Suddenly, just for a moment, the far corner of the square dimmed and flickered for a moment. It brightened, but then just as quickly dimmed again. A faint papery chittering was audible, and it
soon became clear that it was coming from the trap in the corner lantern. The trap itself was gaping, and seemed to be suffering a fit. It was covered with what looked like a fine white snow, which
fell away as it convulsed, revealing steaming black patches.
One guard cautiously approached the afflicted trap with his sword drawn, and dared to reach out and poke the lantern with the tip of his blade. Just as he did so, the trap snapped shut its jaws.
With a
whump
like the slamming of a felt-lined door, it exploded, so that the corner it had lit was plunged into darkness. The guard reeled back, blinking and coughing, his face and clothes
dusted with a fine white powder. More flourlike powder had spattered the nearest walls, and could be heard raining with a soft hiss on to the polished floor, the ornaments, the other lanterns and
everything else.
The guards were well-trained, and immediately covered their noses and mouths with their handkerchiefs, for fear of inhaling something poisonous.
‘What in the name of peril—’
Again, there was a faint sound from the empty side of the courtyard, the same papery chittering, but this time louder and more insistent. Three other trap-lanterns had been rained upon by the
explosive white dust, and the traps within each were starting to quiver and palpitate, dimming as their glowing flesh seethed and frothed with a white and powdery snow.
Whump
.
Whump whump
. All three quietly exploded, one after the other, and as they did so darkness swallowed more and more of the courtyard in great hungry gulps. Only half the
courtyard was lit now, and it was hazy with fine, drifting powder, slowly descending to settle on the gaping guards, the remaining lanterns . . .
‘Cover the lamps!’ One guard, more quick-witted than the rest, lurched forward in an attempt to throw his cape over the nearest lantern, and shield it from the falling powder. He was
too late. Even as the other guards followed his cue, the tiny plants were starting to quiver, chitter and froth.
Whump
.
Whump
.
Whump
. The square was claimed by shadow.
Whump whump whump whump whump
. The darkness chased its way down the corridor that led to the tasters’
quarters, as the traps along it burst one after the other.
One guard was standing next to the stooping courtier when the final lantern failed. During that last gasp of light, he saw the courtier straighten from his stoop and cast off his pleading
posture. He no longer squinted, and the irises of his eyes were utterly black and perfectly lightless. This much the guard saw as darkness swallowed all. He did not call to alert his comrades, for
he was given no time. The only warning he gave was the muffled sound of his lifeless body hitting the floor.
The guards tried to defend themselves, but they had a foe who could see in the dark where they could not. They tried to flee, but their foe could run faster and more silently than they.
We are under attack
, they tried to call out as they were cut down.
Bring more men, bring light, bring a trap-lantern . . .
Their cries were too brief and faint, and nobody was close enough to hear them. The word
trap
echoed plaintively through the empty lazuli halls as a fine and delicate mist of powder
seeped and billowed under the door leading to the tasters’ quarters.
There was nobody in the main corridor of the tasters’ retreat, nobody to see as each of the traps hanging from the walls started to shiver and blister white. Now they
were shedding white flakes like dandruff, now their light was sallowing, now there was a string of woolly detonations, filling the air with the spores of their destruction.
The sounds were too quiet to disturb the happy haze of those in the smoking room, or those sleeping in their chambers. In the recreation room, however, several looked up from chess or cards to
peer quizzically at the door and notice a bitter taste in the air. One stood to open the door, and gaped uncomprehendingly into the void beyond.
Only when the lamps in the room itself frenzied, frothed and failed did the tasters wake up to their danger. Like most such awakenings, it arrived too late.
Darkness, they were in darkness! It was one of the greatest fears of all those in Caverna. To be in darkness meant to be without trap-lanterns. No traps sooner or later meant suffocating in
stale air. In their panic, the tasters forgot that the fresh air in the rooms would last for hours yet. They seemed already to feel a harshness like dust in their lungs and a choking in their
throats. Their only thought was to get out, to run through the palace until they found light.
They forgot all about their comrades in their private chambers and in the smoking room. Scrambling over one another, trying to claw each other out of the way, they blundered to the door that led
to the rest of the palace, and yanked back the bolts that had been thrown to keep them safe. They surged into the courtyard, choking and calling out, and the few palace servants in attendance
scrambled after them, following the sounds of their voices. Neither noticed somebody slipping past them the other way, into the tasters’ quarters.
Those in the smoking room were roused by the sounds of chaos outside, and found themselves staring up into a chilling and sobering blackness. The Perfume in the hookah smoke, however, lulled
them back into their daze.
There is nothing to worry about
, it told them.
You do not need light. You do not need breath. You only need me.
They lolled back on to their divans, and let
the Perfume pull their dreams over them once more like a golden counterpane.
Meanwhile, the unseen stranger stopped in the middle of the now empty corridor. To his midnight-coloured eyes there was no darkness. Dead matter like the walls and floor were murky and
colourless, but visible. Life was luminous. His spice-sharpened vision showed him his own body as a glowing, man-shaped phantasm. Even now the whole scene was softly gilded with the dust from the
newly dead traps, the powdery glow fading as the last traces of vitality ebbed away.
The assassin smiled, knowing that he had the mysterious Kleptomancer to thank for the sparseness of guards in this area. Right now, most of the armed men in the palace would be waiting to ambush
the master thief in the Cabinet of Curiosities.
He set down his briefcase in the middle of the hallway, and opened it. For him, the contents were alive with shimmering, squirming light. Sinuous slivers of this light broke off from the main
tangle, slithering out of the case and on to the floor. They seethed and skimmed over the corridor, following their own blind instincts and their extraordinary sense of smell.
Here! They found a footprint with the scent they sought, and they clicked to tell one another, a cold sound like pebbles rapped together. They coiled and writhed in the unseen print, until the
watcher could almost make out its outline. There – a few slivers flowed on ahead of the rest, and they found another print. Another, another, and now they were seething at the base of a
door.
So this was the chamber of his quarry. Stooping, the man scooped up the twisting slivers with his gloved hands, and fed them in through the keyhole.
On the other side, the slivers tumbled down to the floor, retracting into coils from the shock of their fall, then recovering and tasting the air with their tiny gaping
mouths.
The slivers themselves were not disturbed by the darkness, for they had never known anything else. Theirs was a world of brightly coloured scents, sounds felt through their bellies and the
tremors of the ground, and the sinuous touch of each others’ scales. Hours before, their narrow mouths had closed upon strands of hair that smelt of something young and living. Now they
thought of nothing but that scent. It blazed in their minds, russet gold, and drew them on. There was no excitement, only cool, mindless hunger.
They silently seethed over the carpet, discovering ruffled indentations recently pressed by feet, a trail drawing them further and further into the room. The front runners touched their noses
against something soft and slippery smooth, something that smelt of the russet gold. It was a discarded satin shoe, and their tiny shapes poured in between its straps, drunk with the smell. Narrow
mouths sought and bit, lithe bodies boiled in a mass, and within seconds there was nothing left of the shoe but its sole, and scattered fragments of silk, some melting with a hiss as venom ate into
the tender fabric.
The slivers were abroad again. One found the carved wooden foot of a bed, and gave three rapid clicks. Its siblings heard, and joined it in twining up the leg, sliding over the knobbles and
grooves in the ornate carvings.
Their tiny bodies barely dented the pillow as they slid out upon it, exploring the valley in its centre, strewn with occasional fine hairs. They weaved down the pillow’s slope, found the
crumpled edge of a blanket, and slipped neatly under it, in search of animal warmth.
They found none, only cool sheet and rough blanket. Their quarry’s scent was everywhere. Their quarry was nowhere. Where was she?
Up above them, lying on the thick brocade canopy stretched over the frame of the bed, Neverfell crouched in darkness and held her breath.
The idea of sleeping on the bed’s canopy had come to her all of a sudden. It had suddenly looked a little like her own dear, much-missed hammock, and so she had scrambled up, using the
ornate carvings of the posts for footholds. Sleep had indeed been waiting for her there, and as soon as she had stretched out on the canopy her eyelids had drooped and her mind had tumbled into
sweet fog.
There it might have remained if it had not been for her sharp cheesemaker’s nose. It had twitched in sleep as the fine powder crept under her door, and when her own trap blew itself apart
she was woken, not by the sound, but by the smell. And there, staring up into darkness and listening to the sounds of receding screams, she had heard some thing or things quietly slithering and
rasping their way through her keyhole. There were alien things in her room. They smelt the way cold stone felt. The blackness was absolute, and she could tell where they were only from the
clicks.
Click
.
Click click
. They were directly below her, and Neverfell knew they were in her bed.
She also had a keen idea what they were. Only glisserblinds clicked that way, and only when they were hunting as a pack. She listened intensely, trying to work out if any of the clicks were
getting closer. She dared not move, for fear of creaking the bed frame. Their hearing was better than hers, their sense of smell more acute. They were blind, of course, but for the moment so was
she.
It was while she was listening that she became aware that the thick brocade beneath her was starting to shift and stretch imperceptibly under her unaccustomed weight.
From somewhere beyond Neverfell’s feet came a short, sharp
tac
noise, the unmistakable sound of a thread snapping. There was a silence and then a frenzy of clicks below, clicks
answering, clicks rising, getting closer. They had heard, they knew, they were writhing up the bedposts to get to her.
Neverfell struggled into a sitting position, the bed frame groaning as she did so. With a staccato
tac-tac-tac-tac
, a seam somewhere gave way, and the canopy beneath her lurched, throwing
her off balance. Frantic, Neverfell hauled herself upright again and swung her legs over the edge of the frame. Just as she was bracing for the jump, she felt something cold as a fish slither over
the back of her hand.
With a squawk of sheer panic, she gave a violent jerk of her hand, and flung the unseen something across the room, she knew not where. Then she hurled herself forward into the waiting
darkness.
She could not see the floor to judge the jump, and landed with a crash, her knee jolting into her face. There was no time to sob over her bruised hip or wrenched ankle, however. The
glisserblinds would have heard the crash of her landing. Even now they would be sliding back down the posts, or falling from the canopy to the carpet like a fat and deadly rain.
Neverfell stumbled to her feet and hobbled as fast as her tortured ankle would let her, in what she hoped was the direction of the table. She succeeded in finding the corner painfully with her
hip, and swept a desperate hand across it until she located the key. Feeling her way along the wall she reached the door, fearing every moment to feel something underfoot that squirmed and bit.
She found the lock, fumbled the key into it somehow, turned it. A click sounded mere feet behind her. Flinging the door open, Neverfell leaped through it. Before she could slam the door behind
her, however, her injured ankle gave way.
She slumped abruptly to the floor. And it was for this reason alone that, a moment later, the thing that had been waiting to happen to Neverfell ended up happening an inch above her head
instead.
All she heard was the faint silken sound of something slicing the air above her, and then the reverberating thud of metal striking into wood. Her stomach exploded with tingles, as if it sensed
that it had been the unseen blade’s intended destination. Somewhere in front of her, somebody was breathing.
With all her strength Neverfell flung herself into a backwards roll, and rose unsteadily to her feet. Turning, she hurtled away down the corridor at the fastest limp-sprint she could manage.
The killer had not expected her to reach the door alive. He had heard her cry out and had thought that the glisserblinds’ work was done. Thus he had been halfway back
down the corridor when he heard the key turn, and had been caught off guard. His misjudged swing, furthermore, had left his sword embedded in the wooden panelling of the wall.
Another tug and it was free. He sprinted after the fleeing girl on feet that made no sound. Ahead of him, her frail, luminous form blundered moth-like against walls, and he gained quickly. As
she was passing the ember chute she stumbled over the prone form of a dead guard, and fell sprawling with a yelp.