The Scarlet Star Trilogy

by Ben Galley

  He had known that taking a contract from a Prime Lord was going to be trouble.

  *

  ‘Mr Witchazel,’ Dizali announced, slamming the door. The difference in voice was enough to jolt the lawyer into an upright position, never mind the fact he recognised it. ‘This is not the first time we have met, is it?’

  Witchazel blinked at him, apparently stuck between frowning, smiling, or spitting. He chose the latter, smearing Dizali’s shoes with whatever saliva he managed to drag out of his dry mouth. The Prime Lord glowered.

  The lawyer was a pitiful sight. He was slumped in a wooden chair, a plate of food on his knee. Witchazel was shirtless, and his ragged trousers did not do much for his decency. The rest of him was curled up like a gnarled branch. Dizali could see every bone in his body, his skin was so taut. He looked like a tramp, not the well-to-do lawyer who had sat with them through long meetings, when Karrigan had called his cabinet to Harker Sheer.

  Dizali put his handkerchief to his nose again as he got a closer look at this man’s downfall.

  Bruises were scattered like dark pebbles on a white canvas, a painful kaleidoscope of blues, blacks, and purples, even a little yellow and green for good measure. There was an enormous dark patch on his left ribs, and a sharp lump that sent a shiver up Dizali’s spine. Here and there little streaks of blood cut patterns and shapes across his chest, marking where the needles had danced. His face looked as though it had been introduced to a mangle, so bruised and misshapen was it. And he looked tired, so very tired. His thinning black hair hung across his face in matted strands and there was a week’s worth of greying beard starting to gather on his gaunt cheeks and jaw. His hands were tied behind his back, it seemed. An unseen cut was dripping blood on the floor.

  Witchazel stank, pure and simple—a reek that only a man forced to stew in his own piss and sweat and worse for a week could manufacture. Dizali breathed through his handkerchief as he crouched down to stare into the man’s wide eyes. Wide not with fear, but with realisation. A smart man, this Witchazel. He would have to tread lightly.

  Witchazel shook his head. ‘So it’s you. Karrigan would be ashamed to have called you his friend,’ he muttered. ‘He told me all about your kind before he passed.’

  ‘Then Karrigan would still be a fool, as he was in life,’ Dizali replied. So much for lightly. ‘The head of a lamprey Order sat at Karrigan’s own table and yet the old Hark had not a clue. At least he was wise enough to see it coming in some form. No man can grow so big and stand so tall without attracting the Order’s attention. Not even the Bulldog.’

  ‘So you feel entitled to take what he built? When it rightly belongs to his family? To his son?’ demanded Witchazel.

  Dizali smiled like a fox who has found the chicken coop unlatched. ‘Yes I do, and do you know why?’ The Prime Lord reached inside his greatcoat and pulled out a paper, neatly folded. It wasn’t hard to smell the fresh ink over the reek.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘This,’ Dizali waggled it in the air, ‘is a newspaper. Tomorrow’s newspaper in fact.’ Dizali unfolded it so Witchazel could squint at the front page.

  ‘ “Hark heir charged with treason”.’ Witchazel’s mouth fell open, unashamedly horrified. ‘That’s a lie. A damn lie! He’s just a boy!’

  Dizali shrugged, turning the paper around so he could read it out. ‘It says here that he set Lord Serped’s riverboat alight and fraternised with the creatures known as the Shohari, telling them how to attack Fell Falls, therefore aiding them to begin the war the Kingdom of America now fights on its western frontiers. Who knew? Tonmerion Hark is a traitor. Attacking a lord is the same as attacking the crown. It is treason. A long drop and a short stop. You see, Witchazel, I have one of my best men tracking down that boy right now. Let me tell you, he is not in any mood to fail. This is a personal errand for him, as well as an order from me. Tonmerion killed his brother the night of the fire,’ Dizali said triumphantly, folding the paper and stowing it away again. He picked at his nails as he waited for Witchazel to take it all in.

  The lawyer was sharp indeed. ‘And as such the Hark estate reverts to his aunt Lilain Rennevie.’

  ‘That it does,’ Dizali nodded, then hummed to himself. ‘But then again, once she is proven to be a traitor also, she dies, and it reverts solely to you.’

  ‘You’ll never get your hands on a single brick of the Bulldog’s empire,’ Witchazel spat again, missing this time. ‘It’ll be auctioned off. Dissolved.’

  ‘And that is why you’re going to tell me all of Karrigan’s dirty little secrets. He had to be hiding something. How else could he have built so much? Tell me what I need to know. Reveal him for the traitor he is, save the boy.’

  ‘I will tell you nothing,’ Witchazel hissed. The ageing lawyer had spirit, he had to give him that.

  ‘Then the boy dies, and his blood is on your hands. I’ll leave you in here to think about that while you rot,’ Dizali said in a low voice, leaning close.

  ‘How very generous of you. Allow me to repay the favour,’ Witchazel replied, his eyes turning hard. With all the strength he could muster he swung out his free arm, the one that had been hidden behind his back.

  Never leave something that can be turned into a weapon in a room with a prisoner. Gavisham had told Dizali that once. That idiot Fever had left a glass with Witchazel. All it had taken was a quiet shattering, the longest, sharpest shard, and a strip of cloth from his shredded trousers for a handle. Such was the weapon currently flying through the air towards Dizali’s jugular.

  But the Prime Lord was a man of fast reactions. He slammed his fist into Witchazel’s forearm, hearing a dull crack, and leapt forwards to throttle him. The two men fell to the floor, carrying the chair with him, Dizali pushing down and squeezing with strong hands.

  Witchazel gurgled and spat as he slowly turned red. But he was far from pleading for his life or begging Dizali to stop. He was laughing. The bastard is laughing. And Dizali knew why.

  The Prime Lord released him and got to his feet to wipe the stink from his hands. He picked up the makeshift knife and prowled the cell, examining it as he waited for Witchazel to catch his breath.

  The lawyer was still chuckling: a broken, wheezing sound, but still mockery, as if he knew a secret the Prime Lord did not. ‘You can’t kill me and you know it. You need me. I know your game, the Clean Slate. You think I am that pathetic? Without me the estate is broken down, sold away and auctioned off to charity, out of your clutches. And without Tonmerion? I will tell you now, Bremar Dizali, that if you kill that boy you’ll never see the deeds. You’ll not get so much as a finger of dust from Karrigan’s empire!’ Witchazel hissed, defiant to the end.

  Dizali growled. ‘Do you think you can win, and I will just let you stroll away? Then again, perhaps I will, and let the hundred or so other lords tear you to pieces, because I know what will happen when the word gets out that the Hark family are all traitors. Only one final piece to wipe off the board: you, Mr Witchazel, and they will not respect your safety nor importance as much as I do. I prefer to do this in the eyes of the law.’

  Witchazel narrowed his eyes. ‘I’ve been tied to a chair in a cell and tortured for seven days. You speak of respect and legality?!’

  Dizali snapped his fingers. ‘They will kill you as quick as looking at you. They will have their bidders waiting at the auction houses, their charities positioned to invest their coin in “reputable” companies. The Bulldog’s empire will fall to the true dogs of this city, and be ravaged like a lame deer. Is that what you want?’

  ‘Better that than to a lamprey like you,’ Witchazel spat. ‘I think that’s how Karrigan put it.’

  Dizali struck him hard across the face with the back of his hand. His ring cut a line across the lawyer’s face, and Witchazel seethed as the pain sank in. For a long time, neither of them spoke.

  ‘Every man has his limit, Witchazel, and I will push you to yours. The boy will die if you do not tell me what I want to know: K
arrigan’s secrets, and the location of the deeds to his estate,’ Dizali stated, cold and simple. ‘And then you will sign them over to me.’

  ‘And if a hair is touched on his head, you get nothing.’ The lawyer repeated his threat, but it was quieter this time, with less bite than before.

  Dizali leant closer. This time Witchazel shuffled away. ‘I have grown accustomed to getting what I desire, Mr Witchazel. It is a habit I have grown most fond of. If you continue to defy me, the boy’s skin will not matter, trust me in that. Only what can be saved of yours. I will have Karrigan’s estate. I will have his name trampled in the mud as a traitor.’

  Dizali made for the door. Just before his hands could turn the handle, he heard Witchazel chuckling. A hoarse, broken laugh, but mirth all the same, still savouring that secret of his. Dizali snarled and wrenched the door open.

  When he had slammed and locked it, he turned to Fever. The little man was standing right where he had left him, in the middle of the corridor, nervous and fidgety.

  ‘My Lord,’ Fever began.

  ‘Your hand,’ Dizali interrupted. ‘Show it to me.’

  Fever wrinkled his brow, confused.

  ‘Extend your hand, Rowanstone!’ Dizali snapped, making him flinch. Fever held out a hand, steady as a rock despite his nervousness.

  There was a flash of glass as the makeshift knife slid from Dizali’s pocket and found its new home, deep between the bones of Fever’s hand. The torturer made no sound, he simply squirmed, mouth frozen into a silent scream of pain. Dizali left the knife in his hand and adjusted his greatcoat before walking away.

  ‘That would have been in your neck if I had been Witchazel. Think on that, Mr Rowanstone. You have one more week to find me the deeds,’ he hollered down the corridor. He left Fever to grunt and wheeze with pain as the torturer stared, wide-eyed at this new addition to his body, dripping blood onto the stone floor.

  *

  The weather that evening was of a similar ilk as the day’s. The rain persisted, only now the breeze had returned as a gale. It howled under the carriage’s axles and through its wheels. The raindrops whipped the window, trying to get at whatever dryness was inside.

  Dizali was ignoring it. He was busy with a small sheet of paper, eyeing each line carefully for a second time, making sure he had not missed anything.

  Lordship, the search continues. I have his trail, heading east. I’m a week behind, no more, and catching up fast. I have also found a girl who claims to be a Serped maid, escaped the night of the fire. There’s something suspicious about her. I have taken her in for the walk and will find out what she knows. Could be useful. I will have more news by the next town. How goes our cause?

  AG

  Ever the one for brevity, is Gavisham, he said to himself.

  Dizali despised being held at the mercy of others’ competence, or in a certain torturer’s case, incompetence. It was a battle of wills now, as his pieces went about their business, and Dizali had never liked waiting. Tonight, at least, he would take matters into his own hands.

  There came a smart knocking at the carriage’s door and Dizali shuffled to open it. It was his head lordsguard, Captain Rolick, a swarthy man in a uniform a shade too small for him, just so the muscle could show. The greying hair on his head was parted down the centre, slick to his skull with rain. He had a pitted face, scars of a younger life spent enduring the pox, and quick, dark eyes. He was no Gavisham, of course, but there was no other lordsguard in the city that could beat Rolick with a sword or to draw a pistol.

  ‘We’ve arrived, Prime Lord Dizali,’ Rolick said, in his thick northern accent. Even after the years spent in the city it refused to die away. ‘There was some trouble, but nought we couldn’t take care of.’

  ‘And quietly too, I note.’

  ‘As a mouse, Milord,’ Rolick stepped away from the door and gestured towards the mighty inner gates of the Harker Sheer estate, black and shining in the rain and lantern light. Dizali grabbed his umbrella and stepped out into the night.

  A half-dozen lordsguards stood around the carriage. They were silent behind their cloth masks while the eyes that gazed back at him were impassive and hard. Rolick had brought the right men for the job, it seemed. The sort that saw nothing, heard nothing, and said nothing.

  Here and there, lying in the mud and gravel between them, bodies were slumped and curled. A few still had long knives protruding from their backs. Others were busy dying.

  ‘I want these disposed of. In the river, not here.’

  ‘As you command, Milord,’ Rolick nodded, clicking his fingers at a few of his men. They went to work silently, hauling the dead and dying towards the second carriage, painted black. Dizali did not care to watch them load it. He stepped up to the gates, where heavy locks and chains had been draped around the bars.

  ‘And these?’ Dizali asked, looking back at Rolick.

  ‘We have a hulker for that, Milord,’ the captain replied, snapping his fingers again.

  Dizali stood back as a deep scraping emanated from the second carriage. Something stepped out of it, on the far side. Dizali could see the suspension of the carriage lifting upwards. After a few thudding footfalls, a tall shape loomed out of the rain. The lordsguards lifted their lanterns to light its way.

  The hulker was huge, as they always were. There was something about the bear shade that truly brought the beast out in a person. This one was a woman, Dizali could see that in the eyes that stared out from her hood and from the shape of her chest. Rarely seen, but not uncommon. Her long black hair and grey robe hid the rest.

  Dizali gauged her at almost seven foot as she trudged past him, making the gravel crunch and the ground shudder. She was the tallest he had ever seen. Some hulkers grow upwards, some grow outwards, some do both. She was of the third kind. The cloth of her robe strained to keep all of her in. It strained at the seams of the arms, skin-tight where the muscle bulged. Dizali wondered where Gavisham had found this one.

  Amidst grunts and animal-like snuffling, the hulker grabbed at each of the chains and prised their links apart with her hands. The magick was fierce in this one. The metal bent like warm wax, splitting apart, link by link. All the while the hulker growled and grumbled at her task.

  She was smart too: breaking the links not the locks. Any good thief will tell you that the lock is always the strongest point. What surrounds it, wood, hinges, chains, is never made as strong.

  It only took a minute or two of pure, brute strength to crack the gates. Dizali and Rolick were soon striding across the wet lawns, making a beeline for the front doors of the great manor.

  ‘You are to wait outside,’ Dizali instructed. ‘I will need two hours, no less.’

  ‘Yes, Milord.’

  Dizali jabbed a finger at the varnished door of Harker Sheer. ‘The door, if you please, Rolick.’

  ‘With pleasure, Milord.’ Once more his fingers clicked and the hulker came marching forward. There was a clang as the door-handles were ripped clean off and dropped. The woman looked up as if waiting further instruction. Her tiny green eyes looked odd and alone in her monstrous face, with her jaws and cheekbones swollen with the magick of her shade. Dizali nodded to the door again and her fist splintered the wood around the lock. There was another clang as the mechanism fell out of the door.

  ‘Thank you, Madam,’ Dizali motioned for her to step aside. The door creaked as it opened, scraping against the splinters on the marble floor. The smell of dust wafted over him. Dizali stared into the gloom and waited for his eyes to adjust to the familiar edges and shapes: the mighty staircase, a waterfall of mahogany and thick red carpet, leading to the upper floors; the ornate bookcases and tables; the scores of paintings lining the walls; the coat of arms of the Hark family, outlined in black marble at the centre of the atrium.

  ‘A lantern,’ Dizali hissed and one was passed through the door, illuminating his memory. The Prime Lord moved deeper into the manor.

  Room by room he searched, rifling through drawe
rs and desks, not caring to creep. Why should a thief creep when no master is due to return, after all? Harker Sheer was enormous, and so he kept to the main rooms: Karrigan’s chambers, his boy’s chambers, the room where they had held their meetings, and of course, Karrigan’s studies and libraries. Dizali did not look for anything in particular, just anything at all that could sully the late Prime Lord’s name. It was slow progress, rummaging through a lifetime of letters, notebooks, and correspondence. Almost an hour passed, and still his search had proved fruitless. Karrigan, at least on the paper he had so-far found, was spotless. Dizali was beginning to grow angry. He did not relish the thought of returning home with his hands emptier than a beggar’s.

  He stood in the centre of Karrigan’s fourth and final study, in the south wing of the manor, where the desk faced a wall of glass that looked out into the gardens of Harker Sheer. Dizali stared around at the half-open cupboards and yawning drawers. He breathed slowly and calmly, trying to place himself in Karrigan’s shoes.

  ‘Where would that fool put something he did not want found?’ Dizali whispered to himself. The darkness had no answers for him, only his tired, churning mind.

  Karrigan was Lord of the Empire, second only to the queen.

  ‘So who in their right mind would dare to pry into his business?’

  Not his servants, not the other lords, they would never escape his gaze.

  ‘His son. His blasted son.’

  Children were forever eavesdropping and poking their noses into business that did not concern them.

  ‘How do you hide something from a child?’ Dizali turned around as he muttered. He had prised open all the drawers that had been locked with a fire-poker. Even they held no secrets.

  Up high.

  Dizali held the lantern high and stared at the highest bookcases, at the chandelier that hung from an ornate whorl in the ceiling, and at the shelves that lingered near the plaster, with barely enough room to sport their trophies and curios.