They got to their feet and hurried out into the corridor. Hawk spotted one of Tomb's long hooded robes hanging on a wall hook, and slipped it on instead of his own distinctive Guard's cloak. With the hood pulled well forward, he looked like just another priest. He glanced at Fisher.
'Maybe you should try a disguise, too.'
Fisher shook her head. 'Six-foot muscular blond women tend to stand out in a crowd, no matter what they're wearing. I'll just have to be careful, that's all. It's dark out, so as long as I keep well back and stick to the shadows, I should be all right. I'll meet you two hours from now at the Dead Dog tavern. Our usual booth. Sound good to you?'
'Great,' said Hawk. 'Maybe now we'll get a break on this case, and find a motive that makes sense. The way things are going, I'd settle for a motive that doesn't make sense. Now let's move it, before we lose them.'
Hawk had no trouble locating Tomb. The sorcerer was striding down the Street of Gods at a pace that kept threatening to break into a run. People saw the scowl on his face and got out of his way fast. Hawk strode along after him, not even trying to be inconspicuous. Even at this late hour of the evening there were crowds of priests and acolytes and worshippers bustling back and forth, getting on with the business of life that the riot had only briefly interrupted. Hawk was just another robed figure among many. Not that Tomb would have noticed anyway. He shouldered his way through the crowd with utter indifference to the snarls and curses this earned him, apparently entirely preoccupied with wherever he was going. Hawk had been banking on that. If Tomb even suspected he was being followed, he would undoubtedly have any number of spells to deal with the situation, few if any of them pleasant.
Tomb strode on, ignoring the manifestations that haunted the sidewalks and alleyways. Hawk did his best to do the same, but was momentarily thrown when an acolyte in a cheap crimson robe stepped directly in front of him to beg for a blessing. Hawk put a hand on the acolyte's shaven head, muttered something about peace and joy and brotherhood, and hurried after Tomb, hoping fervently that he hadn't inadvertently invoked a nearby Being by accident. You had to be careful what you said on the Street of Gods. You could never be sure who was listening.
He followed Tomb down into the low-rent section of the Street of Gods, where the twisting back streets and alleyways turned in upon themselves, offering sanctuary to Beings and beliefs who had fallen on hard times. A last harbor for forgotten Gods and fading philosophies. Hawk hung well back as Tomb approached a nondescript, weather-beaten door set into a dirty white wall. The sorcerer produced a heavy iron key from a hidden pocket and unlocked the large iron padlock. The door creaked open under his hand, and he disappeared inside, pulling the door shut behind him.
Hawk quickly took up a position in a shadowed doorway overlooking the street, in case this was only a way stop and the sorcerer might reappear unexpectedly. Long moments passed. No one moved in the narrow back street. Hawk bit his lip, scowling thoughtfully. What the hell was Tomb doing here? It couldn't be anything illegal; the sorcerer had made no attempt to disguise his appearance. But what was so important to Tomb that it could drag him down here at this time of the night, when he was clearly already exhausted from coping with the riot? Hawk left his hiding place and padded silently over to the shabby door. He listened carefully, but everything seemed quiet within. He tried the door handle and raised an eyebrow as it turned easily under his hand, and the door swung open. Hawk froze as the door hinges creaked softly, but no one came to investigate. He slipped inside and eased the door shut behind him.
The narrow hallway was lit by a single lamp on the wall. Hawk tested the glass with his fingertips. It was barely warm. Tomb must have lit the lamp when he came in, which suggested there was no one here but the sorcerer. The walls were bare wood. They might have been waxed or polished a long time ago, but now there was only a thick coating of dust on the dull surfaces. Whatever this place was, no one had lived in it for a long time. There were no doors leading off the hallway. Hawk followed it to its end, where it turned a sharp corner and became a long narrow stairway leading down into darkness. Hawk scowled at the bottomless gloom, and then reached for the stub of candle and box of matches he kept in his cloak pocket for emergencies. His fingers scrabbled futilely against rough cloth for a long moment before he remembered he was wearing one of Tomb's robes instead of his Guard's cloak. He cursed under his breath, and padded back down the hall to fetch the lamp.
The stairway didn't look nearly so menacing in the lamplight, but even so he still hesitated at the top of the stairs. When all was said and done, following a sorcerer into an unknown situation was never a Good Idea. There could well be a magical bodyguard or booby trap waiting for him at the foot of the stairs. The suppressor stone might protect him… but it was still in Fisher's pocket. Hawk shook his head quickly, and drew his axe. He'd faced sorcerers before with nothing but cold steel in his hand, and he was damned if he'd let his nerves get the better of him now.
He descended slowly into the dark, lamp in one hand, axe in the other, ears straining for any sound down below. The walls were bare stone, rough and crumbling and splotched here and there with clumps of lichen. What the hell was Tomb doing in a dump like this? It couldn't be anything commonplace or innocent, or he'd have said where he was going. Since he hadn't, that meant Tomb either wouldn't or couldn't explain. Hawk didn't like secrets. Particularly when they left him in the dark in the middle of a murder enquiry. The stairs ended at a simple wooden door, standing slightly ajar. Light shone round its edges. Hawk stayed put on the bottom step and chewed his bottom lip thoughtfully. He seemed to have spent an awful lot of time hovering outside ominous-looking doors recently, and none of them had led him anywhere pleasant. He hefted his axe, took a deep breath and let it go, and kicked the door open.
'Come in, Captain Hawk,' said Tomb. 'I've been waiting for you.'
The sorcerer was sitting on a plain wooden stool, a few yards beyond the doorway. Above and around him loomed a bare stone cavern, maybe twenty feet high and almost as wide. A pale blue light flickered around the sorcerer, gleaming brightly on metallic traces in the rock. There was no one else there, only the sorcerer Tomb. Hawk stayed put in the doorway, looking around him. There had to be someone else there. Tomb couldn't have come all this way just to sit in a cave by himself.
'How long have you known I was here?' he asked finally, careful to keep his voice calm and relaxed.
'Quite some time, Captain. I wouldn't be much of a sorcerer if I didn't know when I was being spied on, now would I? Don't worry; I'm not angry. In your position, I'd probably have done the same. Probably. I like the robe, by the way. It suits you.'
'Tomb, what are you doing here?'
'It's rather difficult to put into words, Captain. But if you'll stop skulking in the shadows and come and join me, I'll do my best to explain.'
Hawk mentally tossed a coin, shrugged, and stepped forward. He might as well, he wasn't learning anything useful where he was. The moment he crossed the threshold, the Presence washed over him like a wave. It filled the cavern; a vast, implacable but utterly intangible Presence. It was like nothing but itself; a living entity with no physical existence, but so real that Hawk could almost feel its heartbeat against his skin. He looked wonderingly at Tomb, who smiled faintly.
'Le Bel Inconnu; the Fair Unknown. It was worshipped as a God long ago, in another place. My family served as its priests for generations. But we are both far from home now, this God and I. It seems I am the last of my line, and when Le Bel Inconnu discovered it was dying, it had no one else to turn to but me.'
'Dying?' said Hawk. 'How can a God die? It doesn't even have a body!'
'Things are never that simple, Hawk. Especially not here, on the Street of Gods. There is a time for everything, a beginning and an end for all that exists. Le Bel Inconnu was once a great Being, and knew the worship of millions. Now it is almost completely forgotten, nothing more than an obscure footnote in some of the order histories. It has no followers and no priests. It came here to die, Hawk, to fade quietly away into the nothing it came from, and go to whatever afterlife Gods go to. I spend what time with it I can, and never know from one day to the next whether it will still be here the next time I call.'
'But why all the secrecy?' said Hawk.
Tomb sighed tiredly. 'No member of the Deity Division is allowed to worship a God, Captain Hawk. Religion and faith are not for us. It's the law. How else could the Beings on the Street respect our judgements, and be bound by them, unless they could be sure we showed no favor to any of them? But I can't abandon Le Bel Inconnu. No one should have to go into the dark alone, with no one to care or even know they've gone. But if word of my vigil were to get out, I'd have to leave the God Squad. I don't want that. I've given my life to the Squad. Before I took over, it was a mess. No one took it seriously, least of all the Beings. I changed all that. Made the Squad a power to be
