‘I have warned you,’ the old man said, ‘this is not a game: even a hint of my name could mean our deaths.’
‘But there’s no one out here!’ he protested, eyes wide in dismay. The abbot could see Mayel had not been expecting another scolding; the youth deserved praise, he knew that, but their safety was not something they could take any chances with. Their mission was too vital for that.
‘Still you must be careful; you can never be sure who is around. But you’ve done well. Let’s find ourselves somewhere warm and get a hot meal and a bed for the night. We’ll find a more permanent place in the morning.’
‘I think my cousin will be able to help with that,’ Mayel said, trying to sound cheerful again, despite the storm. ‘He rents rooms to workmen, so I’m sure he’d give me a good price -and watch out for us.’ He started shivering, his saturated clothes clammy against his skin. Glancing nervously out from under the archway he saw the sky was an angry grey. It felt more like autumn than an early summer’s evening, as though their pursuer swept away the joy and warmth of the season as he closed on them.
‘We’ll need a house, somewhere with a cellar,’ said the abbot. ‘I have work to do; I’ll need complete privacy. It can’t wait any longer.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Mayel stared at the old man, wondering what could possibly be so important when they were fleeing for their lives.
‘If Prior Corci does find out where we are, I need to be ready for him -and I need your help, not just to carry the books, but to protect me from the rest of this city.’
‘Do we
really
need all these books with us?’ There was understandable irritation in Mayel’s voice: he had been lugging around the six thick volumes for two weeks now.
‘You know what they are, boy. Our order’s texts are sacred. That traitor may have made me flee the monastery, but he will never force me to give up the traditions that he himself has tried to destroy. The books must not leave the presence of the abbot - that is one of the very first lessons we learn.’
‘Of course I know that,’ Mayel said, ‘but are you still abbot if you flee the island?’
The old man shuddered and Mayel continued hurriedly, ‘I mean, surely the sacred texts are there for the community, to look to for guidance. Should they not stay on the island?’
‘This current situation is more complex than that,’ snapped the old man. ‘You are a novice; don’t presume you are in possession of all the facts. Now, enough of your chatter. Show me to this inn where your cousin is.’
Mayel opened his mouth to argue, then remembered who he was talking to and clamped it shut again. He pointed down the street, and Abbot Doren pushed past and began to make his splashing way through the puddles. His bag, which held his few possessions -two more books and a strange, pearl-inlaid box that Mayel had never seen until the night they fled - was held tight to his chest. The abbot hunched over low, his eyes on the ground, trying to protect the bag from the rain.
‘You don’t fool me, old man,’ Mayel muttered. The wail of the weather drowned his words, but if the abbot had turned round, he would have seen a coldly calculating look that had no place on the face of a novice. ‘There’s something in that box that Jackdaw wants. He killed Brother Edin for more than madness. The prior wouldn’t be following us for just a few dirty old books, so why won’t you tell me what’s in that box? It’s got to be worth something if Jackdaw wants it so badly -enough to buy my way into my cousin’s gang. If we do survive this, you’ll be carrying these bloody books back to the island yourself, old man.’
He scowled at the abbot’s back, then hurried to catch him up, at the last moment swinging his own bag around to his chest to shelter it somewhat.
From the upper reaches of the monument where the abbot had been sheltering a soft voice spoke over the sound of the rain. ‘He has the Skull with him, I can feel it.’
‘We must sacrifice that for the greater prize. The old man is not as frail as he seems, nor as unprotected. Be content that he has done as we wanted. Now the next act of our play can begin.’
‘But I could kill him now.’ The speaker’s deeply-set eyes, hooded by thick brows, glittered avariciously. He ignored the rain soaking his thick black hair and running down over the tattooed feathers on his cheek and neck as he glared down the street, but the abbot had already turned the corner.
‘His God would not let you,’ said his companion. ‘Renouncing any God as you have is not done lightly, and Vellern would stop you from harming one who is first among his worshippers. Perhaps the Lord of the Birds would take the opportunity to extract a measure of revenge too.’ The second man wore a green minstrel’s hat and tunic and hugged a flute close under his left arm. He looked only a little damp, as though the rain was reluctant to touch him. His soft brown hair was not wet enough to have darkened and his cheeks, as smooth as a young man’s despite the air of age about him, remained dry. A slight smile, both knowing and scornful, curled the edges of his mouth.
‘We have others who could,’ growled the dark-haired man. Once known as Prior Corci, now he was Jackdaw, reviled as a traitor and murderer. His new master had called him that the first time they met, no more than six months past, in one of the monastery’s dank, unused cellars. He had thought it a joke, but steadily he’d found the name had spread, even amongst brothers who knew nothing of his intended treachery. Prior Corci was being steadily erased from history, as every week that passed, another man had forgotten about him. Jackdaw knew there was no going back, no escape from the choices he’d made, and only the thought of what else Azaer’s power could achieve stopped him sinking into glum desperation at the loss of his former life.
Now Jackdaw blinked the rain from his eyes and squinted through the gloom at the empty street. ‘The old man might be strong with the Skull, but an arrow would go right through that withered neck, whether or not he was holding magic. The Hounds would be glad to tear him apart.’
‘He is more intelligent than that. He has taken precautions against assassination, and there are inherent dangers whenever a Skull is involved. They contain too much power for a novice to control. He already keeps his Aspect-Guide close at hand; it would be a simple thing for him to lose his grip on the magic and then we would be faced with a minor God of vast strength instead. Better to let someone else deal with the problem on our behalf. We will kill priests soon enough, that I promise you.’
From a pouch, the minstrel took a peach and raised it to his lips.
His companion sniffed and then looked away in disgust. ‘How can you eat that? It’s rotting.’
‘Decay happens to everything,’ replied the minstrel softly, eyes on the clouds above. ‘Corruption is inevitable. I am but its servant.’ He took another bite, then tossed the half-eaten fruit into the street. ‘No one could want that Skull more than I do, but our master has a greater plan.’
‘One that I am not to be party to?’
‘If you have the courage to complain, do so.’
‘I—’ Jackdaw faltered. Too late he remembered that Azaer was always close to the minstrel, lingering where the man’s shadow had once been.
‘
You require something of me?
’
Jackdaw jumped as Azaer’s voice rang suddenly inside his head. Beside him the minstrel inclined his head, as though giving a slight bow.
‘No, master,’ the former monk spluttered. He felt a hand caress his cheek, then a sharp pain caused him to yelp involuntarily. The flesh just above his jaw-line felt raw and exposed and when he touched his face, Jackdaw found blood there. Raising his hand, he saw a black feather stuck to the blood on the back of his fingers. He didn’t need a looking-glass to know that part of his tattoo had gone.
‘Hush your throat, or I’ll pluck more feathers out. We have a game to play here in Scree, friends to find and friends to lose. Lure them all here and let the drama unfold as it will. We take our bows when the performance is done.’
PROLOGUE: PART TWO
In the half-light of the long corridor a shadow moved. Only the listless swish of the thin white drapes covering the tall arched windows at one end disturbed the quiet. A wrought-iron railing decorated with vine leaves separated the corridor from the open hallway below, but the heavy afternoon heat had stifled all activity within the palace; that too seemed shrouded in silence. Even the servants had found cooler corners, where they dozed wearily.
The guard sighed inwardly. The heat was oppressive enough even without the heavy leather uniform. Rivulets of sweat ran down his arms and over his scalp and prickled hot in his crotch. His head sagged, eyelids drooping as the corridor before him blurred into grey emptiness.
The shadow drifted behind him, sliding smoothly over the wall but never actually touching the soldier. Despite the gloom of the corridor, the shadow seemed insubstantial. As it hovered against the white door next to where the guard stood, the profile of a blank face showed, imprisoned within the door’s border, then the shadow eased into the dark crack between door and jamb and gently disappeared into the cool shade of the room beyond.
As outside, all was still within, except for the gentle movement of drapes at the open window, through which came no more than a wisp of a breeze. A huge four-poster bed to the right of the bolted door dominated the room. Curtains of green and gold were tied at each post. The shadow ignored the bed and its occupants, who lay across the linen sheets, barely covered. It ignored the ornate basket-hilt rapier hanging on a chair-back with an axe, the blade of which was perforated by glowing red-edged runes, and moved to the far corner of the room, where a small spiral staircase took it up to a circular mezzanine no more than four yards across. A simple but elegant desk stood at the centre. Eight thin apertures cut into the stone gave a view of the room below. Hanging from the wall were eleven purple slate tablets, two feet high, each covered by a green velvet cloth embroidered with a bee with wings outspread and the name of a city. The shadow ignored the nearest and glided around the desk in the centre until it reached the cloth that bore the word ‘Scree’. It raised a long finger that tapered into a cruel claw and began to trace through the air in front of the covered tablet. A faint scraping broke the quiet.
The shadow finished its writing and looked through a stone slit at the couple slumbering on the enormous bed. ‘
Come and join the performance, my friend. Yours is a starring role,
’ it murmured as it twitched the cloth slightly askew.
Then the shadow spread its insubstantial fingers like an eagle’s talons. As it gave a sharp twist through the air a muted crack echoed around the room. The deed done, the shadow retraced its movements, pausing momentarily at the bed where the two figures still slept, legs entangled despite the heat. One ethereal finger caressed the man’s cheek before pausing over an eyelid that gave a tiny twitch.
‘
And what if I were to blind you now, o mighty king? Render you unable to behold this nation you love so? But I shall not; there are sights I would have you see before the end.
’
The heavy summer silence returned to the room as the shadow slipped towards the door and out into the twilight of the corridor, then faded into nothing.
King Emin scowled at the tablet, pulling his shirt to order and tucking it into his breeches.
‘Come back to bed,’ purred Queen Oterness from the bed, stroking the slight bump of her belly. One sharp-eyed old countess had noticed it already and there had been a sudden surge of speculation at court that an heir to the throne might at last be on the way. The royal couple were keeping quiet for now -the pregnancy was in its early stages and the queen feared her age might cause difficulties - but in the meantime that small swelling had restored her husband’s precarious affection.
‘Unfortunately, I cannot,’ Emin muttered in reply. He didn’t take his eyes off the tablet as he reached out a hand and tugged the bell-pull that hung above the desk.
‘Oh, charming,’ muttered his queen. ‘My husband is too busy to entertain his wife, so he sends for his bodyguard to finish the job.’
Emin’s glare stopped the queen short and she pulled the sheets to cover her naked body. It was too hot for a shift, even if Coran was joining them, and she was too comfortable to leave the indentation she had shared with Emin but a minute before.
‘I’m sorry, Emin, you know I didn’t mean that in spite -but whatever is wrong? I’ve not seen you so angry in years -what’s the news?’
Coran jerked open the door and hurried in before the king had time to answer his wife. The white-eye glanced at the bed and bowed his head even as his eyes followed the linen-covered curves of the queen’s body. The white-eye was barely dressed himself, wearing only a long shirt tied at the waist by the swordbelt he was still in the process of buckling.
Oterness looked at the livid scars on Coran’s knee, he glowered at her and hurried up the spiral staircase. He had barely reached the top stair when Emin reached out a finger and pointed to the uncovered tablet.
‘Summon the Brotherhood. We ride for Scree.’
Coran stared at the slate board, unspeaking, until Emin indicated they should go back downstairs. The white-eye slowly raised his knee and ran a finger over the ugly scarring there, his face darkening with fury, then followed his king.
Queen Oterness watched the two men, a shiver running down her spine as she wondered what was affecting them so.
Then Coran spoke, his voice trembling with hatred. ‘Ilumene,’ he said.
The blood drained from Oterness’ face. All was explained in that one word. Before King Emin reached for his clothes he took his queen’s hand and squeezed her fingers. Her other hand fell protectively to her belly, trembling. When she touched the skin below her navel Oterness could feel rough scars, and could trace a name with her fingers. The tattoo she’d put there only hid the name from sight. The scar remained.