Night's Haunting

by Matthew Sprange

  With the rising sun climbing the eastern sky, Turnitia was already a boiling hive of activity. People moved through the streets with purpose, either joining the crowds in the Square of True Believers or near the northern gate, or else hawking their wares to the mob from street corners. A few, no doubt, moved with more nefarious tasks in mind.

  Lucius had found one of the few quiet places in the city, on the northern tower of the Citadel, one of the highest points in Turnitia. Since the earliest hours of the morning, the Citadel had been all but deserted, with just a few officials and servants inside. None had even challenged him when he had strode confidently through the gatehouse. From this vantage point, Lucius could watch almost the entire northern half of the city, looking down upon its houses, shops, and squares.

  Gazing to the west, enjoying the fresh breeze that washed in over the cliffs, Lucius tried not to look at the great blackened gashes that still marred the city, whole districts still in ruin. In the two months since the great fire, as the citizens had started to call it, the city had rallied and rebuilt a great deal of the destruction, but it would take much longer to erase the last evidence of the attacks. Maybe a lifetime, for those who lost loved ones that evening, and there were many who had lost wives, husbands, and children. Listening to conversations in taverns and inns, it seemed as though everyone at least knew someone who had died, and most had far more personal tales to tell.

  Around the cliffs and harbour, many new warehouses and loading stations had sprung up within weeks the fire, and the merchant's quarter looked much like it always had. Not even a city-wide disaster could interfere with the merchants, it seemed, and Lucius suspected more than a few had made a great deal of money in the rebuilding, and were silently thanking the tragedy.

  "You are still an easy man to find," a voice called out behind him.

  Turning around, he forced a smile as Adrianna climbed the last few stairs that led up to the tower's roof. Though her hair had begun to grow back, her face would remain a network of burn scars. There was no doubt that it marred her beauty, but Lucius could see something of a change had come about the Shadowmage since the great fire and he suspected she no longer cared for something so trivial as beauty.

  Her shoulder would eventually heal, but her left arm was still bound up in a sling, and he had noticed Adrianna still winced whenever she moved too quickly, or brushed her arm against something. There was some comfort to be had in seeing that she was still human.

  They had never spoken of the evening of the great fire, nor of the death of Elaine. Neither wanted to pick at old wounds.

  Lucius believed Adrianna somewhat unhinged. At first, he had hoped her madness held at its root some measure of shame for the atrocities she had committed, but it seemed there was no room in her heart for mere mortal conscience. She had become drunk on the power she now wielded with such finesse, and was a dangerous person to know.

  For his part, Lucius had buried his feelings for Adrianna, both good and bad, deep down. There was simply too much at stake now, and while the sun seemed to be rising on his city, he had vowed not to rock the boat between the guilds. Either way, he had resolved to be very, very wary around her.

  He suspected she knew this, and that it amused her.

  "I was not trying to hide," he said, gesturing to the battlements, indicating that she should join him.

  As she walked over to view the city alongside him, Adrianna smiled, creasing the scars that ran across her cheeks.

  "Just as well," she said.

  Turning to follow her gaze north, Lucius watched the crowd gathered in the Square of True Believers, spilling out into the North Way towards the city gate. A great column of red marched out of Turnitia, the full weight of the Vos military that had been stationed in Turnitia, along with its assorted officials and hangers-on. The people of the city were respectful in their farewells to the soldiers that had watched over them in recent years, but few were sad at seeing them leave. Some might even have joined the crowd just to make sure the Empire was truly departing.

  The day before, the Preacher Divine had made another speech in front of the Cathedral, exalting those in the city who followed the Final Faith, and urging them to do God's will when he left. He had tried very hard to make the retreat of Vos look positive, as though it was in the natural order of things, but nothing could hide the injury that had been done to the Empire or, for that matter, the Preacher Divine himself. The assassins had crippled his right arm, and the best Vos surgeons had been unable to save it.

  For better or worse, the combined efforts of Adrianna and the thieves' guild had made the Empire's position in the city untenable. Within a week of the great fire, when Vos officials and commanders were still foundering from lack of leadership and the demands of a broken city, Baron de Sousse, up to then a relatively minor lord from Pontaine, had decreed that the rule of the Empire in Turnitia was over, and that he would take the city under the protection of his estates.

  It was a simple land grab, but it left the Empire with a stark choice: leave the city or go to war over Turnitia.

  It was certain that Pontaine could not face war itself, but nor could Vos, and the presence of de Sousse's army so close to the city forced the withdrawal.

  "Thought I would find you two up here," a young voice said, and Lucius smiled as Adrianna whirled around.

  "Good morning, Grennar," he said. "Won't you join us?"

  "I will, thank you."

  "How did you know we were here?" Adrianna asked suspiciously.

  Grennar gave her a pained look.

  "You think the mistress of the beggars' guild does not always know where the mistress of the Shadowmages and the thieves' guildmaster are, at all times?"

  "Frankly, no," said Adrianna.

  "Oh," Grennar said. "In that case, you might want to think about moving from your lair in the cliffs."

  Lucius chuckled. When the Shadowmage threw him a dangerous look, he held up a hand.

  "Do not trouble yourself with what Grennar does and does not know," he said. "Just be sure to consult her whenever you need to know anything that happens in the city."

  Lucius admired Grennar a great deal. She was wise beyond her years, as the saying went, and there was much that she and Adrianna had in common. After Sebastian abdicated leadership of the beggars' guild to go travelling, Lucius had wondered whether Grennar would have the strength of character to govern a guild filled with so many older than herself.

  She had risen to the challenge. Just as Adrianna had some very definite ideas about how the Shadowmages' guild should be organised and run, so too was Grennar determined to leave her stamp upon the beggars. With him now running the thieves' guild, the three of them had formed an alliance of sorts and, though Lucius and Grennar did not really trust Adrianna, they could all see the possible benefits and support the alliance could offer. Grennar had nicknamed them the Triumvirate, and proclaimed their ability to run the entire city.

  Lucius did not believe their influence would stretch that far, but the possibilities were interesting.

  For his own part, Lucius had finally accepted leadership of the thieves. He still maintained that it was not something he wanted but there had been no one else he trusted. A very long conversation with Wendric had left him with the impression that the Lieutenant had risen as far in the guild as he ever intended. Wendric liked the authority he carried as the guild's second, but did not want the responsibility that went with overall leadership. He wanted to be the man behind the master, not the master himself. That left Lucius.

  Deep down, Lucius had told himself that he would stay just a few years and abdicate when someone better came along. Until then, there was plenty of work to be done and the idea of shaping the guild to his own personality had an appeal.

  "Good riddance to them," Grennar said, pronouncing her judgement on the Vos soldiers as they began to wind their way through the north gate.

  "What is the word on the streets?" Lucius asked.

  Grennar shru
gged. "The people seem optimistic. Not sure why. Our new masters may not be that different from our old masters."

  "Pontaine has a different way of doing things," he said.

  "We will find out soon enough," Grennar said. "Their army will be here before the evening."

  "That soon?" Adrianna asked.

  "You don't think Vos just picked a random day to leave the city, do you? They wanted to keep their claws in the city for as long as they possibly could."

  "Any rumours on this Baron?" Lucius asked.

  "More than rumours. We have already had an audience."

  Lucius and Adrianna turned to face her, brows raised.

  "How did you manage that?" Lucius finally asked.

  "It's my guild now, thief. We are doing things my way, and I always thought Sebastian limited himself by only having agents within the city walls. I simply... expanded things."

  Again, Lucius chuckled.

  "Impressive," Adrianna allowed. "How did your contact with the Baron go?"

  "Well, by all accounts," Grennar said. "The... situation in the city was explained to de Sousse, and he has requested a meeting with the three of us."

  Adrianna and Lucius glanced at each other briefly, thinking the same thoughts. It was Grennar that spoke them out loud.

  "It seems the Baron de Sousse is an intelligent man. He recognises who has the power in the city and he is willing to do business with us."

  Lucius smiled. "That is good work, Grennar."

  She gave him a mock curtsey.

  They returned to the battlements, each now lost in their own thoughts and plans as they watched the last Vos soldiers leave the city and start the long march back to the Empire.

  Lucius knew he would have trouble with some of his thieves, particularly those that had been in the guild the longest. And the assassins, of course. They all knew about his Shadowmage abilities, and not all were comfortable with a wizard among their ranks, especially as they had learned how Elaine had died. The resentment would only get worse when they found out he had also pledged himself to renew his magical training under Adrianna's direction. That, of course, would carry its own dangers, but the recent events had convinced him that he could no longer turn his back on his heritage. For better or worse, he would be both thief and Shadowmage.

  So, he thought, there was a new age coming for Turnitia. It might never be the free and independent city it once was, long ago, but if this new Pontaine lord was prepared to deal with guilds on the fringes of society, life was about to improve.

  The world was opening up with possibilities.

  THE END

  Matthew Sprange

  With a solid history in roleplaying and miniatures game design, Matthew Sprange has written over three dozen gaming books, including the Babylon 5 and Judge Dredd roleplaying games, and has won two Origins Awards for his miniatures games. Night's Haunting is his third novel.

  Now read the first chapter of the next exciting novel in the Twilight of Kerberos series...

  ENGINES OF THE APOCALYPSE

  Mike Wild

  COMING SOON...

  Chapter One

  The world was plunged into darkness. There was a scream.

  The scream in question came from one Maladorus Slack, entrepreneur and guide, hired only hours before by Kali Hooper after he'd approached her in the Spider's Eyes claiming to know the location of a forgotten passageway leading directly to the fourth level of Quinking's Depths. It was an audacious claim, and it wasn't every day that Kali trusted the word of some drunk in a backwoods tavern, but there had been something in the way Slack made it - with wariness, rather than greed, in his eyes - that had made her take a gamble on its veracity and hand over fifty full silver for the privilege of having him share it with her.

  As it turned out, her money had been well spent. Slack guided her at twilight to a cave in the hills above the remote town of Solnos and deep within, pointing out an overgrown cryptoblock defence that he swore - once unlocked - would enable her to bypass the Depths' first three levels and find treasure of such value that she might, as he so colourfully put it, "come over all tremblous in the underknicks." Kali had had a word with him about this, pointing out that it was her business what went on in her underknicks and, far more importantly, that she didn't do what she did for the money. Most of the time, anyway.

  She felt a bit bad now, about having pinned him against the wall. Especially considering the man's fate. Not that it was her fault - or his, really. For one thing, Slack's nervousness had threatened to make him come over all something else in the underknicks and he had stuck to her like a limpet even though she tried to shoo him away, and for another there was no way either of them could have anticipated what was going to happen once they had found what lay within the Depths.

  Perhaps, though, she should have done. Perhaps the way things had gone she should have realised that the whole thing was going to go tits up.

  "This cryptoblock," Slack had said as she had begun to work on it in the cramped conditions of the cave, "It is some kind of puzzle, yes?" He was crouched awkwardly between the skeletal remains of previous adventurers who had found there way there, trying to ignore the fact that every one of their bones was completely, utterly shattered.

  "Not some kind of puzzle," she replied. "A very specific kind."

  "You have seen such things before?"

  "Once or twice. Cryptoblock defences are typical of an ancient race called the dwarves."

  "The Old Race, you mean? With the pointy ears and bows?"

  Kali sighed but took time to set him straight because Slack had at least heard of the Old Races, which was more than could be said of most people on the peninsula. "No, the other lot. The noisy ones with axes and blood pressure."

  "Bows, axes, what does it matter?"

  Slack sniffed the kind of sniff where you could hear the contents of his nostrils slop against his brain, and Kali grimaced in distaste. But as she once more felt his hot, alcoholic breath in her face, the man seemed to accept the truth of what she was saying.

  "I remember. These dwarves were supposed to have been masters of deadly traps, yes?"

  "Oh, yeah."

  "Then this door is such a trap?"

  Kali glanced at the skeletons on the floor of the cave. "Either that or these guys succumbed to a very bad case of the jitters."

  Slack glanced fearfully around the cave, looking for hidden devices.

  "You won't see a thing," Kali advised. "They were master engineers, too."

  "Then I hope you know what you are doing!"

  "Wish I did," Kali said. She was working on one particular area now, concentrating hard, tongue sticking out between her teeth between responses. "Trouble is, each cryptoblock is different... springs, balances, counterbalances... you just have to feel your way around." She suddenly pulled back with a gasp as something sprang inside the cryptoblock and one of its component parts snapped into place where she had delved a moment before. "Farker!" she cursed, shaking and sucking her fingers, then almost casually grabbed Slack's sleeve, pulling him aside as a solid stone fist the size of an outhouse punched down from the cave roof onto the spot where he had stood, reducing what remained of the skeletons to dust. With a grinding of hidden stone gears, the fist retracted, and Kali returned to her work, leaving Slack where he was, white-faced and with a small stain spreading on the front of his pants.

  "Sorry about that," Kali said. "Getting somewhere, now."

  She continued to work diligently on the puzzle for the next few minutes, Slack staring warily around himself, below and above all the while, flinching or emitting a little whimper each time there was the sound of something clicking into place in the cryptoblock. But at last there was a sound that was different to the others - somehow final - and Kali stood back with a sigh of satisfaction.

  Slack regarded her and the cryptoblock with some puzzlement, because at first nothing seemed to happen. Then each part of the cryptoblock that Kali had repositioned retracted into another
adjacent to it, which in turn retracted into adjacent parts. Other components of the cryptoblock automatically moved up or down, enveloping their neighbours or moving in or out. This reordering became faster and faster, the size of the cryptoblock diminishing all the time until Slack found himself staring at a small cube where the cryptoblock had been. For a second it simply hung there, and then Slack jumped back as it, too, retracted - this time, into itself. Nothing remained of the cryptoblock - nothing at all.

  "I do not understand," he said. "It is gone. How can it be gone?"

  Kali looked at him, smiled. Questions, always questions. "The corporeal stability of the cryptoblock has been transfeckled," she said, adding in response to his puzzled stare, "It's a dimension thing." She hoped it sounded convincing because, frankly, while having cracked a few of these things, she really hadn't a clue. There was no way, however, that she was going to let Slack know that.

  Thankfully, Slack wasn't interested in deconstructing her statement too deeply. Because his attention had been sidetracked by other things, namely the glittering ore in the wall of the passageway revealed by the vanishing cryptoblock. It was only triviam, all but worthless, but its glittering held the promise of greater things, and as Slack wiped sweat from his lips with his arm, Kali frowned. There was a growing air about the man that suggested while he'd been happy to guide her to the entrance, he'd never really expected her to open it, and now that she had was maybe having second thoughts about who deserved the treasure beyond. Her suspicions were confirmed as Slack raced ahead of her into the opening.

  Cursing, Kali threw herself forward and grabbed his tunic from behind, just in time as it turned out. Slack was already skidding helplessly down a sharp incline and Kali fell onto her stomach with an oof as she was wrenched in after him. Her dark silk bodysuit tore at the waist and rough stone grazed her torso as she skidded down in his wake, but then she hooked and jammed her feet against the sides of the narrow passageway, tearing away loose stones and crying with the effort as she applied pressure to slow their progress. They continued to slide for a few more seconds but at last came to a stop. Slack was now a dead weight on her arm, the man dangling above a dark and seemingly bottomless abyss into which the disturbed stones poured around him, clattering echoingly ever down.