field. Other than that the Great Hall appeared empty. He walked slowly up its polished pink marble floor — recently dusted, he noted — his boot heels clicking loudly in the silence.
Someone, or something, waited at the far end. Some sort of large seat had been constructed of white stone blocks and someone sat upon it. He wore a long loose cloak of rich material, a deep maroon. But what was most mystifying was the large gold mask that entirely covered his face.
Coll stopped short of the — what should he call it? A dais? — and squinted up at the figure. ‘Lim? Is that you? What is all this ridiculous mummery?’
The figure on the dais flicked a hand and out from the side of the hall shuffled an old man in dusty frayed clothes, grey hair all askew. The man bowed to Coll, and, nervously rubbing his hands at his chest, gulped, ‘I speak for the Legate.’
‘What? You?’ Coll turned on Lim. ‘Speak for your damned self!’ He drew breath to excoriate the fool but stopped; he saw that the gold mask, beaten in the design of a calm half-smiling face, had no holes in it whatsoever. None for eyes or mouth.
A strange urge almost overcame Coll then to tear the mask from the fool’s face but he was distracted by the emergence of a second man from the side of the hall. A tall familiar figure walking with a staff of twisted gnarled wood. His one-time employer, High Alchemist Baruk.
Relief flooded Coll. ‘Thank goodness … Baruk, what is all this nonsense?’
The man came very close and Coll saw that the man was Baruk, yet not. A nest of pale scars skeined his face and hands and his lips were drawn back from his teeth in a savage gleeful smile. Yet only a dead sort of dismissal, if even that, animated his eyes.
And suddenly Coll knew.
Baruk shook his head, the smile broadening to become somehow even more fey. ‘You still don’t understand, Coll,’ he whispered, leaning close. ‘We’re here now because the Cabal failed.’
The hamlet clinging on at the southern edge of the Dwelling Plain was on no map. Once every few years a caravan train of camels and mules passed by on its way south to Callows and Morn beyond. But other than such intermittent visitors only ill-advised travellers, the desperate, criminal, or utterly lost, ever found their way to such an isolated stretch of emptiness. The inhabitants, refugees mostly, peppered by a few hardened locals born and raised, were bent to their task of squeezing any sustenance out of the unproductive sandy soil. Those in the southernmost fields noted the strange phenomenon first: a dark snaking line coming out of the depths of the hard brush of the Plain of Lamatath to the south. A few stopped to peer, hands shading their eyes, then returned to hoeing and jabbing at the hard soil as if to beat it into submission.
When next they looked up, the line had drawn nearer, taken on more dimension in the shimmering heat-glare of the sun. It looked like a double file of men jogging, no doubt on the move since dawn and not stopping yet. Some leaned on their hoes to watch for a time, wondering at the bizarre sight. One or two thought that perhaps they ought to sound some sort of alarm. Though what any of them could do in the face of such an unprecedented visitation they were not sure.
Close to noon, the sun at its highest, their unrelenting steady approach brought the file of men — and women — close enough now to make out details. Everyone had stopped working to watch, silent. Lightly armoured, they were, in leathers, those leathers now dark with sweat. All were armed with long blades, some carrying two. All lean, wiry and nut-dark. But these details were as nothing compared to their most extraordinary feature: all wore masks. And multicoloured, they were, too. Painted almost gaily.
They could be faintly heard now. Their sandalled feet fell unusually light upon the dry hardpan, all in unison, like a distant drumming. The double file of men and women passed straight across the landscape, unwavering, arrow-like, pointed north-east. Without a pause each easily vaulted a heaped wall of fieldstone as they came to it. The sight made one farmer think of a stream of water flowing magically northward.
And on they passed, none even sparing a glance for the closest of the farmers who stood not an arm’s reach aside. Apart from the beat of their footfalls, utterly silent. Ghost-like. Indeed, it was almost like a vision imposed by the heat. Only the dust remained to hang in the still air, the file now to the north, jogging onward, diminishing.
Yet as the dust settled it revealed a newcomer. One of the masked. He’d stopped next to one of the children: young Hireth. Who stood staring up, mouth agape, water gourd in one hand. The man knelt, held out a hand for the gourd. Hireth’s father dared to edge slightly closer; the visitor seemed to ignore him. As if being shaken out of a daze Hireth snapped her mouth shut then held out the gourd. The man took it. He turned his head aside while he lifted his mask to drink, then rose and handed back the gourd. Something in his manner made her bend her knees in a curtsy. The man reached out to gently run a hand down one cheek of her bare upturned face. The father almost started forward then but something in the gentleness of the touch, its near reverence, made him stop. He watched spellbound, his pickaxe clenched in his sweaty hands.
And the stranger set off, running gracefully at a league-swallowing easy pace. Hireth’s father came to her. ‘Did he say anything, child?’
She shook her head, as if she too had somehow been captured by the visitors’ spell of silence.
He squeezed her shoulder to reassure her. So, he hadn’t spoken. Somehow he didn’t imagine the man, or demon, had. And he’d been different from the rest. His mask had been very pale, all creamy white, it was. With only one smear of reddish dirt across the brow.
CHAPTER X
Let it be known that a number of centuries past an ambitious and expansionist dynasty of rulers named the Jannids asserted control over the southern city states. These rulers prosecuted successful campaigns across the lands gaining sway all the way north to the Pannion region. They were famous for having raised countless stelae upon which they ordered engraved the detailed histories of those campaigns, listing their victories, together with exhaustive compilings of treasure taken, prisoners, and states humbled. Only in one campaign were they crushed — a defeat that triggered their downfall. This is known because of one unpolished boulder that lies on the western shore south of Morn. Carved on it are a mere four words: ‘The Jannids fell here.’
The first vessel leaving Darujhistan’s harbour that morning was an old merchantman ferrying passengers and freight westward around the lakeshore. Upon sighting the ancient ship, its paint sun-faded to a uniform pale grey, sails patched and threadbare, sides battered and scraped to naked slivers, Torvald halted on the wharf. Passengers brushed past laden with rolled reed mats and bags of possessions. Some drove young sucklings ahead of them. Just about all carried fowl gobbling inside cages woven of reed and green branches.
He turned on one of the city Wardens sent to escort him to the docks. ‘This is supposed to be a diplomatic mission,’ he hissed, struggling to keep his voice low. ‘I can’t go on this tub!’
One of the guards tucked a folded pinch of leaves into a cheek and leaned against piled crates. ‘It’s a secret mission, Councillor,’ he drawled.
Torvald tried his best superior glare but the fellow was clearly indifferent. ‘If it’s so secret then how come you know about it? And don’t call me Councillor.’
A lazy roll of the shoulders from the man. ‘Orders.’
Torvald began to wonder just what those orders were.
