Alexey Pehov - Shadow Prowler

“What’s your name, pops?” I asked amiably, bending down to duck under the ceiling of a gray corridor that led deep under the ground, into darkness.

“Bolt,” the old-timer muttered, lighting the torch lying ready near at hand. “Crossbow Bolt, that’s my name. Mind you don’t break your legs, the steps are steep. All the forbidden books are kept in an underground depository. Let’s get what you want, then you can go back up to read it, otherwise I’ll freeze to death here.”

“I heard that the forbidden books couldn’t be taken out of the depository.”

“Hmm… I’d like to tell the Order where to stick their stupid rules. Those fat bloated wizards don’t understand a thing. If they’d ever fought ogres, like me, they’d soon drop all that stupid nonsense. Who needs this old junk? When you’ve read everything you want, I’ll bring them back. Careful, the step’s broken here.”

Hm. Bolt. I knew that in the Wild Hearts many soldiers were given nicknames to replace their real names. The nickname described the man, and men earned them for the specific quality of their service, actions, knowledge, or character. The Wild Hearts took pride in their new names.

Crossbow Bolt. So in former times the old man must have been a good shot.

We walked down into a dark hall that was small, but even so the torchlight was too feeble to illuminate it fully. The old man reached out one hand into the darkness, there was a loud click somewhere up above our heads, and the room was flooded with blinding sunlight. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut in sudden surprise.

“Aha, frightened, eh?” The old man giggled with delight. “Come on now, don’t be afraid. Come on, open those peepers.”

I slowly got used to the bright light. Like the large hall up above, this small one was crammed absolutely full of books and scrolls on metal shelves. And hanging from the high ceiling there was a blindingly bright round sphere, like a little sun.

“The dwarves invented it. Did you think they run around in the dark in those caves of theirs, smashing their foreheads against the walls? Oho noo… They put up magic lamps like this. Magic! Our Order’s never even come close to anything like it. The charlatans! But the dwarves put one of these candles in here, and about ten of them in the basements of the royal palace. Of course, I’ve got no idea how much money they took for it. But it’s handy all right.”

I nodded.

“Right, then. Stay here, and don’t touch anything or stick your nose into anything. I’ll go and get what you want.” The old man gave me a menacing look to make sure I understood what he’d said.

As soon as he was gone, I instantly shed my harmless pose and started strolling about, looking at the titles of the old volumes. My eyes slid along until they suddenly came to rest on a small shelf of magic scrolls. The following words were written in immense, ornate letters on the wall beside the shelf: BATTLE SPELLS! RUNE MAGIC. THESE SCROLLS MAY ONLY BE USED BY ARCHMAGICIANS OF THE ORDER, WHEN PERMISSION HAS BEEN GRANTED BY THE COUNCIL!

I couldn’t understand why rune-magic battle spells would be lying there so openly, entirely unprotected. Any light-fingered rogue-like me, for instance-could easily make off with these rolled-up sheets of parchment.

Carelessness will destroy the world yet. Just you mark my words!

I glanced round quickly, grabbed one scroll, with a black ribbon, out of the dusty heap and stuck it inside my shirt. Then I moved away, to wait for the old man. I’d acted like a petty thief, but I thought to myself that no one else was going to need the scroll for a long time, and it might come in handy in Hrad Spein.

The trouble with scrolls is that you can only use them once. After you’ve chanted the formula and worked the spell, you can simply throw the useless parchment away. The magic destroys the words, erasing them from the scroll and from the reader’s memory. But at least you don’t have to be a magician to work magic that has been written down on paper. You only need to know how to read.

I heard Bolt coughing somewhere behind the shelves, and then he himself appeared, carrying two books in his hands. One was huge and thick, in a brown buffalo-skin binding with worn gold embossing, the other was small and so old that I thought it would crumble to dust under his fingers.

“An ogre almost grabbed me back there,” the old man muttered, handing me the books I wanted. “The brute was hiding under the shelves. I had to give it a couple of kicks to frighten it off. Well, why are you just standing there like a block of wood?”

“Is that all?” I asked Bolt in amazement as I looked at the two books. I’d been expecting more.

“That’s enough cheek from you. The big one is plans of Avendoom, drawn four hundred years ago, and the little one’s about Hrad Spein. Written quite recently, but it’s in a terrible state. The other books are in orcish. You don’t happen to savvy their spiel, do you. Right! Then quit your moaning.”

The old man turned out the dwarves’ sun, took the torch out of its bracket, and started climbing up the steps. We walked all the way back in silence. Then, still without speaking, the custodian locked the iron door and showed me to a table, only not in the large hall. It was in a little cubbyhole, surrounded by books. Then he walked off, muttering something to himself.

I began my research with what was simplest and easiest. Setting aside the little book, I pulled over the weighty tome composed of maps of the city bound together into a single volume.

The pages of fine parchment rustled quietly under my fingers as I turned them in search of the part of Avendoom that interested me. The maps in the book were astoundingly precise and detailed. It was obvious at first glance that this was the painstaking handiwork of dwarves. Only those large but meticulous hands could possibly have traced the lines so precisely and lovingly.

As the pages flashed past my eyes, so did the streets of Avendoom and the city’s history. I found what I was looking for quite quickly. The Forbidden Territory. Of course, drawn at a time when the magicians of the Order had not yet combined forces with the Rainbow Horn to transform five whole streets into a cursed spot that was walled off from the rest of the city.

Well then, getting into the Forbidden Territory would be fairly easy. Only what was waiting for me in there? Three roads left the Port City, running in parallel toward the Artisans’ City: the Street of the Sleepy Cat, the Street of Men, and Graveyard Street. The last of these ran into the old graveyard that was still in use at that time.

Running at right angles to the Street of the Sleepy Cat was the Street of the Magicians, which opened out into the square where the old Tower of the Order stood. On the other side of the square the Street of the Roofers began. As I had expected, all these streets occupied a substantial chunk of the city, a lot more than I had been counting on, in fact. It was going to be a tricky business. But if I wanted to find Grok’s grave, I would have to get into the old Tower of the Order somehow. I couldn’t understand how the two previous expeditions could have set out for Hrad Spein without knowing where to look for the Horn. What had they been counting on?

I tried to memorize all the roads, buildings, and side streets. Call me a fool, if you like, but I never copy plans down onto parchment. What do I have a head for?

Round about midday I leaned back in my chair, exhausted, then slammed the large volume shut and pushed it aside. I stretched and yawned. I would tackle the little book on Hrad Spein next. Hrad Spein, the very worst haunted house ever, filled with the shades of demons, orcs, ogres, and elves. Well, at least we would have an elf with us. What a curious, rare beauty she was, although not a conventional beauty by any means. Not that she was my type-what a match that would be! Ho-ho. Mysterious though, fascinating secrets there. She would bear watching.