beams wreathed in fire. The heat was so intense they couldn’t go within ten yards of the door. A line of townsfolk relayed buckets from the nearest well, although the water they cast at the inferno had little effect. Vaelin moved among the crowd, searching frantically. “Where’s the mason?” he demanded. “Is he inside?”
People shrank from him, fear and animosity on every face. He told Caenis to ask them for the mason and a few hands pointed to a cluster of people nearby. Ahm-Lin lay on the street, his head cradled in his wife’s lap as she wept. Livid burns glistened on his face and arms. Vaelin knelt next to him, gently touching a hand to his chest to check he still drew breath.
“ Get away!” His wife lashed out, catching him on the jaw, pushing his hand away. “Leave him alone!” Her face was blackened with soot and livid with grief and fury. “Your fault! Your fault, Hope Killer!”
Ahm-Lin coughed, lurching on the ground as he fought for breath, eyes blinking open. “ Nura-lah! ” his wife sobbed, pulling him close. “ Erha ne almash. ”
“ Thank the Nameless, not the gods” Ahm-Lin rasped. His eyes found Vaelin and he beckoned him closer, whispering in his ear. “My wolf, brother…” His eyelids flickered and he lost consciousness, Vaelin sighing in relief at the sight of his swelling chest.
“ Get him to the Guild house,” he ordered Dentos. “Find a healer.”
Caenis came to him as they carried Ahm-Lin away, his wife clutching his hand. “They found the man who did this,” he said, gesturing at another knot of people. Vaelin rushed over, pushing through the cordon and finding a battered corpse lying on the cobbles. He kicked the body onto its back, seeing a bruised and completely unfamiliar face. An Alpiran face.
“ Who is he?” Vaelin asked, his gaze tracking the crowd as Caenis translated. After a moment a swarthy man stepped forward and spoke a few words, glancing uneasily at Vaelin.
“ The mason is well thought of,” Caenis related. “The work he does is considered sacred. This man shouldn’t have expected mercy.”
“ I asked who he is,” Vaelin grated.
Caenis relayed the question to the man in his halting but precise Alpiran, receiving only a blank shake of the head. Questions to the rest of the crowd elicited only meagre information. “No one seems to know his name, but he was a servant in one of the big houses. He took a blow to the head when they tried to break out a few weeks ago, hasn’t been the same since.”
“ Do they know why he did this?”
This produced a babble of seemingly unanimous responses. “He was found standing in the street with a flaming torch in his hand,” Caenis said. “Shouting that the mason was a traitor. It seems the mason’s friendship with you caused some bad talk, but no one expected this.”
Vaelin’s scrutiny of the crowd intensified under the blood-song’s guidance. The threat lingers. Someone here had a hand in this.
The sound of falling masonry made him turn back to the shop. The walls were crumbling as the fire ate the timbers inside. With the walls gone the many statues inside were revealed, gods, heroes and emperors serene and unmoving amidst the flames. The murmur of the crowd fell to hushed reverence, a few voices uttering prayers and supplications.
It’s not there, Vaelin realised, sweat beading on his brow as he moved closer to scan the blaze. The wolf is gone.
In the morning he searched amidst the wreckage, sifting ash under the impassive gaze of the blackened but otherwise undamaged marble gods. It had taken hours for the fire to subside, despite the countless water buckets heaved at it by the townsfolk and gathered soldiery. Eventually, when it became clear the surrounding houses were in no danger, he called a halt and let it burn. As dawn lit the city he sought out the block with its vital secret, finding nothing but ash and a few shattered pieces of marble which might have been anything. The blood-song was a constant mournful throb at the base of his skull. Nothing, he thought. This has all been for nothing.
“ You look tired.” Sherin stood nearby, grey cloaked and pale in the lingering smoke rising from the charred ruin. Her face was still guarded but he saw no anger there, just fatigue.
“ As do you, sister.”
“ The curative worked. The girl will be fully recovered in a few days. I thought I should let you know.”
“ Thank you.”
She gave barely perceptible nod. “It’s not quite over yet. We need to keep watch for more cases, but I’m confident any outbreak can be contained. Another week and the city can be opened once more.”
Her eyes surveyed the ruins then seemed to notice the statues for the first time, her gaze lingering on the massive form of the man and the lion locked in combat.
“ Martual, god of courage,” he told her. “Battling the Nameless great lion that laid waste to the southern plains.”
She reached up to caress the god’s unfeasibly muscled forearm. “Beautiful.”
“ Yes, it is. I know you’re tired sister but I would be grateful if you could look at the man who carved it. He was badly burned in the fire.”
“ Of course. Where do I find him?”
“ At the Guild house near the docks. I’ve had quarters prepared for you there. I’ll show you.”
“ I’m sure I can find it.” She turned to go then paused. “Governor Aruan told me about the night you took the city, how you secured his co-operation. I feel my words may have been overly harsh.”
She held his gaze and he felt the familiar ache in his chest, but this time it warmed him, dispelling the blood- song’s sorrowful dirge and bringing a smile to his lips, though the Departed knew he had little to smile about.
“ You have been released on the king’s orders,” he said. “Brother Frentis brought a royal command.”
“ Really?” She arched an eyebrow. “May I see it?”
“ Sadly, it has been lost.” He gestured at the smoking mess around them by way of explanation.
“ Unusually clumsy of you, Vaelin.”
“ No, I’m often clumsy, in my deeds and my words.”
A brief answering smile lit Sherin’s face before she looked away. “I should see to this artistic friend of yours.”
The gates were opened seven days later. Vaelin also ordered the sailors released, though only one crew at a time. It provoked little surprise when most chose to leave port with the earliest tide, the Red Falcon amongst the first to depart, Captain Nurin hounding his crew with desperate urgency as if afraid Vaelin would attempt a last minute retrieval of the bluestone.
Some of the richer citizens also chose to leave, fear of the Red Hand did not fade quickly. Vaelin managed to intercept the one-time employer of the man who had set fire to Ahm-Lin’s shop, a richly attired if somewhat bedraggled spice merchant, chafing under guard at the eastern gate as Vaelin questioned him. His family and remaining servants lingered nearby, pack horses laden with assorted valuables.
“ His name was carpenter, as far as I knew,” the merchant said. “I can’t be expected to remember every servant in my employ. I pay people to remember for me.” The man’s knowledge of the Realm tongue was impeccable, but there was an arrogant disdain to his tone Vaelin didn’t like. However the fellow’s evident fear made him suppress the urge to deliver an encouraging cuff across the face.
“ He had a wife?” he asked. “A family?”
The merchant shrugged. “I think not, seemed to spend most his free time carving wooden effigies of the gods.”
“ I heard he was injured, a blow to the head.”
“ Most of us were that night.” The merchant lifted a silken sleeve to display a stitched cut on his forearm. “Your men were very free with their clubs.”
“ The carpenter’s injury,” Vaelin pressed.
“ He took a blow to the head, a bad one it seems. My men carried him back to the house unconscious. In truth we thought him dead, but he lingered for several days, barely breathing. Then he simply woke up, showing no ill-effects. My servants thought it the work of the gods, a reward for all his carvings. The next morning he was gone, having said no words since his awakening.” The merchant glanced back at his waiting family, impatience and fear showing in the tremble of his hands.
“ I know you were not complicit in this,” he told the merchant, stepping aside. “Luck to you on your journey.”
