by William King
She laughed as they made their way through the alleys. “Scared for your virtue, noble knight?” she asked.
“I was just wondering how much you were going to charge me for the kiss.” She paused for a moment. Her face suddenly looked hard then she laughed. “I did that for fun. I have no love of the watch and you are a handsome man.”
“I am not that handsome.”
“Then let us say you have the type of ugliness that does not repel me.”
“I am flattered.”
“No, you are not. This sort of thing happens to your sort all the time. The enigmatic stranger, passing through on his way to somewhere else.”
“You sound like you have had experience.”
“So do you.” What could he say? She was right.
Silence fell as she led him through the maze of alleys. He was starting to suspect it was true. If Vandemar was not the most populous city in the world it must be pretty close. He had never been in slums so extensive or so tightly packed. It seemed like a lot of people were packed within these walls. He shuddered to think what Razhak could do in such a crowded place.
“What are you grunting about?” Nuala asked.
“I was thinking I don’t think I have ever seen a city so densely populated.”
“A lot of people have crowded in from the countryside over the past few years. They think they can avoid the wars of the Warlords that way, the pillaging armies. They think that they can make their fortune in the great merchant city, that the streets are paved with gold.”
The bitter way she said the words made him wonder if she was one of those people who had fled from the countryside. He was not familiar enough with the local accents to tell whether she was local or not. “How did you get on the trail of this demon anyway?”
Was there fear in her voice? Perhaps what he had said earlier was starting to sink in.
“It killed a man called Nial in the caravansary at Lemal back along the Holy Road from Belaria. It took his body and left a stinking corpse. Before that it stole the form of a girl called Petra. I knew her somewhat.”
“A friend?”
“In a way.”
“How can you be so certain you are on the right track?”
“It follows the Holy Road. It is heading for Tanyth out beyond Sunhaven in the Sacred Lands. I had hoped to catch it before it made it so far. I was unlucky. So far it has always managed to elude me.”
She laughed. “I have never met a man who thought it unlucky not to meet a demon.”
“If I find it, I can kill it. There are few of its kind I cannot, if I am lucky.”
“A man of your talents could make a good living in this part of the world, providing you did not upset the wrong people, of course. Given your personality you would probably have a very short career.”
“I never expected my life to be a long one.”
“Then why do it?”
“I told you: I swore an oath.”
“Somehow I doubt it is that simple.”
“It’s not. It never has been.”
“You still trying to keep the mystery in our relationship.”
“We don’t have a relationship.”
“And here was me thinking we were becoming friends.”
“What’s your story? You’re not a flower-girl, are you?”
She shrugged. “No. No. I am not.”
“Then what do you do?”
“I get by.”
“Pickpocket? Bawd? Hustler?”
“You don’t have a high opinion of me, do you?”
“I am trying to guess what a young woman your age is doing alone in the streets of the red-light district at this time of night, if she is not a flower-girl.”
“All three of the things you mentioned and some other things too,” she said. “I know people. I put people in touch. I get people things that they want. I find out interesting things and exchange those with interested parties.”
“You’ve a number of sidelines then…”
“A girl needs to get by.”
“Do yourself a favour then, girl and don’t try and pick my pocket. Do right by me and I’ll see its worth your while. Do me wrong and I’ll see you pay for it. On that you have my word.”
“And you’re the man who always keeps his promises,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “I am.”
“Here we are,” Nuala said. They had stopped in front of a tall, narrow-fronted building so rickety it seemed in danger of imminent collapse. Huge beams had been spread between it and the building on the other side of the alley, seemingly in an attempt to prevent that from happening.
“I can see your friend is successful in his trade,” Kormak said.
“There’s no need to be so ironic. Darien is not that interested in the trappings of success. He is not materialistic.”
“I am guessing he will still want my money though.”
“He needs to pay for his research. All those books and alchemical ingredients cost money. He likes his wine and other things too.”
She walked down a very narrow flight of steps disappearing below ground level. She began to rap on a metal door-knocker. Voices shouted from the windows for her to keep the noise down. A light went on within the cellar. Kormak heard someone move closer to the door, grumbling and cursing. He held himself ready. If there was going to be any treachery it would come now.
A slot in the door opened. There was a muttered exchange and obviously Nuala was recognised for the door opened. A tall, thin man, dressed in a none-too-clean robe stood there. He held a small saucer with a guttering candle on it. He looked up the stairs at Kormak and beckoned for him to come down. The Guardian did so slowly. The man did not look very threatening but if he was a wizard that meant nothing. They could be dangerous even when their hands were empty.
“Come inside, man,” the wizard said. “I do not intend to stand out here all night while you decide to take a swing at me.”
Kormak strode closer, still wary. Close up, Darien looked even less menacing. He was tall and thin and scruffy looking and smelled as if he had not washed in many days. There was wine on his breath and the scent of something else, possibly black lotus, one of the many narcotics to which mages became addicted because they believed it enhanced their powers and their ability to study ancient texts. Kormak began to suspect he knew why Darien had need of money. He did not relax his guard any. He had spent a lifetime in dangerous places with dangerous people where appearance was often deceptive, and wizards had a tendency to be among the most deceptive of all.
“A Guardian, eh?” Darien said. “And that would be a dwarf-forged blade, I suppose.”
It came to Kormak that the man had a Sunlander accent and close up he looked like a Sunlander too.
“You are not from around here, are you?” Kormak asked.
“I am from Sideria, the port of Trefal, and I can see you are an Aquilean. I am surprised that you claim you are a member of the Order of the Dawn.”
“You’re not the first,” said Kormak. He was oddly pleased to hear a familiar accent speaking a familiar tongue. He quashed the feeling. Now was not the time to relax his guard. “How did you end up here?”
“Same way as everybody else — I came to search for the mystic secrets of the east. I wound up without the price of passage home, and to tell the truth, this is as good a place as any for a man in my profession. Excellent book dealers, a long history of mystical and astrological research, some interesting systems of thaumaturgy…there’s a lot to learn and a lot to write down. When I get back home I will have the material to astound the old men at the Colleges of Magery.”
As soon as he heard the words, Kormak knew that Darien would never go home. He had just found a delusion to give his life in this distant place meaning. “You trained at the Siderian College then?”
“Yes. I studied under Wigge and Thalman. I was considered quite a promising mage once, you know.” Some remnant of a once-fierce pride smouldered in his voice.
“I hope you have kept your skills honed. Nuala says you are a diviner.”
Darien laughed. “I cast horoscopes for wealthy old women.” He gave the girl a pointed look. “I perform divinations for those who wish to ascertain whether certain residences are protected by magic. It is a way of earning a crust. It is not my real work.”
“That is a pity, for I have need of someone who truly has the gift.”
“You are looking for someone or something.”
“I am looking for a Ghul.”
Darien slumped chair. He looked pale. He leaned over and poured himself a drink out of an alembic sitting on his workbench. “You seek one of the Undying ones. You have set yourself quite a task, man who calls himself a Guardian.”
“I know it. I have followed this one from Belaria. I intend to follow him no further if I can help it. Can you help me?”
“I don’t see why I should. Those creatures are dangerous, more dangerous than I think you can possibly understand.”
“Few know more than I.”
“Said with the confidence of the true ignoramus,” said Darien.
“If you are too afraid to help me I will go and seek the thing myself. I understood you had need of gold.”
“The dead and the damned have no need of gold and I might be both very soon if I went seeking a Ghul. They eat souls and steal flesh you know.”
“A wizard who can tell me what any street-corner storyteller knows-how useful.” He looked at Nuala. “I thought you said your friend was a scholar.”
Nuala shrugged. “He is. He is not normally so backward when the prospect of earning is dangled in front of him either.”
“The child seeks to tell her elders how to behave,” Darien said. “Girl, if what this man says is true, I advise you to walk out the door and don’t look back. Leave the city if you hear of any strange deaths. I most certainly will.”
“There are always strange deaths in Vandemar,” Nuala said.
“Newly dead bodies that look and smell like month old corpses, the worms wriggling through them even as the body decomposes?”
“I have not seen any.”
Kormak nodded. It was clear that in this Darien actually knew what he was talking about. “I have seen one tonight,” he said. “There will be another before morning unless I miss my guess.”
Darien looked at him, clearing judging Kormak as much as the Guardian was judging him. “Why?” he asked. “The Ghul will not need to shift for at least another moon unless the body it currently occupies is sickly. They can dwell within a new form for years sometimes until they burn out all its life force.”
“This one will want to avoid me. It knows I know what its current form looks like. Also it is damaged. It has just been freed from one of Solareon’s amphorae after millennia.”
“And naturally it fears you.” The tone was mocking but Kormak could see the wizard was starting to take him seriously.
“It fears the sword I carry.”
“The stories say Guardians carry magical blades,” said Nuala.
Darien looked at her and laughed. “Is that why you are interested in him, girl? If so, let me give you a piece of advice you had best heed. No one ever got rich stealing a Guardian’s blade. They always claim them back. Kill this one and they will send two more just as deadly and they will never rest until they have what is theirs. You do not wish to cross the Order of the Dawn in matters such as this.”
“I was not thinking of any such thing,” said Nuala, perhaps a little too quickly. Darien’s smile widened.
“No. I would not have to be a diviner to see that you have something else on your mind, girl. Well, it’s your funeral.”
“You will not help?” Nuala asked. “You can find this thing if you want to. There is nothing you can’t find with your spells and your crystals. You have told me so yourself often enough.”
“What I say when I am in my cups and what I choose to do when I am stone cold sober are two different things, girl. This man is what he claims to be. You had best avoid him. His sort carry death with them wherever they go. It can be contagious.”
“If you truly are a diviner, you could help me find this thing and kill it,” Kormak said.
“I truly am but I would like to go on living.”
“You might not get to do that if you don’t help me.”
“Was that a threat?” Suddenly the wizard, without changing in the slightest, seemed a lot more dangerous. His presence filled the room. His voice crackled with ominous menace.
“There is a Ghul loose in the city. It will take lives and cause havoc. You might be one of its victims.”
“My premises are warded.”
“And you never have to leave?”
The wizard considered him for a moment and seemed to weigh the possibilities. He poured himself another drink and then shook his head.
“I can get you passage back to the west,” Kormak said. The wizard looked up. His interest was piqued now. “I can get you into the King’s Library in Taurea.”
“Could you now? Your Order still has some sway in Taurea, after all.”
“Can you find the Ghul?”
“If you take me to where the last body was, yes.”
“Will you?”
“For the price of passage west and a letter of introduction to the King of Taurea’s librarians? Yes. On one condition. You protect me from this Ghul, come what may?”
“Very well.”
“I have your word on that.”
“You have my word.”
“Then let us be about this business.”
They retraced their steps back through the Mall, heading for the alley Kormak had fled earlier in the evening. He was muffled by a robe he had borrowed from the wizard and his face was hidden by one of the local mortarboard caps. He doubted he would have made a very convincing wizard’s apprentice even without the sword on his hip but it was the best they could do.
There were watchmen everywhere and they seemed alert. There were bravoes that Nuala made them turn aside to avoid as well. “Scar’s allies,” she said. “The bouncers recognised me earlier and know I came with you. They will have passed that on to the orc by now.”
“What are you going to do about that?” Kormak asked.
“I’ll work something out. I may have to leave town for a while. If worst comes to worst, I’ll tell the truth.”
“The Holy Sun forbid you be driven to such a dire expedient! What truth would that be?”
“That you were just some stranger who paid me to show him the way to his place. By the way, when will you pay me?”
“When this is done and I have found out whether your friend is worth his fee. I have not decided yet whether this is not some sort of elaborate trick to part me from my money the two of you cooked up.”
“You are one of those tiresome men who insists on paying by results I can see.”
“I have found it is the one sure way of getting them.”
“That is certainly a point in the method’s favour.”
“When you two have finished flirting perhaps you will tell me when we have found the place we are looking for,” Darien said. “I am starting to catch a strange scent in the air.”
Kormak looked at the wizard with new respect. They were close to the spot where he had found Nial’s body. Another turn of the corner and they were there. The corpse was still present as well. Kormak had guessed that no one had wanted to go near the thing fearing it cursed or plagued or worse. The look of the wasted form did not trouble Darien. He walked right over to the corpse and bent over it. Kormak did the same, being careful as the wizard was not to step into the puddle of black putrescent matter surrounding it.
“Definitely a Stealer of Flesh,” said Darien. He sounded at once frightened and oddly satisfied. “The signs of abandoned possession are all there: the withered corpse, the bites of a million worms, the oily liquid residue, the smell of exhumation. One of Death’s children has been here and that’s for sure.”
He closed his eyes and intoned a chant in High Hardic. He kept at it for several long minutes, moving his head from side to side and sniffing the air. “It left here wearing the body of a woman.”
“So much I already told you,” Kormak said.
“Perhaps you would care to tell me where it is now,” Darien replied. “Or would you just let me perform the task for which you are paying me?”
“Pray proceed.” The wizard straightened up and partially opened his eyes, keeping them slitted as if he was squinting into some bright light. Kormak wondered how much of this was part of the spell and how much was just for show. He sometimes felt that even the wizard’s themselves could not tell. Darien began to pace down the alley that Kormak had taken earlier, sniffing the air. He took a different turn from the one Kormak had, but shortly thereafter he was out in the streets of the Mall and heading towards the Blue Wyvern.
“How could this demon have known to find Scar?” Nuala asked. “Did it steal Ana’s memories as well as her flesh?”
“They can and they do,” said Darien. “They can accumulate a lot of strange knowledge over the years. This is why some sorcerers deal with them. Of course, they are Old Ones. They have much magical knowledge anyway.”
“You know a lot about such things,” said Kormak. He could not keep the suspicion out of his voice. He knew that Razhak was not a true Old One. Perhaps Darien did not.
“I am a wizard. It is my job to know such things and much strange knowledge comes to me as a by-product of my researches.”
“Why would an Old One steal human bodies?” Nuala asked. She spoke quietly so that they would not be overheard. Darien replied in a murmur.
“No one knows. Many of the sages have theories. Some say they wanted to hide among humans when the ancient wars that drove the Old Ones from the Lands of Men began, that they were spies sent among us to sow distrust and dissension.