Night of Knives (31 page)

‘But all the dead. And Ash, too.’

The woman turned to the embers. ‘Nothing like a massacre to confirm appearances.’ She took a poker from a stand beside the hearth and raked the remaining coals, spreading them among the ashes. ‘There’s nothing more to learn here, Lubben.’ She spoke with a strength of command that surprised Kiska. ‘We’ll go to the House.’

Lubben grunted his assent, cradled the axe to his chest. That the independent, cynical hunchback should submit so easily to orders from the woman struck Kiska as very telling. Back at the Inn, she’d acted as if second in command to Ash, who, if Surly was to be believed, had been an officer of the Bridge-burners. She might be of rank equivalent to a company commander herself.

‘Take me with you,’ Kiska blurted.

The woman smiled at Kiska’s eagerness but shook her head. ‘No. It’s too dangerous.’

‘I can be of use. I know things.’

The woman eyed her, tilted her head to one side. ‘Such as?’

Kiska wet her lips, tried to recall everything important Oleg had said, together with all she suspected herself. ‘I know that we’d have to get there before dawn, but that use of a Warren would be dangerous because the hounds are sensitive to them and might even travel them at will. I know that there’s an event occurring focused on the House. And that,’ she paused, trying to remember the word Oleg had used, ‘that it might be a portal to Shadow—’

‘Enough!
’

Kiska stopped short, surprised. The woman raised a hand apologetically. ‘Sorry. But some knowledge is best not hinted at anywhere at any time.’ She turned away, began pacing. Kiska watched, tense, desperate to press her case, but afraid she might just annoy her.

‘I’ll keep an eye on her,’ Lubben offered from the darkness beyond the hearth’s meagre glow.

The woman studied Kiska from the far side of the mantle. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘If you wish to come, fine. But you’ll do as I say.’

‘Yes.’

‘Your name is Kiska, yes?’

‘And yours?’

She answered with a teasing smile, the black tattooing at her brow wrinkling. ‘Corinn. Now, Kiska: have you ever travelled by Warren?’

Kiska’s first impulse was to lie, fearing such a lack would end her chances. She shook her head, frustrated by her inexperience.

Corinn’s lips pursed for an instant, making Kiska’s heart sink, but then she shrugged. ‘Never mind. Just stay close. Lubben, stay to the rear.’

He grunted, impatient.

‘But the hounds?’ Kiska asked.

Again the smile, daring and spirited. ‘We’ll just have to move quickly.’ She waved a hand. The air shimmered before the hearth, as if hot air billowed from it. Grey streaks appeared, brightening into tatters of purest glimmering silver. These met and fused, creating a floating mirror of mercury that rippled like water.

From Agayla’s hints, dropped here and there, Kiska recognized the Warren as that of Thyr, the Path of Light. She’d heard that the Enchantress, the Queen of Dreams, was supposed to be a practitioner of Thyr.

Corinn stepped forward and disappeared into the floating oval of quicksilver as if submerging.

Kiska hesitated, fearful despite her fascination.

‘Hurry, lass,’ Lubben urged. ‘It’ll not do to lose her and wander the paths alone forever.’

Spurred by horror at the thought, Kiska jumped through. Whether Lubben followed she had no idea. It was as if she’d
leapt into a hall of mirrors. Reflections of herself and Corinn serried off into infinite distances. Hundreds of Corinns turned, reaching out to her. She stood, unable to move, her heart thudding in panic. Which one was real? Which should she respond to?

Like a swimmer broaching a lake, a new Corinn emerged from one image of herself. Kiska extended a hand and sighed in relief as it met flesh.

‘Where is Lubben?’

Corinn pulled Kiska on. ‘Everyone walks their own path in Thyr. Now stay close.’

They strode on without moving, or so it seemed to Kiska. She couldn’t discern any progress at all, yet still Corinn pulled her on. Then, as she studied the passing images of herself, she began to see differences, some slight, others startling. In one she appeared painfully gaunt and wore clothes no better than rags; in another she was maimed, her right arm missing from the elbow. That sent a shudder down through that arm, recalling a wound from a childhood fall. In yet another she wore the dark cloth of a Claw. She almost shouted her amazement.

‘What’s going on?’ she called to Corinn, yanking her to a halt. ‘What do all these images mean?’

Corinn turned, irritation darkening the tattoos at her forehead. ‘You see images?’

‘Yes. Don’t you?’

Corinn raised her brows, impressed. ‘So. You are a natural. Thyr must suit you.’ She urged Kiska on, saying over her shoulder, ‘They are just possibilities – phantasms—pay them no mind. That’s not why we’re here.’

‘What is it you see?’

Corinn answered without turning, ‘I am walking a stone bridge over emptiness with open blue sky all round.’

Kiska stared at the confusing, shifting silver walls all about
her – even above and below. ‘Why? Why a bridge over emptiness? How?’

Corinn glanced back with that same mysterious smile. ‘I like to think of things that way – it’s safer. As to how, well, that would take years.’

Kiska nodded, grimacing. Yes. Years of study and practice. The same dusty mental exercises and meditation Agayla had tried to impose on her long ago, only giving up the day Kiska opened a ceiling window and risked a dangerous third-storey climb rather than sit for hours and, in her own words, try to cross her eyes. After that Agayla had been good on her agreement: providing every other form of instruction, though no longer pressing any arcane training upon her. She’d simply warned her that she’d come to regret the choice later in life.

And almost immediately she did, yet her pride wouldn’t allow her to admit it. Her stubborn pride that turned the failure around until she actually boasted of her ignorance! All she felt now was shame at such childish wilfulness. After
this
night she would beg Agayla to forgive her.

Thinking of Agayla, the brushing of her rich embroidered dresses and her thick mane of auburn hair, brought a tingling to Kiska’s neck. She slowed, dizzied for a moment, then jerked to a halt as one of the images before her rippled like the surface of a pool. It shifted, darkened into a likeness of a woman sitting at a shoreline, lashed by punishing wind and threatened by low clouds. The woman raised her head and Kiska saw Agayla such as she had never known her: exhausted, haggard, her face drawn and pale, her hair wind-whipped and soaked. Agayla looked up, confused then alarmed. ‘Not here, child,’ she said, hoarse, distracted.

Kiska lunged forward. ‘Agayla!’ But the image rippled away and instead Corinn re-emerged. The look she gave Kiska made her feel as if she’d sprouted wings. The filigree of tattooing at her brow seemed to pulse.

‘What in the name of the Elder Ones do you think you’re doing?’

Kiska stammered, ‘I thought I saw someone. Someone I know. She’s in trouble. I have to go to her!’

Corinn muttered, gestured curtly. All hints of her earlier mischievous smiles had gone. ‘I don’t sense a thing. Stay with me. This is no place for games.’

Stung, Kiska opened her mouth to explain, but the woman started off without waiting. Kiska hurried after, struggling to stay close.

‘We must leave before our goal,’ Corinn said over her shoulder. ‘Something blocks the way – do you see it?’

Kiska’s vision went no further than the image of herself just beyond Corinn. It was as if she walked towards herself, though each step brought her no closer. ‘I don’t see anything different from before,’ Kiska said. But Corinn didn’t reply. She had disappeared.

A cry died on Kiska’s lips as the reflective silver of the Warren dulled and thickened to an opaque fog. Her training closed her mouth to still any betraying shout, for she recognized where she now stood. It was her third visit to Shadow Realm.

She stood upon a flat plain of dust and wind-scoured dirt. A sky of pallid lead arched overhead. From a great distance rose a low drawn-out moan, the wind or a hound.

In front of her towered a rock outcropping such as she had never seen before. It resembled a jumbled pile of enormous crystalline blades, black and smudged like frozen smoke. She thought of the stones Agayla possessed in her shop, the clusters of quartz and salt crystals. Smoke-quartz! That’s what it reminded her of! And it was changing. While she watched, individual blades altered, rotated, disappeared or changed translucence. The entire structure seemed undefined and
shifting. She could not even be certain of its size. It was beautiful, seeming to speak to her, and she felt that it must hold the solutions to every mystery she had ever wondered about, all the answers to any questions regarding Agayla. All she had to do was enter and she would know how Agayla fared this very moment. Even where Tayschrenn was right now. Any question at all. The fate of her father. Who would be her lover. Kiska took a step towards it.

Something blocked her way. A hand as hard as stone pushed her back. ‘It doesn’t do to stare quite so closely,’ said a breathless voice.

It was the being from the bridge, Edgewalker. Dazed, Kiska blinked, rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms. What had happened? Hadn’t something . . .? She could have sworn something odd had occurred. She shrugged but kept her face averted from the crystal outcropping.

Beyond, the sands gave way to bare mounded granite which descended to a lake of smooth water that reflected the dull sky like a mirror. An immense wall of ice reared on the opposite shore; the glacier that earlier had been nothing more than a distant line on the horizon. Now the ice stretched like a vast plain. Lights played over it such as she had seen in the southern night skies: rainbow banners and curtains that flickered, dancing.

Had she moved, or had the ice? ‘This is Shadow,’ she told the being. It inclined its desiccated head in agreement. ‘I shouldn’t be here.’

‘Yet you do seem most persistent.’

She studied the empty dark sockets where its eyes should have been; had that been a joke? ‘And you can send me back again?’

‘You may say that is my duty.’

‘Before you do – what is it? That thing?’ Kiska gestured to the quartz-like heap of crystals.

‘That is Shadow House. The heart of Shadow, so to speak.’

‘Really? That?’ But it’s—’

‘Alive. Quite so. And very dangerous.’

‘Dangerous? But what of – of those who would claim it?’

It shrugged its thin shoulders. ‘Occupants of the throne come and go.’ It raised a clawed hand to point to the glacier across the lake of melt-water. ‘But that. That is the true danger.’

‘What is it?’

‘It is alien to this realm. It reminds me of the Jaghut, but profoundly alien from them. They, at least, were not so different from you. It is said that long ago the Jaghut inadvertently allowed it into this world when they wrought their ice-magic too strongly’

‘But there is a madman, a murderer, who may be taking the throne. Won’t you do something? He doesn’t belong here either!’

The creature did not turn away from the glacial cliff. ‘True. But this is the more deadly threat. I must remain ready should this break through and reach the House.’

‘Break through?’

‘It is being resisted. But that could change at any moment. Those facing it weaken even as we speak.’

Kiska fairly wailed: ‘But what of Kell – the throne?’

‘I am sorry. That is a minor concern given everything at stake this Conjunction.’

‘Minor!
’

Kiska believed she could hear the dried flesh at its neck creak as the head turned to her. ‘Yes. In the larger picture. I am sorry. Now, you must go.’

‘But wait! I have so many questions. I—’

Opalescent grey closed about Kiska obscuring her vision as surely as smoke. From close by came cries, screams, the clash of arms. She heard a woman shout something – her name?

She hunched, ready for combat, a hand groping at the billowing curtains. ‘Corinn?’

‘Here.’

Kiska spun, could discern nothing but fog. Was she back in Malaz? But where? She circled, peering uselessly.

‘Corinn?’ she whispered, louder. Carefully, she drew the curved fighting knife.

’Quiet,’
a distant voice cautioned.

Had that been Corinn? What kind of game was this? ‘Where are you? Show yourself!’

‘Right behind you,’ came a taunt at Kiska’s ear.

She swung: empty vapour churned and curled. Kiska bit down on her panic, clenching her hands so tightly her nails bit into her palms.
Never mind what may or may not be happening: remain calm.
This was a war of nerves and she was losing.

Listen girl
, she challenged herself.
Listen. What do you hear?
She strained, attempted to sort through the background of muted shouts and screams to discern nearby hints, scrapes and whisperings. There! A footstep to her right. And either very distant, or somehow muted, a roar of outrage. Lubben?

Again, the scuff of leather on stone. Behind her now, closer. Not waiting for another mocking whisper Kiska launched herself, arms outstretched. Coarse woven cloth brushed her right hand. She clutched at it, pulling it close.