Алексей Пехов - Shadow Chaser

So I stayed where I was.

What if, instead of going up the nearest stairway, I walked to the one that had led me into this corridor and then staggered back to the place where I had come round, and looked for a different way out? I didn’t feel too lazy to cover the immense distance back anymore. I was prepared to do anything at all, up to and including flattening the Mountains of the Dwarves, just as long as I didn’t meet that old man again. The sound of shuffling feet faded away and a deafening silence filled the corridor. But there was still light! The light of the lantern hadn’t completely disappeared. There was a thick, deep twilight in the corridor.…

The old man had stopped before he got to the stairway. But why, darkness devour him?

Keeping my eyes fixed on the doorway, I took a careful step to the left, then another, and another, and another.

And then I almost had a heart attack! On my word of honor, no one had ever managed to frighten me so badly twice in such a short time before.

The monster hadn’t gone away at all. He’d stretched his withered body out on the floor and he was looking into the cell. If I’d stayed in the same spot where I’d been standing only a few seconds earlier, I wouldn’t have noticed him. And if I’d done something even more stupid and moved toward the doorway instead of stepping to the left, I would have come face-to-face with him. And now this monster in human form was staring intently at the very spot where I had just been.

What a cunning devil! How furtively and silently he had come back! He had even duped me. May the darkness drink my blood—it had all been a pretense.

As the old man got up off the floor, his hand dived under his doublet and whipped out his weapon. My back was instantly soaked in cold sweat.

In only two heartbeats the old man leapt into the center of the corridor, stood facing the doorway, and with a movement almost too quick to see, flung the bone at the spot where he thought I was standing. The bone whined as if it were alive as it flew through the air and shot right across the cell, crashing into the far wall with a dull thud and falling to the floor.

My would-be killer grunted in surprise and scratched the back of his head thoughtfully.

“It really is rats,” he said in a rather disappointed voice. “Oh, what a bone I’ve wasted! I’m not sticking my nose into this dump until that smell’s gone.”

Muttering and swearing, he set off in the direction of his lantern. The sound of shuffling feet receded, the corridor turned darker, and soon the impenetrable darkness returned.

I tried to calm the insane pounding of my heart, which was all set to jump right out of my ribcage. I’d been lucky. If I hadn’t moved from my old spot that bone would have been stuck in my chest. The old man had thrown it so quickly that I couldn’t possibly have dodged it; I wouldn’t even have realized what had happened.

I had been saved by good luck, the help of Sagot, and the caprice of fate. My heartfelt thanks went to all of them for allowing me to keep my life.

The old man’s footsteps faded away. My eyes had become so used to the darkness now that I could make out the contours of the doorway. It was very, very quiet all around me, but my fear was still as strong as ever. I was quite simply afraid to move a muscle. What if this was just another cunning trick? I’d already seen how silently he could move. He could easily have pretended to be leaving, taken the lantern away, and could be waiting for me now in the darkness of the corridor!

Waiting … in the darkness of the corridor.…

A cold shudder ran between my shoulder blades and down my back. I distinctly felt the hair on my head move. That cursed old man with his cursed black eyes was as tricky as a dozen orcs and he could quite easily be waiting in ambush, ready to send me on my final walk into the light.

“Stop, Harold, stop! Stop thinking about it, otherwise the fear will seep into your very bones! A few more thoughts like that, and you’ll start to panic. You’re a thief. The calm, calculating master thief known as Shadow Harold. A menace to every rich man’s treasure chest. The Harold that little green goblins with sharp tongues call the Dancer in the Shadows. You’ve never given way to panic while you were working, so don’t give way to it now! Keep calm.… Keep calm.… Calm your breathing now, that’s it.… Breathe in, breathe out.… Well done! Now get out of here, before things get even worse.”

I don’t know if I muttered these words myself or if someone invisible whispered them in my ear, but, with an angry snarl and clatter of teeth, the fear retreated.

Wandering about unarmed in the dark is an absolutely crazy idea, so I held my breath and walked to the back wall of the cell, where the bone had fallen to the floor. I felt around blindly with my feet for a long time, trying to find it. My eyes were watering from the stench and my nose felt as if someone had emptied a wagonload of Garrakian pepper into it, but eventually I found the bone and picked it up.

It was heavy! As I weighed the weapon in my hand, I immediately felt safer. If, Sagot forbid, something went wrong, at least I would have a weapon. I stuck it under my belt and cautiously peeped out of the cell into the corridor.

Nothing and nobody. Black darkness.

I couldn’t see the light of the lantern; the old man must have already reached the stairway. After the stupefying stench of the cell, the stale, musty air of the corridor seemed like refreshing nectar of the gods to me.

I couldn’t get those cursed black eyes out of my mind—I knew they would haunt my nightmares forever. Ah, if only Eel was with me.…

Eel! How could I have forgotten about him!

The veil of forgetfulness fell away and all the previous events of the day flashed through my mind. I remembered what had happened that morning.

First the walk to the mansion and estate of the unknown servant of the Master, then the attack by supporters of the Nameless One, our escape on that absurd wagon, and the crash into the wall before we were taken prisoner and I lost consciousness. And then I had come to in the corridors of this underground prison.

But if I was here, then what had they done with the Garrakian? And why had they left me on the floor of the corridor and not put me in a cell, like the other prisoners? And there was another strange thing—I didn’t feel as if I’d gone flying into the wall of that house at full speed.… My arms and legs were all sound, my side wasn’t smarting. I felt as if I could easily sprint a hundred yards with the guards chasing me.

Was I asleep? It didn’t really feel like it. So I had to find Eel and set him free. He had to be somewhere around here. Poking my nose into every cell was pointless—there were too many of them. And I could easily run into serious trouble if I opened the wrong one. I couldn’t tell who might be waiting for me inside. The best idea was to steal into the watch house and take a look at the register of prisoners—there had to be one of those in a prison, even if the warders here were old men with black voids where their eyes ought to be.

I set off along the corridor in the direction of the stairway, but stopped before I had taken ten steps. The women prisoners! How could I have forgotten about them? The women must know what prison this was. And there was no way I could just leave them to the mercy of that cursed old man. Maybe I ought to try to let them out, since the Nameless One’s supporters hadn’t touched the lock picks in my pocket.

A blizzard of contradictory thoughts immediately started swirling around in my head.

“Harold, you’re not a knight on a white horse from some sickly sweet children’s fairy tale,” whispered a voice with a slightly cynical tone. “Take your arms and your legs and scram, get as far away from there as possible! You won’t save the women anyway.”