Farlander

and they would be forced to leave the city without finishing their vendetta. It wouldn't be the first time, or so he had heard.

But Nico understood Ash only too well now, and knew himself to be cradling a false hope. He turned away from the sight of the tower, tried to turn his thoughts to other things.

Serese studied him carefully. 'How are you this morning?' she asked.

'A little tired,' he confessed. 'I didn't sleep well. I think I will be glad to leave this place.'

'You do not like it here.'

'No, I don't. There are too many people and too few places to be alone.'

Aleas slapped his shoulder. 'Spoken like a true farmer.'

'When, in all the world, did I ever claim to be a farmer?'

'You didn't. It's the smell, mostly.'

Nico was in no mood for their usual banter, and would have said something short-tempered in return if he had not seen Baracha departing just then. The Alhazii jerked his head at Aleas and his daughter, beckoning them to follow.

Aleas nodded goodbye to Nico. 'Stay safe,' said Serese as they hurried to catch up.

Ash approached, his head bowed in thought.

'I must make some inquiries,' he informed Nico. 'Come.'

'Wait a moment.'

Ash turned back, impatient.

'This thing you're proposing – to attack the tower, I mean. It sounds like madness to me.'

The farlander's dark skin looked thinner in the afternoon sunlight. He had lost a good deal of blood the night before. 'I know,' he said, and his voice sounded tired. 'But not concern yourself with it. I made a promise to your mother to keep you safe, remember?'

'I think my mother's notion of safety and your own are two different things entirely.'

Ash nodded. 'Still, I mean to keep my promise. When we breach the tower, you will not come with me. It is too dangerous. You are hardly experienced enough for such a venture. I agree, Nico, there is a touch of madness to this plan, but I fear that a little madness is necessary if we are to see through our vendetta. When we are inside, you will stay with Serese and help us to escape the immediate area if we make it back out.'

'It isn't only myself that I'm concerned about.'

A little colour returned to the old man's face. 'I understand. But this is our business, Nico. These are the risks we must take.' He cast further debate aside with a shrug.

'Enough talk. Come.'

*

The house was on a street of many houses, all of them empty shells of former dwellings, their windows smashed or boarded up, their interiors strewn with wreckage, a few burnt black and gutted. Only the house itself was still lived in, neighboured on each side by a derelict in a terraced row of derelicts. Even then it looked barely more habitable than the rest of them. Its windows were grimy with soot and blanked from within by dark curtains. Paint that may once have been an optimistic yellow hung peeling from the brick walls. A weather-vane – depicting a naked man holding a bolt of lightning – dangled from the guttering of the roof and swung, creaking, in the soft breeze.

Nico stared up, feeling exposed beneath this swinging vane that looked as though it might topple at any moment, though probably it had hung loose like that for months before now, years even. Through the front door, the heavy knocking of the clapper still echoed within as Ash lowered his hand and stepped back to wait.

Behind them, the fringes of what was once an expansive block of buildings lay in collapsed ruins, destroyed by fire long ago. A great midden heap rose from the ruins to block out much of the sky. Rats worked across its flanks without shyness, scampering through scraps of rubbish that flapped like hands waving for help. The stench of rot was overwhelming. It was so prevalent that even the odd gust of wind could not shift it, but instead stirred it around in sudden, unexpected concoctions that made the throat gag and the eyes water.

Nico tried not to breathe as he turned back to face the heavily scratched wooden door of the house they were visiting. By his side, Ash hummed something under his breath. It didn't sound like music to Nico's ears; more a series of words spoken without actually opening the mouth.

'The art of melody was never discovered by your people then?'

The humming stopped, as Ash stared at him. The old farlander was about to speak when they heard from within a chair crashing over, or something equally as heavy. Someone swore. A chain rattled, then a bolt was withdrawn, and another. The door scraped against the floor as it was tugged inwards.

'Yes?' The woman was short, stooping almost to the waist. She clutched a lantern in one hand, a stick in the other to support her weight, as she craned her neck to squint upwards at the two strangers standing before her. Nico blinked down at her filthy face; her hair so scraggy it resembled fur; a moustache better developed than any he might have grown for himself.

'We are here to see Gamorrel,' said Ash. 'Tell him it is the far-lander.'

'What?' she said.

Ash sighed. He leaned closer to her ear.

'Your husband,' he said more loudly. 'Tell him an old farlander wishes to see him.'

'I'm not deaf,' she said. 'Come in. Come in.'

Inside, the house was much the same as on the outside. They followed the old woman as she shuffled slowly along the hallway, Nico and Ash stepping side by side as though in a processional march into the heart of some hidden temple – though a temple whose walls were built from brick coated with flaking plaster, and adorned with pictures hanging in frames too dim to see in the stuttering light of the lantern – held by the woman at the height of their waists – and a wooden floor illuminated before them, deeply coated in white dust and with grit that scratched the soles of their boots. Around them the air was filled with unholy stench, like cabbage boiled solidly for a day and a night. A rat scurried past their feet; others wormed along the edges of the hallway.

They ascended stairs that creaked beneath their weight in a manner suggestive of imminent collapse. They could only take one stair at a time, waiting for the woman to move on before taking another. Nico and Ash glanced at one another, saying nothing. Then another door: a sigil painted in red paint, or blood, depicting a seven-pointed star.

They entered a parlour: a room lit by a few smoky lanterns sitting on a table already covered with figurines, charms, stone mortars and pestles, knives, pins, other items unknowable. Sheets of cloth sagged across the ceiling, like the roof of a tent. Beneath them, on a chair positioned near the curtained window, sat an old man in a waistcoat with his hands resting upon his stomach, his eyes closed, snoring loudly. His lap was filled with a mound of rats, who lay there with tails entwined and watched the newcomers enter.

The man stirred at the sound of the door closing behind Nico and Ash. A lock of lank, black hair fell across his face and he scratched himself, then continued to snore.

'Gamorrel,' Ash said loudly, as he nudged the old fellow's foot, scattering the rats from his lap in the process.

The man did not jerk awake but instead opened the lids of a single eye just wide enough to peer out through them, as though to spy the lie of the land before emerging any further from the safety of sleep. At the sight of Ash his face twitched. He roused himself.

'I might have known,' emerged his time roughened voice. 'Only a Rshun would dare awaken a sleeping sharti.'

'Up. We have business to discuss.'

'Oh? What kind of business?'

A leather coin-purse dropped into his lap, the weight of it enough to jerk him upright. A grin stretched across his whiskered face, revealing teeth as brown as ale.

'Interesting,' he crooned, and rose smoothly without effort. 'Please, step into my chamber.' And he led just Ash into another room, and closed the door firmly behind them.

'Have a seat,' said the old woman, guiding Nico to one of the chairs by the window. 'Chee, yes? Some chee?'

Nico smiled and shook his head. He thought of the rats scurrying over everything, the grime and filth of the whole place, the dirt embedded in the old woman's yellowed fingernails.