Shadow's Son (28 page)

Josey shivered beside him. Caim put an arm around her shoulders, partly to comfort her and partly to keep her from stumbling. The atmosphere of the boneyard was pungent with a miasma of noxious vapors.
Swirling fingers of fog wafted across the sparse, gray grass through storm
grates in the River Wall.

They didn't dare risk a light, but Caim knew the way. He navigated
a winding path through the rows of gravestones. Some were so old their
dates couldn't be read. A dozen centuries of corpses lay in repose beneath
their feet. A sobering thought and not something he pondered often, but
these past few days had illustrated his mortality in ways he'd never
thought about before. He doubted whether either of them would survive
this fiasco.
Where will I be put to rest when my time comes? Dumped in an alley
for the street sweepers to take out with the morning trash? Or thrown in the
Memnir with stones tied around my neck?

Caim stopped Josey at an old mausoleum near the east end of the
cemetery. The words carved into the stone lintel above the heavy bronze
door were faded and eroded by time, but still legible.

Pieter Ereptos

The Last Honest Man of Othir,

From His Grateful Brothers.

Caim smiled at the private joke as he heaved on the door. Flecks of
verdigris came away in his hand from the handle, but the door opened
without a sound. Its hinges were kept well oiled by the deceased's large
family of "brothers."

Caim drew Josey inside. Her hand was cool and slick in his grip. He
squeezed to reassure her as the door shut behind them. The inside was as
dark as the proverbial tomb, but Caim was able to make out a stone ledge
with several objects. He found a wedge of flint and struck it against the
iron plate resting beside it to produce a spark. After a couple attempts,
the old storm lantern flickered to life.

Josey pressed against him as he turned. The interior of the crypt was
cramped by a massive sarcophagus in the center of the floor. Great attention to detail had gone into the bier. Upon the lid was carved the likeness
of a man in white marble. He was of middling years, dressed in plain but
well-cut clothes.

Caim gestured with the lantern. `Josey, meet brother Pieter."

To her credit, she didn't shy away from the crypt. "I take it he wasn't
really your brother."

"In a manner of speaking."

There had never been a man named Pieter Ereptos living in Othir, or
anywhere else to Calm's knowledge. About fifty years ago, some elements
of the city's underworld sought a reliable and secret means to enter the
city. Gate sentries could be bribed, of course, but human agents were vulnerable to sudden attacks of conscience. So the various thieves, con artists,
sellswords, and other scum pooled their resources to have a fictional
"brother" interred in the cemetery. Workers were smuggled inside the
crypt night after night for many long months to work on the clandestine
project.

Caim reached out with his free hand to toy with the decorative shapes
carved into the side of the sarcophagus. He found the one and pushed.
Josey yelped as the lid of the stone coffin slid away. Caim caught her hand
and drew her closer to the sepulcher. Instead of holding the moldy
remains of a corpse, the interior was hollow. Steps disappeared down into
the darkness of a long tunnel. A cloying smell rose from the aperture, not
fetid and charnel, but the smell of clean, moist earth.

"Come," he said.

He held the lantern before them as they went down into the darkness.

Vassili swept the mass of architectural plans from his desk with a blasphemous oath. Outside the door, footsteps that had been approaching the
door wisely turned away.

Robbed of the chance to vent his anger, he dropped into his thronelike chair behind the desk. Scents of sandalwood and ambergris wafting
from the hearth did nothing to soothe his ire. He had been at the site of
the new cathedral, basking in the realization of his genius wrought in
marble, when the news of Benevolence's death reached him. His first
thought had been to curse the heavens for their poor timing. Later, he
shook with rage as he read the first reports out of DiVecci. The prelate had
been murdered. The deed had Levictus's name written all over it.

Vassili mashed his hands together while he paced. Did the man think
he was a fool? What with the rogue assassin on the loose killing electors,
men he had counted upon in his bid for the prelacy, it was too soon to precipitate the final phase of their plan. This could ruin everything!

He paused with his hand over an Illmynish porcelain figurine. Perhaps things were not as bad as they appeared. The deaths on the Council
were a setback, but no one else had enough votes to swing the election.
That meant he was still in a position of strength. If he moved swiftly and
with purpose, his plan could still succeed. But first he needed to rein in
that bastard Levictus. The second thing he'd done upon returning to the
palace had been to summon the sorcerer. It was time to remind the man
which of them was the servant and which the master.

The lamp over his desk fluttered as if in a stiff breeze. The windows
were closed.

Vassili turned, and stepped back reflexively as the slim figure
appeared behind him.

"God's blood, man. What are you doing here?"

While he took a moment to catch his breath, the assassin took a seat
by the fireplace. The archpriest's fingers curled into fists, but he forced a
calm tone into his voice. Ral still had his sword with the ostentatious
silver handle belted at his waist. The security lapse only increased his ire.

"Have you found them yet?" Vassili asked. "I need that girl, and the
man-what's his name?"

Ral produced a knife and twirled it between his fingers. "Oh, we're
still searching for them. No good having such hazardous tools lying about
where anyone could snatch them up."

Vassili frowned. This was a different Ral than the one he was accustomed to dealing with. He went behind his desk and sat down. He considered calling for his guards, but held off.

"What are you getting at?"

"You've been colluding with dangerous people, Your Luminance. All
those rumors about war in the north must be driving you mad."

"I don't-"

"Don't waste your breath." Ral reached into his jacket and dropped a
scroll on the desk.

Vassili stiffened as he saw the wax seal on the parchment. How could this be? All his most secret documents were kept under lock and key.
Then, he knew.

Levictus.

Vassili brushed a hand down the front of his robe as he composed
himself. "Yes, I have had dealings with certain entities in Eregoth. What
of it? We are surrounded by foreign powers that work toward our annihilation, from the pagans of Arnos to the godless heathens of the western
realms. The prelate understood the use of clandestine means to further the
Church's mission. The use of assassination as a political lever, for
example."

Ral didn't take the bait. "Dealing with the Shadow is sacrilege, and
treason to boot."

"Don't prattle to me about sacrilege and treason! I have spent my life
in service to the Church. After Immaculate passed, I should have been
elected to the high office. Me. Not that dotard, Benevolence. Your failure
may have altered the timing of my plans, but nonetheless I will be the
next prelate."

Ral frowned as if perplexed as he examined the palms of his hands.
"I'm afraid there's been a change of plans. You see, it's not Caim who's
been killing your peers on the Council."

Vassili grasped the desk. "I'll have you whipped through the streets
for your inso-"

His words dribbled to a halt as he gazed down at the knife's shiny
handle protruding from his chest. It was a curious sensation, more pressure than pain, radiating out from his breastbone. A thin line of warmth
trickled under his robe, down his belly and into his smallclothes.

Another figure appeared before his desk. Levictus in his black robe.
Nothingness reflected in the opaque depths of the sorcerer's eyes.

Vassili wanted to reach for his sacred medallion, to cow the man in
his tracks, but his hands refused to obey. His body was too heavy; he
couldn't move. He looked to Ral, who had risen to stand beside Levictus.

"You don't know," he whispered, barely able to summon enough
breath to speak. The wound began to throb. "You think you've won, but
you don't ..."

The room spun, and then he was lying on the floor staring up at the
ceiling. Little shadows crawled across the coffered surface, so many of them, like a hive of formless black termites burrowing through the
palace. Something tugged at his sleeve. Papers rustled in the dark. Ral
was going through his desk. Clever boy, he found the secret compartment
under the lowest drawer that held the secrets he had killed to protect.
Now they were laid bare like his body would soon be, dressed in a white
funeral shroud and placed in his stone tomb. He hoped his son would
honor his wishes and give him a mahogany coffin. He'd always loved the
luster of that dark wood.

The sorcerer leaned over him. An object came down beside Vassili's
head-a pale wooden box. It resembled an offering box. When he was a
boy his father had allowed him to place their family's alms into the box.
The young parish priest had had such fervent, penetrating eyes, always
watching him. The pain was fading. It wasn't so bad, dying. He would
close his eyes and drift into a deep, endless slumber.

Strong hands rocked him. Metal clattered in the distance. Vassili
frowned at this disturbance of his peace. He was a distinguished principal
of the Church. He should be accorded all due dignity and respect, not
pawed over like a fish at market.

Levictus bent lower. Words fell into his ear, soft as goose down.
"Benevolence spilled his last secret as he died, old man. I know who
ordered the arrest of my family."

A crumpled piece of parchment was placed on his chest. The indentation of the Vassili family seal stared at him from the bottom of the document like an evil eye. The archpriest strained to speak, but only a dry
wheeze issued from his lips. A final surge of indignation constricted his
chest, and then evaporated, leaving him empty and weak.

Footsteps drifted away across the cold tiles. Ral departing. Levictus
crooned softly as he reached out to the archpriest. Was this a last caress,
an act of compassion for a dying man? No, something approached from
beyond the misty edges of his sight. A knife, its blade as black as the new
moon, colder than the depths of the midnight sea, descended toward him.

Closer ... closer ... closer ...

Vassili's final kiss came not from the lips of his mistress but from the
bitter bite of Shadow-tainted steel. He screamed, but there was no one to
hear.

aim swayed to the rocking pace of his stolen horse. They were on
Ithe road, if the term could be applied to the rutted pathway
wending between hedges of wild golden-brown wheat through the
wilderness of rural Nimea. A colossal stone aqueduct ran parallel to the
road, its arches clogged with ivy vines and detritus. A century ago it had
carried water to Othir from the purple hills staggering away in the distance. Now, it was a monument to a tribe of humble origins that had gone
on to conquer most of the world. But even empires died eventually.

Josey rode beside him on a piebald nag; the animal's mild temperament matched its rider. Since they'd left Othir, Josey had lapsed into a
quiet reticence. Caim was content to leave her to her solitude. After their
escape through the underground tunnel leading from Pieter's tomb,
they'd emerged in the foulburg of ramshackle homes along the western
banks of the Memnir River. Caim liberated a pair of steeds and gear from
a tavern stable, and they set off into the night. There was only one place
in the world where Josey would be safe until he settled their problems,
only one person he trusted to protect her.