Stranger of Tempest: Book One of The God Fragments (19 page)

Lynx hesitated. The man was Vagrim, he had no doubt about that, but he didn’t know him still. It was hard to just blurt Sitain’s secret out to a stranger, but he didn’t see much alternative if he did want help.

‘My friend’s got an unusual ability,’ he began. ‘Some might pay good information to track him down.’
Best I pretend it’s a man, in case anyone sees us in the street later.

Sujennet nodded, understanding. ‘To make sure he says his prayers every day? I know the type.’

‘It occurred to me there might be a few sympathetic citizens in Grasiel, those who thought his right to live free and practise his art might be worth taking an interest in. Maybe as a native who hears the gossip, you might know of some.’

Sujennet gave him a long, hard look. ‘How about some pastries?’

Without waiting for Lynx to reply, the man stood and fetched a large bowl from behind the bar, carrying it across the room to the furthest table. Lynx followed, a little confused, as Sujennet sprawled in a large armchair and made every sign of settling in. Once Lynx did the same, Sujennet offered over the bowl and Lynx accepted a twisted strip of pastry covered in tiny white seeds.

‘It’s funny you ask that,’ the older man said at last.

‘It is?’

‘Aye. Mind if I ask a few more questions?’

Lynx shook his head.

‘I remember a tale I was first told almost thirty years back, about a man and a turtle he found on a beach. You heard it?’

Lynx nodded. ‘I have,’ he said, realising Sujennet was testing him. ‘Fishermen got angry with him for returning it to the water. They’d planned on cooking it.’

‘That’s the one.’ Sujennet gave him a long look. He didn’t bother finishing the story, it was a minor tale in the history of the first Vagrim, but it at least proved Lynx had read the book hidden inside his jacket. ‘I ask because, though I’m not active among them, I’ve heard of the citizens you mention. Surei in the main, working through a temple of Banesh.’

Lynx had a sinking feeling. ‘And?’

‘And they’ve been awfully quiet in recent months. Almost like the recent increase in Knights-Charnel has had an impact on them. Might be they’re just lying low, but one or two used to play here on a regular basis and they’ve been absent a month or more.’

‘Doesn’t sound encouraging – for anyone.’

‘Nope. But you’re not here ’cos of the Charnelers?’

‘First I’ve heard of it.’ Lynx leaned forward. ‘There trouble coming?’

‘Allegiances within the Assayed are never fixed; all it takes is one grasping or pious bastard to upset the balance. But that’s always the case and it might be the Charnelers are up to something entirely different. There’s a Charneler sanctuary maybe three weeks ride to the south, a Brethren of the Shards fort on the shores of Lake Udrel – coldest dark, there’s more’n a dozen explanations if you start to think. All I know is there’s a lot more Knights-Charnel around these days.’

Lynx nodded glumly. The underground mage networks were a better-known myth than the Vagrim. While Lynx had never come across one, a place of industry like Grasiel would have been a likely place to find it. He doubted there really were secret mage guilds, as some of the more fanciful tales suggested, but any alternative would be better than a Charneler sanctuary. Unfortunately, the Charnelers knew the myths too and if they were actively hunting mages again, those networks would be targets. Lynx had no idea of the truth to any of it, but it didn’t really matter. Whatever was really happening in Grasiel – and Sujennet was right, it could mean anything or nothing – the option was closed to Sitain.

‘Hey, you.’

The man in the black and white livery of the Knights-Charnel of the Long Dusk turned slowly. The heel of his palm pressed on the brass butt of his mage-pistol. He gave Deern a long hard look then checked around him in case he was being distracted. Deern grinned at him and slipped his boots off the other chair at his table, nodding towards it before swallowing another large mouthful of beer.

The Knight slowly walked over. Unusually for the Militant Orders whose origins were more northern, he was a dark-haired Surei; tall and lithe, with high, pretty cheekbones and a flawless complexion.

‘You want something?’ he said with distaste.

‘Buy me a drink,’ Deern suggested. ‘It’ll be worth your while.’

‘I doubt that.’ He made to turn away but Deern reached out and caught him by the arm. ‘There’s one o’ me and five o’ you,’ he said rather more gravely, nodding to the group the Charneler had been returning to. ‘Think I’d piss you around when I’m outnumbered?’

The young Knight looked down at Deern’s hand. The mercenary waited a moment longer then opened his fingers to let the arm slide free. ‘Tell me what you want,’ he advised, ‘and I’ll decide if it merits a drink or a beating.’

‘Fair enough.’ Deern forced the smile to stay on his face. ‘In the meantime, take a seat.’

The cocky young shit looked and sounded like some sort of nobility, of whatever sort they had in this merchant city. It was unlikely he’d ever been in a proper fight before. If it wasn’t for his friends back there he’d either have checked the attitude or been facing a beating of his own. Deern was easily the smaller of the two, but a confined barroom was home territory for him. Reft kept him out of trouble often enough it was true, but few appreciated that trouble could just as easily be fighting a little too dirty for the local law to tolerate.

The young Charneler gave the chair a brush with his hand and eased himself down, keeping his mage-pistol within easy reach, but Deern only chuckled and poured him a beer from the pitcher on the table.

‘I’m here to proposition you.’

The Surei scowled. His tribe were the more conservative and religious half of the city, but at least he had the sense not to be riled. ‘Start talking.’

‘You’re a ranked man, right?’

The Knight tilted his head towards his shoulder where two gold studs lay, signalling a lieutenant of the Order. His collar was red too, which was why Deern had picked him. Not a regular officer, but a man of the Torquen.

‘Right, so you can find me someone important to speak to.’ That didn’t amuse the Charneler and Deern had to restrain a laugh at the young man’s stony expression. ‘No need to pout, but you’ll be wanting to find a paladin or captain once you hear what I’ve got to say.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘I know of a rogue mage in the city.’

The Charneler blinked. ‘Rogue?’

‘Yeah, might be she killed some of your lot too. She was under escort by some, then later she weren’t.’

‘Where was this?’

‘Road towards Janagrai. We passed ’em during the day, four Knights-Charnel, mebbe five. I didn’t think to count.’

‘And later?’

Deern gave him a cold smile and leaned forward. ‘And later is what I tell someone who’ll be able to pay me for the information, understand?’

‘You can lead us to her?’

‘And the man who I figure must’ve killed some of yours when he helped her escape.’ Deern shrugged. ‘In case you’re interested.’

‘Your price?’

‘Ten gold rings – and a promise. The rest of us weren’t involved, but the Orders ain’t much known for restrained retribution. You take one or both how I say, so none o’ the rest o’ us get dead, plus half the neighbourhood given how some of my lot always keep a burner ready. For preference they’ll be on their own so no dumb bastard even considers putting up a fight.’

The young man was quiet a moment then he nodded. ‘I will put your terms to Exalted Uvrel, but if one is a mage and the other a murderer, I believe they will be accepted.’

‘I’m a reasonable feller,’ Deern declared, reaching for another drink. ‘But I do like a drink, so tell the Exalted to hurry up. And not to forget his purse.’

A trough-like platter of food was placed on the table between Lynx and Sitain and her stomach voiced the growl of hunger that she’d felt building half the morning. There were a dozen twisted dumpling parcels with steam pouring out of them, flanked by lettuce leaves filled with a red, pungent mince, neat piles of cured meats and pale nuggets of cheese singed golden at the edges. The legs of some small game birds were arranged in a crown on a striated bed of grilled leeks and peppers, crisped wedges of pork belly and fat fingers of bread stacked all around the platter.

‘Gods,’ Sitain breathed, ‘I see how you keep your figure.’

She sat cross-legged at one corner of a U-frame bench, Lynx opposite her with his elbows resting heavily on the table. Panes of stained glass in the windows above them cast spots of yellow, green and blue across the eatery floor, colours echoed in the worn cushions and the drapes that covered every wall bar the windows.

Lynx glanced down at his belly and shrugged. ‘You spend too long on the road, you need a few things to look forward to.’

‘And those things brought all their friends and family!’ She laughed. ‘Anyone joining us for lunch?’

‘It’s just us,’ he confirmed. ‘Some mercs spend all their money on games and whores when they make a city like this. I just got different appetites.’

‘This’s on you, right?’

‘Aye.’

She’d popped a dumpling in her mouth almost before he’d finished saying the word and could only mumble her thanks, but his attention was elsewhere by then. It was only when the eatery’s owner brought a glazed jug of beer that either of them took a breath. Even then they only paused long enough to agree the cook was better than the decor suggested. The eatery sat at the mouth of a dead-end street, but given most of the tables were full the cook’s reputation clearly counterbalanced the owner’s parsimony.

Once they had demolished half the platter, Sitain determinedly keeping up with Lynx for as long as she could manage, their pace lessened off. The view from the windows behind her eventually called for Sitain’s attention and she manoeuvred herself around so she could rest one elbow on the sill and still reach the platter. Lynx raised an eyebrow until he saw what she was doing, then gave a non-committal grunt and continued sucking the meat off one of the last legs.

Sitain could only imagine what the view was like from the buildings she saw, but the chief marvel of Grasiel lay beneath them. A steep-sided hill rose above the houses opposite and atop it stood the Maze Markets, a complex of buildings topped by four huge and four lesser domes. There the merchant princes of the city administrated deals that affected the entire region, well away from the actual goods involved or common people.

As magnificent as the Maze Markets were, it was the hill itself that caught the attention. Somewhere in Grasiel’s past there had been stone mages, skilled ones working in unison. The eastern half of the hill had been carved open; a smooth and seamless archway more than a hundred feet high and a hundred wide, through which now ran the river’s tributary as it circled the Island of the Assayed. Great stepped paths ran over that, all mage-cut, down to the palaces where the merchants lived, while up one side ran a funicular powered by the water running underneath.

‘Aye, that’s a sad lesson for the world, ain’t it?’

‘What do you mean?’

Lynx pointed at the hill. ‘All that work, all that skill. We could do great things if we put our mind to it.’

‘What’s so sad about that?’

A grim smile twisted his cheek. ‘’Cos we don’t. The world ain’t run by those with the skill to make it better. Power lies in the hands of those able to destroy all that’s wonderful. Everything else is reduced to dust by their passing. In this life those best at winning succeed, not those who’ve done most for the world. It don’t matter how skilled a mage is, an icer will punch right through his, or her, body just as easy. Build the finest monuments you like; write the fairest laws and love your neighbour with all your might – the world belongs to whichever fucker can tear it all down.’

‘The Orders.’

‘Are the latest sort of bastard,’ he said with a wave of the hand. ‘They weren’t the first, nor was So Han, whatever our beloved Shonrin might’ve claimed.’

Sitain flinched. ‘Mother wouldn’t let that name be spoken,’ she said in a subdued voice. That a monster’s name could be spoken so easily was unthinkable in her home. The warm flame of her family rose in her heart – no longer her home, now just a place she could never return to.

‘The Shonrin?’ Lynx nodded. ‘Can see why, must’ve seemed a devil to her.’

‘Why did he do it? I’ve never known. No one ever understood what happened.’

‘Why we went to war? Shattered gods, so you’re asking the easy ones today?’

His face darkened as though a cloud had crossed the sun, but just as he stared off into nothing he seemed to surprise himself by continuing. ‘Why? ’Cos people are bastards – narrow-minded, greedy or just plain stupid. The Shonrin wasn’t the only one to blame, not by a long shot, but he was the hero we all wanted. The proof we were better’n the rest and shouldn’t be ashamed of that.

‘We were so wrapped up in our self-appointed reputation as the greatest warriors on the continent, we had to prove it. The clan leaders wanted us to fight. They controlled the industry, they controlled the mages, and the monster they’d created needed to consume, so it was our neighbours or each other. It all gathered like stones of an avalanche and before long, you couldn’t look back or slow – there was only the crash forward.’

Lynx shook his head sadly. ‘But you know what? Was the same fact that saved these parts. If we’d been the united people we’d been told, the oaths would’ve been honoured and the pillaging wouldn’t have happened. No army stopped us; we turned on each other and tore ourselves apart. Supplies got diverted, clans kept warriors back and settled old scores. Mages were bribed or killed – some regiments ran out of ammunition just as they were ready to push forward.

‘The whole thing stalled not long after the second front opened up, just as the Shonrin ordered a new offensive. He couldn’t keep it under control and couldn’t get home to impose order. It gave the central states time to regroup and counter-attack, to build an accord with the Militant Orders who, some say, had also been ready to join So Han and roll up the continent.’

Sitain listened in disbelief. If the So Han armies had reached her home, her whole family would have been killed or sent to a punishment camp. With a shaky hand she raised her cup. ‘Here’s to people being bastards, then,’ she said in a choked voice.