Orb Sceptre Throne

What would be over? This nightmare of a night? Or far more than that? Ebbin dreaded the answer. As they closed on the gates the great iron-bound leaves improbably swung open to greet them, and there was Taya. She waved them in.

Aman frog-marched him onward. Like Taya, he too was glancing behind, squinting with one eye, then the other. What was back there? Ebbin tried to look but the shopkeeper forced him on. They passed through mostly empty streets. In one of the market squares the early-morning vendors were busy setting up their stalls and arranging their goods. Ebbin and Aman marched through with no one paying them any particular attention. Taya was still with them. Sometimes she shadowed them closely and Ebbin caught sight of her glowing white robes. At other times she was nowhere to be seen.

They reached the main east-west thoroughfare that ran alongside the Second Tier Wall. Aman hugged Ebbin closely, as if afraid he would run off, but the scholar was too confused to muster any sort of resolution. At times he didn’t recognize any of the streets they walked. Tall white-stone buildings faced the roads, great estates, their facades richly decorated with scrollwork. Fanciful miniature creatures, some winged, peeped out amid the scrolls and stone forests.

And Ebbin recognized the style. It was the fabled Darujhistani Imperial baroque.

But perhaps this was all nothing more than his own deluded wish fulfilment. He wondered, terrified, whether the horrific events in the mausoleum had finally driven him over the edge. Perhaps he was mad. His peers, the scholars and researchers of the Philosophical Society, had already dismissed him as such.

He remembered a chilling definition of insanity he’d read in some wry old commentator’s compendium: when you think everyone around you is mad, that’s when you should start to suspect it’s actually you.

They reached the ruined old gates to the estate district and here another figure awaited them. This one appeared to be no more than a dark shadow, a tall man in tattered clothes, a ghost. Ebbin flinched away but Aman marched him right up to the wavering, translucent shade.

Taya, now with them, curtsied to the ghost. ‘Uncle,’ she murmured.

Aman bowed mockingly. ‘Well met, Hinter.’

The shade arched a brow in lofty disparagement. ‘Aman. We’d thought you dead.’

The hunched shopkeeper waved to indicate his bent body. ‘Who could have survived, yes?’

‘Indeed.’

‘All is in readiness?’ Aman enquired.

‘All is ready,’ the shade responded tartly, ‘since I am left with no alternative. He comes?’

Aman shook Ebbin by his shoulders. ‘Oh yes. He comes. Always a way, scholar. There is always a way. If it is nearly impossible to break in — then perhaps one must reverse one’s thinking, yes? I am sorry, scholar. But no one has ever escaped him.’

The shade turned away. ‘Not true,’ it murmured. ‘One did.’

Aman sniffed and rubbed his lopsided face. ‘Him. I never did believe that.’

*

Spindle and Picker followed the masked man up the Raven Town trader road, all the way into town. It was eerie the way no one was about. Dogs ran before it. Early-morning merchants and farmers turned sharply to take side streets, or quickly entered shops and buildings lining the way. The man had the entire road to himself. Picker passed men and women crouched in the dirt beside it, hands covering their faces, shuddering. Picker yanked a hand away from the face of one old farmer only to provoke gabbled terror and tears.

The fellow strode majestically along right up to and through the open Raven Town gate. A city gate that should not be open. Picker signed to Spindle to check out the west gatehouse, then slipped into the east. Blend, she knew, would keep tabs on their friend. Inside she found the guards dead, thrust through with swift professional cuts. Their young little sprite? Or another? An organization? Their guild friends?

She exited to see Spindle, who signed that on his side all were dead. She answered in kind. Together they trotted on after Blend. They found early risers in the streets but all were silent, all turned to face the walls. Picker pulled one burly labourer round only to find him weeping, his eyes screwed shut.

At the spice-sellers’ square they found the morning market already set up in a maze of carts, mats laid out and stalls unfolded, but utterly silent and still. People crouched, hiding their faces, or lay on their sides as if asleep. Picker swallowed to wet her throat, tightened her sweaty grip on her long-knife. Then Spindle touched her shoulder and pointed up to the paling clear night sky.

‘Would ya look at that.’

*

Ambassador Aragan awoke with a start and a curse. He flailed about, searching for a weapon.

‘It’s all right, sir!’ a familiar voice yelped, alarmed. ‘It’s me sir!’

Aragan sat up, blinking in the dark. ‘Burn’s teats, man! What hour is it?’

‘Just dawn, sir.’

‘This better be good, Captain.’

‘Yes, sir. It’s the Moranth mission, sir. They’re fleeing the city.’

Aragan gaped at the captain, then shut his mouth. ‘What?’ He threw himself from his bed, searched the floor. Captain Dreshen held out his dressing gown.

‘This way, sir.’

Dreshen led him to what had originally been a front guest bedroom but was now an office of trade relations. Here night staff crowded the windows looking over the city. Aragan pushed his way through to the front. The pre- dawn was a paling violet in the east, the brightest stars still blazing above. His heart sinking, Aragan saw the obscene green streak over the setting, mottled moon. He made a sign against evil, though he knew the gesture was meaningless. After all, every escaped cow and dead chicken was blamed on the damned thing, so there was no way of knowing what influence, if any, it might be exerting on anyone’s life.

Movement caught his eye. Winking, glimmering, flashing high over the city. Quorl wings — a flight of the giant dragonfly-like creatures taking their Moranth masters west, to the Mountains of Mist, which some called Cloud Forest. Aragan was reminded of the Free Cities campaign to the north and similar night flights and drops over Pale and Cat.

Even as he watched, another wing took flight, heaving up from rooftops around the quarters of the Moranth embassy. The quorls turned through the air, wings scintillating like jewels in the pre-dawn light, and arced to the west. Aragan watched them go, feeling both terrified and exhilarated. He pushed away from the window, faced his aide. ‘Rouse the garrison, Captain. Order full alert.’

The aide saluted. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘And fetch my armour.’

*

Picker ducked reflexively as quorls swooped overhead, sending stalls toppling and garments and powdered spice flying.

‘Dammit to dead Hood!’ Spindle swore. ‘Is it a drop?’

Picker covered her eyes from the stinging spice. ‘No. A pick-up. They’re runnin’.’

‘Fanderay … maybe we should too.’

‘Not yet. We’ve been hired to recon. So-’ She broke off as a whistle sounded. ‘That’s Blend. This way, c’mon.’

They halted at the corner of a wide boulevard. Blend stepped out of shadows to meet them. ‘You lose him?’ Picker asked.

‘Hood, no. Walkin’ right up aside the Second Tier Wall, plain as day. Headed for the estate district.’

‘You see them quorls?’ Spindle asked.

Blend eyed him as if he were demented. ‘You two hang back. I’ll tag along.’

Picker nodded. ‘Right.’

Spindle handed over a satchel. ‘Take this … insurance.’

She held the bag away from herself. ‘This what I think it is?’

‘Yeah.’

She shot him a dark look. ‘Been holding out on us?’

‘No more than anyone else.’

‘That’s not an answer,’ Blend growled.