Nightchild

'I'll be back in a moment but don't leave the library. There are still those who are very bitter about what happened the last time you were in our Tower.'

The archivist bowed slightly and walked away, Denser hearing the door shut gently. It wasn't so much Denser they were bitter about, he assumed, more his Familiar who had, at his bidding, killed a Dordovan mage in a room high up in the Tower. He had never felt any sympathy for the man – his had been a stupid action in capturing the mind-melded demon in the first place – but he had regretted the necessity of his death nonetheless. Dawnthief and the salvation of

Balaia had been at stake and there was nothing that couldn't be sacrificed.

Denser turned his attention back to the prophecy, flicking on, the pages creaking against their bindings. He frowned, looking again at one of the partially blank pages. There was something not right about the parchment. He brought the lantern closer and looked, smoothing down the opposite pages. They were different colours, the translated paler than the transcript. And the clinching evidence was there in the spine and the bindings. He quickly checked all the blank and part blank pages, six of them. There could be no doubt. They were newer.

He really had no choice. With his heart thumping in his chest, and his ears straining for any sound of the returning archivist, Denser drew a dagger and slit the untranslated pages from the volume, folding them hurriedly and stuffing them inside his shirt. He resheathed his dagger and turned to an undamaged spread as the door opened.

'Thank you,' he said as a tray containing coffee and bread were placed on the table. He poured a mug with a slightly quivering hand. That had been a little close.

'Anything you need help with?' asked the archivist.

'No,' said Denser, smiling. 'I'm all but done. Just a few more passages.'

The Dordovan moved away. Denser leaned back and watched him, blowing on his coffee and taking a sip. It wasn't too hot and he gulped down half the mug. He took a bite out of the cold meat sandwich. The archivist disappeared behind a shelf and Denser took his chance, closing the volume and snapping the clasps into place. To him, it looked so obvious that pages were missing; to one who wasn't looking, there probably wasn't anything to arouse suspicion. Probably…

Deciding not to take the risk, Denser drained his coffee, grabbed another mouthful of sandwich and stood up, chair scraping slightly on the smooth wood floor and picked up the book. Heading back to the shelf where he thought the prophecy sat, he was intercepted by the archivist.

'Don't trouble yourself,' he said. 'I'll take it.' He held out his hands.

'It's no trouble.'

'I insist.'

Denser smiled as generously as he could muster. 'Thank you.' He followed the Dordovan to the gap in the eight-row-high shelves. The man raised the book to slide it home and paused, a slight frown on his face. He hefted it, feeling its weight. Denser held his breath. It could only have been a heartbeat but it felt a lifetime before the archivist shrugged and replaced it, turning to see Denser's renewed smile.

'Thanks for your help,' he said.

'My pleasure.' The frown hadn't quite disappeared from his face. 'Take the food on your way out. The guard will see you to the gate.'

Denser proffered a hand, which the Dordovan shook.

'Goodbye,' said Denser. 'Let's hope this ends well for all of us.'

T can second that.' At last a smile.

Denser walked as calmly as he could to the door of the library and summoned the guard to see him out of the Tower, across the grounds and into the streets of Dordover. Only there did he start to relax, a broad grin spreading across his face. He had to find the others and quickly. Vuldaroq might not welcome them for much longer.

It wasn't until early the next morning that the archivist's nagging itch led him back to the Tinjata Prophecy for another look. His swearing shattered the calm of the library.

The Raven, if you could call them that, had come and gone in two days. So far as Vuldaroq and his network could gather, they had found out nothing new, which was something of a shame but hardly a surprise. The Dordovan College guard and mage spies had interrogated every possible contact and lowlife in the City. Spies and assassins were tracking every lead but so far, though some clues to her direction were known, there was nothing as to her final destination.

Yet still he felt satisfied that his plans were forming well. The bait had been taken and Vuldaroq felt he could relax in the knowledge that Balaia's finest were immersed in the search. All that irked him was that, though Denser had taken in the information Vuldaroq had wanted him to from the prophecy, he had stolen that which was not

on offer. And the Tower Lord did not want to risk him finding someone to translate the lore for him. Someone, for instance, like his lore scribe wife, Erienne.

He had come to a bar well away from the College and just east of the central cloth market, a well-to-do area where a senior mage could relax without interruption and meet discreetly with whom he pleased. This time, his companion was less brash and arrogant than at their first, rather difficult meeting, but was no less driven.

'You have to understand that the nature of mages has changed since the Wesmen invasion. We cannot afford to wantonly sacrifice each other to satisfy the cravings of a maimed Black Wing. We are trying to regain our strength, not pare it still further.' Vuldaroq took a long drink from his goblet and refilled it from the carafe of very expensive Blackthorne red. A serving woman brought another bowl of Korina Estuary mussels and oysters. 'Excellent.'

'But you understand my price cannot be reduced,' said Selik, his face hooded. T will have the bitch, with or without your blessing, but together it will be easier for us all to achieve our ultimate goals.'

Vuldaroq chuckled. Selik had been lucky to escape with his life from the College and had done so only with Vuldaroq's personal intervention. Even so, the Black Wing had left pale and shaken, freed from the entrapping spells in which he had been so quickly entwined. There had been shouting, pushing and recrimination but most of all there had been a shocked disbelief, and it had been this that had allowed Vuldaroq to get Selik away.

'Erienne is still one of our most talented and fertile mages. Her death would be a blow the College would feel keenly. I do not necessarily share the College's view.'

'So?'

'So I will meet your price but you must operate only through me. And now I have organised for you a little assistance.'

'Who?' Selik's single eye stared bleakly from his cowl.

'The Raven.'

Selik laughed, a pained, rasping noise that shuddered his ruined lung. 'And what help can they give me? I am already closer to your precious prize than they will ever be.'

'I would advise you never to underestimate The Raven or their resourcefulness. And for all your torture of the elf you suspect of

belonging to this Guild of Drech, he revealed nothing. The Raven are a useful extra force. Monitor them as I will and use what you find as you see fit. As I will.'

Selik rose. 'Then I am already late. The Raven left some hours ago.'

'And headed south,' said Vuldaroq. 'One more thing, Black Wing. Remember with whom you are dealing. Erienne left in response to a signal that pierced our mana shield as easily as a knife through water. They retain great magical power and I need to know where they are. See that Erienne does not die before she tells you their location. But see that she does die.'

Selik bowed very slightly. 'My Lord Vuldaroq, strange though this union of ours is, we both understand that magic is a necessary force. The Black Wings only seek to cut the mould from the otherwise healthy fruit. We are both fighting for the same cause.' He left the inn, Vuldaroq's eyes on him all the way.

T don't think so, Selik,' muttered the mage to himself as he prised open another oyster. Unexpected pieces were being added to what could turn out to be a very satisfying conclusion. Perhaps more than one enemy would be laid to rest forever. In a while he would have to organise the interception of The Raven and the taking of the stolen parchment, but for now he had more oysters to enjoy and Vuldaroq was not a man to let excellence go to waste.