I was finding it hard to breathe. I didn’t think I had broken any ribs, but I had certainly bruised them.
I was starting to really dislike Lowriver.
I crossed the Tide Bridge in a crowd of hurrying pedestrians. The beast hadn’t followed, its range limited by whatever ghost Lowriver had hauled up from its rest.
Until the next one, I thought grimly. I couldn’t run forever.
But the next one didn’t come. There were no more ghosts, no more beast. Whether it was the distance or the crowds or the Ash Guard patrols, I didn’t know, but for whatever reason the attacks had stopped.
With a groan, I dropped to the street, ignoring the looks from the passers-by. The panic caused by the sudden appearance of the ghost-beast seemed to have dissipated, along with the frightened witnesses, and the city was already resuming its usual rhythms. It took a lot to make more than a ripple in Agatos. We were used to weird crap here.
Of course, just because the attacks had stopped for now, that didn’t mean they were over. This might only be a pause until I was somewhere more secluded, where Lowriver could finish me off.
I forced my breath to settle back to something approaching normal, then let my eyes unfocus, studying the magic around me. For the most part, all I could see was the green of raw magic. A woman passing on the far side of the street was wrapped in a disintegrating curse. It wasn’t going to do her much harm, and it would fall completely to pieces in a day or two. The steady stream of magic that powered the morgue-lamps thrummed beneath the street. A kid squatting in a doorway a block up appeared to be a natural magical talent, absorbing raw magic subconsciously and using it to sustain himself. Nothing unusual in any of that.
At least until I looked over my shoulder. Clamped to my back was what looked like a squid constructed of shifting yellow magic. Every few seconds, the magical squid (there was a phrase I never thought I would say) emitted a pulse that disappeared into the night. Lowriver had tagged me. I didn’t recognise the spell, but it was complex and powerful. I hadn’t even noticed her hit me with it.
I could break the spell, but it would take more time and effort than I could spare. When I found Benny, the Ash would kill it far more effectively.
Except then she would know where we were, or at least where we had been when I’d found Benny. I didn’t want her waiting outside when we emerged, or sending in a bunch of people with knives to do it the simple way.
Figure that one out once you’ve located Benny, I told myself.
The spell I needed wasn’t that difficult. Sending an unstructured wave of magic out in every direction was one of the basic forms, and modifying it so the magic bounced back after a hundred yards wouldn’t be too hard. The difficulty would be making sense of the magic as it crashed back upon me, like being hit by a wave from every direction and trying to work out exactly where the driftwood that cracked me over the head had come from.
I found a quiet alley off the main street, took some breaths to calm my nerves, and cast the spell. I saw the magic spread out in a sphere and disappear. A couple of seconds later, it was coming back, contracting on me like a swarm of wasps finding a jar of honey. I flinched involuntarily, and the magic was past, puffing away as it hit me.
Great. I had got absolutely nothing out of that. If there had been a gap in the returning magic, I had missed it. It was too fast, that was the problem. Maybe I could slow it down as it approached me. And I didn’t need to examine the whole sphere. Benny obviously wasn’t directly overhead or under my feet. I ran through the forms until I was certain I had it. Then I let the spell go again.
This time, when the magic returned, I had more time to examine it. It wasn’t a regular sphere. Lots of materials impeded or slowed magic — not just apple tree wood and volcanic glass, although they were two of the more effective — but only Ash killed it completely. I turned slowly, examining the contracting magic. If anyone could see me, they would think I was completely mad.
I clenched my fists in frustration. This was difficult. There might have been a gap in the direction of the market, but, if so, it had been at the limit of the spell.
Patience. I would just have to get closer.
I was on my fourth attempt and within sight of the Penitent’s Ear when I finally picked up Ash, and just for a bonus, I didn’t only pick up one but the presence of three distinct concentrations of Ash.
Ash Guard patrols must be tromping around town ruining everyone’s magic. The commotion in the Stacks must have set them on edge. There was an unspoken agreement that the Ash Guard only went out carrying or dressed in Ash when there was a specific threat, because the Ash would wreck legitimate spells and wards as easily as it would magical threats. Giant, murderous ghost-beasts counted as legitimate threats.
“You’ve really stirred things up, Lowriver,” I said.
It was just a shame that the Ash Guard thought I was behind the whole thing. If I went charging towards them, thinking it was Benny, I was going to be in for a nasty surprise.
Taking a good look up and down the street, I headed in the direction of the closest concentration of Ash.
The Ash Guard patrol were heading for the Tide Bridge at speed. I detected them before I saw them, not by virtue of my magic disappearing, but from the way the crowd opened before them like panicked seagulls being chased by an irritating child. The Ash Guard were no danger to ordinary civilians — their dominion was solely magic and its users — but there was a certain paranoia engendered by a group of heavily armed, Ash-smeared, mage-killing men and women charging towards you that made better safe than sorry a highly rational response. It did mean they weren’t much good at sneaking up on you.
I ducked into another alley and let them pass, then sent out my magic again. Now I was down to two sources. And if I was right, one had moved a good distance. That left a single static source. I couldn’t be sure it was Benny, but it was my best bet. Pausing to monitor the Ash signals every twenty yards, I crept towards it.
The Ash was in an apartment on the edge of the market. It was far enough back from the street that a passing mage wouldn’t feel their powers diminished. There was nothing about the apartment that stood out. If this was Benny’s hideout, I would be leading Lowriver right to it. It was time to shake the magic squid. (I was never going to get used to saying that.)
Lamps burned at the market stalls, a mad constellation of overlapping, flickering stars. Crowds shifted between them, the noise a rising and falling murmur, interspersed by shouts from vendors. I could see piles of fruits and vegetables, cloth and cheap clothes, and stalls stacked with medicines that would do no more than give you the shits, and I could smell spiced meat — goat, I guessed — frying somewhere out of sight. A dozen people could be watching me, and I would be none the wiser.
The obvious thing to do would be to march up, get in range of Benny’s Ash, and let the magic disintegrate. Lowriver would lose track of me, and we would make a break for it.
The problem was, I didn’t know how closely Lowriver was following behind, nor how quickly she could tag me again if I left the Ash’s influence. When I had been running from the ghost-beast in the Stacks and the Ash Guard patrol had passed, they had been close enough that I had felt all magic disappear. Lowriver must have tagged me again right after. If she did it once, she could do it again. And if we took the Ash with us, which would be the most sensible move, well, if I could track Ash then so could she.
Of course, she might have forgotten about you already, and all of this is for nothing.
The magic squid on my back spoke against that.
I eased myself into the market and let the flow of people carry me along.
I had to kill the squid, no question, I had to find a way of getting clear afterwards, and I needed to do it soon, before Lowriver could put some kind of more mundane tail on me.
I checked the location of the Ash again to reassure myself. The concentration I took to be Benny was still where I expected it to be. The other was making its way towards me across the market. I craned over the heads of the crowd, hauling myself up on the supporting post of a stall selling charms and personal wards.
I was right. The Ash Guard patrol was making its way across the market. They would wreck the charms and wards on the stall if they passed. Or they would have, if any of those charms and wards had ever actually worked.
I let myself down, ignoring the complaints of the stallholder, and retreated. I couldn’t afford to be seen by the patrol, but in amongst the press of sweaty bodies, I could get close enough that their Ash would de-squid me. Then all I would have to do was trail them until they passed close enough to Benny’s apartment to make a dash for it.
Certain critical friends (Benny) had told me that my plans were crap, but for once I pulled it off without a hitch. I trailed a couple of times around the market, following the Ash-smeared men and women until they passed close to the apartment, then split off.
With luck, if Lowriver tried to track the Ash, she would track the patrol instead for the rest of the night. By the time she figured out I had done a runner, Benny and I would be long gone.
Always assuming Benny answered the Depths-cursed door.
I hammered on the wood, simultaneously trying to keep it quiet enough that no one in the street would pay attention but loud enough that it would carry to the back of the house.
There was no answer. I thumped louder.
Nothing. If Benny had left the Ash here and buggered off to a bar, I was going to kill him.
I was well aware I had been out here too long. I bent down, pressed my mouth to the keyhole, and hissed, “Benny!”
He was either asleep, dead, or missing.
Fuck it. The Ash Guard patrol was gone. Benny’s Ash was out of range. I popped the lock.
A hallway led into the building. I ignored the doors leading off to the side and headed straight for the back of the apartment. Within half a dozen steps, I felt the influence of the Ash, and by the time I reached the end of the hallway, I was as weak and helpless as a baby.
Benny was in the room beyond, and he wasn’t dead, missing, or sleeping. He was lying on a couch, feet up on a cushion, book in one hand, half-eaten pastry in another, with a glass of wine on a table beside him.
He looked up guiltily when he saw me, eyes flicking between me and the pastry, before shoving it quickly into his mouth.
“For Pity’s sake, Benny!”
“What?” he mumbled around crumbs.
“Why didn’t you answer the door?”
“Didn’t know it was you. Might have been an assassin.”
“And you thought they would go away if you didn’t answer the door?”
He shrugged. “You look awful.”
I pushed his legs off the couch and dropped onto it. “That’s what everyone keeps telling me.”
The room was a good size. Crumbling white plaster, a tired wooden floor, closed, painted, flaking shutters. Still. I wondered if it was for rent. I needed a new base.
“I mean, it’s not just that.” Benny waved a hand at the dirt and tears on my clothing. “Why are you wearing something six inches too small? And, I don’t know, finickity. Weird. You look posh. Apart from looking like you’ve been mud-wrestling with a thorn-bush.”
“It’s a long story. I think I’ve figured out who’s behind this.”
Benny’s eyes sharpened, and his body grew abruptly very still. “Who?”
“One of the Countess’s mages. Her name is Enne Lowriver.”
“Nah. Your mother wouldn’t do that to you.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I am. She might think you’re a disappointment and a waste of space, but she’s always protected you. In her own way.”
I snorted. “Anyway, there’s no evidence the Countess is involved. Lowriver is up to something on her own.”
“What?”
It was my turn to shrug. “She had this box. At some point, it held a kind of artefact. She must be using it to summon that ghost-beast I told you about and then using the creature as a weapon to take out, well, pretty much anyone. There was this symbol in the box.” I shook my head. “I’ve seen it somewhere before. I just don’t know where.”
Everything about Benny was tense. I could see that he had to hold himself back from going after Lowriver right now. I knew how he felt, but unlike him, I had seen what she was capable of, and I knew we couldn’t beat her ourselves.
“Maybe you saw it at your mother’s house?” Benny said.
“No. And not at Mica’s, I know that.”
“And it’s important?”
It had to be. I had nothing else to go on. “I think so. I mean, if this artefact is providing the power Lowriver is using and we figure out where it’s from, maybe we can figure out what we’re facing and how to stop it.”
Benny brushed crumbs out of his scraggly beard and moustache. He passed a scrap of paper and a stick of charcoal to me. “Think you can draw it?”
I sketched the symbol and handed it back.
“What the fuck is that supposed to be?”
I shrugged again.
Benny squinted at it. “Well, I know I haven’t seen it. So where have you been recently? Where might you have spotted it?”
“Thousand Walls, of course,” I said, ticking locations off on my fingers. “The Ash Guard headquarters. Dumonoc’s Bar. Imela Rush’s family home. The university. That warehouse where Uwin Bone was killed. The Sunstone place. A couple of coffeehouses. The City Watch headquarters. My apartment.”
“I think you’d know if it was in your place, and I don’t remember seeing it in Thousand Walls or the City Watch.”
“Me neither. And it wasn’t in the Rush house.”
“The Ash Guard?”
“No.”
“So, the warehouse, the Sunstones’, the university, or Dumonoc’s.”
“Or the coffeehouses,” I said. “Or just in passing on the street.”
“Nah. Forget those. If they were where it was, that’s no use to us. How about Dumonoc’s?”
I closed my eyes and tried to visualise it. It would be easy for something to go unnoticed in the cheapskate darkness of Dumonoc’s bar. Isolated glows of light where customers had brought their own candles or lamps or paid Dumonoc to light one, all sunk in the enclosing dark. Dumonoc didn’t like me. But then, Dumonoc didn’t like anyone, and more than hating them, he just couldn’t bring himself to give a shit. The idea that he would drag himself up enough to organise a campaign of murder was absurd.
I shifted my attention to the warehouse. That was a more likely option. There had been all sorts of stuff piled around, things that the Wren had stolen, things he had traded. As a high mage, objects of power would be of interest to him. I had taken down the door, shearing its hinges. There had been stacks of chests, crates, and sacks of grain and flour, and piles of stolen crap. No symbols that I remembered on them. I had come around them and seen Bone’s body lying on a rug near the desk. There had been objects on and around the desk, but I hadn’t been paying attention to them. I had been looking at the body, at the blood on the rug and the floor, smelling the overwhelming, throat-tightening stink, feeling the cold shock on my skin. Any one of those objects could have had a symbol on them, and I wouldn’t have taken it in consciously.
I pushed away the memories of Uwin Bone’s corpse and tried to remember.
It was no good. Short of going back and hoping the Wren had left it all the way it had been, I was never going to be certain. Put the warehouse aside.
At the university, I had been taken directly to Scholar Longstream’s study. There had been plenty of artefacts lying around, but I had examined them closely, and none of them had had the mark.
So, the Sunstone house. I had spent more time there than anywhere, four nights in the pantry, one seeing the priest slaughtered, and one in the cellar with the ghosts. I knew damned well it wasn’t in the pantry. I could remember where every last lentil and clove of garlic was. I hadn’t exactly had much to do in there. I remembered the ram’s head symbol carved above the doors, the sigil of the Sunstones’ involvement in the wool trade, but no geometric frogs’ legs. It hadn’t been in the hallway or the kitchen. It hadn’t been the symbol of the priest of Gwillan-Whose-Light-Shines-on-the-Few-Not-the-Many, either. That had been a broken eye.
Depths! I was coming up blank. Where had I seen it?
Not in the cellar where the ghosts had fled and where I had, I’d thought, destroyed the ghost-beast. If the symbol was going to be anywhere, I would have expected it there, but it hadn’t been. Nor behind the false wall nor under the flagstone with the spiral wedding bands, either.
Where?
I had come to the house six times, four times under Galena Sunstone’s supervision to be shut in the pantry — good times — and once after I had been fired to beg for my job back. That time I had been met by the Estimable Sunstone and ushered to the kitchen before everything exploded into blood and horror. And then at Galena Sunstone’s invitation to finally — I thought — do away with the ghost-beast. I had gone into the Estimable Sunstone’s study so he could insult me and—
I leapt up, sending the table and Benny’s wine flying. Sunstone had been sliding a book into the desk drawer. I had only caught a glimpse of it, but it had had a symbol on the cover. I was sure it was the same one. Sunstone, you bastard! No question. He wasn’t just a patsy. He had been involved all along.
“Hey!” Benny protested, staring at the spilled wine. “I paid for that!”
I stared down at him, thrown. “You did?”
“Well, no. But I could have.”
I cut him off. “Come on. We’re going to the Sunstone house. We’re getting answers.”
The Sunstone house was draped in red mourning banners. It seemed like I was going to be making a habit of intruding on people’s grief. I had less sympathy for Galena Sunstone than I’d had for Imela Rush’s family. A lot of people had died and been injured because of the Estimable Sunstone. Galena could mourn later. If she was part of this, she could do it in a cell.
I hammered on the door and didn’t let up until I finally heard footsteps approaching. The door opened a crack. I leaned on it, forcing it wider.
In keeping with mourning traditions, Galena Sunstone had dismissed her servants, and she was the one who had answered the door. She looked old and tired, her face emptied by grief. Her eyes flicked past me to Benny, then away again, dismissing him.
“Please go away, Mr. Thorn,” she said. “You did your job. I paid you. We are done.”
Her voice was robbed of energy and passion. She sounded more like the ghosts I had exorcised than the woman she had been yesterday.
“We’re not. I have questions, because you’ve been lying to me.”
She didn’t answer, but her weight shifted from the door, and it swung open all the way. I stepped past her into the darkness of the entrance hall. Last time I had been here, the space had been illuminated by a dozen lamps. She was taking this mourning thing seriously. In my opinion, the Estimable Sunstone has been a sneering, superior slimeball, but I didn’t think she was putting this on.
I felt a twinge of guilt, but less than I had expected.
“Your husband was involved in something that has killed a lot of people. It almost killed me and Benny here. Now, I’m sorry you’re upset, but I am going to find out what your husband was doing, and I recommend you don’t get in my way.”
Her eyes flicked uncertainly from me to Benny, then she slumped.
“Ask your questions, Mr. Thorn, then leave me be.”
“Do you know what your husband was involved in?”
She looked for a moment as though she were about to lie again, but then the futility of it seemed to overwhelm her. Her voice was emotionless as she said, “My husband told me he had found a way to get his wool contracts back.”
“Which was?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Fuck’s sake.” Wool. This really was about fucking wool.
“You don’t understand, Mr. Thorn—”
“Oh, I think I do. Wool made you rich. You liked being rich. Neither of you really cared what you had to do to stay rich.”
I stepped around her and headed for the Estimable Sunstone’s study. A red mourning cloth had been draped over both the chair and desk. Galena Sunstone didn’t object when I tossed it aside and pushed the chair out of the way. There were ledgers, letters, and other papers on the desk, but the book I was looking for had gone into the desk drawer. I hoped it was still there.
The drawer was locked. I could have opened it with a spell — if Benny had stood back far enough to stop the Ash interfering — and Benny could have picked it almost as quickly. But I wasn’t in the mood. I took a step back and kicked it until the wood splintered.
Yeah, I bruised my heel, but it was satisfying. The contents of the drawer cascaded onto the rug.
The book was exactly how I remembered it: old, faded green leather, worn almost to vellum thinness from repeated handling. If there had ever been words on the cover, they were long gone, but the symbol in the centre was still clear. The gold leaf looked recently reapplied. It was the same symbol that had been engraved in Lowriver’s box: semicircle, diamond, dagger. Or frog’s legs.
I held it up. “What’s this?”
Sunstone took a step back, her tongue involuntarily moistening her lips.
I followed her. Benny, as though reading my mind, slipped behind her, blocking the doorway.
“Tell me.”
I flicked the book open. It was full of tight, faint writing, and I couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. It wasn’t any language I had ever seen. There was a rhythm to the lines, though, like a poem or a religious text.
“That’s Larimar’s.”
It took me a moment to realise she was referring to her husband.
“I guess that’s why it’s in his drawer. What is it?”
She glanced around, as if searching for a way out. She wouldn’t get past Benny.
“I shouldn’t know.”
“I should.” I closed on her again. “You are going to tell me.” I didn’t try to disguise my anger.
Her resistance crumbled, and her head dropped. “Larimar … Larimar didn’t think I knew, but I’m not as oblivious as he thinks … thought. That book is a Sunstone thing. Direct blood, not those of us who married into the family.”
I stared at her patiently, not interrupting. I wanted to shout at her that we didn’t have time, that she needed to tell us right now, but she was starting to break, and if I pushed any harder, she would just clam up again.
“They used to come here every dark of the moon.” Now that she had started telling the story, the hesitancy was gone. She had been keeping this a secret for a long time. I wondered how many times she had rehearsed telling it. “There were four or five of them. Never more than six. Larimar would dismiss the servants, and they would all close themselves in the drawing room. I was never invited.”
“Who were they?”
Sunstone shook her head. “I don’t know. I was supposed to keep out of their way. The first times it happened, soon after we married, I thought they were business meetings, something underhanded or illegal that he didn’t want anyone else to know about.”
It had been a reasonable assumption. Corruption and cheating were as natural to a businessman as eating.
“There was a woman,” I said, describing Lowriver. “About my age, round face, maybe an inch shorter than you, dark skin for an Agatos native, but not as dark as mine. She might have worn a mage’s cloak. Did she ever come?”
Sunstone shrugged uneasily. “Perhaps. That could describe several of Larimar’s friends.”
But it could have been Lowriver. These secret meetings — what better way for them to plan whatever the Depths they had been up to?
“So how does the book come into it?”
“I thought at first it was a secret ledger. You know, in code.”
“But it’s not.”
Her hands twisted. “No. Over the years I heard things they said. And…” She moistened her lips. “And I started listening in from time to time, when I could. They talked about something they called Ah’té or sometimes Nimha’té.”
Now where had I heard those names before? They were familiar, something I had read a long time ago, probably at the university back when I thought they had something useful to teach.
“They were…” She wet her lips again. “I think there was some kind of cult.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be worshippers of Gwillan? I mean, that was why you had the priest, right?”
“We are. Were. But I think the cult was always in Larimar’s family.”
I heard Benny make a disgusted sound. Cults were pretty common in Agatos, but I shared Benny’s feelings about them. They were no different from the dozens of religions that operated openly, and I didn’t trust a single one of them.
“Ah’té is the god?”
Sunstone nodded.
It wasn’t a well-known god, that was for sure, but we were hardly lacking for gods great and small, living and dead in Agatos. I rubbed my forehead. Ah’té. A god.
Yes! Now I remembered. There had been a mention of both Ah’té and Nimha’té in Sinuvar’s Demons and Gods.
“We’ve got what we need,” I said to Benny. “Let’s get back to my sister’s.” I met Galena Sunstone’s eyes. “If you had told me this earlier, your husband might still be alive.”
Then I left her to the gloom and her misery.
The streets and plazas in this part of town were quieter than down by the Penitent’s Ear, although there were still well-dressed groups and couples strolling in the cooling night air, as though some murderous ghost-beast wasn’t ripping people to bits all over the city.
“Mate, you know I’ll back you up,” Benny said, “but what’s this cult got to do with anything?”
“Ah’té is an ancient beast god,” I said. “Back from the first tribes who inhabited the Erastes Valley, way before there was a city or even a village here. The whole valley would have been wooded and wild then, probably terrifying. If you weren’t killed by another wandering band of hunters, then some beast would get you in the night. Or something.” Early pre-history had never been my speciality. “There’s not any description of Ah’té in the records. It’s just down as one of many beast gods. That’s why I didn’t pick up on it. That beast that possesses the ghosts, I think it’s Ah’té.”
“Are you serious? We’re up against a pissing god?”
I shrugged.
“But isn’t Ah’té dead? I mean, I heard all those old gods were dead.”
“Very dead.”
“So what the Depths is it doing running around Agatos killing people?”
That was the question. Dead gods were supposed to be dead, weren’t they? It was kind of in the name. But…
“What’s the difference between a dead god and a living god?” I said.
“If that’s the start of a joke, mate, this ain’t the time.”
“I wish it was,” I said. “The truth is that scholars up at the university have been arguing about this for decades, probably centuries. We talk about dead gods and living gods, but what does dead or alive actually mean when you’re a god?”
“Yeah? So what’s the answer?”
“Don’t ask me. I mean, I don’t even know what a god is, metaphysically speaking.”
“Well, that’s a lot of fucking help, then, isn’t it?”
“One difference appears to be that living gods can sometimes manifest themselves.”
“Except you said Ah’té is dead, and it’s still manifesting itself. We’re going around in bloody circles. Metaphysically speaking.”
“Lowriver is using the ghosts,” I said, as we cut across Hammerfall Plaza, past the sculpture of Menninot’s Ship Foundering on the Rocks, a piece that I thought a little bit too symbolic right now. “Ghosts are a link between the living and the dead, a kind of magical energy left on the edge when we die. Somehow, Lowriver is using that as a weak point to raise Ah’té, but Ah’té’s not fully here. Take away the ghost, and Ah’té goes, too.”
I was speculating, but it made sense, up to a point.
Benny looked impressed. “I didn’t know you could raise the ghost of a god.”
“I bloody can’t.”
“Huh.”
“That artefact that Lowriver has must be some kind of relic. It must give her a link to Ah’té.”
You could get your hands on all sorts of holy items if you had enough resources. Relics of dead gods — a finger, a lock of divine hair, a bit of godly dandruff — were the most powerful sources of raw magic available.
“How about this,” I said. “The cult of Ah’té — that’s the Estimable Sunstone and his friends — provides the relic. Lowriver provides the magery. Together they decide to bring back the god, and they turn it on Carnelian Silkstar.”
“So why did they kill his Master Servant? Why not turn this thing on Silkstar himself? Why give him warning and a chance to prepare?”
“Maybe they fucked up,” I said. “Never underestimate the potential for incompetence. They were aiming for Silkstar, but the timing went wrong. They got his Master Servant.”
“All right,” Benny said. “But if Lowriver can use any ghost, what was Ah’té doing in Sunstone’s house? Why was it still hanging about there if it wasn’t being used to kill someone?”
I shrugged again. “Maybe they were experimenting, figuring out how to raise and control the god, and they didn’t get it right. Maybe they left a link that Ah’té could still use.”
Sunstone and Lowriver had raised the ghosts in Sunstones’ cellar to practice calling Ah’té, and they hadn’t shut it down properly. Then the Estimable Sunstone buggered off on business, Galena saw the ghosts, freaked out, and employed me to get rid of them.
No. It had to be more deliberate than that. Benny and I hadn’t fallen into this by accident. The framing had taken thought and planning. Sunstone’s ‘business trip’ had been to give him distance. I had been called in to deal with the ghosts so that Sunstone could monitor me in action — any of his staff, or even his wife, could have been reporting back on my ineffective crouching in the pantry — and check out my potential to play a part in their scheme. They just hadn’t counted on Ah’té being able to keep using that link to the ghosts after they were done.
Benny and I were supposed to die at Thousand Walls. When we didn’t, and the Ash Guard let me go, the Estimable Sunstone had been furious. He had fired me as fast as he could to keep me away, so I couldn’t make the connection. It had all gone wrong for him, and he’d deserved it. The other victims hadn’t.
Benny waited until we were past a group of men chatting outside a taverna, then he said, “Lowriver can’t keep using Ah’té, though. The Ash Guard will figure it out in the end, and they’ll fuck her up, god or no god.”
“Maybe,” I said. There were a lot of maybes. Too many. I knew we were right about this, but I still couldn’t prove it. If we went to the Ash Guard with what we had, we would both end up in cells. But we didn’t need them. “We’ve got the same advantage as the Ash Guard, right now. We’ve got a bag of Ash, so she can’t touch us with her magic or her tame god. We need to find her and take her down before the Ash Guard find us and confiscate the Ash.”
“Damned right!” Benny said. “Which is where your sister comes in, yeah?”
I nodded. “If anyone can find where Lowriver is, it’s Mica.”
“Then let’s get a move on, mate, because I am done with this shit.”
Despite the Ash Benny was carrying, I felt myself growing increasingly nervous as we hurried towards Mica’s mansion. The tightening in my chest and the narrowing of my vision weren’t from exertion. I felt exposed out here, expecting Lowriver or her beast to appear in front of us.
And do what? We’ve got Ash.
It was irrational, but I couldn’t help it. The tension and fear I had suffered fleeing from the risen ghost of Ah’té had drained me. I felt like I’d been pushed to the edge of a cliff, to the edge of the Leap or to the summit of Giuffria’s Spear, and all that was holding me back was a single thread of cotton.
I dug my nails into my palms and smacked my clenched fists into my thighs.
“You all right, mate?”
“Yeah. No, not really.”
“We’re going to be fine, you know that? We’ve got the Ash and your sister can beat this mage if it comes down to it. I tell you, she’s more powerful than you realise.”
Except she had told me she didn’t know if she could beat Lowriver.
She also told you a mage never reveals their true power to anyone else. Did you think you were going to be the exception? She didn’t even tell you she was screwing some guy.
Even if she could overpower Lowriver, that would have to be a last resort. The Ash Guard wouldn’t tolerate two powerful mages getting into it. They would arrest every one of us, if we were lucky.
The belligerent apprentice mage who had met me and Sereh the last time we had called around wasn’t so belligerent this time. When he pulled the door open under my hammering he looked nervous. His hair was dishevelled, and the side of his mage’s cloak was singed. He looked the way I always used to when Mother had forced me through the training regimes my powers hadn’t been able to cope with.
“I need to talk to my sister,” I said. “Now.”
The apprentice mage flinched. “She’s not here.”
I leaned forwards, and he shuffled back. “Where is she?”
“The Countess… She sent a message. Your sister was needed urgently at the Storm Gate. She left hours ago.”
I swore. The Storm Gate was at the far end of the Erastes Valley, a good thirty miles away. Even if I could call her back, she wouldn’t make it here for hours more. It was a bastard of a coincidence.
Benny shouldered me aside. “Where’s Sereh?”
In my job, you see a lot of nervous people, and this guy was running through the signs like an alcoholic just before closing time.
He swallowed repeatedly before stuttering out an answer. “The messengers… They were two of the Countess’s mages. Metta Sinn and Niol Bell. When your sister left” — he looked at me, as though looking for support — “she told the mages to stay and protect Sereh.”
Now that I looked around, the apprentice wasn’t the only thing that had taken a battering. A small table had been smashed, the pieces pushed hurriedly into a corner. A scorch mark blackened part of the wall.
“Where is she?” Benny repeated. He had gone very still and very tense. I had seen him like this before, and I didn’t give the apprentice much of a chance if he didn’t answer the question soon.
“Tell him,” I said. “And tell us what the Depths is going on.”
I thought the man was about to cry. I pushed down any sympathy. The looks on our faces must have convinced him, because he said, “Follow me.”
He led us down a short corridor. There was blood on the floor. Someone had tried to wipe it up, but all they had done was smear it.
“After your sister had gone,” he said, his words coming out in such a hurry they tripped over each other, “an hour and a half later, maybe, the mages turned on us.” He glanced back, as if he thought I was going to hit him. I wouldn’t say I wasn’t tempted. “They must have been working with Elho Redmark.”
“Who the fuck is Elho Redmark?” I demanded. Getting anything useful out of this idiot was like chewing rocks. I wanted to grab him by the throat and shake him.
“The mage who’s been keeping an eye on Sereh all day. You know, so she wouldn’t run off again. He turned on us as well. I never liked him, you know, but I never thought—”
“What happened?” Benny spat out.
The apprentice mage didn’t answer. Instead, he threw open a door. Beyond was a well appointed bedroom. A large, comfortable bed sat against one wall. Colourful cloths hung from the walls. A dressing table with a mirror and a chair stood opposite the bed. Another door opened to a bathroom. And, sprawled on a rug, was the body of a man in a mage’s cloak. A violin bow had been driven deep into his eye. It must have killed him instantly.
“Lady of the Grove,” Benny muttered.
“They took her,” the apprentice said.
I stared down at the body. You stupid bastard. Anyone with an ounce of perception should have seen how dangerous Sereh was.
“I guess she wasn’t lying,” I said. “She really was taking violin lessons.”
When the mages had come for her, she had used the first weapon that had come to hand. And judging from the blood I had seen in the corridor, her knife hadn’t been far behind. But there had been three of them, fully trained mages, and they had taken her by surprise.
“Why didn’t you stop them?” Benny demanded. His eyes looked like an ocean storm, seething and deadly and remorseless.
The apprentice mage’s face had gone white. “I tried. I tried, but they were too powerful. They would have killed me, only…”
“Only what?”
“They wanted me to give you this.”
He passed over a folded note.
“Did you read it?”
He shook his head. “There was a curse on it.”
I checked it over. If there had been a curse, Benny’s Ash had killed it. I unfolded the note.
“It’s from Lowriver,” I said. “She says she has Sereh. She says if we want her back…” I licked my suddenly dry lips. “She says we need to come to Thousand Walls. Alone. She says if she or any of her people detect the slightest hint of Ash, Sereh is dead.”
I swore again. If we couldn’t bring Ash, that took away our only advantage.
Benny’s face was twisted and hard. “So what are we waiting for?”
“You know this is a trap, right?” I said. “Either she’s going to deliver us into Silkstar’s hands or she’s going to fit us up again for the murders and leave us too dead to argue.”
“So?” Benny’s jaw jutted towards me in a challenge.
I eyed his expression. I hadn’t truly expected anything else.
“Just checking.” I turned to the apprentice mage. “Have you contacted my sister?”
He looked down at his twisting hands. “I don’t know how. I haven’t learned—”
I cut him off. “How about my mother? Any of her people?”
“I didn’t … I didn’t know who to trust.”
Because the mages who had taken Sereh had been the Countess’s mages. Fuck you, Mother. How did you let this happen right under your nose?
“Give me the pouch,” I said to Benny. When he handed over the Ash, I passed it to the frightened apprentice mage. “Take this to the Ash Guard headquarters. Tell them it’s for Captain Gale. Don’t tell them who you are. Don’t tell them who it’s from. Don’t tell them what it is. Don’t hang around. And take off that stupid mage’s cloak.” I leaned closer. “Fuck this up, let us down again, and I will kill you, raise you from the dead, and kill you all over again.”
With luck, this might at least get Captain Gale off my back long enough for us to face down Lowriver, and after that, well, maybe it wouldn’t matter any more.
With that cheering thought, Benny and I left Mica’s house behind and headed for Thousand Walls and our inevitable fate.