, cobbled alleys leading to goods yards behind. Smoke rose from every house, the scents of baking mingling with mud and refuse on the air. The people were little different to any dock on Parthain, mostly tanned white faces and hair ranging from blazing orange to black. The tribes of the inland sea had intermingled for more centuries than anyone could count, but trade was such that the black faces of some of the Cards wouldn’t be noteworthy anywhere.
They were received with all courtesy, the dockmaster coming to greet the captain himself and bowing to the Envoy when introduced. On the dock behind waited six soldiers in grey, likely from the dock armoury. While ships were permitted to keep their weaponry on board, after a careful inspection, armed mercenary companies were rarely allowed to keep theirs. Normally their weapons would be impounded and stored there until the company chose to leave, but Envoy Ammen apparently had other ideas.
‘I require a Crown dispensation and bonding, for my personal troops and their equipment,’ the man called out as the ship was being tied up and the gangplank secured.
‘In which case you will have to remain on board, Envoy,’ the dockmaster replied. ‘I will send word to the palace and make the request for you.’
‘My escort will remain,’ he countered. ‘I’ll be over there having a cup of something warm and spiced with the captain of my guard, awaiting the Monarch’s pleasure.’
Once a messenger had been sent, the Envoy and Captain Onerist headed to the teahouse he’d indicated, while the rest settled in for a wait. As the armoury soldiers catalogued the weapon stores, the mercenaries sat around playing cards and by the time a writ had been brought from the Bridge Palace, most of the cartridges were ready for transport to a fortified building down the street.
Anatin lingered for a short while then beckoned Toil over before bellowing across the deck. ‘Payl, Teshen, Reft, Lynx, Varain, Safir – get down here.’
Lynx hurried forward with the others, realising that the Envoy’s dispensation must have included him for some reason. He knew he was one of the more experienced fighters in the company, but still it was a small surprise until Anatin explained.
‘The Envoy is permitted a small personal guard beyond the handful he’s got. Given the rest of the company is to go unarmed, best you’re the ones holding on to your guns.’ He smirked at Varain and Lynx. ‘O’ course, in case there’s any actual guarding to be done, seniority counts.’
Ah, that’s why. Great.
As the weapons were distributed Captain Onerist marched over with a greying man in a tall hat and severe frock coat.
‘Commander, this is Master Tipore – he serves as a factor for several prominent Su Dregir interests and has secured accommodation for the Envoy and your company.’
Tipore bowed to Anatin, all the while casting nervous glances at the giant, Reft.
‘Commander Anatin,’ he said hesitantly. ‘The, ah, the blessing of the gods be upon you all. As instructed I’ve secured an inn close to the Envoy’s residence for your company. I will conduct the Envoy to his house and then return for you once the ship is unloaded.’
‘Instructed, eh?’ Anatin said, glancing at Toil.
‘An Envoy doesn’t arrive unannounced, or without somewhere to stay,’ she said. ‘No point having the Cards too far away, either. Do try to keep your pets off the furniture,’ she added with a smile. ‘Some of them aren’t housetrained and it’ll be a better area of the city than your usual lodgings.’
‘Hear that, Reft?’ Anatin cackled. ‘No letting Deern sleep on your bed, it’s his basket or he’s out in the yard.’
Reft had nothing to say to that of course, but Anatin had spoken loudly enough that there came a muffled string of curses from the ship behind them.
‘We’ve taken an inn?’ Varain said in a hopeful voice.
‘Bed and board,’ Tipore said gravely. ‘No alcohol.’
‘I hate this place already.’
Interlude 3
(Now)
Toil opened her eyes and had to blink twice to make sure she’d really done so. It wasn’t just dark. She found herself surrounded by the palpable, utter darkness of underground – blacker than night and twice as terrifying.
She groaned and tried to move; rolling on to her side and almost falling off the narrow wooden frame she’d been dumped on. Her right arm was numb to the point of being immobile. She lay back and looked up at the blackness above while a cold tingle started to spread through her fingers as the blood returned. There was a blanket underneath her, old but clean with a rough, scratchy quality to it.
Touching her fingers to her face Toil winced and the memory of being struck by the butt of a gun loomed large. The journey here was mostly a blur, movement and pain. The whisper of carpet under her heels, then wood, then rough stone and steps.
I’m alive, she acknowledged, reaching out to find the wall with shaky fingers in an attempt to get her bearings, so that pretty much went according to plan.
By feeling around she could tell there was a wall just inches to her left, another up past her head and a third near her feet. A small stone box with rough-hewn walls then, but lacking the stink of waste, bodies or much else at all. Not even the scent of water, the air was dry and chill for all that the blackness felt like a living thing. Somewhere outside the cell she heard a sound break the profound quiet, the clink of metal
in a lock. And that’s the only sound there is – I’m alone down here. This isn’t a regular gaol, but is that a good sign or really, really bad?
Footsteps echoed in the corridor beyond, several pairs of feet – some in soft soles, some in heavy boots. She guessed at two of each approaching the cell door. Toil resisted the urge to roll over and face it as a key was turned and bolts drawn back. Light spilled into the room, but no one entered.
‘Good afternoon, Monarch.’
There was a pause behind her. ‘Good guess.’
‘Not really,’ Toil said. ‘Easy enough even before I smelled your perfume. This ain’t a regular cell and the city’s ruler doesn’t need to dump me somewhere out of the way if she wants to have me killed. But if she wants to talk away from prying eyes and ears, some hole underneath the Palace Armoury is as good as any.’
Again there was a pause.
‘Nap’s over,’ said a man eventually, an aristocrat by his accent and one more overtly hostile than the Monarch was. ‘On your feet when you address the Monarch.’
‘Well now,’ Toil croaked, rolling over so she could squint at them in the weak lamplight, ‘that all depends, doesn’t it?’
‘No,’ he said in a cold tone. ‘Whatever her opinion on your letter, you stand in her presence or you’ll get another enforced nap.’
Toil groaned and heaved her feet on to the floor, but as she did so her head spun so she remained sitting on the side of the bed. Nearest to her was a grey-haired guard carrying a lamp and a cudgel, smelling of sweat and nervousness. He stood slightly to one side to afford the Monarch a better view of the prisoner. Behind Crown-Princess Stilanna were two figures too dark to properly make out, but guessing their identities wasn’t hard.
‘I might need to take that bit slowly, Crown-Prince,’ she said. ‘Seems like someone caught me a small blow on the head earlier.’
‘Be glad that is all you got.’
‘Oh I am,’ she admitted. ‘Could have gone a whole lot worse, I’m aware.’