The Shadow at the Gate (56 page)

“What do you mean?”

“I shall be waiting in your master’s court, human. Bring him.”

The hooded figure vanished.

Dreccan stumbled down the hall as fast as his legs would carry him. The ache in his stomach grew sharper, deeper, and more determined in its efforts. It was not an ache any more; it was downright pain.

Surely the creature was dead.

Dreccan had spoken with no fewer than five lords, two ladies, and four servants who had all attested to the dreadful events that had taken place at the regent’s ball. Eleven conversations adroitly steered by Dreccan so that none of them had thought to ask why both the regent and his advisor had not been at the ball when all the dreadfulness had happened. All their stories had been basically the same. The creature was dead. Killed before the stunned eyes of the nobility from every duchy of Tormay. Killed by Lady Levoreth Callas.

Or whoever she was.

Whatever she was.

His mind shied away from that thought. The problems brought by the Silentman’s greed were bad enough without having to grapple with the idea that people you always thought were people might not be people at all. They might be something else entirely. Such a thought did not fit into a neatly ordered world. And if there was anything the world needed more of, it was order. Neatness. Predictability.

Several guards came to sleepy attention in the hall, bleary-eyed and trying not to yawn. One of them dropped his spear with a clatter. Dreccan hurried by. The night chamberlain was snoring on a couch in the regent’s antechamber. His wig had slid down onto his face and fluttered with each snore. Dreccan tiptoed past. He opened the door and eased through.

“Who’s there?”

“Shhh!” said Dreccan, closing the door behind him.

“Oh, it’s you. What are you doing, wheezing and stomping about like that? You could’ve given me a heart attack.”

A candle guttered into life. The regent was sitting bolt upright in a chair in the corner.

“This had better be good, Dreccan,” said Botrell. “Just getting a nice night’s sleep and you blunder in like a drunk. Eh? Is that it? You've been at the bottle again?”

“I’m not drunk,” said the other stiffly, feeling that such an allegation was unfair, particularly as the bed looked unslept in and a nearly empty bottle of wine stood on the table by the regent’s chair.

“Don’t equivocate,” said Botrell, wagging one finger. “Take your medicine like a man. Drink it down, sir. Drink it down.”

With this, he poured himself a generous measure of wine and downed it in one gulp.

“I’d offer you some, Dreccan, but it’d be wasted on your untutored palate. It’s a Vomarone. A nice, little Vomarone. Twelve-year old bottling. Velvety, fruity, and notes of, er, something or another. Ahh. Yes—yes. I think I’ll have another. Don’t mind if I do.”

“My lord,” said Dreccan, “there’s an urgent matter.”

“Yes? Excellent. Then it can wait until the morning.”

“It can’t. He’s back.”

“What’s that? Calm yourself, man. Speak clearly. You babble like an old lady. Get to the point.”

The steward ground his teeth together. The pain in his stomach was getting worse.

“He’s back. The little creature, the thing who hired us to steal the box.”

“Shadows above!” Botrell shot out of his chair like a frightened rabbit. “Counfound it, why didn’t you say so before? Is he here? But that’s impossible. He’s dead. No, he isn’t dead. Is he dead? Why isn’t he dead too? His master’s dead.”

“We think his master’s dead. We thought his master was dead.”

“I was hoping,” said Botrell, and then he shut his mouth.

“His master might be dead, but he might not. Who knows what happened that night? Wondering won’t do us any good now. He’s waiting down in the Guild court.”

Botrell shuddered.

“Then let’s not keep him waiting any longer.”

The darkness in the tunnels seemed even darker than usual. The oil lamps burning on the wall hoarded their meager light to themselves as if unwilling to let it shine down onto the stones below.

“Stop walking so close,” said Botrell.

“Sorry.”

The steward could feel the man’s eyes glaring from within the blurred shadows wrapped around his form. He glanced back down the passage. He had the distinct impression that someone was watching him. Just past the edge of the light. But surely nothing was there. Only cobwebs and a spider or two.

They halted at a turn in the passage. Botrell muttered a few words under his breath and a door yawned open before them. Dreccan gritted his teeth, waiting for the old familiar dizziness. A ward buzzed into life in the door. Nausea swept over the steward. In an instant, the darkness was gone and they were standing in the blue light of the Guild court.

“I hate that spell,” said Dreccan. He swallowed, tasting bile.

“It’s a long walk otherwise,” said Botrell. His voice was barely a whisper.

The court was empty. At least, it looked empty. Shadows crisscrossed the hall from column to column, retreating from the blue flames that burned motionless on the walls.

“He’s here,” said Botrell. He crept up the dais steps and peered around.

“Silentman.”

The voice came out of the darkness, from somewhere within the rows of columns stretching away from the empty throne. Botrell made a convulsive leap for the throne and sat down. The little figure stood before the dais steps, where a moment before there had only been shadow. Twin points of light gleamed within the darkness of its hood.

“You have something of ours, Silentman,” said the thing. Its voice was low, but the words echoed in the court, hissing in the quiet like snakes who had come to agree with what was said. “You have something of ours, and my master desires its return.”

“Your master? Is he—I mean—where—”

But then the Silentman fell silent, for the hooded thing began ascending the steps of the dais. The drapes of its cloak whispered against the stones. It was unthinkable! No one was allowed so near the throne of the Silentman. It was punishable by death. The Silentman looked over at Dreccan, but his advisor was intently studying the floor.

“Listen to me, and listen well.”

The thing came closer until it stood in front of the throne. The Silentman clenched his hands together into fists to stop them trembling. He could smell the hooded thing now, a sour whiff of dust and wax and stale sweat. It was an oddly familiar scent.

“Your Guild has taken our gold, our faith, and our patience. And what has my master in return? Broken promises and a boy that escaped your grasp.”

“Here now,” said the Silentman. “We got the boy, didn’t we? We nabbed him and then your master let him slip through his fingers.”

Immediately, as soon as the words were out, the Silentman wished he hadn’t spoken. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dreccan wince.

“My master?” said the thing. “Hold your tongue, thief! My master returns soon and you shall know his reckoning. For now, however, you will return the gold we paid.”

“All the gold?” said the Silentman. “Do you mean all, as in all of it?”

“Every last coin.”

“But, but,” stammered the Silentman. He thought of all the dinners and dances and guests that had been entertained on the bounty of the regent of Hearne. In reality, they had been entertained on the bounty of the Thieves Guild. Most of the gold was spent.

“I’ll return this time tomorrow to collect my master’s gold.”

The hooded thing turned and descended the dais steps.

“All of it, thief,” the thing said over its shoulder.

And then it happened.

The thing tripped on the last step. Perhaps it had stepped on a fold of its cloak or stumbled on the stones, the Silentman could not tell, but the hooded thing sprawled on the floor below the dais. It scrambled to its feet. The hood had fallen back. Light glinted on skin and hair.

“Smede?” said the Silentman in amazement.

“Er,” said Smede.

“Smede!” yelled the Silentman, but this time his voice was full of outrage and ferocious joy.

The accountant turned and ran. The Silentman was off his throne in a bound and down the steps.

“Smede! You filthy worm! Traitor! You’re a dead man, Smede! Dreccan! Quick, grab him! I’ll cut your lousy rotten throat myself, you miserable ink-swilling maggot!”

The door at the far end of the court slammed.

“There’ll be no catching him once he’s in the labyrinth,” panted Dreccan.

“I’ll have his head on a pike,” said Botrell. He spat on the ground and then grinned in delight. “Did you see his face? He was bluffing us. I know it. Smede. Imagine that. His master’s dead and gone, I warrant. He was bluffing us for the gold. He was bluffing. Ha! And he had me. He almost had me, Dreccan. I was already trying to figure out where we’d raise that much gold. Sell the regency jewels, borrow from Galnes and all the other blood-sucking merchants. Sell off my stable. Never!”

“I’ll put the word out to the Guild,” said Dreccan. “They’ll be watching his house, the gates, the waterfront. They’ll have him before the day’s done.”

“And also the city Guard. Make up a story of murder or someone’s daughter ravished, I don’t care what. Anything that’ll withstand Gawinn’s scrutiny. Smede’ll rue the day he was born when I get my hands on him. I’ll skin him alive with a blunt knife. I’ll roast him over coals. I’ll drown him in his own ink.”

“You don’t suppose he wasn’t lying?”

“What? Nonsense. You’re becoming womanish in your old age, Dreccan. You saw his face. He was bluffing or I’m not the regent. Smede’s never met a gold piece he didn’t love. His master’s dead and he was hoping to scoop up all that gold for himself. You have to hand it to him. Imagine that—our accountant a lying, scheming traitor. You can’t serve two masters, Dreccan.”

The door closed behind them. The court was silent again. Silent and empty and, between the glimmers of blue light, filled with the dark.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

LEVORETH GOES HUNTING

Levoreth and the wolves traveled up through the foothills of the mountains. The air was brisk and clouds blew across the sky in dirty, gray tatters. They were in an area north of the duchy of Dolan and east of Harlech. Neither duchy claimed the land as its own. There was nothing to claim from a practical point of view, for the countryside was inhospitable at best. It was a desolate place of steep, rocky slopes and sudden canyons that dropped down into their depths, cut by years of the rivers running fast and ice-cold down from the mountain heights above. Pine trees grew on the slopes, rising up from the ground dense with dead needles to the treetops above tossing and sighing with the wind. Past them, through the branches and further up still, were the heights gleaming with snow.

“It’s winter already, up there,” said Levoreth.

Aye
, said the old wolf. He loped along at Swallowfoot’s side, each stride nearly as long as the horse’s.
It’s always winter on the heights.

Do you remember the trail, Drythen Wulf?

Does a wolf ever forget a scent?
said the wolf in some indignation.
Would that I could forget such a trail. Would that I had never followed it down, but the wolves shall always live according to your wishes, Mistress of Mistresses.

They struck the trail later that morning. Levoreth shivered, closing her eyes for a moment. Beneath her, Swallowfoot trembled and stopped stock-still. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. The scene had not changed. The pale sunlight still streamed down through the pine trees. But in her mind, she could feel the touch of the Dark. The presence was old and faded, but it was there.

We need not follow the trail all the way to the mountaintop, Mistress
, said the old wolf.
I think there are other ways to get there
.

Thankfully,
she said.
Lead on.

They climbed past the tree line and up into a region of great rock slabs and a wiry, spiky scrub that had no flowers or leaves but released a sweet scent whenever its branches were broken. The slabs of rock were enormous and they lay in shattered grandeur, like bodies of giants turned to stone, fallen upon a battlefield from some long-forgotten war. Swallowfoot picked his way through the rubble underfoot.

Methinks your horse is descended from a mountain goat
, said the old wolf.

Watch your tongue, wolf,
said Swallowfoot.

I meant well. Your step is sure and this is no easy, plainsland path we follow.
But the old wolf’s mouth opened in a soundless laugh, and the other wolves ahead of them on the slope glanced back with amusement gleaming from their eyes and their sharp-toothed grins.

Levoreth remembered, with some surprise, that the last time she had been in the mountains had been with these same wolves. This same pack. Years ago. Hunting a sceadu that had brought death and misery to the mountains and all the wild kin who lived there.