The robed man pulled back his cowl, revealing Zarahel’s face. What was he doing here, Vosh wondered? Why had he left the hills? Had he come all this way just to find Vosh?
“That’s better,” Zarahel said in his low, resonant voice.
Vosh sat up right and shot the girl an accusing glare. She had the good grace to look a little ashamed. Zarahel caught the look and glanced at the girl. “You may go, Marla,” he said conversationally. It had all the force of a command.
Vosh glanced desperately at his kin. He saw no mercy in their stony faces. Finally because he had to, he forced himself to look at Zarahel. The Prophet was a big man, not as big as that Barbarian idiot but just as broad across the shoulder, and thick around the arms. He radiated an aura of physical power, and something more, a confidence that bordered on insanity.
He was a good-looking man in a craggily fierce way. His blonde hair was wavy and only starting to grey, his jaw square and firm covered in a cropped salt and pepper beard. The grin he gave Vosh would have been engaging if slightly crazy had it not been for the eyes. There was something dead about them, something that told Vosh that he was just another piece of meat, to be carved up at whim. They were eyes that held not the slightest trace of human sympathy.
“I don’t have a lot of time,” Zarahel said in a tone that suggested Vosh was an old and valued friend. “So I shall make this quick. I want to know what became of Alzibar’s books.” He made a gesture. The numbness left Vosh’s limbs. He found he could move his lips again. He caught the scent of Zarahel then, and it sickened him. The smell was a strange sick thing compounded of old blood, rotten meat and something else, something worse.
“What books?” Vosh asked, confusion warring with his fear. His voice came out very quietly almost in a whisper. Vosh wondered if he could shout even if he wanted to. Best not try, he thought, Zarahel could cut him off with just a gesture.
“The books he kept in the mine.”
“There were no books, just demons.” Zarahel held his hand up to his ear and cocked his head to one side. He looked as if he were listening to something. A small smile flickered on his lips. He looked sidelong at Vosh.
“My friend says you are lying,” said Zarahel.
“What bloody friend?” asked Vosh, his amazement overcoming his fear.
“You should not lie to me. I went back to the manor. I found some corpses. Some of them talked to me. Some of the dead men you betrayed.”
“While you were talking to dead men why did you not ask them about the books?” Vosh asked with a last spurt of defiance.
“I would have, except somebody stole the head of the one who could tell me what I want to know.” His hand went to his ear again, and the pensive look flickered over his face. “My friend tells me you know what I am talking about.”
“What friend? Talking to the dead again, are you? Talking to ghosts?”
Zarahel gestured and something that looked like a massive spider crawled out from within his cowl then skittered down his arm until it sat atop the back of his hand. He lowered it onto Vosh’s naked belly. A closer inspection revealed it was not entirely a spider but close enough. Its lower body was long and segmented and had a barbed stinger attached. Vosh felt its furry legs tickling his stomach. He saw the evil, intelligent glitter in its manifold eyes. He saw the venom dripping from its mandibles. As it advanced towards his throat, he felt a terror bordering on insanity.
The spider was unnatural, a demon thing that would suck out his soul, just like in the old tales. Its eyes glittered with a wicked mocking intelligence as they briefly looked into his. The feeling of it on his face was almost unbearable. Its soft bloated body dragged across the flesh of his chest and touched his lips for a moment. The barbed sting arched. He could see its needle point just above his eye. The weight of the thing impeded his breathing.
“Tell me what I want to know and I will let you live. Don’t tell me and I will leave you with my small friend here.”
“All right! All right.” The spider turned and walked down his body again.
Vosh could not bear to feel that soft body press down on his belly, feel those long legs scuttle across his stomach. The thing was heading towards his groin.
“Tell me everything.” Vosh told him everything he knew. He did not owe the soldiers anything. Zarahel got up to leave.
“You’re not going to let that thing kill me,” Vosh asked, almost weeping with relief in spite of himself. The mattress felt wet beneath him. It looked like the Prophet intended to keep his word. He prayed to all the gods that he would.
“It won’t nor will I,” said Zarahel with a smile. He gestured to the glittering eyed youths from his clan. “They will.”
Chapter Seventeen
Rik woke up as the first light of the sun leaked in through the curtains. His bladder felt like it was bursting. His head felt as if someone had used it as a drum the previous night. He looked over at the dark-haired girl on the bed and tried to remember her name. Rena, he thought.
She was very pretty and had been very skilled. He checked his purse and it clinked reassuringly, the same weight as it had been the night before. He looked inside and checked the coins. He had known girls in Sorrow who had been very good at putting pewter buttons in place of coin.
Everything was there except the money he had given her. From old habit, he considered searching the room quietly and seeing if she had anything worth stealing, but it was an impulse easily suppressed. Instead he used the chamber pot, stuck his head out of the brothel window, checked the street for people below and then tossed its contents down. There was nobody except a few beggars in range to be splattered so he shouted no warning, not wanting to disturb the girl.
She stirred languorously, stretched, opened her eyes and gave him a foxy look. He tried to remember how they had met but it was all a fragmented, alcohol-blasted blur of memory. He recalled the candlelit dance palace below, a massive chandelier overhead, lots of people jigging and the Barbarian heading off propped up by a girl on either side. Doubtless he would be waking up without his purse sometime soon. Leon had wandered off with some pretty girl. Weasel he remembered sitting in a corner playing cards with some villainous looking cutthroats, his pipe jammed in his mouth, his cap at an accidentally rakish angle on his head.
“Come back to bed,” said the girl.
“Night’s over,” he said. “I paid your Aunt for the night.”
“No charge. It’s not often I get to sleep with somebody like you.”
That’s what she always says, he thought cynically. These girls liked repeat business and flattery was as much their stock in trade as tumbling in bed.
“You look like an Exalted Lord,” she said, and she sounded serious. Maybe she’s a good actor, he thought, or maybe he was just too hung-over to judge. If truth be told, the last thing on his mind was sex. What he really wanted was a fried breakfast. There was nothing like it for settling a hangover. “And you’re not from around here, are you?”
Rik began to dress. “You don’t say much do you?” she asked.
“I’m from Sorrow,” he said.
“Shadzar, the Place of Sorrow” she said, using the old proper name. “I’ve always wanted to go there.”
It was obvious she was half-expecting him to offer to take her there. She had probably received many such offers in the past. He looked at her and found some of his cynicism melting. She was just a country girl, thinking about the big city, and there was a terrible hopefulness in her eyes. He had seen that look before, on the faces of new arrivals, just before the wicked city broke them.