‘Leave?’
‘Of course,’ she said breezily. ‘You’ll be accompanying me to the theatre tonight, and the curtain goes up soon.’
‘Theatre? But I—’ Doranei floundered. ‘I can’t, I’ve got to—’
‘Nonsense,’ Zhia interrupted. ‘It will be an education for you; trust me that your king will not begrudge you the trip. Now, if you’ve found your feet, we should be off.’
She didn’t wait for a reply but propelled Doranei towards the shuttered door. He tried to protest, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead he let Zhia guide him through the dim streets, past the glaring eyes of any number of city guards, until they arrived at a theatre surrounded by chattering citizens of all classes, all bedecked in their finest. Wreaths of henbane cascaded over the walls and scores of torches gave off long trails of scented smoke. As they approached, Doranei looked around with growing trepidation. Flickering shadows reached out around the shuttered barrows that surrounded the theatre.
Whispers skittered around the street, faster than the King’s Man could catch to make sense of. The darkness loomed as they approached the gate, where a pair of albinos scowled at the pair of them but stepped back as Zhia met their gaze. When he passed through, Doranei felt a chill hush settle about his shoulders. As he walked into shadow, his only comfort was the firm grip of a vampire on his arm.
Oh Gods
.
CHAPTER 16
As long fingers of cloud drifted silently past a crescent moon, Doranei made his way to the heart of the Northern district, to the house of King Emin’s agent in Scree. It was at least two hours past midnight by his reckoning. His head had been throbbing since the play and he was struggling to be sure he had not been followed. The most likely candidate was Zhia herself, however, and he wouldn’t stand a chance pitting his wits against the ancient vampire, not even if he were at the top of his game. The hot night air mixed with pain, wine and bewilderment was making it hard for him to remember the way.
The streets were dead, strange for a man whose training ground had been the never-sleeping criminal dens and murky side streets of Narkang. Doranei turned into a nondescript road and halfway down, after one last check around, slipped a key from around his neck and unlocked an unremarkable door set slightly below street level.
‘And which of the six pits of Ghenna did you fall into tonight?’ said a soft voice from the darkness within.
‘One of the more curious ones, Beyn,’ Doranei replied. ‘Did everyone get over safely?’
‘All present and correct. We thought you’d been taken.’
‘I almost was. I certainly wasn’t in much state to carry on running.’
‘So?’
Doranei felt he didn’t know Beyn well, despite being in the same unit for the past seven years. Beyond their service to the king, Doranei knew only that Beyn liked to spend his time charming women with his striking looks -usually only for the challenge.
‘So I went to the theatre instead.’
‘The theatre?’ Beyn paused for a few heartbeats before he chuckled. The Brothers all developed a rather twisted sense of humour sooner or later, characterised by the ridiculous wagers they were constantly making with each other. Doranei knew his story would amuse them all. ‘Well, I hope you enjoyed it. Go and make your report to the king now.’
Despite his headache and injuries, Doranei smiled. A moment of interest, then he was dismissed. That was the Beyn he knew, aloof, insufferable at times, but always aware of his duty. Doranei crossed the room to the door. A dim glow spilled out from the hallway as he opened it and he looked back to see Beyn sitting with a crossbow cocked and pointing at the street door. They exchanged nods and he left in search of the king.
The nondescript house was large enough for the thirty members of the Brotherhood and the handful of others King Emin had brought along. It was surprisingly well built, for only a quiet murmur reached his ears from the other end of the corridor. Doranei thought of the house’s owner, a locally renowned artist called Pirlo Cetess. It would be good to see him again -if he was still alive, of course. There were none of the usual decorations one would expect from a household in mourning, so perhaps their assumptions had been wrong when their messages had gone unanswered. He could only hope so.
‘Doranei, so good of you to join us,’ King Emin commented as Doranei entered the main reception room. The king’s head never rose from the papers strewn over a large mahogany table. By the light of a torch Sebe was shaving another’s face. That was the way in the Brotherhood: they would trust none but each other to put a blade to their throats. That had been a little harder after Ilumene had gone on his killing spree, slashing some of the king’s closest friends to bloody ribbons and carving his name into the queen’s belly. But trust there must be, and certainly there could be no mirrors allowed in the house. A reflection lacked substance; it was too close to a shadow to be safe.
The king was dressed in grey tunic and breeches. Black braiding differentiated him from his men, but not from the shadows. ‘Are you hurt?’ he asked.
‘Not badly, but it’ll be a week before my left arm is useful for much.’
‘Haven’t been trying to feed guard dogs again, have you?’ He chuckled grimly.
Veil, the man with the shaving bowl perched precariously on his lap, smirked and Sebe paused in his labours to push back his own tangled hair and grin at Doranei, his scarred cheeks crinkling as he did so. Doranei just blinked at the king and shrugged. When he had been five, Doranei had tried to pat a dog through the bars of a gate. The guard dog has taken half of his little finger and a piece of his childhood innocence, but the lesson had been learned. It hadn’t been mentioned in Doranei’s presence for years, yet the king remembered.
‘I went to the theatre, your Majesty.’ That made King Emin look up, Doranei noted with satisfaction. ‘In the company of Zhia Vukotic.’
The king went so far as to raise his eyebrows. ‘Well now, that is an interesting turn of events. I wonder how you managed to hurt yourself at the theatre.’ The king straightened and gestured towards a small stairway beside the fireplace, normally hidden by a bookcase. ‘Come and have a look at this.’
Doranei followed the king up the narrow stairs into Cetess’ private study, where the artist hid those academic interests that coincided with the king’s. It was a small, windowless room, carefully removed from the eyes of the city, and Cetess’ patrons, when they visited. The room was in complete disorder, papers and books scattered everywhere. A sense of dread twisted in his gut.
‘Where is Cetess?’
‘A good question,’ the king replied, gesturing towards the far wall. ‘So far we’ve not been able to find out exactly what happened, but there are more than a few worrying details.’ He pointed at a blank tablet, identical to those overlooking the king’s bedroom, hanging on the wall. ‘Look.’
It took Doranei a moment to work out what was wrong. The tablet, a smooth piece of purple Narkang slate cut from the same slab as its pair, was completely blank -and that was the problem; what happened to one happened to the other. They were delicate creations and easily damaged, but this hadn’t been hurt. Only a thin wisp of chalk dust marred its dark purple surface.
‘I might not know much about magic, but isn’t that impossible? ’
‘I know quite a lot about magic,’ Emin replied, ‘as do Endine and Cetarn. We all agree that it
is
impossible. Neither of our learned colleagues have an answer.’
‘And you?’ All the Brotherhood were in awe of King Emin’s remarkable ability at problem solving.
‘Perhaps the sheer impossibility is reason in itself? Magic is a fickle beast, and the advantage of not being a mage is that I do not pretend to be its master. Mages assume they understand the nature of that beast, but when one observes magic, it squirms through your grip.’
‘I don’t understand, your Majesty.’
‘Neither do I,’ Emin said with a smile. ‘But this thing has been done; a thing we know to be impossible. Therefore what if the only way it could be accomplished is if we could easily recognise it as impossible? That the clandestine deed could only succeed if its secrets were betrayed.’
‘That was an explanation?’
The king laughed at Doranei’s bemused expression. ‘Hah! Not quite, merely my thoughts on the subject. The message on the tablet in my room was not written by conventional means, else it would still be here. You cannot erase such a message once the tablet is broken. So the message was done by unconventional means, as a way to lure us here. The fickle nature of magic means that it can only be accomplished if the task fails.’
‘But we are here,’ Doranei objected.
The king raised a finger. ‘Here, and yet aware that we have been lured here, and thus forewarned of any ambush in the making; perhaps even protected until we have the opportunity to realise the trap exists.’ He shrugged, one long finger sweeping away an errant strand of hair. ‘It is only the makings of a theory, nothing more. I have yet to make sense of the idea.’
‘I wish you luck. Have you been able to find out what happened to Cetess? Was it -him?’ Doranei was hesitant to speak Ilumene’s name in King Emin’s presence, the Brotherhood’s only traitor, and loved as a son by his king.
Emin shook his head. ‘No, nothing certain. The servants tell of voices in the night, laughter echoing through the walls and shadows in empty rooms. There is little sense to be made of it, yet it is reminiscent of Azaer’s deeds in Narkang.’ Emin bit his lip thoughtfully. ‘All we know for sure is that every single member of his staff swears that Cetess locked up the house as usual and retired to bed. When they awakened, the house was still locked, but he was gone. He hadn’t slept in his bed. There was no sign of violence, no body, no keys.’
‘So what do we do now?’
Emin raised an eyebrow. ‘I think I should hear about your evening.’ He sat at the small desk protruding out into the centre of the room and fixed his piercing blue eyes on Doranei, who eased his pack off his shoulders as gently as his injured arm would allow and let it fall to the floor with a metallic thud. He did likewise with his leather tunic, eager to be rid of its steel-strengthened weight, and dropped into the other chair in the room.
He cradled his left wrist. ‘My night at the theatre,’ he muttered with a rueful smile, ‘came about because of the good aim of a Farlan agent.’
‘Now you’re just teasing me,’ the king said.
Doranei held up his hands. ‘We’re not the only ones interested in Scree, not by a long way. Here’s what happened . . .’
King Emin and Doranei spent more than an hour, going over the faces in the crowd, the actors -and the vampire Zhia Vukotic. Doranei hadn’t been able to concentrate much on the play itself -a tragedy of mistaken identity centred around three princes all falsely claiming to be the Saviour -as his pain grew throughout the evening, but he tried to recall every detail. He watched a grim resolve fall over Emin’s face as he suggested, a little nervously, that one of the masked actors could have been Ilumene.
‘But you could not swear to it?’
‘No, his role was small.’ Doranei grimaced as he tried to clarify his suspicions. ‘There was something about the man’s poise. He overshadowed the lead actors without having to speak a word.’
The king didn’t reply. His chair creaked alarmingly as he leaned back, scowling into the distance. Doranei began to wonder what state Cetess’ wine cellar was in. All he could think about was spending what was left of the night in the loving embrace of a bottle.
‘Come,’ the king said at last, and made for the door. ‘We should speak to Endine and Cetarn. I think they will have to provide our first lead.’ He opened the door and stopped, his hand wrapped around the brass handle.
For a moment Doranei saw his king as a weary old man, embittered and burdened. The brilliant blue of Emin’s eyes looked dampened by age, and his hair in the weak light looked momentarily grey.
‘Don’t let me make this about revenge,’ Emin whispered. Doranei almost reeled in shock at the sudden show of weakness, but the king was lost in his thoughts and did not even notice. ‘Promise me that when it comes to it, you’ll stay my hand.’
‘I—you don’t mean to kill Ilumene?’ Doranei asked in confusion.
‘That’s not what I meant. Ilumene is now a valuable servant for Azaer, there can be no doubt about that, but that was not the only reason he was turned. It was one betrayal I could not stand, the one that would cloud my judgment. When the time comes you might have to remind me that our true goal is not revenge. Azaer grows stronger now - the twilight reign may soon be upon us, especially given that we believe the prophecy mentions this city, and then there will be no time for petty vengeance.’
Doranei’s eyes widened. ‘And Coran? He’ll kill me if I get between him and Ilumene.’
‘Let me worry about Coran; our bond is strong enough to restrain him. We must find Ilumene and the minstrel, and work out what they are doing. Revenge will have to wait.’
‘In that case, I will be there to remind you.’
‘Thank you.’ The king straightened his back and stepped through the doorway. ‘But first, we have to find them.’
The two mages they had smuggled over the wall into Scree while Doranei led most of the guards away were an unusual pair. No doubt there had been a good few jokes about getting Shile Cetarn’s bulk over the wall, though they all knew it was Tomal Endine who would cause the most problems -Mage Endine looked like a sickly child, with thin arms and pale, squinting eyes. He barely reached his colleague’s chest, but though he looked continually wary of being crushed by Cetarn’s bulk, he could usually be found in the larger man’s lee. If he had to run more than twenty yards, he would probably expire in a wheezing fit.
As weakness produced a constant nervousness in Endine, so Cetarn was infuriatingly cheerful, and as was often the case with close colleagues, the pair bickered and squabbled like an old married couple. Despite his physical frailties, Endine was also a fair battle-mage, and both had a grasp of the subtleties of magic that made them invaluable.