Warlock's shadow

back to keep it out of the way.

Or across her back. For some reason, that thought had never crossed his mind until now. It filled him up with a strange excitement.

‘Off you go then, lad.’

Berren followed the monks through the temple gate. He threw Master Sy an idle salute and then ran all the way to the temple and sat down at the back where no one would notice. Other novices crowded in, priests too, and then the monks walked sedately past to stand in the centre of the temple, ringing the altar while the Sunherald of Deephaven himself walked in slow circles around them, droning on about something. Berren even tried to pay attention, but he might as well not have bothered. He was too far away to hear properly and even the words he caught didn’t make much sense. The ceremonies were strange and exciting at first, but as they wore on and on all through the morning, Berren’s head began to feel heavy. The nights awake in the scent garden caught up with him. Before long he was asleep.

He woke up again to find the temple in silence. The Sunherald was still there and so were the monks, but they were all as still as statues. With a little gasp of horror, Berren saw the sun on the altar. It was nearly midday! He’d been asleep for the whole morning! Oh gods, what if The Worm had seen him? Had he been snoring? What if any of the other teachers had seen him? What if the monks had seen him? Someone must have seen him! Sooner or later Sterm would find out. Sleeping in temple was just a fraction short of spitting at the altar. Khrozus! He’d be working penances for the whole rest of the year for this!

Everyone was very still. They were all staring at him, or at least that was how it seemed at first. Slowly, though, he realised that they were staring past him, to the great doors behind. He turned around to look.

‘Well don’t stop just for me,’ called a voice from among the silhouettes at the door. Berren knew the voice at once — the prince.

There was a long pause. ‘And there ends today’s lesson,’ snapped the Sunherald from the altar. Berren’s brow furrowed. He checked the angle of the light on the altar again. Not far from midday but not quite there yet.

‘Oh, don’t tell me you’ve been preaching away all morning and I happen to have the foul luck to show up just in time for the half-hour recess before you start all over again? Fortunate in a way, I suppose, since we can get right to business without my interrupting anything. Pity, though. I was so looking forward to a good sermoning and my adjutants tell me I’m in something of a hurry now.’ The prince began to walk through the temple. He had six men with him; Berren was startled to see that one of them was Master Sy. The thief-taker’s face was taut. ‘Keep your little dragons handy too, Your Holiness,’ laughed the prince as he strode to the altar. ‘This concerns them.’

‘Novices and initiates, you are dismissed!’ The Sunherald started to pace again but with none of the serenity he’d had before. ‘There will be prayers at midday and then you will assemble in the practice yard while our honoured guests from Torpreah show us why they carry the reputation that they do.’

Berren watched as most of the priests and the novices and the initiates filed out of the temple. He got up to slip out with the last of them, but Master Sy was there. His fingers twisted around Berren’s ear.

‘This is all your fault,’ he hissed. ‘Every bit of it. I hope you’re ready for what you’ve done.’

Berren had no idea what Master Sy meant but he knew better than to say anything. They marched towards the centre of the temple, to the altar and the monks. The altar seemed golden, bathed in the sunlight streaming in through the dome above. Whatever the prince was saying, neither the priest nor the monks were liking it.

‘… or not, since it’s really quite irrelevant. You will do as I say, and that is that.’ The prince’s words. He shrugged. ‘Well, I suppose you could disobey and then I could have you all shipped off to the mines, strip this little palace of yours bare and turn it into a poorhouse. After the Overlord has subdued the inevitable riots, of course, but then I won’t be here to care about that little detail.’

Master Sy pushed Berren forward. One of the temple priests rolled his eyes. ‘Him?’

‘Yes him. The annoying little rude one. Is that about right?’

‘You want the Autarch’s monks to teach this oafish boy to wield a sword?’

‘Oh yes. Although …’ The prince leaned forward towards the Sunherald. ‘They’re your monks, aren’t they? For as long as they’re here?’ He turned to the monks and pointed at the nearest, the woman. ‘You. You can do it.’ Berren’s eyes widened and he bit his lip. The monk couldn’t have been much older than him. Might even have been the same age. And he was going to be trained by a girl?

He glanced at her. You could hardly even tell she was a girl, she was so skinny.

The monk bowed. ‘How hard do you wish him trained, Your Highness?’ Her face didn’t flicker, even as Berren stared at her. Flat chest, narrow hips, all sharp angles and no curves. If she was a girl, she was probably the ugliest girl in the city, he decided. Not that that made things any better.

On the other hand, she was a dragon-monk.

The prince blew out his cheeks and stretched his shoulders. ‘Oh, as hard as you like, I suppose.’

‘Then he will be dead within a week, Your Highness.’

The prince looked Berren up and down and then turned back to the monk with a pained expression on his face. ‘Well, maybe not that hard then. I shan’t be wanting to hear that this boy got sent to his death by way of a reward. Gods, something like that might even prey on my conscience. Train him hard then, but please, not so hard that he expires.’ The prince grinned at Berren. It wasn’t a very nice grin. ‘Train him hard enough to see whether he really wants it.’

The monk bowed again. ‘As Your Highness commands.’ It was hard to tell whether she was pleased or angry or simply didn’t care one way or the other, although at least all his staring had finally managed to put a bit of colour in her cheeks. The Sunherald was managing to keep his face flat too, but the temple priests were a different matter. Most of them looked ready to explode.

‘You cannot …! Even you, you can’t …!’

‘What? Spit it out! I can’t what? Wander through your city issuing edicts that everyone is forced to obey no matter how random and whimsical they are? But I can, you see. One of the few joys of being a prince.’ He frowned and scratched his short black beard. ‘Well, one of the few joys apart from the endless parade of wine and willing women, anyway.’ He smiled again. ‘If you wish to lie awake at night begging your god for a relief against the injustices of the world, consider that your Autarch is busily making a point of snubbing my family and that his monks would not be here for me to impose upon otherwise. Good day.’ With that, he turned on his heel and marched out of the temple. His men followed, as did Master Sy, still dragging Berren by the ear. Outside, the prince stopped again. He looked at Master Sy and, fleetingly, at Berren.

‘Gentlemen, I thank you for your services. Loathsome duty now beckons. Lord Tanngris will settle our accounts with the Watchman’s Arms.’ He stopped and stared at Master Sy. ‘You. However much I have called you dull, you do not belong here. You are rotting on the inside, and believe me, on that subject I know what I’m talking about. Thief-taking is not for you. Go and do whatever it is you need to do.’

Master Sy bowed. He was trying not to show it, but the prince’s words had touched him somewhere raw. His hands were trembling and his skin had turned pale. Berren didn’t have time to think about that, though, for the prince was looking at him now. His eyes were pale and watery. They had a bit of ice to them. A bit of ice and a bit of anger and a lot of sadness, Berren thought.

‘You. Take this, boy.’ He pressed something into Berren’s hand. ‘When your master goes, he’s not going to want you with him. You’ll probably follow him anyway, whether he likes it or not, but at least let me give you a choice. You may come to Varr. Go to the Kaveneth. Present this and tell them that you have answered my summons. Tell them I say you should be working for Eagle-Beak, if he’s still alive. They’ll know who you mean.’ Whatever he’d put in Berren’s hand, the prince closed Berren’s fingers over it. ‘And don’t lose it, eh?’

Before Berren could even look up, the prince had turned and was walking away. Master Sy put a hand on Berren’s shoulder. ‘Watch him go, lad. That’s the last you’ll ever see of him, yet his favour will haunt you like a curse. It will be a weight around your neck before this year is up, I promise you.’

Berren opened his fingers to see what the prince had given him. It was gold, like an emperor fresh from the imperial mint but bigger and with a more complicated stamp on it. Not the Emperor’s head but a sword and a shield on one side and the imperial standard, a flaming eagle within a triangle, on the other.

‘Worth a bit, that,’ muttered Master Sy.