by Dave Gross
"Forget him," said Radu. "He died long ago. Those were dreams you had, nothing more."
"No, he lived!" insisted Pietro. "He gave those glorious visions to me. They inspired all of this, all of my art."
"They draw too much attention," said Radu. "The wrong kind of attention. They hurt the family, Pietro. Get rid of them."
"Radu, you know I would do anything you say, but my patron-"
"He is using you," said Radu. "He is dangerous. Laskar is right."
"Even he agrees we need the gold. Since you left, I have had to help support the family."
Pietro lifted his chin in a haughty gesture that reminded Chaney of Radu before his disfigurement.
"Here." Radu put a pouch in Pietro's hand and said, "I am your patron now. Exclusively."
Pietro's eyes widened as he inspected the pouch.
"How did you-no, I know better-but how can I sell so many diamonds without drawing attention?"
"Cloak yourself and go to the Green Gauntlet," said Radu. "A man called Rilmark will find and instruct you."
"You do it," said Pietro, offering the pouch back to Radu. "You always took care of these matters before."
"I must not be seen," said Radu, drawing slightly away from his brother. "After the fire…"
"Nothing was proven!" protested Pietro. "The Uskevren met with the sage probiter, no doubt to bribe him, but nothing came of it."
"Only so long as they think me dead," said Radu.
"Why must we be the ones to crawl? If not for old Aldimar, mother would never have been captured. Stannis told me everything." A sly smile curled one side of Pietro's thin lips. "Once he even showed me how to hire an assassin to kill one of Thamalon's brood. It would have worked, too, if not for…"
"Stay away from the Uskevren," hissed Radu. "Revenge is for fools and weaklings. You and Laskar need allies, not enemies."
"But why? Why're we the ones who must hold out our cups like beggars? Stannis said-"
"Stannis is dead."
"How can you know that? I am the one he chose to receive his visions, not you."
"Those visions are gone," said Radu, "and they will never come again."
"How can you know?" cried Pietro. His defiant expression melted as understanding formed in his mind. "What did you do?"
"I protected the family."
Briefly, two bright blushing spots upon Pietro's cheeks gave him the appearance of a clown, then rage suffused his whole face. For a moment, Chaney hoped Pietro would strike Radu. He wondered happily how that might turn out.
Flecks of spittle flew from his purple lips as he hissed in rage, "The brother I knew would never hurt one of his own. How do I even know you are Radu behind that mask?"
Chaney could tell by his expression that Pietro immediately regretted the challenge. The blood fled his countenance as quickly as it had come. The brothers stared at each other for a moment, and Radu calmly flicked at a clasp to either side of his mask. He slowly lifted it away from his face.
Chaney had seen what lay beneath the blank white porcelain, so he wasn't surprised to see Pietro's face turn fish-belly pale at the sight.
Pietro uttered a weak yelp and stumbled backward, away from the horrible visage. He tripped over his paint box and scuttled crablike on elbows and heels as Radu came closer.
"This was the price of my failure," whispered Radu. He overtook his cowering sibling and knelt beside him. He grabbed his shirt and pulled Pietro's face close to his own. "If you fail Laskar, I will be the price of yours."
*****
Before he donned his mask and slipped out the window, Radu slashed every painting and cast the brushes into the fireplace. He left Pietro whimpering in the corner.
"It warms the heart to see such fraternal love," said Chaney.
"Silence," said Radu.
He ran lightly across the rooftop and leaped to the next tallhouse. Chaney ran after him, enjoying the brief flight between the tallhouse roofs. He'd experienced some limited success with directed flight, but he still preferred the comfortable feeling of walking on his own feet. The other phantoms flew after him in a dark cloud, their obscure faces hiding whatever emotions they still felt.
"That's the beauty of my situation," said Chaney. "I can say anything I want, and there isn't a damned thing you can do about it."
"You are mistaken," said Radu. "Believe me."
Chaney laughed and said, "Believe you? The way Stannis believed you? Believe a murderer who just threatened to kill his own broth-What?"
Radu stopped at the building's edge. He looked down past the yellow lamps of Larawkan Lane. Only a few hearty souls braved the bitter night air.
A couple of middle years strolled arm-in-arm down the avenue, while a trio of Scepters passed going the other direction. The lamplight glittered on the silver highlights of their boiled leather armor. The guardsmen saluted casually to the man, who touched his chest in acknowledgment.
"What're you doing?" asked Chaney.
Radu didn't answer. His eyes continued to scan the pedestrians.
Behind the couple followed a sulking teenage boy hunched low in his fur collar. He lingered behind just far enough to annoy his mother.
Radu stepped to the side and dropped to the alley the boy was about to pass. The three-story fall barely bent his knees, but it dragged Chaney through the stone roof and wall, leaving him squeamish and dizzy when he landed on the cobblestones.
Radu moved toward the alley's mouth.
"No!" shouted Chaney.
Behind him, the dark shades of Radu's other victims began to moan, low and anxious. They sensed even better than Chaney what was about to happen.
Radu reached out and grabbed the boy by the throat as he passed. He pulled him into the shadows and thrust him against the alley wall, squeezing tighter.
"You don't have to do this," said Chaney. "I'll shut up now. I believe you."
Radu continued pressing the boy's throat, squeezing harder and harder until Chaney heard a sickening crunch. Still Radu held the lifeless body against the wall. After long moments, the corpse crumbled to ash, and its spirit rushed into Radu's trembling body.
Chaney wept tearlessly, cursing himself for taunting the monster. He dared not turn around to look for the ninth dark specter standing forlorn and confused behind him.
"Now you believe," said Radu.
He leaped up, the new surge of infernal strength propelling him back to the rooftop and dragging Chaney's helpless ghost behind him.
*****
Radu looked down from his vantage atop the peaked roof of the Black Stag Inn. Chaney sat nearby, hugging his knees to quell the nausea he still felt after being dragged through two chimneys and an entire tallhouse-including a sleeping woman who suddenly sat up and clutched at her heart as the ghost passed through her.
Since Radu's demonstrative killing, Chaney was too stunned to keep up with the man's blinding run across the rooftops of Selgaunt. It couldn't have been only the stolen life energy that infused him with so much power. Chaney knew that something dangerous roiled beneath Radu's cool exterior.
The muted laughter of a hundred voices burbled up from the guest hall below. Were he not so preoccupied by his unwilling complicity in the boy's death, Chaney might have tried drifting down through the roof so he could hear the bard who so entertained the crowd. Perhaps it was a bard he'd heard before. He must have listened to a hundred different minstrels and storytellers in the years he and Talbot had spent in taverns and festhalls.
Instead, he sat silently as Radu held vigil over the spot where he'd agreed to meet Drakkar. More than an hour after the appointed time, he stirred at his post. Chaney rose to see what had happened in the street below.
Drakkar emerged from a dark alley and stalked impatiently out toward Sarn Street. His hasty gait was enough to show that he was extremely irritated.
Radu dropped to the ground and quietly followed the wizard. Chaney dived after him.
Drakkar turned west on Rauncel's Ride. Radu an
d Chaney followed him as he rounded the southwestern arc of the great encircling avenue. There they passed hundreds of houses "under the wall," those lower-class dwellings that seemed so rude and pitiable to the nobles who lived deeper in the heart of Selgaunt. Chaney had claimed a room in one of those buildings for a few months, until the landlord finally leased it to new tenants, who were none to pleased to find a squatter in the house. A speedy escape through the upper window had saved Chaney from a few more tendays in a jail cell. Had Talbot not returned from a visit to Storl Oak, his family's country estate, Chaney might have let the Scepters catch him. At least the city jails were heated in winter.
Drakkar paused a few times to look behind him, but Radu never left the shadows. Soon Drakkar left the main avenue and plunged north into the Oxblood Quarter.
Named for its slaughterhouses, the Oxblood Quarter was also home to other unsavory businesses. While there were festhalls throughout the city, those in the Oxblood Quarter were notorious for catering to the more demanding clients. The Scepters had recently closed one after the long-held rumors of slavery and torture were finally proven.
Drakkar looked around one last time. Satisfied that no one was following him, he slipped inside the plain side entrance of a nameless festhall. The location of such establishments were open secrets, but the absence of a sign or a popular name allowed upright citizens to ignore their existence while their neighbors and business associates paid a visit to their "trade concerns" in the Oxblood Quarter, insulated from scandal.
Radu leaped to the rooftop as nimbly as a cricket. Chaney had recovered enough from his earlier trauma that he anticipated the move and jumped just in time to ride his wake and avoid an unpleasant journey through the walls.
"Go inside," said Radu. "Tell me where he goes."
Chaney considered the consequences of refusing, but only for a second before he plunged through the roof.
It was much more difficult to will himself down than through a wall, and he wished that he'd practiced it more often. Passing through the roof tiles felt like thrusting his foot into a bucket of cooling tar. After the initial resistance, however, it was purely a matter of willing himself to sink.
Inside, Chaney found a small bedchamber lit dimly by the banked fires of a pair of cheap iron braziers. The light barely illuminated the cheap canvasses tacked to the walls. The paintings were crude renderings of improbably proportioned satyrs and nymphs at a feast to Sune, goddess of beauty and love. The profound lack of either beauty or love in the lustful eyes of the satyrs and the fearful faces of the nymphs made Chaney doubt the clerics of Sune would endorse the work.
The door was ajar, its opening just wide enough for Chaney to slip into the hall without forcing himself through the heavy wood. Outside, the hallway floor was covered in thick, well-trodden carpets. Chaney imagined they smelled of pipeweed and spilled ale.
Chaney had never been inside the building, and he doubted he could sink down below the upper floor before coming to the end of the invisible tether that bound him to Radu, so he hoped Drakkar was bound for an upstairs chamber. His petty wish was granted moments later, as the cloaked wizard ascended the stairs, guided by a halfling in garish livery.
"… instructed her before she left," said the halfling. "Rest assured, she will be the same as the usual girl."
The halfling led the wizard to the room next to the one from which Chaney had emerged. As they approached, the door opened, and there stood a pretty young brunette dressed in blue-and-white servants' garb. Tiny bells tinkled from her turban.
"The hair is wrong," said Drakkar. "I told you-"
"I beg your pardon, master," said the halfling, bowing.
"Easily changed, my lord," the woman said as she curtsied, her eyes at Drakkar's feet.
"Master," whispered the halfling from behind his hand.
The young woman's eyes acknowledged the correction. "Master," she amended.
Drakkar nodded slowly and said, "It will do."
He followed the woman into the room, and she shut the door. The halfling yawned into his fist and returned to the ground floor, scratching his round belly.
"Oh, no," said Chaney.
He'd recognized the woman's costume and had already formed a strong theory about the identity of the object of Drakkar's desire. He wished more than ever that he could somehow communicate with his old friend, Tal.
He returned to the roof, and Radu sensed his presence immediately.
"Where?"
"Here," he said. "On this side, toward the street. The room next door is unoccupied."
Radu leaned over the roof's edge. Looking over his shoulder, Chaney saw shadows moving behind the shutters.
"What did you see?"
Chaney considered the likelihood that Radu would break into the room to confirm his report. He thought of the dead boy and decided to tell as much of the truth as possible.
"He has a thing for chambermaids."
Radu considered that information for a moment then shrugged. He moved over the window to the unoccupied room.
"This one is empty?" he asked.
"Yes," said Chaney, hating himself.
He wanted to believe that he would be less helpful if Radu could hurt only him and not some innocent, anonymous stranger. Part of him was glad to think that Radu would kill more victims soon and thus more quickly burn out his own life. Chaney believed it was no crime of his own should Radu kill someone just to prove a point-but he couldn't shake the guilt. Would the boy's murder weigh on his own judgment when at last Radu perished and their souls were forfeit to the gods?
Radu slipped over the roof's edge and with his good hand grasped the bars that protected the shuttered windows. He curled his right arm around one bar to support himself, and he carefully peeled back the remaining iron shafts as easily as he might break the legs off a steamed crab. Radu broke the latch on the shutters and pulled himself inside.
He went immediately to the door, which he closed and latched, then he listened briefly at the wall. If he could hear anything, he made no sign of it. Instead, he laid his sword upon the bed and stretched his body out beside it.
The inky specters of his other nine victims gradually surrounded the bed and knelt at its edges, inclining their heads like mourners around the coffin of a beloved father.
On any other night, Chaney would have waited until Radu's eyes began to flutter with dreams, and he would scream to jolt the killer from his slumber. The howls of the other ghosts always followed soon after, and Radu rarely slept more than an hour before their only form of vengeance dragged him back to wakefulness.
"Watch them," said Radu with a nod toward the wall. "And watch the door. Wake me when he leaves or if someone comes for this room."
Radu closed his eyes, confident that he'd cowed his belligerent ghost to obedience.
Chaney hated him because he was right.
CHAPTER 12
THE DREAMING EYE
More dreams? Vox signed.
"Yes," said Tamlin from his dressing chair. His hands were busy lacing his codpiece, or he would have replied in the silent tongue only he and Vox understood. "At least I'm better rested after a few nights in a proper bed."
His bodyguard's question didn't bother him, but Tamlin realized he was in an irritable mood.
He hadn't slept well, and that had nothing to do with his health. Since Larajin healed him after his rescue, he'd remained under the constant attentions of Dolly, a housemaid with a profound affliction: absolute devotion to Tamlin. While in itself that wasn't an uncommon malady among the ladies of Selgaunt, it was an unfortunate predicament for a woman outside the noble caste.
Perhaps Dolly was the matter that gnawed at him.
As much as he enjoyed a tumble with the servant girls and tavern wenches, Tamlin knew perfectly well that he would never marry beneath his station. His father, while lacking in many other areas of paternal communication, had taken great pains during Tamlin's puberty to explain the facts of life as they applied to the
men of Stormweather Towers. One should drink life to the lees, but never at the expense of the family reputation. Bastards were to be avoided or, failing that, contained with quiet payments on condition that the mother raise her children far from the legitimate family.
A second son or daughter might marry for love, but that was an indulgence not permitted to the head of a House.
Tamlin believed it was all wise advice, even considering his father's own indiscretion, incarnated as it was in Larajin-assuming that story was true. In fact, the thought that Thamalon had sired a pair of bastards after Tamlin's birth gave the Old Owl a rakish notoriety, at least in his son's estimation. A little tarnish made the aging relic that much more interesting.
Still, it didn't change Tamlin's opinion of consorting with the help-at least those who clearly doted on him. He had no qualms about seducing the willing, and he would gladly accept any invitation to an afternoon frolic, so long as the girl understood the limits. He would have no weeping drudges standing on the steps to his tallhouse, nor pestering his mother with plaintive letters.
And so, the problem of Dolly was no problem at all. Even when she looked up at him with such naked adoration while sponging his sweaty body or changing his bed linens while he lolled helplessly in a surfeit of sleep.
Still, she tried too hard to please, and perhaps that was the true source of Tamlin's ire. When he rose early that morning, he discovered a carafe of wine beside his bed and testily dismissed Dolly from the room. He'd ordered the servants twice before that he no longer wished to rise to an aperitif before breakfast. Dolly's disobedience angered him all the more because that morning he'd taken a sip out of habit before remembering his vow of abstinence.
They trouble you, said Vox.
"What?" Tamlin realized he'd been staring into space.
The dreams.
Vox looked at him querulously, but he didn't ask where Tamlin's mind had been drifting.
That was the reason Tamlin liked being alone with Vox. The mute barbarian had no compunctions about silently pointing at the obvious when Tamlin took every effort to elude it. At least with Vox, Tamlin didn't have to endure actually hearing someone state the matter he was avoiding.