Алексей Пехов - Shadow Prowler

“It has been heard,” the elfess said with a flash of her fangs, and threw the veil over her face.

There was no thunder and no lightning. Simply, somewhere Sagot remembered what had been said, and now he would watch carefully to make sure the conditions of the contract were observed. Or if not him, then his servants would watch. The important thing was that the Commission would have to be carried out. If it cost me my life, I had to do it, because there is no running away from fate. And not to carry out the Commission was absolutely impossible. I couldn’t go off to Hrad Spein, hide somewhere near the entrance, and then say: Sorry, I gave it a try but it didn’t work out. They were right when they said Stalkon was clever; he had closed off all the escape routes and loopholes by offering a huge sum of money. And if I didn’t manage to pull it off, I would have to return the pledge and a huge amount of interest on the total sum of the deal. I didn’t have that kind of money, so that meant the terms of the Commission would be violated.

“Congrotolations, Harold!” Kli-Kli bowed elegantly in my direction. “Now you’re the king’s man.”

“I have questions.”

The words “Your Majesty” were set aside now until afterward. Now there was only a client, a master thief, and Sagot observing us from heaven, or wherever it is that he lives.

“Yes?”

“Am I going there alone?”

The thought flashed swiftly through my head that if I went alone, I’d certainly never get there. I’d either lose my way in the Forests of Zagraba or get clubbed to death somewhere along the way.

“No, but we have decided that this time the expedition should be small and it must travel in secret. Someone had eyes following the first expeditions. Servants of the Nameless One or someone else, we never found the informers.”

“How small a detachment?” I asked with a frown.

“Lady Miralissa and two of her compatriots will be your guides in the forest and will protect you with magic.”

“Stop!” It didn’t bother me in the slightest that I had interrupted a king. Alistan frowned, but I couldn’t give a damn. In the face of a Commission all are equal. “You mentioned magic. . . . How many magicians of the Order will go with us?”

“Not one,” snapped Artsivus, suddenly emerging from his contemplations.

I paused for a moment, ruffled up my hair with a nervous gesture, and said, “I thought I just heard you say—”

“Not one,” the archmagician repeated just as firmly. “We’ve already lost eight of our best in those cursed Palaces of Bone as it is. All the magicians will be needed on the walls of the city if your undertaking ends in failure.”

Worse and worse. Why not just throw us into the orcs’ labyrinth? It’ll be easier on our nerves. There’s absolutely no point going into the Forests of Zagraba, and especially to Hrad Spein, without a good magician.

“In addition to your elves, you will also be accompanied by the ten Wild Hearts who escorted the Lady Miralissa from the Lonely Giant. And also milord Alistan. He will command the expedition.”

Alistan gave me a sour look. He clearly did not relish the thought of traveling in the company of a thief. The Rat and the Wild Hearts would make up a small, concentrated force capable of fighting off a small detachment of attackers if we ran into any along the way. So how many of us were there? Fifteen was the number. “Good. When do we set out?”

“The sooner the better.”

“Then at the end of the week,” I said, counting the days.

“What?” Alistan took a step in my direction. “You’re mocking us!”

“Me? Absolutely not.” I shook my head, making it clear to the knight that I didn’t have the slightest intention of mocking. “I need to buy equipment and make thorough preparations for the trek; I personally wish to come back alive from Hrad Spein. It’s a month’s riding, maybe two, to the Forests of Zagraba, and let’s say a month, allowing a huge safety margin, at Hrad Spein, and the same amount of time to get back to Avendoom. We can reasonably expect to be back here in November or December. Provided we don’t run into trouble, naturally. Your Majesty, I need access to the Royal Library.”

I can read perfectly well.

“What on earth for?” the old magician asked, astonished.

“I don’t want to go blundering into Hrad Spein like some incompetent idiot. The Nameless One himself could lose his way in there. I need plans and old maps. At least for what they call the human section. Grok isn’t buried in the lower levels, is he?”

“No, his grave is on the eighth level.”

I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. That was one little piece of good news at least. Trying to enter the levels of the ogres was simple suicide. There was no way I would ever reach them alive. I’d be gobbled up somewhere along the way. But I could risk going down as far as the eighth level.

“That’s good. I think there must be old plans in the library?”

“Yes, there are,” said Artsivus with a nod, then hesitated for a moment before adding: “Only, Grok’s grave isn’t shown on them, I’m certain of that.”

“Why not?” Miralissa asked in amazement, distracted from her contemplation of the fragile goblet of wine.

“The eighth level may not be the twenty-eighth, but it was still not built by men. Or for men. No one must know who lives there and what dangers await.”

“I can’t believe the magicians of the Order left absolutely no records of Grok’s grave and the booby traps in Hrad Spein,” I said, starting to feel nervous. “They must be somewhere, surely?”

“They are.” The old man nodded and wrapped the woolen blanket around himself even more tightly.

“Where, then?”

Would you believe it! First they insist that I carry out a Commission and then they make things difficult by keeping secrets of their own.

“In the old Tower of the Order.”

“And where is the old Tower of the Order?” I had to drag every word out of the old man with red-hot pincers.

“Somewhere in the Forbidden Territory of the city.”

That was when the fanfare sounded in my head, announcing that now I was in a right royal fix.

4 THE ROYAL LIBRARY

I’d promised the king I would go back to the palace after a week, so now I had an entire seven days to prepare for the dubious undertaking of a journey to Hrad Spein. Very first thing the following morning I set out for the Royal Library on Grok Square.

Naturally, to go in through the central entrance would be an act of great insolence and an open challenge to every nobleman in the kingdom, and so I maneuvered through the bustling stream of townsfolk who were already up and hurrying about their business and made my way to the right side of the gray building, were there was a separate entrance for employees.

I walked up to the cast-iron door and knocked loudly. But as always happens, my modest personage was ignored in the most shameless fashion. After waiting for a couple of minutes, I hammered again, with redoubled strength. Silence again. Has everybody in there gone to sleep, then? I can easily believe it, there are never many visitors, especially since entrance is restricted to nobles, priests, and members of the Order. Simple folk have no need of books, they’re happy if they can manage to feed their families. I waited for a while and then knocked yet again, so loudly that the racket frightened the pigeons on the nearby roofs, and the startled flock went soaring up into the cloudless June sky.

Eventually a lock clicked, a bolt squeaked, the door opened a crack, and an old man peered out at me with a short-sighted, angry expression.

“What’s all the racket about, you hooligan?”