The Spirit of Solstice

by Charlotte E. English

  Tasha gave him a stare of blank incomprehension. ‘What?’

  Hakir Nasak. They only Ivorak’s word for it that the man had ever existed — or that “Ivorak Nasak” did, either. Which persona was invented? Perhaps they both were. He and Nanda had not found Hakir Nasak’s name in the immigration records, but they had not looked for it, for they had not known of the name at the time.

  He could go back and look for it now, but Konrad would bet his house that the name was not there.

  Because no such person as Hakir Nasak had entered the city lately — or ever. He conjured his memories of Hakir and Ivorak Nasak and compared the two faces, trying to see past the superficial differences — the exquisite neatness and luxuriousness of the one, the shabby, unkempt wildness of the other — and felt satisfied: they were one and the same.

  ‘There is no brother,’ Konrad told Tasha. ‘Ivorak and Hakir Nasak are the same man. I do not know which of those names is his true one, if either is.’

  ‘But…’ said Tasha slowly. ‘But Ivorak — the laughing man — you found him murdered!’

  ‘I found him pretending to be murdered. I think I happened upon him at an inopportune moment, and somehow or other he got my measure right away. He had killed Vasily and Albina Olga, and heard — or sensed — my approach. The serpents, perhaps, gave me away. As ilu-vakatim, perhaps he senses spirits in ways most people do not; and who wanders the city with a matched pair of ghost-serpents in tow? He knew he was in trouble. Those claws. He tore out his own throat, made me believe he was dead. After that, he followed us, Nanda and I — more than once. He wanted to know how close we were, I think, to figuring him out. He knew we were checking the immigration records. He’d used the name Ivorak Nasak when he arrived in Ekamet, and he invented a persona around it on the spot — made up a brother, too — in order to confuse us. To camouflage himself. And it worked! Oh, it worked beautifully.’ Konrad felt such bitter self-reproach he could hardly breathe for the weight of it. How quick he had been to believe Ivorak’s show of remorse, to sympathise with him, to find any reason whatsoever not to kill him! ‘As I said, he certainly got my measure.’

  Were they wrong about everything, quite? What was Ivorak (or Hakir) Nasak doing in Ekamet, after all? Had he come to feast, or had he come to build a kingdom? Perhaps both. Had Vasily been sick, as Ivorak had claimed? Perhaps not. Albina had probably fallen victim to simple hunger; after a week of feeding but lightly, Ivorak had been ravenous. He had killed her, followed Illya to his shop and killed him, too. But had he killed them, or turned them? Were they dead and gone, or would they revive as ilu-vakatim?

  And there was Nuritov. I’ll clean up here, the inspector had said, standing over the slain bodies of two labourers. Were the four victims dead, or were they… in transition?

  ‘I think I am wrong again,’ Konrad said slowly. ‘He did not fabricate Ivorak in order to confuse us — couldn’t have. He was giving out that name while wandering Ekamet as one of the street people. He’s been playing two parts all along, and why would he do that? Why pretend to be Ivorak of the streets some of the time, and Mr. Vakatim at the top end of society the rest?’

  ‘Same reason you do,’ said Tasha promptly.

  ‘What.’

  ‘You pretend to be Konrad Savast, society gent, but you’re also Konrad the wanderer, with that hut in the Bones and a penchant for poisons.’

  ‘Maybe one of those is the real me,’ Konrad protested, injured.

  ‘Maybe one is the real Ivorak, too, or Hakir. Either way, by adopting two personas he has access to lots of different kinds of people. “Mr. Vakatim” couldn’t walk among the street people and expect to be taken seriously, and neither could shabby Ivorak walk into the best houses in the city without being thrown straight out again.’

  Hmm. ‘I do it because, when I am searching for something — or someone — I can access all levels of society at need.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So what is he looking for?’ Konrad asked the question rhetorically, not expecting a response, but Tasha immediately spoke up.

  ‘People don’t volunteer information lightly,’ she said, in a conversational tone which briefly befuddled Konrad, for her choice of topic seemed a complete side-step. ‘And when pressed, the stories they tell are influenced by what’s on their mind at the time, even if they’re making things up. So, Ivorak told you a great deal. Some of it may be discounted as manipulative, designed to bring you in line with the version of events he wanted you to believe. But he said more than he needed to. Like, he offered an explanation as to his choice of victims.’

  ‘Illya Vasily and Albina Olga. Yes. But he wanted us to believe he had chosen them because they were sick, because he didn’t want to hurt anybody. All part of his poor-Ivorak routine.’

  ‘Why, though? With the other two, he merely said he had lost control. He could have said the same about the first two. We know nothing about the ilu-vakatim, we would probably have believed him. Why invent a different story for Vasily and Albina?’

  ‘Because something about them was on his mind?’

  ‘It’s my belief he told us more truth than we might imagine right now — good liars do. The more truth to your tale, the more likely you’ll be believed. But I think he told us more truth than he meant to. I think he probably did lose control at the Crow’s Foot, or he was content enough to allow himself to. We know that Albina Olga was dying, and I think Illya Vasily was too, and he may have known it, even if his family did not. That’s why his attitude about his death was so resigned.’

  ‘So Ivorak did choose the first two because they were terminally ill. But why would he?’

  ‘Think about it. You’re a man with delusions of grandeur, convinced that you deserve to be of supreme importance in the world, and consumed with dissatisfaction that you aren’t. So much so that, even when your leadership bid fails so badly it almost kills you, you are not deterred. You leave behind everything you know to come to a new place, where there is no competition, where you can start afresh with no real obstacles. What do you want to do next?’

  ‘Build the greatest, the most powerful kingdom of nightwolves possible. Outdo the achievements of those who defeated and scorned you.’

  ‘Yes — and make sure nobody can seriously challenge you again, or better yet, make sure nobody wants to. What kind of people are you going to choose? Ivorak led us to believe that “Mr. Vakatim” only wanted rich and influential people, but that seems unlikely now. He has been seeking possible recruits across all levels of society; social status has nothing to do with his selection process.’

  Finally, Konrad caught her drift. ‘He is choosing those who are dying, because they are about to lose everything and he can give it all back to them.’

  ‘Mhm. How would you feel about the man who had given you a new life? One free of the sickness that had tormented you for months or years, which was going to kill you?’

  Konrad pictured a growing army of nightwolves, all desperately grateful to Ivorak Nasak. Fanatically grateful? ‘I have trouble picturing Albina Olga enjoying such an existence.’

  ‘The plan may not work out entirely as he intends, indeed. Some would rather die, than live such a life. But such a possibility may not occur to Nasak.’ She added, after a moment’s thought, ‘Though people can surprise…’

  ‘The book said nothing about how a person becomes a nightwolf,’ Konrad observed, with a short sigh. ‘There seemed nothing amiss with Illya or Albina. They were dead, we talked to their ghosts…’

  ‘I’m guessing it takes some time.’ Tasha smiled faintly. ‘It is not that easy to make a non-dead person undead, you know.’

  ‘Time, and maybe… something else. I wonder if those corpses are still at the morgue.’

  ‘And I wonder where Ivorak is right now.’

  ‘He is…’ Konrad’s heart froze. ‘He went with Nanda.’ To The Shandrigal’s Temple, the heart of the Order. What would he do there? At best, he would simply evade Nanda at his earliest
opportunity and escape, perhaps leaving some tearful tale behind himself to explain his disappearance.

  But, no. The Shandrigal’s Order comprised a great many healers and doctors; one of their prime duties was to tend to the sick. And Konrad had obligingly given them Ivorak. To help.

  He groaned. ‘I’ve been such a fool. He wasn’t following me. He was following Nanda.’

  ‘Or both,’ Tasha put in.

  ‘And I left her with him,’ Konrad continued, ignoring that. ‘Think. Where would she take him?’

  ‘To the Shandrigal’s Temple?’

  ‘At this hour?’

  Tasha looked blankly at him. ‘Where else, if not there?’

  ‘You know Nanda’s habit of taking in stray folk?’ He did not speak lightly. She had adopted Danil Dubin, a fellow apothecary, all the more enthusiastically since his public fall from grace. And there was Arina, a woman who had become catastrophically mixed up in the same bad business, and whom Nanda had immediately taken under her wing as well. And others. There were always others.

  ‘She took him home?’

  ‘Of course she did,’ Konrad sighed. ‘She is Nanda.’ He took a moment to breathe, to try to quiet the flurry of panic that overtook his heart. Nanda was not defenceless, and as dangerous as Ivorak undoubtedly was, he had no reason to want to harm her.

  Even so. Nanda was alone at home with a monster and he, Konrad, had made it happen.

  He grabbed Tasha. ‘I’m going to run,’ he warned.

  ‘Go,’ Tasha said.

  Konrad ran.

  He did not know, as he travelled, what manner of scene he might encounter when he arrived at Nanda’s house. Would Ivorak maintain the facade of innocence he had adopted, so convincingly, at the bridge, or would he throw it off? Would he be brute enough, fool enough, to threaten her? Would he try to hurt her, or even turn her? Would Nanda figure him out, as Konrad finally had, or did he fool her still? As the minutes passed, his fears grew, and the visions of likely scenarios his mind helpfully provided grew more and more catastrophic.

  Konrad mustered every shred of will and energy he possessed, and quickened his already flying pace.

  When Nanda’s modest house came into view, her shop beneath and her apartments above, he suffered a tumult of mixed feelings: part relief, part utter panic. Was she even still alive?

  Eetapi! he bellowed the moment he was remotely within range. Tell me all is well.

  Master? Brother? What are you doing here?

  Tell me all is well, Konrad repeated.

  I do not care for their choice of tea, Eetapi replied. The aroma is offensive.

  Tea? Konrad hurtled up to Nanda’s front door, all bemusement and fright, and dragged it open so forcefully he almost tore it off its hinges. He wanted to scream for Nanda, assure himself instantly that she was well, but some buried instinct prevented him. If Ivorak yet maintained his pretence of innocence, Konrad may not wish to instantly reveal his knowledge of the deception. And Eetapi rambled about tea…

  He crossed the shop floor in three great strides, his boot-heels ringing sharply upon the hard wooden floor. The tiny door at the back divided the commercial premises from Nanda’s workroom behind, and her living quarters above; he tore through it, and straight up the stairs.

  The scene he encountered was the very opposite of anything he had expected. In Nanda’s little parlour sat the lady herself, on one side of the worn but elegant oaken table that dominated the room. Opposite sat Ivorak, wrapped in one of Nanda’s coats and with a ceramic hot brick balanced upon his lap. They were indeed partaking of tea, or at least, Nanda was. The cup before Ivorak looked untouched.

  ‘Konrad,’ said Nanda in greeting, her pale brows rising in surprise. ‘I thought you gone to bed.’

  ‘I was,’ he said. He did not know what to add, so wrong-footed by the placid scene was he. Did Nanda know? She could not possibly, or she would not look nearly so relaxed. He looked hard at Ivorak, but if he expected to observe any tell-tale clue in the man’s appearance, or some trace of guilt in his eyes, he was out of luck. Ivorak returned the stare with a hesitant, rather shy smile, perfectly in keeping with the character he had adopted, and Konrad could find nothing at which to object.

  ‘We were discussing Mr. Nasak’s future with the Order,’ Nanda said, and got up from her chair. ‘You will join us for tea, of course? And Tasha?’

  Ivorak’s reaction to Tasha’s appearance was the first sign of something amiss, for he watched her with the wary alertness of a cat faced with a mouse — or, perhaps, vice versa. Tasha grinned at him, and slouched down in the chair immediately adjacent. ‘Tea would be nice,’ she said to Nanda.

  Konrad took the final unoccupied chair, bemused. Here he had run in a fit of raging fury and panic, only to engage in an odd out-of-hours tea party with the person he loved best in the world, with Nuritov’s odd, undead apprentice, and with the man he had come here to kill. Nanda set a steaming cup before him, accompanying it with one of her special, warm smiles, and he only felt more confused. She looked excessively tired, and he felt smitten with remorse at having dragged her into this mess when she could have been peacefully asleep on Solstice night.

  Ivorak was watching him. Konrad felt the weight of the other man’s gaze, but as soon as he returned it, Ivorak returned to staring into his tea.

  A show of discomfort, however subtle. Very well. He was troubled, then, by Konrad’s abrupt and unannounced reappearance. Did he guess, that Konrad knew?

  ‘What have you decided, then?’ Konrad asked. ‘About Mr. Nasak and the Order.’

  Nanda sat down again, and took a gulp of tea. ‘Mr. Nasak is eager to be of use, and I am eager to ascertain the extent of his abilities. I have hopes he will be of great assistance in determining the source of a sickness, and its extent, in ways we have yet been unable to achieve.’ She smiled at Ivorak as she spoke, but there was a tension about her that Konrad did not understand. Was she aware of his deception, or was it something else?

  ‘How generous he is with his time,’ said Konrad, unsmiling, with a hard look at Ivorak.

  Ivorak said nothing.

  Konrad’s temper began to fray. He had been up all night, dragging himself around frozen Ekamet on a night when, above all others, he — and Nanda, no doubt, too — would prefer to be comfortably at home. Ivorak had killed, deceived, lied, led him around by the nose, and now sat there looking as innocent as a summer sky. Why were they wasting still more time on this absurd pretence? Konrad decided to be more direct. ‘We were unable to find your brother,’ he said coldly. ‘It seems he had somewhere else to be tonight, in spite of hosting a houseful of guests.’

  ‘I not know where he is,’ said Ivorak instantly. He was brazen enough to meet Konrad’s gaze as he spoke, unflinching.

  ‘But I do,’ said Konrad, very softly. He held Ivorak’s deceitful gaze and, slowly, smiled.

  He could almost see the wheels turning in Ivorak’s head. Should he try to brazen it out, deny everything, rely on Nanda’s soft (sort of) heart and Konrad’s rather better hidden sympathetic side to save him? Or accept that the game was up, abandon the deceit, and… and what? What would he do?

  Ivorak looked from Konrad to Tasha to Nanda, the latter of whom continued to sip her tea with a show of placidity which convinced Konrad she knew everything he had guessed. She hadn’t reacted at all to Konrad’s revelation that he knew where Ivorak’s so-called “brother” was.

  Ivorak’s eyes glittered, and his mouth twisted in a malicious smile. ‘She is sick,’ he said, indicating Nanda with a tilt of his head. ‘Very sick. You do not know it, I think.’

  Konrad’s eyes flew to Nanda’s face. ‘She… she’s what? Nan? Is this true?’

  Nanda met his eyes only briefly and then stared into her tea, her lips forming a grim line. Oh, she looked desperately tired, but so did Konrad himself, no doubt; probably the shadows under his own eyes were a match for hers. But was she paler than usual? Was her air of weariness merely the product of a long, lon
g night, or was it something more?

  Konrad stared long, his heart sinking like a rock. ‘You lie,’ he snarled at Ivorak, and he hoped fiercely that it was so. Ivorak had lied about virtually everything; why not this, too?

  But he knew it to be false hope. Nanda’s tension was now explained. She would not meet his gaze, and she did not even try to dissemble. She merely sat, defeated, bitter, staring sightlessly into her cooling cup of tea.

  Ivorak beamed at Konrad. ‘You are welcome,’ he said. ‘I cannot tell you how delighted I am to be of use.’

  Then he moved. Konrad, fixed as his attention still was upon Nanda’s wan visage, realised the man’s intention too late. Ivorak shot for the stairs, moving with unthinkable speed, and within seconds he was gone.

  But Tasha had been ready for him. Neither so distracted as Konrad, nor so slow, she barrelled after the fugitive, supernaturally fast herself. The room emptied of them both, and Konrad still sat in his chair, flummoxed, unable to catch his breath for the sudden weight of fear.

  He had time for only one last, anguished, reproachful look at Nanda, and then he, too, was gone.

  Konrad reached the street several seconds behind Tasha, too late to see where she or Ivorak had gone.

  Master, hissed Eetapi from somewhere overhead. This way.

  He could not see her. The night was too dark, the full moon hidden once more behind great banks of clouds. Snow blew into his face, stinging his eyes, and the street’s lamps had long since burned out.

  But he could sense her: some way above his head, a few feet in front of him. That way. She set up a glow, exuding that faint, sickly ghost-light, making a beacon of herself.

  She sped away, and he followed. Ootapi raced in from who-knew-where and fell in by his sister’s side, and Konrad set off after them both, his stride lengthening to impossible speed. Buildings melted away around him as he hurtled through the streets of Ekamet, noting distantly that they were not headed for Parel’s Bridge or for Tatav Circle. They were making for the west gate, and he was not surprised when his serpents led him out into the Bone Forest. Ivorak was far from the only killer to seek shelter, concealment, amongst those gnarled, craggy trees, who thought that the twisting, tangled branches and swirling snow would obstruct his pursuer.