“Perhaps the greatest of them.”
“You are saying there is some connection between he and I?” He glanced over his shoulder. It was like being told there was some connection between himself and the Shadow of God. The Princes of Shadow had been evil’s greatest champions. “That’s madness.”
“I would be happier if it was,” she said. There was fear in her voice and that made him more afraid, for she was one of the greatest sorcerers of the realm, perhaps the world. Anything that could make one of the First nervous was something of which he should be terrified. “But alas it is not. We had thought the Shadowblood gone from the world. Azaar believes he destroyed them all. It seems that my half-brother made a mistake.”
“I am not what you are talking about. I know nothing of these things.”
“I made other inquiries when I was in Sorrow. My agents went to some very dark places, and talked to some very desperate people. There was once a very successful thief in Sorrow, a very prince among burglars, they called the Halfbreed. He had a friend called Leon. They were said once to have been in Temple Orphanage together.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“This half-breed stole from the mansions of the rich. Places protected by wards and all manner of mystical defences. Some of his victims hired diviners to hunt him down. The goods were sometimes found but he never was.”
Rik had not known that. It seemed that many of his escapes in Sorrow had been closer than he had ever suspected. “Most of those magicians are charlatans.”
“Some of them were not.”
“I don’t see that it proves anything.”
“No but the absence of something can provide corroboration as much as its presence. The Shadowblood were assassins, bred by magic, immune to scrying. They showed up on no tests save when they wanted to. They killed the Desecrator’s enemies in secret during his rise to power. They were perhaps the deadliest killers in a world that was not short of deadly killers.”
“I have told you I am not one of them.”
“One must have survived Azaar’s attack on their secret Temple, which is only logical. Some of them must have been performing missions when the attack came.”
“Temple?”
“In the Mountains of Madness. Azaar found it after a search of decades. There were those who believed it to be nothing more than a legend, but he was driven, for the Shadowblood killed his wife and children, and tried to kill him many times. For him, it was a war unto the death. Azaar has only ever lost one war, and that was unwinnable by anyone.
“I feared there had been survivors but for decades after the Temple was razed there were no attacks, and we allowed ourselves to believe we had won… then the End Times were on us and there were more important things to worry about.”
Rik did not know what to say. Asea seemed locked away in a world of her own, looking back into the past. He tried to sort through what she had said, and the explanation came. “You are saying my father was one of these Shadowbloods. That somehow he survived and he is here, in this world.”
“Precisely.”
“I cannot be held responsible for what my father might have done.”
Her laughter held no mirth. “Believe me you can. The Old Queen’s edict states quite clearly that all of the Shadowblood are to be killed as soon as they are found.”
He considered this. “That does not seem fair.”
“They were not fair times, Rik. The Shadowblood terrified many powerful people. They had strange gifts — it was said they could make themselves invisible, travel instantly through shadows, cloud the minds of those who saw them. They were too dangerous to be allowed to live.”
“But to kill someone just because they were born seems monstrous.” He was speaking only of his own case but as the words came out of his mouth, he realised they were true in all cases. He would have felt the same way even if he had no personal stake in the matter.
“A lot of monstrous deeds were done back then, Rik. The Dark Sun was rising. We did not understand who the enemy were or who was killing us. We only knew something had to be done, and I fear it made us as bad as our enemies- which was surely their intention.”
Rik had a sudden inkling of the murkiness of the past from Asea and the whole Terrarch race had emerged. Theirs had not been the world of light of which the Testaments spoke. It had been like this one, perhaps worse.
“Why are you telling me this- do you intend to kill me?”
“The Old Queen would have killed you. Others would kill you even now if they knew. Azaar, for one.”
“But you will not?” Another thing occurred to Rik now. He had no idea of knowing whether this was true, and no way of checking it. If this was a way of manipulating him, of keeping him dependent on her, it was a very good one. “Why?”
She sighed. The smile she gave him held an odd mixture of defiance and sadness and complicity and self-pity. “Because, like you, I do not believe anyone is born evil. I have made many mistakes in my life, Rik, sometimes catastrophic ones, and I have learned that doing things quickly for no reason other than fear has often led to the worst of them.”
“Are you sure you have no other reasons?” He could not keep the fear or the anger out of his voice. He felt an urge to lash out.
“There are other reasons, Rik. You have great gifts in you, and they need not be put to evil use.”
“You mean they can be put to your use.” She smiled.
“Just so. If your talents can be developed as I think they can, you could be a great asset to us in the coming war.”
“That’s comforting.”
“There’s no need to sound so sullen, boy. Such talents as I suspect you possess will gain you great riches and power in the long run, if you live.”
“You think it a good idea to have your own pet Shadowblood assassin,” he said. Already he was turning the possibilities over in his mind. If he could develop the talents she claimed the Shadowblood had, he could be an all but unstoppable thief.
“Not an assassin, perhaps, but an agent for myself, and the Queen.”
“Would the Queen know about what you just told me, about the Shadowblood?”
“For the moment, no one but you and I will know about it, and if you are wise you will mention this to no one. I am in no way exaggerating- should the Inquisition hear about this, it is a death sentence. And bear something else in mind, Rik; I value your life but I value my own more.”
Rik’s mind raced. He turned the options and the possibilities over in his mind. An agent of the Queen. A high road to riches. A death sentence hanging perpetually over his head. To be eternally in thrall to this ancient, beautiful and frightening woman. He felt as if he stood on the threshold of a world he had not even known existed, and which was reaching out now to entangle him.
“How can you train me? You are not a Shadowblood? Are you?”
“There are certain disciplines I can teach you, things that should bring out your latent powers eventually. And Karim knows many of the arts that are useful to someone like you. He will tutor you in them.”
“I am a soldier. How will I find the time?”
“I have had you and your friends assigned to my service as personal guards. It is work they seem admirably suited for. We will find the time to train you, never fear.”
“What if people find out what we are doing?”
“We shall just have to see that they do not.”
Another image entered his mind and he was not sure why- of the mother he had never known, who had died so horribly, quite possibly at the hands of his father. He felt an emptiness and a longing and a sense of loss so strong it was strange, because it was for something and someone he had never known.
Perhaps some day he would be in a position to do something about that. If he lived long enough.
Chapter Ten
The Foragers marched beneath the white banner of truce. It flew alongside the bat-winged angel on a black background that marked them as being part of the Seventh Infantry regiment. Sardec rode beside Lady Asea. She was the only person mounted aside from himself and it made him feel very conspicuous. There was no reason to be nervous, he told himself. Ilmarec would not harm an ambassador.