Warlock's shadow

‘Holes in roof! Water is the moon. Slovenly promiscuous night-lord! Cold and still and dark. Dark under the dark where nothing changes, that is what we are. Where are you, boy?’

He almost ran, but then what? Someone would find out what he’d done. He grabbed Velgian’s head and closed his eyes, trying not to think about the dry dead skin flaking under his fingers. He held it in one hand and pulled at the paper with the other.

‘Where? Where are you? I feel you, boy!’

The paper ripped in two. Velgian’s eyes fell still, his mouth slack. With a shudder, Berren let go. His heart was thumping in his chest hard enough to be hammering a new way out. He was shaking. He ran outside and leaned heavily against the wall, gasping for breath. He had to bite his tongue not to be sick.

This, this was where someone would catch him. Red-handed, shaking and gasping, too scared of what he’d done to try and come up with some sort of story. And what had he done? What would the priests do if they found out? They might throw him out! Gods! No, that wasn’t what he wanted, not now, not any more. Outside, with nowhere to go and Saffran Kuy looking for him? If the warlock caught him … he didn’t want to think about what would happen then. Something worse than death!

No. He forced himself to move, climbing back over the temple roofs to slip unseen to his bed. He lay there, wide awake. Now what?

The Festival of Flames. Abyss-Day. Tomorrow. The night of the dead. Throughout it, across the city, people would burn effigies of their ancestors and of the sun and drink themselves stupid until dawn, when the first line of fire on the horizon across the river heralded the Solstice of Flames.

And in the dark, on the Emperor’s Docks, Master Sy would come, sword naked and heart filled with murder.

31

MORE THAN A SWORD OF THE SUN

He lay in bed, tossing and turning, wondering what he should do. He wanted to tell Tasahre, somehow, without losing her trust, without her hating him, but what business was it of hers? Kuy selling Master Sy’s oldest friend to the Headsman? That was between Master Sy and Kuy. Maybe the thief-taker knew a way to kill a warlock.

No, he had to find Master Sy. He had to get to the Emperor’s Docks first and be waiting for him, to try and stop him, or else to help him. Try and stop the thief-taker from murdering Radek of Kalda, or else help his master kill the man who had destroyed his life. One or the other. And then tell his master how one man he called friend had helped to murder another.

The thought made him pause. What if someone came to Deephaven right now? What if they killed Justicar Kol and every thief-taker in the city and murdered Tasahre and the other monks? What if they burned his home and … no, not that, he wouldn’t care too much about Deephaven getting burned. But what about the rest? And then they hunted him down for years, trying to murder him? What would he do if he met that man again, ten years later?

Kill him. He didn’t need to think about that. That’s what he’d want to do.

Wanting didn’t make it right, though.

He crept out of bed for the second time. For once, as the sun came up, he was down in the practice yard, already sitting there in the dark as the sword-monks filed out for their sunrise vigil. He watched with them in silence as the pinks and purples in the sky over the River Gate grew brighter and blossomed into reds and oranges as the sun lit the horizon.

And when he did find Master Sy, what then? The thief-taker wouldn’t be staying in Deephaven, not with the justicar after him. He couldn’t. He’d have to leave and Berren would have to choose, either go with him or stay and let the thief-taker leave him behind.

He stared at Tasahre. She was sitting still, legs crossed, hands on her knees, watching the sun. His heart clenched. She wasn’t like the women up on Reeper Hill, all lips and smiles and curves and exotic scents. She was as different from them as it was possible to be, and he wanted to be with her more than he wanted all the rest of them put together; and now he was going to have to leave her.

She’d be going soon anyway, he reminded himself. Even if they didn’t send her away after what she’d done, it wouldn’t be long before she was gone. With the Harvest Tides with the rest of the monks. How long was that? Another month? Two? He didn’t know. He furrowed his brow to try and work it out, but every time he did, all he could think of was her.

The dawn vigil ended. One by one, the sword-monks rose and left, all except Tasahre who stayed exactly where she was.

‘It’s Abyss-Day, Berren,’ she said, without taking her eyes off the dawn. ‘You have no lessons today. You’re supposed to rest. If what I hear is true, you’re rarely seen much before the middle of the day.’

‘Couldn’t sleep.’

‘You’re troubled, then.’

Berren shivered. He nodded. ‘And you aren’t? After what happened yesterday?’

‘I am saddened, Berren. Saddened that one of my path has fallen in such a way. I pray to the sun for her, as I pray for everyone.’

He almost asked her right then to come to the Emperor’s Docks with him this evening. They could stop it, the two of them. Just the two of them. They could make Master Sy relent, make him see that killing a man wouldn’t change anything, make him let it go. With the Sunbright taken, the Headsman’s plot and Radek’s part in it, that would all come out, wouldn’t it? Maybe they could get Radek taken in by the city justicars for what he’d done? He understood it now. The papers Master Sy had taken from the Headsman’s strongbox, they showed it all. The mercenaries he’d hired, the black powder brought in secret to the city, the disposition of the Deephaven defences. The Headsman was dead, but Radek wasn’t. The city justicars would be all over him, and all over the Path of the Sun too, as soon as they were done with him. The Path who stood opposed to the Emperor.

The mines for the men he’s killed if the justicars catch him, a swift sword for what he knows if a dragon-monk reaches him first.

He looked at Tasahre and wanted to cry. She was so … so beautiful, in her own way. He couldn’t ask her to be a part of this. She’d never come with him alone. She’d do what she thought was right and she’d tell the other monks and the priests and …

No.

‘Are they going to send you away?’ he asked.

‘Yes. On the next ship to sail for Helhex. After the festival.’

‘I want to show you something,’ he said and got up. He blundered towards the Hall of Swords.

‘What is it?’ She was following him. The hall was filled with sealed pots and jars, with tiny glass bottles. There were sacks full of something that looked like manure but smelled a hundred times worse and crates of metal ingots that he couldn’t even lift; strange devices, glass flasks full of oil with lumps of greasy white stone inside them, other things he didn’t begin to understand. He stared at them all. The warlock’s artefacts from the House of Cats and Gulls. He had no idea why he’d come here.

‘Berren?’ Tasahre was in the doorway, framed by the light. ‘What is it? You are troubled.’

Desiccated dead rats. He remembered those. He and Tasahre had found them, laid out in a sinuous pattern, weaving in and out among circles of ash and sand, of salt and charcoal. A glint of silver caught his eye from an open knapsack.

‘Berren! What are you doing?’ She came in towards him. ‘You shouldn’t touch such things!’

Memories of what he’d seen swirling around the warlock’s head filled him. He pushed them away. He went to the bag and reached inside. There was a purse filled with strange silver coins that he didn’t recognise.

‘Berren!’

Underneath the purse were three small vials, carefully packed in a wooden box lined with straw. One by one,