by Stephen Deas
He watched the priests, later that afternoon, moving Velgian out of the temple before dusk prayers. They took him over to the same place they were keeping the warlock’s things. Berren went to prayers like a good novice, unsure whether the priests knew that Tasahre hadn’t been alone when she’d challenged the Sunbright. If they did, no one said anything, but still, he’d keep his head down for the rest of the day in case. He did his work in the kitchen, saw Tasahre come in and eat with the other sword-monks as she always did, and then when they were done, settled down to his own supper. It bothered him, not knowing what would happen to her, same as it bothered him with Master Sy, but with Tasahre he knew there was nothing he could do. Nothing he should do.
Velgian. Right here in the temple.
He tried never to think about what had happened between him and Kuy before Tasahre had run the warlock through, but it was always there in his dreams or when he closed his eyes. Mostly what he remembered were the strands of his soul, laid before him, and cutting them and understanding every part of what he was doing – that was the nightmare that woke him with a cold sweat when he was asleep and made him shudder when he was awake, wondering how else he might have changed, whether without those missing pieces he was still the same Berren he’d been before.
But he remembered the rest too. He remembered the symbols he’d been forced to write, the ones that made the dead speak.
He picked at his food. The answers he wanted were there to be had. He almost got up, right there and then, to go and look for Tasahre, to ask her to come with him. Then he changed his mind and ran through the way that conversation would go.
I want to see Velgian.
Really? Why?
I can make him talk.
How?
Oh, there’s just this thing that the evil warlock showed me.
A spell?
Yeh, I suppose, if you put it that way, yeh, it’s like a magic spell.
That you learned from the abomination?
Yeh. From the evil warlock who tried to kill you and made me cut out a piece of my own soul. Yeh, that one. But we’re not evil, we’re good, so that’s all right, isn’t it? A necessary evil, like you said.
Yeh. And Tasahre would be just fine with that, and then his long-lost father who just happened to be king of the silver faeries would come to the temple disguised as a rainbow and shower him in gold!
Maybe it would be better to just do it and tell her afterwards. If he could find a way to not mention the part about making dead people talk. Or maybe he shouldn’t tell her at all. Hadn’t he got her into enough trouble already? Maybe he should just leave Velgian alone.
He needed someone who wasn’t Tasahre, someone who wasn’t Master Sy, someone who could let him think it through for himself without telling him the answer. Tasahre would say no, it was wrong, it was sorcery and never mind what they might find out, never mind that it might save Master Sy, never mind that even the Emperor himself was said to study the arcane. Master Sy, on the other hand, would tell him to get on with it. Use the best tool for the job, that’s what he’d say. How you got to where you got didn’t matter: what mattered was where you found yourself when you were done.
He picked at his food. He did his chores and he went to bed. And in the night, when everyone else was asleep, he got up and crept outside again to where Velgian was waiting. He crossed the practice yard, darting from one shadow to the next. No one was about this late but he felt eyes everywhere. At any moment, someone was going to shout out: Boy! What are you doing? and then he’d be caught and they’d find out and Tasahre would know and everything would be bad.
But there were no shouts; and then he was inside the Hall of Swords and it was dark and the warlock’s things were all around him and he didn’t dare even light a candle. He waited, letting his eyes get used to what little moonlight filtered in through the open windows. He already had a quill and a strip of paper, stolen while he was cleaning the classrooms. He found an old book to write on, a shaft of light to see by, dipped his quill in his stolen pot of ink …
And paused.
It didn’t feel like he was doing something wrong. He didn’t feel like he was damning his soul or committing some terrible crime, yet if Tasahre came in now, if she saw him like this, he was quite certain she’d do almost anything to stop him. She’d fight him if she had to, for his own good, not that it would ever come to that.
No. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. Maybe he was trying to stop something terrible. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe all Velgian wanted was for Master Sy to know that he could keep Velgian’s book of poetry, but it had something to do with Saffran Kuy and he’d never know unless he did this, and Master Sy and Tasahre had both told him in their different ways that he should trust his instincts. Well here he was, that was what he was doing and tonight his instincts were all he had.
He started to write, one symbol and then the next and the next and the next. Four altogether. The Headsman was staring at him, all bulging eyes, waiting for him where he always was. Berren went past to the table where they’d put Velgian. They’d burn him tomorrow.
Just as before, the paper almost flew out of his hand as he reached to touch it against the dry dead skin. The smell wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it would be.
He held his breath. Nothing happened for a moment, and then the eyes opened and a low groan came from the poet thief-taker’s lips. The air changed and grew colder. Berren shivered away, but there was no turning back, not now.
‘Velgian?’ he stammered.
Velgian’s body didn’t move. His head didn’t turn, but his blind dead eyes rotated towards Berren. ‘What is it? Why have you called me back? Why can’t I rest?’
Berren kept his distance. ‘I’m sorry, Master Velgian. They’ll burn you tomorrow. They wanted to know who paid you.’
The head moaned softly. ‘How long have I been gone?’
‘A couple of months, Master Velgian.’
‘It feels like years. Paid me?’
‘To kill the prince in the Watchman’s Arms.’
‘It was a priest from the temple of the sun. I don’t know which one.’
‘It’s all right, Master Velgian. They found her. That’s why they’ll let you burn tomorrow.’ He paused. The dead had to obey the living, that was what Kuy had said, wasn’t it? And they couldn’t lie, not like priests. He glanced over his shoulder. They were both whispering but in the stillness of the night every word made him flinch. ‘Master Velgian, do you remember when you were chasing me across the rooftops?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry, Berren. I didn’t want to have to kill you. If only you’d let it be, eh?’ The head made a funny noise. Velgian was laughing, a bitter twisted laugh.
‘I’m sorry too,’ said Berren. ‘Before you fell, you said there was something I had to tell Master Sy. About the witch-doctor at the House of Cats and Gulls. But you didn’t tell me what it was. What was it, Master Velgian?’
‘He’s not the friend your master thinks he is.’
‘You don’t need to tell me.’
‘He gave Kasmin to that Headsman fellow.’
‘What?’ Berren couldn’t hide his disbelief. Of all the things …
‘I was there. In the Barrow of Beer. I saw them come in. I heard what they said. The witch-doctor sent them there. He knew exactly what he was doing. He sent the Headsman to the temple priests too. Told him what to … Ahhh! Quick, boy, let me go! He’s coming!’
The head made a strangled noise. The eyes rolled again, round and round, and then they stopped, and slowly Velgian’s face began to change. His voice, too.
‘Berren. Berren, Berren! Boys who think they are men, never doing as they are told, always thinking with the dangly flesh between their legs. Wants a monk, can’t have a monk. Want to run away from Kuy, don’t you. Always always thinking it. Hard work, hard work. Hiding away from me, but I will find you. Where, boy? Let me smell you! Where?’ The eyes rolled again. Berren gasped. He snatched at the paper, the one with the s
igils on Velgian’s head, but it was stuck fast and wouldn’t come away. Velgian’s eyes rushed from side to side, up and down as if he was desperately looking for something.
‘Holes in roof! Water is the moon. Slovenly promiscuous night-lord! Cold and still and dark. Dark under the dark where nothing changes, that is what we are. Where are you, boy?’
He almost ran, but then what? Someone would find out what he’d done. He grabbed Velgian’s head and closed his eyes, trying not to think about the dry dead skin flaking under his fingers. He held it in one hand and pulled at the paper with the other.
‘Where? Where are you? I feel you, boy!’
The paper ripped in two. Velgian’s eyes fell still, his mouth slack. With a shudder, Berren let go. His heart was thumping in his chest hard enough to be hammering a new way out. He was shaking. He ran outside and leaned heavily against the wall, gasping for breath. He had to bite his tongue not to be sick.
This, this was where someone would catch him. Red-handed, shaking and gasping, too scared of what he’d done to try and come up with some sort of story. And what had he done? What would the priests do if they found out? They might throw him out! Gods! No, that wasn’t what he wanted, not now, not any more. Outside, with nowhere to go and Saffran Kuy looking for him? If the warlock caught him … he didn’t want to think about what would happen then. Something worse than death!
No. He forced himself to move, climbing back over the temple roofs to slip unseen to his bed. He lay there, wide awake. Now what?
The Festival of Flames. Abyss-Day. Tomorrow. The night of the dead. Throughout it, across the city, people would burn effigies of their ancestors and of the sun and drink themselves stupid until dawn, when the first line of fire on the horizon across the river heralded the Solstice of Flames.
And in the dark, on the Emperor’s Docks, Master Sy would come, sword naked and heart filled with murder.
31
MORE THAN A SWORD OF THE SUN
He lay in bed, tossing and turning, wondering what he should do. He wanted to tell Tasahre, somehow, without losing her trust, without her hating him, but what business was it of hers? Kuy selling Master Sy’s oldest friend to the Headsman? That was between Master Sy and Kuy. Maybe the thief-taker knew a way to kill a warlock.
No, he had to find Master Sy. He had to get to the Emperor’s Docks first and be waiting for him, to try and stop him, or else to help him. Try and stop the thief-taker from murdering Radek of Kalda, or else help his master kill the man who had destroyed his life. One or the other. And then tell his master how one man he called friend had helped to murder another.
The thought made him pause. What if someone came to Deephaven right now? What if they killed Justicar Kol and every thief-taker in the city and murdered Tasahre and the other monks? What if they burned his home and … no, not that, he wouldn’t care too much about Deephaven getting burned. But what about the rest? And then they hunted him down for years, trying to murder him? What would he do if he met that man again, ten years later?
Kill him. He didn’t need to think about that. That’s what he’d want to do.
Wanting didn’t make it right, though.
He crept out of bed for the second time. For once, as the sun came up, he was down in the practice yard, already sitting there in the dark as the sword-monks filed out for their sunrise vigil. He watched with them in silence as the pinks and purples in the sky over the River Gate grew brighter and blossomed into reds and oranges as the sun lit the horizon.
And when he did find Master Sy, what then? The thief-taker wouldn’t be staying in Deephaven, not with the justicar after him. He couldn’t. He’d have to leave and Berren would have to choose, either go with him or stay and let the thief-taker leave him behind.
He stared at Tasahre. She was sitting still, legs crossed, hands on her knees, watching the sun. His heart clenched. She wasn’t like the women up on Reeper Hill, all lips and smiles and curves and exotic scents. She was as different from them as it was possible to be, and he wanted to be with her more than he wanted all the rest of them put together; and now he was going to have to leave her.
She’d be going soon anyway, he reminded himself. Even if they didn’t send her away after what she’d done, it wouldn’t be long before she was gone. With the Harvest Tides with the rest of the monks. How long was that? Another month? Two? He didn’t know. He furrowed his brow to try and work it out, but every time he did, all he could think of was her.
The dawn vigil ended. One by one, the sword-monks rose and left, all except Tasahre who stayed exactly where she was.
‘It’s Abyss-Day, Berren,’ she said, without taking her eyes off the dawn. ‘You have no lessons today. You’re supposed to rest. If what I hear is true, you’re rarely seen much before the middle of the day.’
‘Couldn’t sleep.’
‘You’re troubled, then.’
Berren shivered. He nodded. ‘And you aren’t? After what happened yesterday?’
‘I am saddened, Berren. Saddened that one of my path has fallen in such a way. I pray to the sun for her, as I pray for everyone.’
He almost asked her right then to come to the Emperor’s Docks with him this evening. They could stop it, the two of them. Just the two of them. They could make Master Sy relent, make him see that killing a man wouldn’t change anything, make him let it go. With the Sunbright taken, the Headsman’s plot and Radek’s part in it, that would all come out, wouldn’t it? Maybe they could get Radek taken in by the city justicars for what he’d done? He understood it now. The papers Master Sy had taken from the Headsman’s strongbox, they showed it all. The mercenaries he’d hired, the black powder brought in secret to the city, the disposition of the Deephaven defences. The Headsman was dead, but Radek wasn’t. The city justicars would be all over him, and all over the Path of the Sun too, as soon as they were done with him. The Path who stood opposed to the Emperor.
The mines for the men he’s killed if the justicars catch him, a swift sword for what he knows if a dragon-monk reaches him first.
He looked at Tasahre and wanted to cry. She was so … so beautiful, in her own way. He couldn’t ask her to be a part of this. She’d never come with him alone. She’d do what she thought was right and she’d tell the other monks and the priests and …
No.
‘Are they going to send you away?’ he asked.
‘Yes. On the next ship to sail for Helhex. After the festival.’
‘I want to show you something,’ he said and got up. He blundered towards the Hall of Swords.
‘What is it?’ She was following him. The hall was filled with sealed pots and jars, with tiny glass bottles. There were sacks full of something that looked like manure but smelled a hundred times worse and crates of metal ingots that he couldn’t even lift; strange devices, glass flasks full of oil with lumps of greasy white stone inside them, other things he didn’t begin to understand. He stared at them all. The warlock’s artefacts from the House of Cats and Gulls. He had no idea why he’d come here.
‘Berren?’ Tasahre was in the doorway, framed by the light. ‘What is it? You are troubled.’
Desiccated dead rats. He remembered those. He and Tasahre had found them, laid out in a sinuous pattern, weaving in and out among circles of ash and sand, of salt and charcoal. A glint of silver caught his eye from an open knapsack.
‘Berren! What are you doing?’ She came in towards him. ‘You shouldn’t touch such things!’
Memories of what he’d seen swirling around the warlock’s head filled him. He pushed them away. He went to the bag and reached inside. There was a purse filled with strange silver coins that he didn’t recognise.
‘Berren!’
Underneath the purse were three small vials, carefully packed in a wooden box lined with straw. One by one, he pulled them out and peered at the tiny words, carefully etched into the glass. Poison, said the first. Blood of the Funeral Tree. Enough to kill six men. Secrete in food or drink.
Ber
ren almost dropped it.
Let them drink this and fall asleep. Whisper a name three times in their ear, that that name may become the object of their obsessions and desires.
A love potion? He almost burst out laughing. He looked at the last one.
Three times this will stay the hand of fate when otherwise your life would end.
A potion to cheat love. A potion to cheat death. And poison, a potion to cheat life. Underneath the potions were more notes, scrags of vellum, some rolled up, some crumpled into balls, all covered in the warlock’s spidery hand.
‘Berren! Stop!’ Tasahre was next to him. She laid a hand on his, gentle but firm. ‘Stop,’ she said again. ‘You shouldn’t be in here.’
Carefully, Berren put the warlock’s potions back as he’d found them. He put the purse back too.
She had her hand on his, pulling him, still gentle. ‘Come away.’
‘I wanted to show you something,’ he said again.
‘Then please do so and let us be gone.’
‘As you wish.’ He reached out his other hand and cupped her face. ‘I know our paths were never meant to join, and it makes me want to raise my fists against the gods, but I won’t do that, because I know it would make you sad.’ They weren’t even his words. Just something Velgian had recited one evening while Master Sy and Kol and the other thief-takers had jeered at him. ‘You are the best thing in my life. I wish …’ The lump in his throat wouldn’t let him say any more.
Tasahre didn’t move. Her hand stayed on his. She didn’t push him away. He leaned forward and kissed her, softly on the lips, as the ladies from Reeper Hill would do. He kissed her lips and he kissed the corners of her mouth. His hand on her cheek slipped slowly to her neck.
‘Stop!’ She pushed him away, took a step back and shivered. The expression on her face was a strange one, full of confusion. He’d never seen her anything but certain. Angry, before she’d confronted the Sunbright, and sad afterwards. Scared as they’d fled from the warlock. But unsure? Never.