“I would appreciate it if you would make no sudden moves. I have bad memories of the last time the two of us fought.”
“It would seem you’ve come a long way since — unless you were only pretending then.”
He said nothing, not bothered if she wished to jump to the wrong conclusions.
“I can understand why Lady Asea has taken such an interest in you now. Did she ask you to kill me?”
“You mean the way you asked me to kill her.”
“She is the enemy of my nation and she was the enemy of my father.”
“She is not my enemy.”
“I can see that you believe that. Were you ever what you pretended to be?”
“Interested in killing her? No, not really.”
“Do you intend to try and kill me?”
“No. We talked about this before. It might be useful to both of us to have a friend on the other side.”
“Are you trying to recruit me?”
“No. I am just telling you what I think.”
“And you really expect me to take you up on that, after you killed my — our — father.”
“I am just letting you know the offer still stands.”
She slumped backwards and laughed again. It was an odd sound, half mirth, half sorrow. “I can’t actually believe that this time he won’t be coming back. He always seemed invincible.”
Rik could not disagree with that. One thing Malkior had not lacked was self-confidence. He had planned to use the entire human race as cattle if he got the chance. It was no small ambition.
“So the old monster is finally dead,” said Tamara. “And I am free of him after all these years.”
“If that’s what you want,” said Rik cautiously.
“He was hateful and he made me the same.”
This was not exactly the reaction he had been expecting.
“And what am I going to do about you?” she asked. “I doubt the Empress would recognise any claim of yours to his estates.”
Was that what she was worried about? Malkior must have been extremely wealthy. He had been one of the First and one of the most powerful nobles in the Dark Empire. If that was what she was concerned about, she could stop.
“I don’t want anything that belonged to him,” he said, and was surprised to find that he meant it. Not that it made much difference anyway. Tamara was right. The Sardeans would never accept a legal claim from someone like him. “It would appear that you are rich.”
She studied him closely. The appraisal in her gaze started to make him uncomfortable. “You got more from him than I think you know.”
“Forgive me if I seem ungrateful.”
“I think you inherited some of his personality as well as some of his gifts and his tastes. I noticed it during our last meeting. You have taken up thanatomancy, haven’t you?”
“Not willingly.”
She arched an eyebrow.
“I killed a Quan. It was trying to eat my soul. Instead I ate its.”
She looked shocked and a little more respectful. “Then you have more native talent than most sorcerers.”
“So Lady Asea tells me.”
“She would know.” An uncomfortable silence filled the air between them. Rik wondered how he was going to get out of here without shooting her. He had no desire to turn his back on her as he went up the stairs.
“What will you do now?” he asked eventually.
“I believe I will return to Sardea and stake my claim on the estate before I am declared dead too.”
“There is a war on. You may find it difficult to travel.”
She gestured towards the shadows. “I am sure I will find a way.”
He was sure about that too. She was nothing if not competent.
“What about you?” she asked. “I hear there is an Inquisitor in Halim and he is interested in you.”
“I have heard that too.”
“Will you kill him?”
“If it proves necessary, I might.”
“I would advise you to run as far and as fast as you can. The Inquisition has great power and I doubt even you can kill all of them.”
“Your concern touches me.”
“It is genuine, believe it or not. I have always liked you.”
“People keep telling me that. It makes me suspicious.”
“No-one made you suspicious. You were born that way.”
There was a strange tension in the air. Rik wondered what it was. They seem to have exhausted whatever business was between them, but she seemed oddly reluctant to go.
“He is really dead?” she asked. There was no need to ask to whom she referred.
“Yes.”
“Then I am finally free.”
“If that’s what his death means to you then yes.”
“I find myself not sure what to do now. I have lived in his shadow for so long.”
Rik thought of his own life, the dead mother he had never known, his abandonment, his life in the orphanage and as a soldier, his confrontations with Malkior. “We both have,” he said at last. “We’ve both lived in his shadow.”
“I will bid you farewell,” she said, and stepped back. The shadows extended to greet her, and he was aware of the sensation of reality tearing. A moment later the darkness folded in on itself and she was gone. He waited for a second to be sure that no attack was coming and then began to edge away towards the exit.
He wondered if he would ever see her again.
Briefly Tamara fell through a cold airless place in which alien things waited. She stepped from the shadows and into the small room she had taken overlooking the old necromantic lab. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs then let out a long sigh of relief.
A quick glance around told her that no-one waited in ambush. None of her wards had been disturbed.
She felt weak at the knees. She was not sure whether it was from emotional distress or the toll that shadow-walking always took from her. The greatest of efforts sent stumbling across the room to slump down in the single chair.
Elation, fear and relief fought a three way battle in her mind. Her father was dead. At long last the old monster was gone. She was free of him, and his schemes, free of the ancient evil he represented.
Carved ikons left by the previous occupants leered down at her mockingly, and she reminded herself just how false their promise of salvation was. This world was in the grip of the Shadow. Evil was the true lord of the universe and there was no escape from that. Her father might be gone, but there were others like him, and worse things waiting to take his place.
How odd, she thought, that one so deadly should meet his fate at the hands of a mere youth, one who had not possessed a thousandth of his knowledge. It seemed that Malkior had forgotten his own lessons in the end. He had never tired of telling her that even the most expert swordsman can be killed by a fool that gets lucky.
Rik was no fool though. He was calm and calculating and there was something quite chilling about him that had not been there only a few months ago. She supposed the human part of him that was responsible for that. He had their trick of changing very quickly, of growing and learning almost before your eyes. He had succeeded in frightening her and not many people had ever managed that.
Perhaps it had not been him but the things that looked out of his eyes. She had sensed them there, the Elder world demon and its victims. He had partaken of its forbidden knowledge and she wondered whether it would destroy him in the end.
It was such knowledge that had really destroyed her father. Malkior had become ever more erratic in recent years. No mind, human or Terrarch, was capable of devouring another one and remaining completely sane. There
