Stephen Deas: Warlock's shadow

No. He was a murderer. He’d killed a man he didn’t even know, and he didn’t even know why, except that he’d had no choice, none at all. The warlock had made him do it, but no one else would know that. Kol would hang them both.

He couldn’t see where he was going. There were too many tears in his eyes. He hadn’t even noticed he was crying until now.

He couldn’t go back to the temple. They’d all hated him there anyway, all of them except Tasahre, and now he was a murderer and she was dead and it was his fault. If it hadn’t been for him, she’d be alive. If he hadn’t used the warlock’s magic to talk to Velgian, if he hadn’t gone to the docks, if he’d stayed at the temple like she wanted, any of those things and she’d be alive. If he hadn’t …

He’d see her everywhere now, he knew that. And he wouldn’t see her with his hand on her cheek, but with blood spraying out of her neck.

Evil, that’s what he’d seen.

Tasahre. Gods! Why? Why?

He slipped away, across Deephaven Square, around the back of the Golden Cup. He tried to ignore the delicious smells and the raucous sounds that came out, the salacious laughter of fat old men with pockets full of gold, groping the girls who worked there. Tasahre was right. The city was rotten.

Or maybe it was the thief-taker who’d told him that once.

He pushed his way down the Avenue of the Sun to Four Winds Square, oblivious to the drunken crowds that surrounded him, and made his way out into the back streets, into The Maze. This was his old home, the place where he always used to go when he needed somewhere safe. He had money. He could buy food, hard biscuits and salted meat and other things that would last. He could carry enough to keep him alive for the first few days. He could hide out in the Maze then slip out through the Reeper Gate in the dark and make his way towards Bedlam’s Crossing. The nights were warm enough and there were woods to hide in during the day. He could be there in three days if he walked hard, maybe four if he had to dodge anyone on the road. Then he could buy himself some deck-space on a barge going up the river. He could have done the same from the river docks in Deephaven but he wasn’t going to chance that, not from outside the witch-doctor’s door. He wondered what the city would do to punish a murderer. Something slow and painful. Khrozus! Would all the way to Varr even be enough? A barge would take a month to get there, which made it seem a very long way away. Yet Berren knew there were other places that were even further.

He fingered Prince Sharda’s token. No. That’s where he was going.

The night wore on. The docks heaved with revellers. Reeper Hill was choked with men staggering between a parade of carriages. He made his way out to Wrecking Point, stumbling in the dark down the path to the broken stone cliffs at the edge of the harbour. It took an hour of searching, but the sword was still buried where he’d left it. He wrestled with it to pull it out of its scabbard. Brown streaks marked the blade; he wasn’t sure whether they were blood or rust. The leather in the belt and harness was cracked and hard but it was still a sword and the edge was sharp. Berren put it on. Swords. He’d wanted to have one for as long as he could remember. Now he did, mostly what he wanted to do was take it off and throw it high into the air, away into the sea. But he couldn’t. They were bound together now, him and the sword, like it or not.

He sat still, staring at the waves. Deephaven had been his home. For all its sins, it had given birth to him. The city and the sea. He’d probably miss the water. The sound of it, even the smell of it. The jaunty river men and the surly mudlarks, the rainbow breeds of sailors from across the oceans, the warm sultry nights and the winters where people didn’t freeze to death. The colours, the way the markets always held something he’d never seen before, every single day. Yes, he’d miss all of that.

But not the thief-taker with his hands covered in blood. Not Tasahre, lying soaked in crimson, head lolling sideways. Not the shadow-thing that called itself Saffran Kuy.

He kicked himself. He was going to Varr. He was going to serve a prince, a real prince, not someone who got kicked out of his palace a decade and then some ago. If the worst came to the worst and this Prince turned out no better than the last, there was always work on the city walls. The whole world could work on the walls of Varr and they’d still never get finished. Apparently that was a joke. He’d heard it said and heard people laugh, too. Didn’t see it himself.

The sky started to lighten. Nights were short in the summer. Over in the city the crowds were thinning as people either staggered to doze in a temple to the sun somewhere or else passed out in the streets, fodder for the press gangs. He got up. When he tried to walk, the sword and its scabbard kept getting between his legs and tripping him up. In the end he wrapped the sword back into its bundle and ran across the city with it slung across his back.

He went down the back of Reeper Hill and Shipwrights’ and towards The Maze. Lilissa lived there now, somewhere. His first love, gone to be with her fishmonger. He didn’t know exactly where; Master Sy wouldn’t tell him and Lilissa didn’t want him to know. All in all that had probably been for the best. Everything to do with her seemed so childish now.

Tasahre. A part of him had died with her. Or maybe she wasn’t dead after all — maybe that sword monk had reached her in time and touched her with a mark of the sun, like the elder dragon had done to Master Sy, and turned her at the brink and brought her back. Maybe? Could something like that have happened?

No. No, he couldn’t even start to make himself believe it. She was dead and no one was going to miss him. Hardly anyone would even notice except Master Sy, and Berren would never be able to look at the thief-taker again without seeing Tasahre. Leaving was nothing to be sad about.

He walked through the Sea Gate into the docks. They looked like a battlefield. Clusters of drunks huddled together. Others shambled aimlessly towards the temple near the gates. A few were laid out flat, some of them already being dragged towards boats, bobbing on the sea. Berren skirted around the edge of all that. The Maze, that was his place. He knew exactly where he was going: to the half-collapsed cellar of the old Sheaf of Arrows, the place he used to go when he ran with Hatchet’s gangs. It was as good a place as any to hide for a day.

He turned a corner and walked straight into a gang of men pushing a handcart. He stumbled and almost fell.

‘Hey, lad. Careful there!’ One of the men reached out, offering him a hand. Berren took it without thinking.

‘Ever thought of going to sea?’ asked another one behind him.

The grip on his wrist was strong, pulling him up. Very strong.

He had a moment, just long enough to realise who these men were, before something hit him round the back of the head.