Old Man's Ghosts

by Tom Lloyd

  ‘A local man?’

  ‘No, paler than a native of this place – perhaps Eagle or Raven by birth? Doubtless a former soldier, given his calmness in the face of drawn weapons.’

  Serril lips tightened. ‘I think I know the man you are speaking of.’ In his memory he recalled the last line of Enchei’s note – should anyone come asking for me, please do not keep anything from them on my account.

  Avineil seemed to brighten at the news. ‘Is he here?’

  ‘No – he …’ Serril hesitated as he considered what to say.

  Master Jen was just the sort to wade into a bar fight, his arrogance knew no bounds. It was galling enough to receive such a perfunctory note from one of his staff, now he was to pass on messages and information for the man too? No, Enchei Jen deserved no special treatment at all – indeed, he would be punished for his failure to report for duty. Serril certainly would not assist him in receiving any form of reward.

  ‘He is not. I’m afraid if he does return I am likely to terminate his employment here for unreliability.’

  ‘Oh really? Such a shame, I hope it is not on account of my fool cousin. Might you know where I can find him? I would like to thank him still; this latest incident has perhaps woken the boy up to his recklessness.’

  ‘I regret I cannot do that. There are strict rules over the names and home addresses of tattooists. I cannot give out information to a stranger without proper authorisation.’

  Avineil inclined his head in acceptance. ‘I understand, protocols must still be followed. Might he be returning here ever? I could leave a note if he is likely to be here to collect such a thing.’

  ‘That I cannot say. I know he will not be around these next few days – whether he will show his face here after that remains uncertain. As I said, he is unreliable, but not a fool. I’m sure he is aware of the likely consequences of his absences.’

  ‘I understand,’ Avineil said as he stood and retrieved his coat. ‘Thank you for your time, Administrator.’

  ‘Do you wish to leave a note for the man anyway?’

  The stranger looked at him for a long time, long enough to make Serril feel strangely wary. At last he blinked and the cold look vanished from his face as he shook his head with a small smile.

  ‘I had thought to offer him a post within the trading house, but from what you say I might regret doing so. The loss is his – I have at least attempted to fulfil my duty towards him, but I cannot spend too long dealing with his own failings.’

  He paused and cocked his head at Serril. ‘I have my hounds to deal with today also. Do you like hounds, Administrator?’

  Serril blinked at him. ‘Hounds? No, I … no, I have never much cared for beasts of any sort. They are messy and chaotic.’

  ‘Indeed, mine do bite rather,’ Avineil sighed, ‘but when one hunts, what else will do? Good day, Administrator – may the blessings of the Gods be with you.’

  Narin trudged across a ghost-haunted city. The trepidation he felt was as heavy as his snow-laden coat, as draining as the miles walking through fresh fallen snow. The fat flakes continued to fall with silent, stolid persistence, creating a thick curtain through which the boatmen of the Crescent refused to row. For Narin that more than doubled the distance he had to walk, but this was one errand he could not put off. After nearly two hours he finally stood underneath the grand tower-like entrance to the Imperial Palace; a massive stone structure supported by a hundred pillars, which was in turn dwarfed by the gigantic buildings behind.

  As he’d reached the palace, Narin hadn’t been able to resist stopping at a raised walkway that looked down over the Imperial Canal running for over a mile down its southern flank. Just below where Narin had stood was a small island, barely ten yards across, around which the Imperial barge could be turned before being berthed under an overhang.

  At the centre of the island stood a statue – an Ascendant God from the Order of Emperor, Lady Navigator. The Goddess stood tall and proud, twice the height of a normal woman and raised further up by a pedestal of waves and the arched tails of whales. With flashes of silver embedded in the white marble statue, it was an arresting sight through the falling snow, the canal and towpaths all deserted around it.

  With a blanket of white on the city this corner of the Imperial City looked ever more otherworldly and alien. The palace itself had been built in an age before human civilisation; one of several relics of a mysterious and long-dead race that survived untouched by the passing millennia. It was built on a scale no architect could comprehend, of a white stone no mason could work and for all the many hundreds who lived there it defied the imposition of human domain.

  For Narin it also highlighted the difference between himself and the high castes who lived in such places. He came here only reluctantly and was glad to turn his back on the tined crown of the Great Court – even if it was only to enter the sprawl of normal streets that clustered around castle-sized towers projecting from the Great Court like ranks of flying buttresses. The towers stood in three rows of four, each one three hundred feet tall and connected by covered bridges that spanned the gaps high above the rooftops of the lesser buildings.

  It remained a dizzying sight to walk through, the towers looming and oppressive, but as with the rest of the city the streets had been largely abandoned to the snowstorm. That afforded Narin a much quicker journey through the narrow streets where the merchant houses of the Empire did their business and before long he was thumping a weary fist against the unassuming door of a small building in the heart of it all.

  To his irritation, nothing happened at first. Feeling something of a fool, out in the cold, Narin hammered harder on the door this time, fighting the urge to check around himself for any curious faces. At last there came a noise from within the building, a small structure with little to characterise it which stood all alone at the end of a street. It was not a place Narin would have given a second glance to had he passed it, no markings at all beyond a small engraving of its name in the lintel above the door – The Office of the Catacombs.

  Without ceremony the door was jerked open and Narin found himself staring into the open muzzle of a pistol. It took a moment of panic before he recognised the polished walnut stock and ornate brass decoration on the barrel, but by then he had stepped back and half-drawn his sword. From the other side of the door there came a chuckle.

  ‘My apologies, Lawbringer. How are you?’

  Narin growled as he sheathed his sword again. ‘How am I? Frozen stiff with a gun stuck in my face, Prince Kashte.’

  The door opened further and Narin saw the young Imperial holster his gun before gesturing inside. ‘Still brimming with respect for your betters I see, Master Narin,’ came the cheerful reply.

  ‘That’s Lawbringer Narin to you, my Lord Sun,’ he replied, forcing himself to rise to the challenge of being gently insulting to a man so far above his station it was dizzying. Kashte had proved a valuable ally to the Lawbringers as they assaulted the goshe on Confessor’s Island and beyond the veneer of formality he was surprisingly welcoming to Narin.

  Without Kashte and his small cadre of young Imperials, many more of Narin’s comrades would be dead and the group had extended their strange sense of comradeship to Narin. He couldn’t fathom whether they considered him one of them or were just under the thumb of the same man. Narin remained unsure which idea he preferred, but he was painfully aware of his need for allies, the way his life was going.

  He followed Prince Kashte and almost groaned with pleasure at the warmth within as the door was shut behind him. The building was a two-storey square block with too many exposed walls, but a large iron stove stood in the centre of the room with what looked like half a wagon’s worth of coal in tall baskets beside the door. A mezzanine covered half of the interior while below that was an iron-bound cellar door at a steep angle to the floor, currently closed.

  ‘I wasn’t sure you’d be here, Prince Kashte,’ Narin said hesitantly as he looked at who else was there.
>
  There were three large desks on the lower floor, two in use with the third enough of a mess to be clear Kashte had been working there. The other two people at the desks were also Imperials – a man and a woman he didn’t recognise, gold on their collars and the intricacies of current fashion obvious in their clothes. Exactly what they were doing he couldn’t tell, but each one had a stack of massive leather-bound books on their desk alongside a mass of scrolls and papers. Narin took a step to get a closer look but Kashte neatly manoeuvred himself into the way before he could see anything.

  ‘History is a relentless master,’ Kashte said with a small smile, ‘it cares nothing for the weather outside.’

  ‘Your master, eh?’ Narin mused, ‘I hadn’t realised your devotion was so complete.’

  Not wanting to make himself unwelcome, Narin gave up on the strange sight of Imperial castes hard at work like common scribes and instead struggled out of his greatcoat, which was fast creating puddles on the flagstone floor.

  ‘They are assisting me,’ called a voice as one heavy cellar door began to open.

  It moved only slowly because it was six inches thick and reinforced with iron rods, but at last the thin face of Prince Ayel Sorote appeared from behind it.

  ‘I am writing a history of the Empire, but the sheer weight of source material is too great for one man alone.’

  Not much older than Narin, Prince Sorote affected the air of a middle-aged academic, dressing far more conservatively than his younger assistants. He still wore the gold collar of his caste, but forwent most of the detailing on their clothes and glittering jewellery. Even now Narin was reminded of their first meeting; the unassuming man waiting for him at his home who interrupted a day of murder and violence with veiled threats of his own. Narin was still unsure what to make of Prince Sorote more than half a year later, but for a man who held Narin’s life in the palm of his hand, the Imperial had been remarkably helpful in the aftermath of the goshe affair.

  ‘So you ask members of your own caste to assist you?’ Narin asked, astonished at the idea. Imperials were hardly known for putting in a hard day’s work and much of the labour, he assumed, would be monstrously dull.

  ‘The religious caste have a rather narrow outlook on the world,’ Sorote replied, ‘they lack ambition and understanding. By contrast, the education of any Imperial caste must be of the highest order. We can hardly deal with the intricacies of the Empire and all the various nations within it without a rounded knowledge and the sophistication of thought to apply it fully.’

  Narin, whose own education was far more limited than that of the religious caste, wasn’t sure what to say in response, but Prince Sorote didn’t seem to be expecting one as he reached Narin.

  ‘Now, my friend, how are you?’

  The Lawbringer gave a sour laugh. ‘Well, this morning I was picking through the torn-apart remains of a man, which took me to an underground pagan temple and an ambush outside it.’

  Prince Sorote blinked. ‘So this is not a social call?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘In that case, Suner, Verrey – might you give us some privacy?’

  Sorote half-turned to the Imperials Narin didn’t know as they looked up from their work and nodded. Narin watched the pair stow their pens on polished inkstands and rise without a word – no emotion on their faces that the Lawbringer could discern, but that spoke enough of their relationship.

  While Sorote might well be a higher-ranked member of the sprawling Imperial family, to almost dismiss them in that way spoke of something greater than age or rank. One hoisted up a large book from his pile and together they headed to the cellar door from which Sorote had come.

  Narin had never been down there himself, but he’d seen enough to know it wasn’t just a storeroom through those reinforced doors. That the bolts were on the outside was curious enough, but he had no intention of giving Sorote the satisfaction of ignoring his questions on the subject.

  Before long the door was shut behind them and the three were alone in the small building. Narin pointedly looked at Kashte, but Sorote just directed him up the mezzanine stair to where his own desk was situated.

  ‘A drink, Lawbringer? I for one believe a toast is in order. You may speak freely in front of Prince Kashte – he is my deputy here in the Office of the Catacombs and proving himself a most able historian.’

  Narin looked at the polished guns holstered at Kashte’s waist and remembered what Rhe had told him of the attack on Confessor’s Island. Not only was the young man a highly-trained fighter, he wasn’t some duellist. He had the hard manner of a veteran soldier – something that prompted only more questions, given that Imperials never went into battle. Exactly what it was in the historical records or Sorote’s catacombs that required such honed skills remained a mystery.

  ‘A toast?’

  ‘Indeed. We’ve not heard any happy news from across the Crescent, but in this case I choose to interpret that as a good thing. If the city was told an heir to a Wyvern lord had been born, one might fear for any news of the mother that followed. If you are here and there is no news, well, it might be events took an unexpected turn. Scandal travels more slowly in the cold, I have found.’

  A beautifully-cut glass tumbler was pushed into Narin’s hands and a healthy measure of some golden spirit poured in. The two Imperials raised their own glasses, the curl of a smirk on Prince Kashte’s lips as Sorote spoke.

  ‘To fatherhood – a child new to the world.’

  Narin remained too stunned to move or speak as the other men drank.

  ‘You will not drink with us?’ Kashte asked quietly after a moment of Narin staring at them.

  ‘I, ah – I mean no disrespect,’ Narin said, ‘but to hear you state it so plainly …’ His words failed him but Sorote nodded with understanding.

  ‘My friend – forget it all for the moment.’ He clinked his glass against Narin’s and nodded towards it. ‘Forget the danger, forget the scandal and anything else that’s to come. I know your secret, Kashte also. Before anything else, any bargaining or manipulation, let us just first take a moment to be men.’

  ‘I … what?’ Narin remembered only too well Sorote’s pleasure that not only did he have an affair with a married high caste to hold over Narin, but there would be a child to serve as evidence too.

  Sorote smiled. ‘The child, a boy or a girl?’

  ‘Girl.’

  ‘Her name?’

  ‘Dov.’

  That prompted a snort from Kashte. ‘Lady Chance’s given name? I like that. Are you hoping for the Ascendant’s favour?’

  ‘Kine chose it, but it’s fitting I think. Her life will be uncertain from the start – chance brought Kine and I together, chance’ll determine whether any of us survive.’

  ‘I suppose so. To little Dov then – Lawbringer Narin, I congratulate you.’

  This time Narin did drink with them, swallowing down half the smooth, faintly sweet spirit. It was like none he’d ever tasted, no doubt nothing most Lawbringers could ever afford.

  ‘Thank you,’ Narin forced himself to say. ‘I suppose you’ve guessed why I’ve come, then?’

  ‘It wasn’t to give your friends the happy news in person? I’m saddened.’

  ‘Today’s been a bit too busy for that, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  Narin nodded. ‘I know I’m in your debt and that’s not the best way to come asking for another favour, but there’s other news you might be interested in too.’

  Sorote raised an eyebrow at Kashte and gestured to the armchairs arranged before his desk. ‘By all means sit, then, tell us the tale of your day.’

  Narin did so and took another mouthful of his drink before continuing, feeling a flood of warmth enter his belly and drive out the chill of the failing day.

  ‘You’ve had a hold over me for a while now,’ he began with a slight hesitancy. It was true Prince Sorote had known of Narin’s affair with Kine and held it over him, but still Narin was
uncomfortable baldly stating how much he was in the power of another man.

  ‘One that may have evaporated now,’ Sorote commented, ‘but let it be noted that I never exerted or abused said hold.’

  Narin raised a hand. ‘I know – I wasn’t accusing you there, it is what it is. Or was, maybe. The Gods above know I’ve no cause to complain about what you’ve done with the information. I might not understand why but right now … well, what’s the phrase – I’m counting Jester’s blessings? However, you’d said that you would be willing to assist me. I know it puts me back in your debt, but given what little you’ve asked of me these past few months that’s a price worth paying.’

  ‘I am prepared to offer assistance,’ Sorote said slowly, putting down his drink. ‘However, what I’d asked of you has been less than fruitful, if you remember. A brief essay on the fox-spirits and the varying orders of demons is all I have to show for my benevolence. History is not an easy master, remember? And while it may be patient, it has limits.’

  ‘I understand, and I have other news. You asked to be kept informed of unusual crimes within the city – if I was a betting man I’d say you were the one who suggested such crimes fell under my and Rhe’s purview.’

  Kashte leaned forward. ‘My advice, you don’t become a betting man,’ he said with a cold smile, ‘your luck might’ve held out thus far, but I don’t think you’re cut out for going toe-to-toe with Lady Chance.’

  Despite everything, Narin laughed. ‘Don’t worry, gambling’s the last thing on my mind! You’re not the only one surprised my luck hasn’t got me killed yet.’

  ‘You were about to keep me informed of something?’ Sorote interjected.

  ‘Yes – it’s too early to give you much more than an idea of what’s involved, but you’ll be interested for sure. At worst I think you’ll get a sense of the shamans in the city and how that hidden side of life fits between ours and that of the demons.’

  ‘And at best?’