Mark Lawrence - The Liar's key

“It’s only a reflection.” Alica pants the words out behind Lady Shival. “It is not my equal.”

Whatever the child is wrestling with it appears to be getting weaker. The mercenaries are having a very different experience, each backed against the wall now, the edges of their swords being pushed inexorably toward their necks, though nobody’s there to wield the blades but them.

Somewhere in the distance there’s screaming. I glance away from the contest of wills to see the maid has fled. It can only be moments before palace guards converge on the battle.

The Silent Sister raises her head, slower than slow, her hair sweat-soaked, her neck trembling with effort, and on her face, as she meets the Lady Blue’s eyes, a grin that I know. Alica has her small knife raised now, her wrist white as if a hand were wrapping it, just as her free hand clasps empty air with a desperate intensity. With tiny steps, each the product of huge struggle, she is advancing on the Lady Blue’s back.

Deeper shouts ring out, closer now, an alarm bell starts to clang further back in the palace.

Cursing in a tongue I’ve not heard before, the Lady Blue breaks away, sprints along the Sword Gallery and vanishes between the two mercenaries, veering left past the double doors. As she passes them both Grant and Johan lose their battle and slide down the walls clutching their throats, blood drenching their chests.

I stand, overwhelmed by a deep sense of relief, although I was never in danger. Alica’s already running, but in the wrong direction: she’s chasing the lady. The Silent Sister is on all fours, her head down, exhausted. Garyus flops in his chair, as broken as I ever knew him, his last vestiges of health sacrificed to his twin’s power, drawn along whatever fissure still connects them. His eyes, almost hidden in the shadow of his monstrous brow, find me, or seem to. I meet his gaze a moment, and a sorrow I can’t explain closes a cold hand in my guts. I know I’m not the man ever to make the kind of gesture this boy has made. My siblings, my father, Red March itself, all of them could go hang before I’d take the blow meant for someone else.

I run, though whether to get clear of Garyus’s scrutiny or to follow Alica I don’t know.

The Lady Blue’s path through the palace is littered with guardsmen struggling against reflections that only they can see. It’s late at night and apart from the guards the palace is deserted. In truth the palace is largely deserted at any time of the day. Palaces are an exercise in show-too many rooms and too few people to enjoy them. A king can’t afford to let his relatives get too close and so the Inner Palace is nothing but luxurious chambers enjoyed by no one and unseen save by the cleaners who dust and the archivists who ensure that the dust is all they remove.

We pass more struggling guards. The dangerous men will be wherever the king is. Not in his throne room, not at this hour, but they won’t be walking the corridors, guarding vases and rugs, they’ll be close to the man who matters.

I catch up with Alica, though it takes some doing. I’ve run these corridors myself-well mostly corridors further away, the Red Queen isn’t that fond of her grandchildren, but on occasions as a child I’ve scampered down these halls. But, stranger or not, the Lady Blue is ahead of us both. She’ll need luck, however, and lots of it. This wasn’t her plan, this is desperation, or anger, or both, and it’s being made up on the spot.

As I run alongside Alica I try to remember what I’ve been told about my great-great-grandfather’s death. I draw a blank. I never gave a damn about any of the dead ones, unless it was to file away some impressive fact about my lineage that might give me an edge in pissing contests against visiting nobility. Surely I’d have remembered if he’d been brutally murdered in the palace by some crazed witch though? One of them died hunting. . pretty sure. And another of “a surfeit of ale.” I always found that one amusing.

Although Alica looks grim, and there’s murder afoot, I can’t help feeling the worst is over. After all I never knew either of the elder Gholloths, One and Two as the historians call them, and I’ve had my whole life to come to terms with the fact that they were both dead. And frankly five minutes would have been more than enough for that. We’ll find the Lady Blue has killed him, or we won’t, but either way she’s run off and I’m feeling far more relaxed than I was when confronted with her back in the Sword Gallery. Not that I was in any danger there either. . All in all I’m relaxing into these memories quite happily and-I glance back over my shoulder. I’m sure I heard a dog bark. I shrug and catch up with Alica as she turns a corner and starts up a flight of stairs. There it is again. The baying of a hound. Surely none of the mutts from the banquet hall have been allowed to run loose in the palace. Again, and closer. Intolerable! Mongrels from the hall prowling the corridors of power! A sudden tremor puts me off my stride. Earthquake? The whole place seems to be shaking.

“Slap him!” A woman’s voice.

“Get him up!” A boy’s.

I open my eyes, confused but still outraged about the dog, and a large hand smacks me across the cheek.

“What the!” I clutched my face.

“Hounds, Jal!” Snorri let go of me and I sunk to my knees. The ground dusty, the night dark, the stars many, and strewn in such profusion they made a milky band across the heavens.

“Dogs?” I heard them now, baying in the distance, but not distant enough.

“They’re tracking us down. After the key still.” Snorri helped me up again. “Sure you want to keep it?”

“Of course.” I pulled myself up to my full height and puffed out my chest. “I don’t scare that easily, old friend.” I slapped him on the shoulder with as much manly vigour as I could muster. “You’re forgetting who stormed Fraud Tower unarmed!”

Snorri grinned. “Come on, we’ll lead them higher up, see if we can’t find a climb they won’t manage.” He turned and led off.

I followed before the darkness had a chance to swallow him entirely, Kara and Hennan flanking me. Damned if I was going to give up the key now! I’d need something to give them if they caught me. And besides, even if I gave the key to Snorri and ran off in another direction the bastards would still hunt me down. These were bankers we were talking about, and I owed taxes. They’d hunt me to the ends of the earth!

Snorri led us immediately to the river. A fact I discovered by losing my boot in unexpected and sucking mud.

“What is it with Norsemen and boats?” Now Snorri stepped to the side I could see the water, revealed where ripples returned the starlight.

“No boat.” Snorri strode down the long gentle bank.

I pulled my boot out of the mud. I appeared to have stepped into a small tributary stream. “I’m not swimming!”

“Could you lead the dogs away for us then?” Snorri called back over his shoulder. Ahead of him Kara and Hennan were already wading into the current. Damned if I knew where the boy learned to swim up in the Wheel of Osheim.

Cursing I followed, hopping as I tried to get my boot back on. The hounds sounded close one minute, distant the next. “Is it true that thing about water spoiling the scent?”

“Don’t know.” Snorri strode in, pausing a moment as the water reached his hips. “I’m just hoping they can’t get across, or won’t want to.”

I’ve never seen a dog that didn’t like to throw itself in a river. Perhaps Norse dogs are different. After all, for half the year doing that would just get them a bruised head.

“Damnation it’s cold!” I’ve yet to meet a warm river, no matter how fierce the day.