Juliet McKenna - The Assassin's Edge

“I think there’s blood coming through their ceiling,” Sorgrad said thoughtfully.

“Let me bespeak Planir,” begged Shiv. “If he can raise a nexus, they might save some of the books before they burn.”

Ryshad coughed. The air was thickening. “We don’t want Ilkehan roasted if we’re aiming to shock people with Eldritch vengeance on his body. Get him into the corridor and do your worst while we look for any artefacts.”

’Gren and Sorgrad immediately took an arm each and dragged the bloody corpse out of the room.

“Shiv, the plan was your illusions would keep Ilkehan’s men scared as we fight our way out.” Ryshad hesitated. “All right, try reaching Planir as you keep watch but don’t get us all killed for a few worm-eaten books.”

“I want my hide whole as much as anyone else,” Shiv assured him. The wizard snatched up a polished silver salver and went into the corridor, green magelight swirling around him.

Ryshad coughed again. “If there are artefacts here, we need to find them quickly.” The coffer was blazing like a watchman’s brazier, scorch marks darkening the plaster above our heads.

Closing my eyes, I pictured the vast irregular cavern of Edisgesset, empty but for those few still bound beneath ancient enchantment. I heard the soft steps of those that kept vigil in the hollow silence. A single shaft of light would be coming down the steps, soft breeze fragrant with the summer’s growth outside. I remembered the subtle chill as I passed between that dissolving sunlight and the all-encompassing darkness.

“ Thervir emanet vis alad egadir. ”

It wasn’t much of a charm, just a jaunty snatch from a ridiculous tale about a lackwit called Nigadin. He went looking for his knife and, finding it, recalled he’d left his belt somewhere. Finding that reminded him he’d mislaid his boots. Tracking them down, he realised he was without his breeches and so it went on. But I’d used the charm when young Tedin has lost himself and it had led me to the lad. I held those whose bodies rested in that cave in my mind. The old man Gense, sallow face sunk away from his beak of a nose, wisps of hair still surprisingly dark across his bald pate. A boy whose name escaped me, skin pale as milk, tousled hair touched with red that hinted at Forest blood, his head looking too big for the frail body beneath it. Velawe, long a friend of Zigrida’s, work-roughed hands with swollen knuckles clasped beneath her sagging breasts, even this enchantment unable to smooth the lines of worry and toil graven between her brows. Porsa, her daughter, beside her, silly, pretty face swathed in a frivolous lace wrap, the curls in her hair still as crisp as the day the tongs had made them.

“ Thervir emanet vis alad egadir .” Belligerent shouts from the stairs opened my eyes.

“Well?” Ryshad watched me intently.

“Next door.”

The corridor was a scene from an addled drunk’s nightmare. Shadows played on the walls like black flames, licking along the floor and up to the ceiling. Shapes came and went on the edge of seeing, distorted heads and bent bodies scampering on unnaturally elongated limbs. One capered in the stairwell, darkness incarnate, eyes of starshine, teeth and nails the pale silver of a mist-shrouded moon. A valiant arrow shot through it, clattering against the wall behind. The figure ducked, huddling in on itself, shadows folding and moulding anew. We heard determined boots thudding on the stairs, shouts urging them upwards.

The darkness reared up with a new mask, a wolf’s head snarling and weaving, twice life size and topping a man-shaped body with clawed hands tipped with ice-white talons. The beast snatched up the fallen arrow and threw its head back to howl like a gale from frozen -heights. Breath steamed icy from its maw and rolled bodily down the stairs. We heard frantic feet taking flight even before the arrow tumbled down after them.

“Nice to see Shiv paid attention to ’Gren’s yarns,” muttered Ryshad.

I was too busy gaping for comment. Startling illusion overlaid Shiv’s crude disguise with a vision of Eldritch Kin seen in fever dreams. Too tall and too thin for ease of mind, a shaft of moonlight in one bony hand, his skin was the bottomless blue of a still pool caught beneath twilight. His hair was shadow darker than those rarest of nights when lesser and greater moons both quit the sky for mysteries of their own. His eyes were black hollows seeing into the very shades, threatening to suck the life from any who caught their gaze.

Sorgrad and ’Gren crouched by his side, visions to terrify Poldrion’s own demons. A head appeared in the stairwell and the Elietimm man’s jaw dropped as he saw his dread master being butchered by the two eerie apparitions.

“He cut out that lad’s stones and eyes. Why don’t we swap his round?” ’Gren suggested in a low voice.

Ryshad looked at me and I wondered if I looked as unearthly to him as he did to me.

“You said do your worst.” I spoke before he could. “We don’t look, then we don’t have to know. Don’t worry. ’Gren’s on our side.”

“I’ll take your word for that.” Ryshad’s tone suggested we’d debate this further when people weren’t trying to kill us.

The awesome Eldritch Kin that was Shiv stepped forward, levelling its cold, gold spear. The Elietimm man froze on the stair, white faced and trembling in the darkness.

“Bless the ancestors who chose you to witness our retribution.” ’Gren looked up and hissed with silken spite.

“We curse Ilkehan to the ninth generation. Cursed be all who pervert the sacred lore.” Sorgrad rose, a figure born of nightmares, blood dripping from the ivory-handled knife to be greedily sucked up by scurrying rat-like shadows. “Thus to all who profane the compact between dead, living and yet unborn.” His words echoed around the stone walls so uncannily Shiv had to be working some magic on them. The reverberations followed the fleeing soldier down the stairs.

Then Shiv winked at me and I could see through the delusion of light and magic to the reality beneath. “Hurry up.”

We skirted round ’Gren and Sorgrad now chuckling evilly. Ryshad kicked in the door and we found a room dominated by a large table strewn with maps and parchments. A window embrasure held a sturdy chest of unmistakably Tormalin origin.

“In there.” It was locked. I reached for my picks.

“No time.” Ryshad grabbed a handle. “Dast’s teeth!” he rasped as he lifted it on to one shoulder.

Sorgrad appeared in the doorway. “We need to go now or there’ll be too many for us to break through.”

“We’re coming,” I assured him.

Scarlet flame danced on his outstretched palm. “Get clear.”

Sorgrad’s handful of fire skidded the length of the table, igniting everything in its path. The wall hangings blazed around us and I swear I felt the hair on my neck crisp as we raced through the doorway. “Curse it, ’Grad, you nearly fried us!”

“Main stairs or back?”

’Gren was standing by Ilkehan’s body, gory to his elbows. I tried not to see what had been done to the body and just about succeeded; apart from realising it wasn’t the enchanter’s tongue poking from his mouth.

Ryshad glanced down and swallowed hard. Even painted blue, I swear he blenched.

Shiv held the silver salver before him, magical fire from a scrap of burning cloth reflecting oddly on to his painted face. “I don’t have time for this, Planir. Just do what you can.” He shoved the metal inside his jerkin and threw the cloth away.

“Back stairs.” Ryshad jerked his head.

“Sorgrad,” I urged. “We’re leaving.”

“Just a moment.” He was crouched over Ilkehan, his back to me.

I moved to get a clearer look and then thought better of it. “You’ve done enough!”