Czytaj książkę: «Quicksilver Zenith»

1

There had been no reprieve for reality. It remained in abeyance.

The night-time city was smothered by a dense fog that choked sound but only dimmed the constant discharge of magic. The gleam of sorcery pulsed and sparkled. Phantasms were on the wing, apparitions walked abroad.

A young man shuffled through the damp streets. He was bundled against the autumnal chill, collar up, battered cap pulled well down, a few unruly wisps of blond hair poking from underneath the brim.

He couldn’t see. His eyes were covered by a contrivance resembling a leather mask, with two round patches, tied fast. Behind each patch was a coin, wrapped in wadding.

In one hand he held a cane, and used it to tap his uncertain way. In the other he grasped a leash, tightly coiled. This was attached to a halter girdling the shiny black carapace of a millipede – a creature the size of a large hunting dog. It moved sinuously, huge insectoid eyes set in an unblinking gaze, its multitude of twiggy legs rippling in unison.

The youth was anxious. He reckoned he was in a less than salubrious quarter, and he’d lost track of the time. Rapping his stick left to right, he walked falteringly, as though newly sightless. The millipede strained at its leash, probing, snuffling, guiding its charge around obstructions. The young man tried to hurry.

Had he been able to see, he would have regarded the blizzard of magic on every side as of little account. It was too ordinary. But another sight might have given him pause. Ahead of him, a pair of lights bobbed in the murk, and they were getting closer.

He was aware of a sound. Tugging the millipede to a halt, he stopped and listened, head tilted to one side, his eye patches like dark hollows. He heard the steady crump of boots on cobblestones. A small group, marching in unison. Coming his way.

His sense of unease increased and he thought of hiding. Lifting a hand to his mask, he made to peel it off.

‘You, there! Don’t move!’

The rasp of blades being drawn underlined the warning.

Breath stilled, the youth froze. The millipede scuttled back to him, brushing his calves as a frightened cat might do, for solace.

From out of the swirling, yellowish mist came a band of men. Foremost was a three-strong watch patrol in grey uniforms. Beside them, his scarlet tunic contrasting with their drabness, strode a paladin clansman. The patrol’s requisite sorcerer brought up the rear, dressed in tan robes and bearing an ornamented staff. Two of the watch held charmed lanterns, bathing the scene in a soft, magical glow.

‘Drop the weapon!’

He realised they meant the cane, and let it slip from his fingers. The clatter it made was all the louder in the taut silence.

They approached him warily.

‘Don’t you know there’s a curfew?’

The speaker was the watch captain, grizzle-faced and lanky. Despite the cold, his arms were bare. One was tattooed with a rampant, fire-spitting dragon, emblem of Gath Tampoor, the prevailing empire.

Still masked, the youth said nothing.

‘Lost your tongue too, have you?’

‘I’m sorry, I …’

‘You’re breaking the curfew,’ the paladin barked. ‘Why?’

The young man swung towards the new voice, swallowing hard. ‘I … misjudged the hour. I thought –’

‘That’s no excuse,’ the watchman snapped.

‘Any more than being blind,’ somebody added gruffly.

‘But I’m –’

‘Ignorance is no defence,’ the paladin recited. ‘The law’s the law.’

Someone elbowed his ribs, making him wince. ‘What’re you doing here?’

‘Where’re you from?’ asked another, breathing the fetid odour of cheap pipe tobacco.

‘Who brought you?’ rasped a third, his mouth unnervingly close to the youth’s ear.

He reeled under the barrage of questions. Floundering, he tried to answer, tried to placate them. But they were as bent on harassment as interrogation.

The captain eyed the millipede. ‘Where did you get a glamour this expensive?’

‘It was a gift,’ the young man lied.

‘And who would you know with that kind of wealth?’

He didn’t reply.

‘Can you prove ownership?’ the clansman pressed.

‘As I said, it was –’

‘Then we have the right.’

The clansman nodded at the sorcerer. Gravely, he produced a long-bladed silver knife, embellished and fortified with spells, and offered it hilt first. The watch captain took it.

‘If you can’t prove,’ the watchman said, ‘you can’t keep.’

‘Please, don’t …’ the youth implored.

The millipede looked up with doleful eyes.

Stooping, the captain raised the knife, then plunged it into the creature’s back.

A myriad cracks appeared on the insect’s husk. It bled light. Thin needles at first, piercing the gloom in all directions. A second later, shafts; intense as summer sun and just as dazzling. The millipede turned translucent, no more than a hollow outline, before melting into a silvery haze which flickered briefly, and went out.

The glamour died.

A little inrush of air filled the vacuum it left, and the leash the young man clutched hung slack, its collar vacant.

His persecutors mocked him with laugher.

‘There was no need,’ he protested weakly.

‘You can’t account for yourself and you’re in violation of the curfew,’ the paladin told him. ‘We’re taking you in.’

‘C’mon.’ The watch captain laid a rough hand on the youth.

‘I won’t!’ the young man blurted, trying to shake himself loose.

‘You what?’

‘I mean … it was just a mistake. I didn’t know I’d broken the law and –’

The watchman cuffed him, hard. It was enough to make the youth stagger.

‘You speak when you’re spoken to.’

A red welt coloured the youth’s cheek, a trickle of blood snaked from the corner of his mouth. He braced himself for another blow.

‘And you address us with the respect we’re due,’ the watchman added, raising his fist again.

‘Take your filthy hands off him.’

A figure emerged from the fog. He was tall and dark. His flowing cloak made him look like some kind of giant winged beast.

The watchman swung to face him. ‘Who the hell are you?’

Forgetting their captive, they all turned their attention to the newcomer.

‘Stand aside,’ he said. His tone was even. Calm.

‘Who in damnation do you think you’re giving orders to?’ the paladin thundered.

‘I said stand aside.’

‘Who are you,’ the watchman repeated, ‘to be out in curfew and obstructing the watch?’ Stupefaction tinged his building rage, unaccustomed as he was to having his authority defied.

‘The boy’s coming with me.’

‘Is that so? Well, we’re in charge here.’ He sliced air with the sorcerer’s knife to stress his words. ‘If he’s going anywhere, it’s with us. And you with him.’

The stranger came closer. His movements were unhurried, almost leisurely. But now that he stood in the lantern’s glow they saw that there was something disturbing about his eyes.

‘No we’re not,’ he said.

The watch captain glared at him. He took in the man’s brooding features. The somewhat angular structure of his face, the slight ruddiness of complexion, his long raven hair.

‘Should have known,’ the captain sneered, turning his head to spit contemptuously. ‘We’ve got ourselves a real lowlife here, lads.’

His comrades laughed again, united in bigotry, if a little uneasily this time. The paladin stayed silent, and so did the sorcerer. Bewildered, the youth’s head swung from side to side, trying to make out what was going on.

‘Reckons he can insult his betters,’ the watchman grandstanded. ‘We’ll show him the price of that.’

The stranger moved forward. He only stopped when the tip of the watchman’s raised knife touched his chest. It didn’t seem to bother him.

They locked gazes. The stranger didn’t blink, or move a muscle. The captain’s knuckles were white.

A flock of oversized butterflies fluttered past. They were garishly coloured and appeared to be made of hammered tin. A faint squeaking emitted from their beating wings. Nobody paid them any mind.

‘We can settle this peacefully,’ the stranger said. ‘Give me the boy and I’ll let you go.’

‘Let us –?’ The captain seethed. He applied more pressure to the knife. ‘It’ll be a cold day in hell when we bow to your sort.’

‘I can arrange for you to check the temperature personally,’ the stranger offered, and smiled. There was nothing comforting about it.

Perhaps there was a glimmer of realisation in the captain’s features, a suspicion of what he might be facing. The shadow of a doubt darkened his face. He half whispered, ‘Who are you?’

‘A man who doesn’t like being on the business end of a blade.’

There was a blur of motion, an action so quick and fluid the others couldn’t follow it.

Now the stranger had the knife. He held it by the blade, hilt up. Dazed, empty-handed, the captain gaped at him.

‘I think this belongs to you,’ the stranger said, and just as swiftly lobbed it. But his target wasn’t the watch captain.

The knife winged to the sorcerer. It punctured his chest, driving deep. Whiskered mouth in an O of surprise, the wizard gawked, bewildered, at the blade quivering in his breast. He went down in a swirl of robes.

What had been a glacial scene instantly thawed.

Everyone bar the stranger seemed to be shouting. There was a confusion of movement. Weapons were deployed, lanterns discarded.

‘What is it?’ the youth pleaded, twisting in the chaos. ‘What’s happening?’

The stranger shoved him aside. The youth tottered, and fell.

From beneath his billowing cloak the stranger quickly drew a pair of swords. Then the patrol moved in to engage him.

On hands and knees, head low, the young man scurried away from the sound of ringing steel. Bumping into a wall, he huddled with his back against its coarse surface, making himself small.

A watchman circled the stranger to seize him from behind. He met the smartly delivered backward thrust of a granite-hard elbow. There was the audible crack of a breaking nose. Palms to face, the watchman reeled clear. The stranger resumed fencing with barely a pause.

He faced the captain and the third patrolman. His most dangerous opponent by far, the paladin, knelt beside the sorcerer. He was feeling the wizard’s neck for a pulse, but his eyes were on the fight.

Anger rode the captain. It made him unruly. He fought with wild swings and a reckless stance. His companion was more sober. He came in with measured passes and well-aimed strokes. The stranger met both with equal vigour, his twin blades flashing smoothly from one to the other.

The alley was lit by an eerie gleam from the cast-off lanterns. It threw enormous shadows of the duellists onto the wall behind the cowering youth. The shades of frenzied giants, performing an eccentric ballet. Until one of them stopped.

An expression of consternation was etched on the captain’s face. A blade jutted from his chest. The stranger tugged it free in a gush of crimson. Knees buckling, the captain dropped.

His cohort, momentarily stunned, battled on with renewed ferocity. The man with the broken nose, bloodied and ashen, recovered enough to join in. They tried to overcome their opponent with sheer force but he held them off with ease, dodging swipes, side-stepping thrusts with sure dexterity. Nothing they did slowed his attack. Then he took an opening.

The young man, cringing at the wall, had his hands covering his bowed head, fingers splayed. Half a dozen paces to his left was a sealed window. A grey-uniformed body hurtled into it, crashing through the wooden shutters. It came to rest half in, half out, legs dangling. The youth whimpered.

With Broken Nose out of the picture, the stranger turned to the remaining watchman and fell on him like a ravening wolf.

A slash of glistening arterial blood sprayed across the brickwork above the youth. Flecks splashed him, warm drops spattered his head, hands and shoulders. He quailed.

The stranger had no further interest in the downed watchman. His attention was on the paladin, still kneeling by the wizard. They stared at each other. The paladin was young, robust; his turn-out immaculate, with hair and beard neatly trimmed, in common with his kind. He slowly rose. With measured tread he advanced, drawing his sword as he came. For his part the stranger re-sheathed the flatter of his blades, leaving him with a rapier.

The paladin asked, ‘Why do that?’

‘So we can meet equally.’

‘Gallantry from a savage?’ he scoffed. ‘Only a fool throws away an advantage.’

They’d begun to circle each other slowly.

‘We’ll see,’ the stranger replied.

They moved simultaneously, and fast. Their blades met, pealing, and for a moment locked. Disengaging, both men pulled back and commenced their duel in earnest. Exchanging stinging passes, hacking and chopping, they set up a rhythmic beat of pounding steel. The paladin was a skilful fighter, and disciplined, but no match for his opponent.

The end came when the stranger parried a stroke and deflected his foe’s blade. The follow-through ruptured a lung and brought the paladin down.

Rivulets of blood fed the lane’s rain gully, colouring the sluggish flow.

The stranger looked around and saw the youth huddled at the wall. Ramming his sword into its scabbard, he swept to him, cloak flapping.

‘Get up,’ he said.

The young man didn’t move, aside from trembling.

‘On your feet!’

Still the youth didn’t stir. The stranger took him by the scruff and roughly hoisted him.

‘Now take that thing off.’

‘No. I can’t, I –’

He was slammed against the wall. ‘Take it off!’

‘I daren’t.’

Brutally, the stranger ripped the mask from his face and flung it aside. The freed coins bounced across the cobbles.

The youth kept his eyes screwed shut.

‘Open them,’ the stranger demanded. ‘Open them.’

With some effort, and timorously, he did as he was told.

‘How is it?’

The young man blinked and looked about sheepishly. ‘It’s … it’s all right, I think.’

‘There’s no need for this. It’s stupid and dangerous, and –’

‘No need? You know what I’ve been seeing. How can you say –’

There was a groan close by. They turned and saw that the watch captain was feebly breathing. The stranger drew a knife.

‘No,’ the youth begged. ‘Can’t you just leave him?’

‘We don’t take prisoners. Any more than they do.’

He moved to the dying man and quickly finished him. The youth couldn’t watch.

Wiping his blade on a scrap of cloth, the stranger said, ‘You think I’m cruel. But this is a war. Maybe not in name, but that’s what it amounts to.’

The youth nodded. ‘I know.’

‘Come on. It won’t do to linger here.’

They set off together through the fog.

Something that looked like an eel swam past them. It was candy-striped and had a pair of wings far too tiny to fly with. As it made its serpentine way it left a trail of orange sparks.

In a voice much gentler, Caldason asked, ‘How are you feeling?’

‘I’m scared,’ Kutch said.