“And then your sister told the captain… what was his name? The tall one?”
“Vansen,” said Barrick flatly. The guardsman had fallen into blackness defending Barrick’s life after Barrick himself had cursed him many times. Was there to be no end to this parade of wretched, useless memories?
“Yes, your sister told him to take me back to where the caravan was attacked. But we never reached it—or I never did. I woke up in the night surrounded by mist. I was lost. I called and called but no one found me. Or at least none of the ones that I traveled with found me…” Raemon Beck broke off, shuddering, and would say no more about what had happened to him between that time and the time he was taken in by Qu’arus of Sleep. “He treated me well, did Master. Fed me. Didn’t beat me unless I deserved it. And now he’s dead…” Beck’s shoulders trembled. “But I do not think your sister, bless her—forgive me, Lord, I should say Princess Briony… I do not think she meant me any harm. She was angry, but I don’t think she was angry at me…”
“Enough, man. Leave it.” Barrick had heard as much as he could bear.
Beck lapsed into silence. Barrick sat hunched in the robe that had cushioned Qu’arus on his dying journey and took up the oars again, rowing just enough to keep them in the middle of the quiet, backwater stream while they waited for the raven’s return. The canal was narrow and the houses rose up on either side, scarcely distinguishable from the rough stony cliffs out of which they had been carved, only recognizable as dwellings by the occasional tiny window and the huge, gatelike doors in the walls above the waterline.
Doors, he thought. More doors in this city than I can count. And all I have to do is find the right one.
Skurn dropped down out of the dim sky and spread his wings to land on the boat’s tall stern. It was easy to forget how big the bird was, Barrick thought—its wingspan nearly matched the spread of a man’s arms. The raven did not speak at once, but picked and pruned at his feathers. It was clear Skurn wanted to be asked.
“Have you found us anything? A place to go?”
“Mought be. Then again, moughtn’t.”
Barrick sighed. Was it any wonder he was mostly alone in the world and preferred it that way? “Then please tell me,” he said with exaggerated courtesy. “Afterward, I will thank you fulsomely for your kind service.”
Pleased, the raven fluffed himself and stood straighter. “Happens that this is what Skurn has found—a skerry off the great canal, midstream. Trees and such, and only ruins. Us didn’t see sign of naught on two legs.”
“Good,” said Barrick. “And I do thank you. Which direction?”
“Follow us.” The raven flapped up again.
As Barrick paddled after the slow-flapping shape, Raemon Beck suddenly said, “Not all the animals here talk. And sometimes even with the ones that do, you’re better off not to listen.” He shook himself like a wet dog, beset by some evil memory. “Especially when they invite you back to their houses. It’s not like one of those children’s tales, you know.”
“I’ll do my best to remember that.”
The island was much as Skurn had described, a small, overgrown knot of stone in the middle of one of the large canals, far enough from the darklights that it basked in a pool of twilit gray. Some immense structure had once stood among the dark pines, taking up most of the small island, but little remained of it now except a few crumbling walls and the circular ruins of what might have been a tower.
There was no beach to be found, and nothing left of the dock that had once served the island except a few bleached piers that looked enough like great ribs to make Barrick think uneasily of the Sleepers and their bone mountain. They moored the boat to the closest of these and waded to the rocky shore through water up to their chests; Beck and Barrick were both shivering by the time they reached dry ground and crawled into the shelter of the pines.
“We need a fire,” Barrick said. “I don’t care if anyone sees it or not.” He got up and led Beck through the thick growth until they reached the remains of the stone tower. “This will at least hide the light of the flames,” he said. “There’s nothing we can do about the smoke.”
“Use these,” said Beck, bending to pick deadfall from the ground. “It’s a good wood and they’ll put off less smoke than green branches.”
Barrick nodded. So the man wasn’t useless after all.
With a small fire burning, Barrick finally settled back to warm his hands and realized that Skurn was gone. Before he had too much chance to think about it the bird came back, flapping down through the upper branches before hopping the rest of the way from limb to tangled limb. Something dangled in his beak, a dark bundle that he dropped with great ceremony.
“Us thought you would be hungry, like,” the raven announced.
Barrick examined the almost eyeless corpse, a creature like a large mole but with longer and more delicate, fingered paws. “Thank you,” he said, and meant it: he was painfully hungry. Except for the few morsels he had shared with Raemon Beck he hadn’t eaten in what seemed like days.
“I’ll do for that,” Beck said. “Have you a knife?”
With some reluctance, Barrick produced Qu’arus’ short sword. Beck examined it for a moment and raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. The merchant bent to the task of skinning and gutting the creature while Barrick stoked the fire, and he gave the entrails and hide to Skurn without asking. The raven gulped them down, then hopped onto a stone and began to groom himself.
“So what do you know of this city?” Barrick asked as their dinner roasted on a pine-skewer over the open flame. The smell was most distracting, musky but appetizing. “Where are we? How is the place shaped?”
Beck wrinkled his dirty face in thought. “I know little, to be truthful. The only time my master took me out before the hunting trip was on a ceremonial visit to the Duke of Spidersilk. He brought several of his mortal servants—just to put out the duke, or so it seemed.” A sad little smile flickered on Raemon Beck’s lips. “We had to go far into the city, and he pointed things out to me along the way. Let me think.” He picked up a pine twig and began to draw with it in the dark, damp soil. “It has a shape like this, I think.” He scratched an awkward spiral. “K’ze-shehaoui—the River Fade—that is what they call the great canal,” he said, tracing this main line. “But there are other waterways crossing it all the way in.” He drew other lines across the main line. The shape began to look like one of the halved chamber shells the priests of Erivor wore upon their breasts as an emblem of their god.
“But where are we?” Barrick asked.
Raemon Beck rubbed his face for a moment. “I think the house of Qu’arus must be somewhere here,” he said, jabbing with his stick about halfway along the outermost spiral. “Master was always proud that he lived outside the heart of the city, separate from the other wealthy, important families. And this spot is probably somewhere near here.” He poked again, scratching a larger mark on the second and third spirals. “I couldn’t guess how far we’ve come exactly, but I know that part is full of islands.”
Barrick frowned. He pulled the meat from the fire, then set it on a clean rock and began to cut it into two portions, an awkward process with a blade so big and a meal so small. He left Beck’s on the rock and began to eat his own share with his fingers. “I need to know more. I have been set a task.”