Nights of Villjamur (24 page)

Gestures came and went, light touches to the wrist, a smile after meaningful words, catching each other's eyes through the flame of the candle, every nuance so much more powerful, so much more lingering than before, as if the very fact of being apart had made them realize just how much they filled a gap in each other's life.

Inevitably they got round to the breakdown of their marriage, whereupon Jeryd confessed to being a poor husband. She then gave him a list of demands, should they give it another go.

They were not unreasonable, he admitted, all to do with time, attention, details. Even he could manage that. He stopped short of pleading with her, was merely happy to be with her once again. And she responded positively to that, he hoped.

*

Later that evening, he walked her home to her temporary residence - a room on Gata du Seggr, the other side of the Gata Sentimental, where you found a lot of old soldiers living in retirement. She whispered to him that it would not be right to spend the night together, so at the door he merely pressed his lips to her hand, then turned away into the darkness.

*

On his way home he couldn't help but notice that he was being followed by someone with heavy footsteps, but there was no incident. Once inside the door, seeing with clarity how much of a mess his house was, Jeryd decided to have a quick tidy up. Afterwards he sat naked on his bed by the burning wood stove, with his head in his hands, his tail motionless, his expensive new robe folded neatly on a chair in the corner. There was an ache in his chest as he reviewed the evening in his mind. Things seemed to have gone well, but he didn't want to get his hopes up. Becoming over-optimistic could lead to very worst kind of disappointment.

It was interesting how Tuya had changed the way he looked at his marriage, at his entire life. She had been amazingly succinct in pointing out his errors, had been the only one ever to locate a direct channel to the things that were essential in his world. Without Marysa there would still be so much . . . emptiness. Emptiness which he had previously tried to fill with so much work, in some vague attempt to avoid thinking about how bad things had become.

He reclined back on the bed, began to drift off to sleep.

*

He was woken by footsteps, heels clipping the cobbles beneath his window. His heart missed a beat as the front door opened, then closed. He twisted round in his bed, rubbed his eyes, peering at the clock. He realized he had been asleep for only half a bell. Footsteps up the stairs, footsteps to his bedroom door. With one eye he watched it open, pretending he was still asleep.

A figure approached his bed, paused.

'Some inquisitor you are,' Marysa chuckled. 'What if I was a thief?'

Everything I have is yours anyway
, he wanted to say, but didn't. She kicked off her shoes, slid her dress down, eased herself onto the bed. They kissed, and he was gentle with her, and as they made love she would bite his chest gently, and arc her back like a bow.

Tonight, and for as long as I'm alive
, he promised himself,
it will be all about her.

*

Outside Jeryd's house, Aide Tryst was leaning against the wall watching the glint of the moon on the slick cobbles. He had sifted through the backstreets to get here, mannered and methodical in his stealth, sliding by the tenebrous traffic of Villjamur, past all the hustlers and the slick magic and weird hybrid beasts that filled the hour with a night-noir exoticness.

And now Marysa's gentle groans came down to him occasionally above the noise of the breeze.

In his hand he held up the heart of a pig. Blood dripped along his arm under his sleeve as he silently incanted an Ovinists' mantra, the words forming in a hushed murmur on his lips.

I curse that man
, he thought.
Because he won't promote me to the position I deserve, yet instead of solving Brother Ghuda's death he's wasting his time with that wife of his.

Yet all the time he pretends to be my friend.

In his semi-trance, Tryst's thoughts drifted, took control of things again. How had he got to be here, outside this house, in the middle of the night, so full of rage and jealousy?

As he reflected, memories came back to him, the ones of his youth, back when the summers seemed endless. The cottage just south of the city where his parents lived. His father, that colossal bearded man, a priest of Bohr, and an alcoholic, who abused both Tryst and his mother. His mother herself, small and fragile and beautiful, so undeserving of the hell his father brought home with him. Tryst loved her, wanted to protect her with every instinct of his being.

But to his father she meant nothing, because Bohr had become everything, a god Tryst could never see, and perhaps that was the reason why Tryst had become an Ovinist.

Because he excelled at his lessons, it was his mother who fought for him to stay at school as long as possible, even as his father's drinking habits and bouts of violence worsened. She invested in him a sense of motivation, of freedom to get on in life, not to be held back by conditions. Perhaps some of her own fears laced her words. When she died of some mysterious illness, it destroyed his optimism. Strangely, it broke his father too, and Tryst didn't expect that. So now that it turned out Tryst couldn't expect any more promotions in the Inquisition, he thought back to those days constantly, relived those moments of helplessness again and again.

His mother had told him he was so clever he could achieve anything, and now Jeryd was stopping Tryst from
achieving
.

Tryst slid an ornamental dagger from his sleeve. He cut a slice of the pig's heart, then took a bite to show his devotion to his new god - the one that had helped process his bad memories.

But he still could not do much about the problem of Jeryd.

Seething, he walked home, contemplating ways to hurt the investigator.

Verain pulled up the hood of her fuligin cape to escape the cold wind that channelled through the passageways of Villjamur as if it was chasing her, haunting her like a relentless ghost.

As she continued on her way, old men leered at her from hidden doorways, called out to her with degrading suggestions. Some were so drunk they were falling against the walls, yet even then they were requesting sexual favours. She had half a mind to use a relic to castrate them - at least that ought to cut short their fantasies. She merely flashed a short sword by their faces as she passed, but their voices continued to pursue her long after she had gone. Otherwise there were only the cats infesting the alleyways, but she actually appreciated their company.

She felt so isolated now. She was going to betray her lover.

For that's how Dartun would see it, there was no hiding from the truth. He would scarcely care if she left him for another man. He scarcely ever had sex with her, certainly never bought her gifts. It wasn't as though she wanted much, just some vague show of affection - was that too much to ask? But that wasn't the reason she was about to betray him.

Over the past year, she had seen him become obsessed with his projects, even down to little things that kept him from interacting with others for days. Somehow he had retreated into his mind, and was becoming totally self-obsessed with his plans to step across the threshold of the world. He was going to tamper with the very nature of reality by opening a gate to another realm and stepping through it.

Dartun frightened her with his ambitions.

These were things that ought not to be decided by one man alone. Others should be warned, and if she - his lover - suspected it was immoral to proceed in such a way, then she should at least find a way of opening it to debate, shouldn't she? It was after all a decision that could affect her home.

She passionately loved Villjamur, with its antiquated buildings that leaned on each other through neglect and decay. Amid architecture that often contrasted violently in places, centuries of history was jammed in together, tens of thousands of diverse inhabitants criss-crossed in a mosaic that made up the daily life of the city. Without a family to now call her own, the city represented that familiar link to her childhood, her anchor, something she could always turn to in comfort. No one in her order liked her due to her proximity to Dartun. All she had in her life was the city. She would often walk across the bridges alone, looking down at the hundreds of citizens surging past, lost in their own thoughts. Nothing should be allowed to threaten their world. Orphaned at a young age, she had been passed between people she did not know, never feeling settled, never appreciating the love or guidance of a mother or father, or those gestures that defined who you were. Villjamur alone gave her context. It was while growing up on the streets of the city that she became involved with the cultists. It was in Villjamur that she learned about right and wrong. The place had taught her who people really were, no matter what strata of life they inhabited. And Villjamur had taught her that most fundamental truth - that most people were the same, because of experiencing similar sufferings, pains and pleasures of existence. In the end they were all of them equal.

She asked Dartun what if something came through the doors that he would open into new worlds? And he had told her, quite simply, that if something escaped into this world, if something contaminated the islands and then Villjamur, so be it. His life and the importance of furthering knowledge were more important.

So torn between her lover and her city, she had chosen Villjamur. That was not because she loved him less, but because she had to weigh up the happiness of more than one person. Here, she told herself, was a whole city to potentially protect.

Verain's destination was a featureless stone building, located somewhere off the usual avenues. She knocked on the door and a hatch slid open. To the questioning face behind it, she displayed her cultist medallion. She hoped that the mathematical equal symbol would be enough to declare the importance of the matter.

'What?' the face asked.

'I need to see Papus, Gydja of the Order of the Dawnir. It's urgent.'

'Wait there a moment.'

Minutes later the door opened, and three cloaked and hooded figures stepped out into the darkness of the street. 'We'll need to search you before you can enter,' one of them explained.

Verain nodded, handing over her blade. Three pairs of arms worked her over, prodding at her in vaguely abusive ways, but, eventually, when they were satisfied she carried no relics, she was led inside. She was made to sit on a simple stool in a bare, wood-panelled room, the only light coming through the open door from a lantern hanging on the wall. Since there was no fire, she watched her clouded breath catch this dim light.

Nearly half an hour passed before a silhouette appeared in the doorway. It paused, clearly examining her, then demanded, 'Why are you here?'

'Who wants to know?' Verain stood up.

'I do,' the figure replied sternly. 'I'm Papus.' She carried a candle into the room and began to light others until eventually Verain could see her face clearly.

What Dartun had told her about Papus had not been complimentary, but then he would say such things, because apparently she was a strict woman with so many ethics and morals that even her own sect feared her. There were stories though of her connections to those high up in the Empire, so she clearly was the right person to approach. And she was a powerful cultist: perhaps second only to Dartun. She would know how to process the coming information.

'My name's Verain Dulera, from the Order of the Equinox.' She followed Papus as she placed the final candlestick on an empty shelf on the wall.

As the woman turned to face her, Verain was surprised by her masculine features.

'I know who you are,' Papus said.

Verain pulled back her hood.

Papus said, 'And I see Dartun likes pretty ones.'

Verain was suddenly conscious of her own attractiveness. Not that Papus herself was ugly, but Verain had learned from other women that beauty was something everyone reacted to differently. 'It's because of Dartun that I'm here, actually,' Verain said, crossing her arms in front of her defensively. 'I've got some news I must give you.'

'And I'm expected to trust this news from a rival sect? Furthermore, news about the least trustworthy man who ever handled a relic?'

'Please listen to me,' Verain said. 'If he knew I was here then my life would be in danger.'

Papus gestured her to silence. 'I know plenty of things regarding Dartun Sur, many you wouldn't want to know. I doubt what news you have will change my opinions of him. But what information could you possibly have that would make me detest your lover even more than I do already?'

Verain explained to her Dartun's plans to open a door to another world.

Papus snorted with laughter. 'And you yourself believe that he will actually find these doors?'

'He's had a long time to find out about these things.' Verain wilted internally, having hoped that this woman would appear more receptive and reassuring.

'Why are you telling me this?' Papus demanded, propping her chin on her hands with her elbows on her knees, producing a defeated kind of body language.

How could she relate that she was scared of someone she loved. 'Because I care for him,' Verain replied. She didn't think Papus would understand, so she went on to explain. 'I care for him a great deal, despite the way he is to me, or rather isn't. Dartun may seem languid to these matters, but he's not cruel or anything. I'm starting to think a lot of other men are the same as he is - just too caught up in his own world.'