by Stephen Deas
Kol tapped his foot.
‘He wanted me to keep a lookout. He had keys. I didn’t know we were doing anything wrong.’ The justicar snorted. ‘He spoke to the guards on the gates. They seemed like they knew him. We crossed the yard inside to another alley. I couldn’t see what was down there, it was too dark. He told me to keep watch in case any men came. He told me that if they did, I was to give him a signal and then make myself scarce. He went inside and it wasn’t long at all before people did come. It was like he’d been expecting them. There were snuffers, four of them, and a man with a cane. I don’t know who any of them were. I gave the signal like he said and then I hid. They walked right past me but it was so dark they didn’t see me. They went inside and then when they were gone, I ran, like he said.’
‘And no one saw you leave?’
‘I don’t know, Master Kol. I went up and over the walls.’
‘And why would you do that?’
Berren wrung his hands. ‘I was scared, Master Kol. Scared of the snuffers. I’ve seen them before, the ones that work for the harbour-masters and they’re evil. I didn’t want …’
‘Yes, yes.’ Kol growled impatiently. ‘Fine. So you didn’t see anything, don’t know anything. How very useful. Very convenient for your master too.’ He glared at Tasahre again. ‘See what you have here, monk? This is a thief dressed as a lamb. One of Khrozus’ boys. Put him back on the street and he’ll be cutting purses again before you can blink.’
‘Then best he stay here,’ she replied. Kol twitched,
‘When was the next time you saw Syannis, boy? The truth, now!’
‘I saw him the next day. It was Abyss-day. There was something wrong, I could feel it. He wasn’t hurt, but I knew something bad had happened. He said I had to stay at the temple all the time now. Said he had to go away for a bit. That was it.’
Kol glared at Tasahre again. ‘Boy, think carefully now. Did he have any papers? Anything he might have taken from the House of Records? This is important.’
‘Yes. There were papers.’ Master Sy had taken fistfuls of them and for all Berren knew they were still on Master Sy’s table in his front room for any fool to find. Don’t lie if you don’t have to. ‘I saw some. They were lists of things. I didn’t see much though. Not enough to know what they were. I …’ He hung his head. ‘I don’t read so well.’ There. And that was the truth.
‘And then?’
‘Then I came here, Master Kol. Been here ever since. Haven’t seen Master Sy. Haven’t heard anyone say a word about him. Do you know where he is?’ Truth had its limits.
‘If I did, do you think I’d be asking you?’ snapped the justicar. Another glare at Tasahre. ‘Would you please go outside, girl. I’m not going to knife him.’
Tasahre didn’t move. ‘No.’
The justicar’s knuckles were clenched white. ‘Berren, you listen to me and you listen good. Syannis has been a friend to me and me to him for the best part of ten years, but he’s on his way to a burial in stone right now. I have a shrewd idea who those men were at the House of Records and if the blood is anything to go by, I’d say your master killed the lot of them. I know exactly whose headless body I have on my hands and I’ll eat my own sword if it wasn’t your master who killed him too. Either would mean the mines for him at the very least, and quite possibly you too unless you help me. You see, what I think is that Syannis stole something or found something. Papers that are very important and might well have something to do with this lot.’ He jerked a thumb at Tasahre. ‘I want to know where he is, I want to know where those papers are, I want to know what’s on them and I want to know where he got them. If you think you know anything about any of those things, you tell me. You don’t tell some priest, you don’t tell Master Mardan or Master Fennis or some ignorant novice who happens to be your friend for the day. And particularly, you don’t tell her.’ He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. ‘This is much more than one thief-taker and his revenge for something that happened half a lifetime ago, and Syannis needs to get that into his thick skull before someone cracks it open with an axe. Did he give you anything, perhaps? Something for safekeeping? If he did, you find me and you tell me. No one else. They can’t stop you from leaving.’
‘He didn’t give me anything, Master Kol, I swear it.’
‘Right.’ Kol stood up. He sniffed. ‘Waste of time, aren’t you, boy? Knew that from the first day I saw you.’
Berren bristled. Kol shrugged.
‘Prove me wrong. So you don’t know where your master is? Where might he go, boy?’
Berren’s turn to shrug.
‘Yeh. Waste of time. I don’t believe you don’t know anything. You come and you tell me. Else you’re on your own, you and Syannis both. I wash my hands of you.’ Kol stalked to the door.
‘Master Kol!’
‘Yes, boy?’
‘Did you ever find out who bought Master Velgian?’
For a moment, Kol glared murder at Tasahre. ‘No.’
He slammed the door behind him. Berren was left shaking. Then Tasahre had her hand on his shoulder again. Her touch was soothing, too soothing, as though she was doing some sort of priest magic on him to calm him down and he didn’t want anyone doing anything. He shook her off.
‘You should tell him, Berren, if you know the answers to his questions,’ she said.
‘But I don’t!’ Berren stamped his foot. He could almost scream with the frustration of it. ‘I wouldn’t tell him even if I did know, but I don’t know where Master Sy is! I don’t! I wish I did!’ He looked at her, and there was that urge to let it all out again. He couldn’t, though, he couldn’t tell her about what he’d seen at the Two Cranes. No one could know about that. He took a deep breath. Somehow, hiding things from Tasahre was a lot worse than lying to the justicar. If anything, Kol had made it easy. ‘I did see some of what happened in the House of Records though. It was like I said, I was keeping watch and everything, but I didn’t run away. I saw them fighting. Couldn’t watch Master Sy get killed and there were four of them, even if he’d stabbed one already. I was so scared.’ No harm in telling her that much, as long as it was all true. Sword-monks had a sixth sense for lies. She probably already knew he’d lied to Kol about not seeing Master Sy afterwards. But she hadn’t said anything. Why?
The day was a mess after that. There were no lessons, not from the monks, not from Sterm, not for anyone. Berren milled aimlessly with the other novices, watching the city soldiers do much the same, being herded away and out of sight by the priests, then slowly milling back to stare at the soldiers again. None of them had the first idea what was happening or why.
He fingered the token around his neck. He had a purse with a handful of silver crowns and a pocket full of pennies, enough to buy him passage up the river. One gold emperor for emergencies. He had a sword now too, hidden in its bundle up on Wrecking Point. For a while, he wondered if he should run. Maybe go to one of the taverns where the lightermen who plied the river went to have their fun, buy a few drinks and find someone who would take him up the river, quietly, no questions asked, and leave what happened after in the hands of the stars. Maybe he’d get to Varr and just freeze and die when winter set in and the snow fell thick and heavy enough to crush whole houses flat. Or maybe he’d find his fortune. There’d be no Master Sy, no Justicar Kol, no Headsman and his ilk, no Tasahre. Just him.
But if he ran, he’d be running away. By the middle of the morning, he knew that as surely as he knew the sun would rise, and he knew that what he ought to do was find Master Sy and find him first, before Kol. He needed to understand what was happening and warn his master that the whole world was looking for him, if he didn’t already know. That was his place — at his master’s side. He tried to think where the thief-taker would go. Not to the justicar, nor any of the other thief-takers, that much was obvious. Teacher Garrient at the moon temple? But Kol would surely have been there already and Master Sy wasn’t that stupid. Kasmin was dead, so what friends did the
thief-taker have left? None?
No. There was the House of Cats and Gulls.
He shivered. There had to be somewhere else, but if there was, he couldn’t think of it, and the more he thought, the more he saw Velgian hanging from the edge of a rooftop. You’ve got to tell Syannis one thing for me. You tell him that Saffran Kuy is not the friend he thinks. Only he hadn’t said why. Maybe it mattered. Maybe it had something to do with this. Or maybe it didn’t.
He slipped out of the temple. It was easy; if anyone even noticed him, no one stopped him. Find your fear and face it. Fear is the killer of thought. Easy words to say, not so easy when you had to go and do it. He tried to think where else he could look as he hurried down to the river docks and vanished into the market crowds there; and he was still trying to think where else he might go when he was standing at the door to the House of Cats and Gulls at the end of the docks where the crowds thinned to nothing. The air was ripe. Dozens of green and amber eyes peered out from nearby alleys and all the dark corners. A scattering of fish parts littered the ground.
Fear is the killer of thought. He swallowed hard and banged on the door. Something hissed at him.
The door opened. Berren didn’t recognise the man standing behind it, but there was only one person it could be. The witch-doctor. Saffran Kuy — the Headsman’s grey wizard who could make the dead speak and who’d been with the thief-taker on that night. For the first time, Berren saw the witch-doctor’s face, old and watery-eyed, pale white skin like the men from the far north. Like a ghost. He was clean-shaven with strange tattoos on his cheeks and on his neck, disappearing down beneath his robe.
The death-man, the witch-doctor. Berren took a pace backwards then stopped himself. He was a man now, not a boy, and he had no cause to be afraid of anyone.
‘I’m looking for Master Sy,’ he stammered. ‘I mean Syannis. Syannis the thief-taker. Is he here?’
Kuy looked him up and down. He beckoned Berren to follow then turned and withdrew. Berren went after him. The door closed as he passed. Outside, the sky was clear and the sun was bright; inside, the darkness was so thick you almost had to push your way through it. The windows were boarded and shuttered, a few pale and feeble rays of sunlight poking through the cracks and that was all. Candles lit a short hallway and then an expanse of space, a huge black room filled with shadows and shapes and more candles, candles everywhere, so many of them and yet all so dim. Despite their little flames, most of the witch-doctor’s home was lost to the gloom.
Saffran Kuy turned to look at him.
‘I’ve been expecting you,’ he said.
PART THREE
THE WARLOCK
24
THE HOUSE OF CATS AND GULLS
Kuy settled into a stiff high-backed chair. ‘Syannis. He comes here in the middle of the night, asking his questions. Full of them, and so are you. Black powder, disguised as black tea: who would have thought it? And traitors in your temple. Have you noticed, Berren, how the pure are always so full of sin. Sit!’
The command carried a force that made Berren drop where he stood and sit cross-legged on the floor.
‘You saw us. The Two Cranes. Then back to your nest of liars in blindfolds.’ He shook his head. ‘You’re a fool, boy, if you think an open door stays open. I know what questions brought you here and I have answers for them, for some of them, but they are answers you will not like. They are answers not to be shared, not before the year begins its slow slide to death. They will close doors and bar them firmly shut. They will make you mine and you will wonder if you were a fool to come to me. Are you ready for such answers? Do not move!’
Berren had started to rise. He fell flat as though he’d been kicked in the chest by a horse.
‘So you’re looking for Syannis are you? Yes, we came here. I haven’t seen him since. Would you like to see what we brought with us?’
Berren shook his head. Last he’d seen of Master Sy, he was hacking the Headsman’s head off his shoulders. ‘I … I just wanted to know if he’s here.’
‘And I’ve told you that he is not, but that is not the answer you’re looking for. It’s not the one that dares you to come here. Is it?’
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘Thief-taker Velgian, that is what brings you here, with his cold dead seducer song and his warnings that lure you onward.’ Kuy raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes, I take answers from the dead. From their spirits or from their flesh. From wailing ghosts and cold gibbering heads. Would you like to see the one we brought back with us?’
Berren shuddered. He couldn’t move. Wanted to but couldn’t.
‘Tush! And I’d taken you to be one of those young men with a fascination for the ghoulish, for the macabre, for the touch of cold damp skin. Here you are, full of questions and you don’t want my answers? You will have them though, wanted or not.’
Berren shook his head. All I want is Master Sy. But his mouth stayed firmly shut.
‘I know all about you, Berren. Syannis talks of you. He’s proud of his little lookalike bastard brother with the mistake in his head. Come, Headsman, speak! Show the young man that we can do what we say we can, yes?’ Something rolled across the floor of its own accord, something the size of a head. ‘Berren, the ghost of Aimes. I’ve waited many nights for you to come with your questions and now that you are here, you must look!’
Berren shrank away. The Headsman’s severed head was on the floor at the witch-doctor’s feet. He wanted to run but his legs weren’t listening. Kuy’s mouth gulped air like a fish. ‘Berren, Berren. You might have stayed in your bed with your head on your arms and gorged yourself with dreams, but what then?’ For a moment Kuy hesitated. Then, in the gloom, a smile twisted across his face. ‘He’s full of answers, this one. I can show you how to make him tell.’
Berren shook his head again. ‘I just want … Master Velgian … He knew something. Maybe. Whose gold did he take? Do you know?’
‘Do you have his head?’
‘No!’
‘A part of him? A part of what was his? Anything?’
Berren gulped. ‘No. I’m sorry. I didn’t know …’
‘Didn’t ask!’ The shadows around Kuy began to move, closing in on Berren, pressing him down like sticky sheets and nets as heavy as lead. They nailed him to the ground, killing his desires and dulling his thoughts. ‘Where is your offering, Berren? You have no fish to nourish my eyes and my ears!’
‘I …’ He tried to get up but his legs refused to move. ‘I can go and get some! I thought … I thought you were Master Sy’s friend.’
‘Friend? A craftsman and his tool and now I have a better one.’ Kuy’s bloodless lips grinned. Berren bit his tongue.
‘Pluh …’ Please. He didn’t know who he thought he was talking to. The gods? He had to fight these shadows. When he blinked, they were gone, just figments of his imagination, but when he blinked again they were heavy as stone once more.
‘Here you are and you ask for something and yet you have brought me nothing! Ignorance! Rude boy! So now you are here you will listen. I have power. You feel it. You fight it but you mustn’t. Let it be a friend to you. Let it in. Be its master. It will show you how to fight in ways you’ve never dreamed. I know nothing of swords, not even a tiniest little part; but you’re to be a killer, that is certain. Great things wait for you. The Bloody Judge. Gods and ice and lightning and the bringing of the black moon, all of that. You bring me nothing and so I have no answers for your questions, yet I offer you a gift, a marvel. I will show you how to ask those questions of the dead ears who will know. I could show you more if I had a mind to, much more. Speak with the dead? You could raise them from their ashes.’
Berren shook his head again. A sorcerer? Him? Sorcerers were wicked people, that’s what the priests at the temple said. What had Tasahre called them? Abominations! Anathemas! He was still powerless. He couldn’t even lift his hands off the floor. His fingernails dug into his palms.
‘Sorcery?’ Kuy shook as though he w
as silently laughing. He left the head where it was, lying on the floor, shrouded in its own shadows only a few feet from where Berren sat, and shuffled away into the darkness. He came back clutching strips of paper, a quill and some ink. ‘Now, boy, what was the first thing your master tried to teach you?’
Letters. Those were the lessons Master Sy had tried to give him when he’d first started as the thief-taker’s apprentice. They’d been a disaster.
‘Take them!’ Kuy stood over him, thrusting the quill forward. Berren’s arm rose of its own accord. His fingers uncurled to take it, then a strip of paper, as long and as wide as his forearm, then another. The second had strange symbols written across it. ‘Open the lips of the dead. A simple sigil and every secret in every splinter of the world is yours for the taking if you can find the right mouth to speak it. You want to know where to find Syannis? This one knows where he will be in days to come. He will not give it willingly, but you can take the answer from him. So do it!’
Shakily, Berren’s hand started to move, copying the signs and strokes. He felt distant from himself, as if he was watching while his hands and fingers moved with a will of their own, painting the lines and shapes in their own special order. Why? Why am I doing this? Yet he was. He was powerless and had been from the moment he’d crossed the threshold into the witch-doctor’s domain. And in truth, a part of him watched his own hands with awe, amazement, and yes, with a hunger and a desire. Make the dead talk? Could he do that? What could that mean to a thief-taker? How much was such a gift worth? Priceless, surely!
When he was finished, Kuy nodded. ‘Place your mark upon his skin, boy. See his lips fold back and grin, even though he might be dead, still his secrets will be said. An old rhyme for children. Now you will see its true meaning.’