“When did you first discover your God was dead?” he asked carefully, trying not to sound too officious.
“Four o’clock in the morning, six days ago,” said Sister Anna. Her voice was calm and even. “One of our people was always with him, so that he wouldn’t be alone when he finally returned to us. Brother John was on duty. He went to sleep. He didn’t know why. It wasn’t like him. When he awoke, the God was no longer standing by the altar we made for him. He was lying crumpled on the floor, a knife in his heart. The blood was everywhere. Brother John spread the alarm, but there was no trace of the killer. We still don’t know how he got in or out.”
“Can we speak to this Brother John?” said Hawk.
“I’m afraid not. He took poison, later that day. He wasn’t the only one. We all went a little crazy for a while.”
“I understand.”
“No you don’t, Captain.” Sister Anna looked at him squarely. “For twenty-two years we’d waited, devoting our lives to the Sundered Man, only to find it was all a lie. He wasn’t a God after all. Gods don’t bleed and die. He was just a man; a man with power perhaps, but nothing more. I’m the only one left now. The others are all gone. Some killed themselves. Some went home, to the families they’d given up for their God. Some went to look for a new God to worship. Some went mad. They all left, as the days passed and our God stayed dead.”
For a while, nobody said anything.
“Is the body still there?” said Fisher finally.
“Oh, yes,” said Sister Anna. “None of us wanted to move him. We didn’t even want to touch him.”
She led the way up the narrow stairs to the next floor and ushered them into a small, cosy bedroom. The Sundered Man was lying on the floor, curled around the knife that had killed him. There was dried blood all around the body, but no sign of any struggle. Hawk knelt down beside the dead man. There was only the one wound; no cuts to the hands or arms to suggest he’d tried to fend off his attacker. It was a standard-looking knife hilt; the kind you could buy anywhere in Haven. The dead man’s face was calm and peaceful. Hawk got to his feet again, and shook his head slowly.
“There’s nothing here to help us. Nothing I can see, anyway. Sister Anna, do you have any objections to our calling in the forensic sorcerers?”
“No,” said Sister Anna. “Do as you wish, Captain. It really doesn’t matter.”
“Why did you stay?” said Fisher. “All the others left, but you stayed. What keeps you here?”
Sister Anna looked down at the body, and smiled slightly. “I was there, on the Street of Gods, twenty-two years ago, when it all began. I was just passing through, but he looked at me and smiled, and I stopped to hear him preach. He was magnificent. When he left I went with him, and from that moment on, I was always at his side. After he was taken from us, sundered from Time, I made this place my home, and waited for him to come back to me.
“How could I leave him? It didn’t matter to me whether he was a God or a man. I stayed because I loved him, and always have.”
The church of the Carmadine Stalker turned out to be a door in a wall. To one side of the door stood a pleasant little chapel of the Bright Lady, all flowers and vines and pastel colors. On the other side was an open, airy temple dedicated to the January Man. The door itself didn’t look like much. It was six feet high and three feet wide, with peeling paint, splintering wood, and a large discoloured steel padlock. It was the kind of door that in Hawk’s experience usually fronted lock-up warehouses down by the docks, spe cialising in the kind of goods no one would publicly admit to wanting. He studied the door thoughtfully, aware that Tomb was watching him and waiting for him to comment. Obviously Tomb expected him to get all upset again. He was damned if he’d give the sorcerer the satisfaction.
“All right,” he said equably, “It’s a door. Do we knock or go straight in?”
“I’d better lead the way,” said Tomb. “The Stalkers don’t care for uninvited guests, with or without Council authority.”
“Wait a minute,” said Fisher. “If the Carmadine Stalker has been murdered, why are his followers still hanging around here?”
“They’re waiting for him to rise from the dead. With all due respect, Captain Fisher, Captain Hawk, I think we should keep this visit as short and to the point as possible. The Carmadine Stalker was an unpleasant God of an extremely unpleasant Order. If his followers were to take exception to our presence, I’m not at all sure we’d get out of their lair alive.”
“Don’t worry,” said Hawk. “We’ve been around. It takes a lot to upset us.”
Tomb looked at him for a moment, and then turned to face the door. He gestured at the padlock, and it snapped open. He pushed the door, and it swung back, revealing a sickly green light. Tomb stepped forward into it. Hawk started to follow and then stopped short as the smell hit him. It was a thick, choking smell of corruption and decay. The green light seemed to take on a more sinister aspect, reminding Hawk of the corpse fires that danced on recently built cairns. He braced himself and followed Tomb into the light. Fisher followed close behind, her hand at her sword belt.
The door slammed shut behind them, and they found themselves in a long brick tunnel, slanting downwards, lit only by the eerie green light that came from everywhere and nowhere. The tunnel was only just tall enough for Fisher to stand upright, and no more than three or four feet wide. The brick walls were cracked and crumbling from age and neglect, and the floor was covered with pools of dark, scummy water. Mosses and fungi pockmarked the brickwork, and the smell of death and decay was almost overpowering. Far off in the distance a bell tolled endlessly, like the slow remorseless beating of a great brazen heart.
“What the hell is this place?” said Fisher, glaring warily down the tunnel.
“We’re in the Stalkers’ domain,” said Tomb quietly. “A pocket dimension, attached to our reality but not actually a part of it. Follow me, please.”
Tomb led the two Guards through an endless maze of narrow brick tunnels that twisted and turned and folded back upon themselves. The bell tolled on and on in the distance, but never seemed to draw any closer. Moisture dripped from the low ceiling and ran down the walls in sudden little streams. Hawk kept a wary eye on where they were going, but even so, the first priest caught him by surprise. The scrawny figure was sitting cross-legged in a niche set into the tunnel wall. He was old and shrivelled, corpse-pale and quite naked. Bones pushed out against his taut flesh. His breathing was slow and shallow, and his eyes were closed. A length of discoloured steel chain ran from a heavy ring set in the wall to a great steel hook buried in the priest’s shoulder. The tip of the hook poked out of the priest’s flesh just below the armpit. From the way the puckered skin had healed around the sharp point, the hook had obviously been there a long time.
Tomb and the two Guards moved ahead quietly, trying to make as little noise as possible, but still the priest’s eyelids crawled open as they passed. Hawk froze in his tracks, his hand at his axe. The priest had no eyes, only empty sockets, but still his head turned to face Hawk. He smiled slowly, revealing filed pointed teeth, and then his eyelids closed again. Hawk nodded to Fisher and Tomb, and they moved on. They passed more priests, from time to time, sitting unmoving in their niches in the walls. None of them stirred or spoke, but they all watched with empty eye sockets as the intruders passed.
And finally they came to a large, echoing chamber, empty save for a huge brass throne set in the centre of the open space. On the throne sprawled what was left of the Carmadine Stalker. Hawk moved slowly forward, keeping a watchful eye on the other tunnels leading off from the chamber. He stopped before the throne and wrinkled his nose at the remains of the Stalker. The discoloured bones were held together by rotting scraps of muscle, and the grinning skull had been stripped almost clean of flesh. The Carmadine Stalker was an ugly sight in death, and had probably looked even worse when it was alive. It had to have been at least eight feet tall, with a broad chest and a wide flat head. The arms and legs were too long, and much thicker than a man’s. There were vicious talons on the hands and feet, and the grinning teeth were long and pointed. Hawk tried to imagine what the thing must have looked like in its prime, and for a moment his breath caught in his throat.
“The Stalker was a grisly kind of God,” said Tomb. His voice was hushed, as though he was afraid of waking .. something. “Its religion was based around ritual sacrifice, mutilation, and cannibalism. Let’s keep this short, Captain Hawk. This is a bad place to be. It’s going to get even worse when the Stalkers realise their God isn’t going to rise from the dead.”
“All right,” said Hawk. “Let’s start at the beginning. How was the Stalker killed?”
“Apparently it aged to death overnight, three days ago. According to city records, the Stalker was at least seven hundred years old. From the look of that body, I’d say a lot of those years finally caught up with it.”
“So the killer was a magic-user,” said Fisher.
“Either that, or someone with an object of Power. Such things aren’t exactly rare on the Street of Gods.”
Hawk took a quick look round the empty chamber, but no obvious clues leapt to his gaze. “Is there anyone here we can talk to, about how the killer got in and out?”
“No one here will talk to us, Captain. We’re unbelievers.”
“Then let’s get the hell out of here. This place looks more like a trap every minute.”
Tomb nodded, and headed quickly for the tunnel mouth that had brought them there. Fisher followed close behind, sword in hand. Hawk backed out of the chamber, keeping a careful watch on the dead God all the way. He had a strong feeling that at any moment the tattered corpse might raise its bony head and look at him.... He kept watching it until he reached a bend in the tunnel which cut off his view, and then he turned and hurried after Tomb and Fisher. The great brass bell tolled on, its slow sonorous sound prophesying blood and doom.
Tomb led them confidently back through the maze of brick tunnels, and then stopped suddenly and bit his lip. Hawk frowned. By his reckoning, they were barely halfway back to the door on the Street of Gods. Tomb stood very still, his gaze vague and far away. Hawk looked quickly about him. The tunnel stretched off in both directions, silent and empty, bathed in the sickly light of the ubiquitous green glow.
“Something’s coming,” said Tomb softly.
Hawk drew his axe and Fisher hefted her sword. “What kind of something?” said Hawk.
“A group of men. A large group. Maybe as many as twenty. All of them armed. Apparently the Carmadine Stalker’s followers don’t want us to leave.” Tomb shivered suddenly, and his gaze cleared. “I may be wrong, but I think it’s very likely they’re planning on sacrificing us to their God, in the hope it will help him return.”
“All right,” said Hawk. “You’re the sorcerer. Do something.”
“It’s not that simple,” said Tomb.
Fisher grimaced. “I had a feeling he was going to say that.”
“There are things I can do,” said the sorcerer, “but in this dimension they take time to prepare. You’ll just have to hold them off for a while.”
Hawk and Fisher looked at each other. “Hold them off,” said Hawk.
“Twenty men,” said Fisher.
“All religious fanatics, and armed to the teeth.”
“Piece of cake.”
The two Guards fell silent. In the darkness of one of the side tunnels, someone was moving. Whoever, it was, was trying to be quiet, but even the faintest of sounds travelled clearly in the quiet of the tunnels. Hawk and Fisher stood side by side, weapons at the ready. Tomb gave the tunnel a quick glance, and then began muttering something under his breath. The first of the Stalkers came charging out of the side tunnel, and Hawk braced himself to meet him. The Stalker was tall and wiry, with a wide grin and staring eyes. He wore a dark, flapping robe, and carried a vicious-looking scimitar. He threw himself at Hawk, the curved blade reaching for the Guard’s throat. Hawk batted the sword aside easily, and buried the axe in the Stalker’s face on the backswing. The Stalker fell to his knees, blood coursing down his grinning face, and then he crumpled to the floor as Hawk jerked the axe free.
More Stalkers came boiling out of the side tunnel, their eyes glaring wildly. Swords and axes gleamed in the eerie green light. Hawk and Fisher launched themselves at their attackers. The flood of Stalkers stumbled to a sudden halt as Hawk and Fisher slammed into them. Hawk swung his axe in short, vicious arcs, and Stalkers fell dead and dying to the floor. Fisher stamped and thrust at his side, warding off the few Stalkers with reflexes fast enough to start their own attacks. Blood splashed the tunnel walls and collected in pools on the floor.
The narrow tunnel meant that only a few of the Stalkers could press their attack at one time, and Hawk and Fisher were more than a match for them. But even so, the fanatical hatred and fervour of the Stalkers drove them forward over the bodies of the slain, and step by step Hawk and Fisher were driven back down the tunnel. Tomb retreated behind them, still lost in his muttering.
Hawk swung his axe double-handed, trying to open up some space before him, but the press of bodies was too strong. Everywhere he looked there were darting swords and glaring eyes and pointed teeth bared in snarling smiles. Fisher gutted a Stalker with a quick economical cut, and turned to face the next attacker while the first was still falling. A sharp jolt of surprise went through her as the dying Stalker grabbed her legs with both arms and tried to bring her down. She met a flailing sword with an automatic parry, and tried to kick the Stalker away, but he hung on with grim determination. Blood from his wound soaked her trousers. The first twinges of panic had begun to gnaw at Fisher’s self-control, when Hawk spotted her problem and cut through the Stalker’s neck with his axe. The Stalker went limp and fell away, and Fisher kicked herself free. The whole thing had only taken a moment or two, but there was a cold sweat on Fisher’s forehead as she hurled herself back into the fray.