by Tom Lloyd
He bit the comment back, reminding himself their ranks were only technically equal now. Rhe remained a senior Lawbringer and wouldn’t appreciate being spoken to the way Narin would to Enchei.
Passing the brutal, iron-flanked walls where Iron District’s noble ruler presided, they pushed on to the further reaches of the district towards the old city wall that stood like broken teeth above what had once been a huge defensive ditch. As they walked, Narin noticed that they were heading away from the water that occupied two sides of the district – a river defining the western border while the Crescent marked the south.
Noble palazzos studded the shores of both; the largest were built parasitically around six white columns as ancient as the Imperial Palace. Ranging from a hundred feet high to almost three hundred, the pointed spires jutted out from the roofs of each palazzo like the spear-tips of the warriors within. Each one displayed the wealth of Iron’s ruling families; recessed friezes decorated in gold and obsidian, ornate stonework cresting each of the round palazzo levels and gas lamps studding the walls to illuminate their opulence.
‘Far from Samaleen’s domains,’ he pointed out, indicating that they were moving uphill towards the foundries and furnaces of Iron’s industrial heart. This part of the district was chaotic with smoke stacks belching to the clatter of metal and voices.
‘Far indeed,’ Rhe agreed. ‘A place of flame rather than water.’
The report had said exactly that, Narin remembered. The mountains and lakes that skirted the Veylesh plateau each had their own enclosed cultures, separate from the rest of the House Iron hegemony, and the high summer on the plateau was a scorching, relentless few months where the afternoon sun would kill.
During this time, so the report claimed, the boundary between planes blurred and the shadow demons of the otherworld could cross into the real. The tribes relied on shamans to protect them, as did the miners in the gold mines of the crater valleys flanking the plateau, and there were many old legends of renegade shamans co-opting their demon enemies as assassins.
Following the directions they had been given, the Lawbringers wove a path through narrow and grimy streets, the snow trodden to grey slush, until they reached what had to be their destination; the Minerild. A curved perimeter wall rose up before them, dotted with forges and foundries, while open archways led inside to a warren of twisting paths and dark tunnels. It was a huge circular building like a gigantic broken tower – almost a hundred yards across and without a single roof to cover it. Instead there were linked buildings inside the perimeter, all made of the same dirty grey brick, and one raised section of wall a hundred yards long that Narin suspected was to deflect the sea breeze.
Trusting their information, they headed in past flapping, bedraggled banners bearing the sigils of all nine subordinate Houses under the House Iron hegemony, along with half a dozen more symbols Narin didn’t recognise. The crowd of locals within were mostly grey-haired Irons, which made identifying the sandy shades of Gold and Redeve an easier task, but their goal was on the higher floor where a strange network of shrine-like edifices rose up from the patchwork of roofs within the perimeter.
Brick stairways led up the side of several buildings so once they had barged through to the interior of the Minerild, it was an easy task to ascend into the open air again. The shrines themselves were composed of slabs of pale slate, bound together by twists of verdigrised wire and shaped into squat cones and columns. So far as Narin could see, the placement of them was random, owing more to available space than any obvious pattern.
There were few people up there in contrast to the ground below, the weather making it treacherous, but a half-dozen figures had braved the cold and shuffled around the flat rooftops and narrow walkways between – all so heavily wrapped up it was impossible to tell the sex or descent of any. Just as they were assessing the sight, the nearest figure caught them looking around and angrily jabbed a finger in the direction of one of their kin before pointedly turning away.
They followed the direction and negotiated the three precarious bridges – each one little more than a plank securely fixed – until they came to a circular sort of shrine connected to those around it by sagging lengths of chain, each link adorned with a fluttering cloth that bore a symbol or character Narin had never seen. Before he could investigate them closer, the figure attending it slipped back a heavy hood to reveal the bronze skin and tattooed face of a man in middle years, long blond hair pulled back from his face by a spray of copper mesh.
‘More Lawbringers,’ the man announced wearily. ‘And there I was hoping cooperation might mean you didn’t bother coming back.’
‘It might have,’ Rhe replied sternly, ‘were it not apparent that there’s a killer in your midst.’
To Narin’s surprise the man laughed at the accusation and turned, whistling to attract the attention of another figure nearby. ‘Father, over here.’
‘You are Kobelt Ulesh Hoke?’ Rhe pressed. ‘I am Lawbringer Rhe, this is Lawbringer Narin.’
‘Aye, that’s me,’ the man said, amber eyes flashing in the pale daylight, ‘and I can tell you there’s no chance there’s a murderer here. That Investigator who came here, the Iron-born one, he could tell you that.’
‘We might need more assurances than that,’ Narin said, ‘given the fact that hellhounds have killed at least five people in the last few days.’
‘It was no one here,’ Ulesh asserted as his father joined them, almost the image of his son bar the lines on his face. ‘My father, Geret Hoke – Senior Kobelt of the Minerild. Tell them, Father, no one here would send demons on a hunt.’
‘Here? Only a handful have the power for such a thing,’ the older man said in heavily-accented Imperial, gesturing at the rooftops around them. ‘None are so stupid. We teach rituals of protection only, that is what this is all for. Perhaps if they had the knowledge, one or two of our most gifted Kobelen could draw a hunter into this realm, but no more than once.’
‘They could not control them?’
‘Them?’ The pair scoffed as one man. ‘Only I,’ continued Geret, ‘could control more than one, this thing is beyond Ulesh even. It will be years before he is strong enough. No other Kobelt here could summon more than one; no other Kobelt here would survive to try twice.’
Rhe adjusted his coat fractionally, just enough to make it clear his pistols were within easy reach. ‘You declare yourself our principal suspect then?’
‘Are you mad?’ the man gaped, as his son bristled with barely-restrained anger.
‘I am not, but I shall impress upon you my seriousness. I hunt a murderer and if this power’s so rare, you may know who possesses it – or at least can help us find them.’
‘And you choose threats to achieve this?’
Rhe shook his head. ‘I choose to believe you will help us, but you narrow my options by making such a statement. Are you protecting another? Taunting my authority? Simply mistaken or misguided?’
‘This is foolishness,’ Ulesh broke in, ‘even the priests of Lady Pilgrim know and trust us. Go ask them yourselves.’
‘What do you know of summoners then, what can you tell us?’ Rhe said. ‘The report I have tells me your kind are respected members of the community, so that is why I came with one Lawbringer beside me rather than a hundred.’
‘Most considerate,’ Geret growled. ‘Yet all we know of summoners is rumour. When they are exposed, they are hunted down.’
‘Your son follows in your footsteps,’ Narin said, keen to calm the conversation a touch. ‘Does the ability pass down through families?’
Ulesh nodded. ‘Often, but the last reported summoner was decades ago. I remember grandmother telling me the story.’
‘That man and his acolytes were all put to death,’ Geret declared. ‘I do not remember any mention of family. As for rumours, they are hearsay, no more. A tale from the Ren islands five or six years past, a power struggle between merchant houses, I believe, also the assassination of a House Rain general
two summers ago – Ulesh, can you remember more?’
‘That massacre on Shols – House Storm’s lands. Was that not said to be a shadow demon? A dozen villagers killed when a trading ship from Ren was forced to beach there, all those who helped make repairs. The ship had sailed by the time of the massacre, though, and no one among the survivors could agree on the ship’s designation so it was never traced.’
Narin nodded, committing the details to memory rather than attempting to scribble them down in the freezing wind.
‘What about these shrines of protection? They’re wards against the demons? If you can protect against them, can you find them?’
‘The shrines disrupt energies; they exist to make it harder for the demons to cross into this realm. But a summoner tears at the veil – they cannot prevent that.’
‘Can they tell you if it has happened? Where it might be happening?’
Ulesh shook his head, glancing at his father to confirm his agreement.
‘Do you know how it is done?’ Narin persisted. ‘How it might be done?’
‘I do, but I will not attempt such a thing.’
‘But is there equipment you might need? Ingredients for a potion? Certain conditions?’ He gestured around at the snow-laden roofs. ‘Clearly this isn’t a case of the city becoming so hot the border between realms blurs.’
‘Equipment? No. A staff to channel energies, certainly, but nothing exotic they would need to purchase. As for conditions – height is good, a tower with air all around would be best. As far from earth, stone or water as possible, for their realms are shadow and flame.’
‘Anything more?’
Geret shook his head. ‘I must meditate on this, consider the ritual. You are Rhe? I will send word if I think of more.’
Rhe inclined his head. ‘Lawbringer Cailer at the Palace of Law will know of our whereabouts. I thank you for your time.’
As the pair returned to ground level, Narin waited until they were on the stairs and out of sight of anyone who might hear them. ‘You’ve a plan, then?’
‘A next step,’ Rhe said with a small shake of the head. ‘We have a trading ship and a merchant house mentioned there – the Ren archipelago appears to be at the heart of their rumours. It is thin, but what else presents itself for investigation?’
‘These people needed to get to the city somehow,’ Narin agreed, ‘so why not use one of your own trading ships when sneaking in someone you wouldn’t want noticed? It’s winter, the arrivals at the docks cannot be so great that we can’t narrow down a list of trading houses based in the Ren archipelago. It’s not close, so there shouldn’t much traffic at this time of year.’
‘Which gives us one or two names, while the city records will list holdings of those trading houses and their affiliates. Safe-houses that might be employed by mercenaries using the trading house as the front. A reported power struggle backs up the theory; control of a minor trading house would be simple to arrange with such unnatural means at your disposal.’
Narin forced a smile as he pulled his coat tighter around him. ‘Indoor work at least, it could be worse.’
‘And then you remember you are a hunted man.’
That wiped the smile from his face. ‘Aye, then there’s that. Thank you, Lawbringer. Just what I needed to hear right now.’
‘You are welcome. Come.’
In Ghost District, a vigil began. For all that House Ghost’s lands were more than a thousand miles from the Imperial City, their sovereign territory in the city was a bustling affair thanks to the long, arch-festooned avenues that led through the district and out of the city. Sat on high ground above the shore surrounding the Crescent, Ghost District harkened back to the mist-wreathed mountains and valleys of its home thanks to an uneven range of nine half-natural edifices punctuating the landscape.
Channels had been dug around natural rises and rocky outcrops to enhance their height, then spiral paths had been carved around them and the interior carefully excavated to produce both exclusive markets and grand eccentric palaces for Ghost’s nobility. Walkways, aqueducts, decorative arches and twisting stairways connected the five largest – producing a strange treetop community for the lower classes while the high castes enjoyed all manner of delights on two separate tors, all adorned with a garish variety of lanterns, banners and signs. The last two structures were the linked stronghold of the local triumvirate, millennia of Ghost tradition dictating that cooperating factions governed their people.
To a man such as Enchei, long apart from a land he barely called home any more, it was a powerful reminder of all he’d left behind – of the nation he had once loved and the family that had meant more to him than life. Despite the marshalled force of memories, he skirted the grand view and found himself a vantage point of a modest, high-end importation house well away from the jewels of Ghost District. It was a quieter corner, as it had been decades before when he’d once walked freely into the four-storey house he now watched from a distance.
Little about it had changed – a fresh coat of black paint on the doors and shutters perhaps, but the invisible wardings laced into the brickwork and humming through the lead muntins in the windows were as strong as they had ever been. Enchei kept well clear, knowing what would happen should he stray closer than a dozen paces, and instead talked his way into a lodging house three doors along from it.
Drugging his bemused, unwilling host ensured he would be left alone and from a darkened upper room, through shutters that had seen better days, he settled down to watch faces and gaits, fashions and attitudes, for as many hours as might be required. Barely moving – barely awake, by some measures of the word – the few remaining hours of daylight dragged past his window like a procession of the condemned. Fragments of memory occasionally drifted to the surface of his mind as he waited, prompted by some tiny detail or the idle wandering of thoughts.
The exploits of his only real career, now decades past, rose to scrape at ill-healed scabs of memory. The taste of the smoke-spiced air of Sight’s End as he followed a minor target through that city’s madcap tangle of alleys, and once-divine screams that ripped both earth and sky asunder in what became known as the Fields of the Broken. Then the soft slimy kiss of mould and moss on his skin as he lay for hours in a pagan temple – his cracked skull ringing with the screams of comrades dying because of his impetuousness.
That last was stronger and had been for days now – the turning point, the moment where his blunder could have brought ruin down upon the entire Empire. The thought still chilled Enchei. Quite beyond the fact his daughters would have been the first casualties in any such war, there was the sheer horror of what might have been unleashed on the world, had some ambitious Astaren doctor discovered what had happened to Enchei in that temple.
Old and young went into the house. Craftsmen caste standing aside for nobles at the tall black door, occasional porters carrying boxes wrapped in bands of white silk and under guard from Ghost warrior castes hired to protect their wares. Some were entirely innocent to Enchei’s practised eye – others appeared innocuous yet were screaming Astaren for the quiet, lethal grace they avoided others with, or all-too-brief glances that most likely inspected the streets and houses around them in unnatural detail. He saw everything and nothing from his darkened room, surmising what he could from the numbers he saw and the legitimate trade pursued by the house.
What he hoped for, however, was akin to what the religious might consider a sign from their favoured god. And it didn’t come. Night arrived in its place, swift and sharp, as the temperature plunged and the fleeting light of the Gods illuminated the hard sparkle of frost on every edge. Before long the darkness deepened, heavy cloud rolling in and covering the sky.
Away to the left, had he craned to see them, were the many hundred lanterns of the nine tors that shone with fierce defiance of winter, but there were only two sights he craved – the opening of shutters on the upper floor ahead of him, or an older figure who walked with the assurance of a king thr
ough that night-sky doorway.
Still, neither came. No face he recognised, no man or woman who might command here. With so little having changed in this place, Ghost’s Astaren maintaining a modest presence in the city, Enchei could picture close enough the sort he was looking for – the sort he had once reported to – but no close candidate revealed themselves and as dusk became a cold memory, he was about to abandon his post for the day when something quite unexpected happened.
Without warning, his head was filled with voices. First one, then two, three and four – calls, warnings, commands, he had no idea. The words were garbled and unintelligible, beyond his power to understand, but they told enough of a story that he was preparing to flee with his weapons ready when a far bigger surprise came.
Another voice, this time a man’s and not garbled in any way, as though the man was standing right beside Enchei and using his natural voice. No elliptical code or uncertainty, no measures of precaution such as any Astaren might use as a matter of course. Just a few brief words, bursting through the night air like a hasty songbird’s call.
But even more than that, it was a voice he knew. A voice not heard for twenty years, a voice he had never thought to hear again. Even with the chilling words it carried, Enchei felt a flush of warmth at the crisp tones of a man he had once loved as a brother.
Then sense reasserted itself and he reacted to the words that, given they were sent without code or artifice, could only be offered to him out of some similar brotherly affection.
‘Hellhounds have tripped our outer wardings. You know what you must do.’
CHAPTER 18
Enchei bolted. Confusion and surprise filled his mind, but the old instincts were stronger. Away from the window, one step and reaching for the door. Weapons ready and every nerve singing, he pushed on through to the darkened corridor beyond.
At the back of his mind he heard a jangle of voices, disguised and incomprehensible. The Ghost Astaren calling orders, summoning their defences. Then, at last, distant howls – lingering, lupine voices that shuddered between worlds as they cut through air and stone alike. One, then a second, then he could not tell how many. It didn’t matter, Enchei realised. He was hunted – they had his scent and were closing in.