Lord Salen was leaning out of an open window at the highest point of one such stonedun. The rough rock ledge felt curiously pleasant against his palms, as though the wall still resisted, long after the gates had been torn open and the inhabitants slaughtered.
A brass-bound, wax-stoppered bottle hanging on a long golden chain from his neck chinked delicately against the stone and he pulled it up and slipped it into one of the many pockets of his patchwork robe. He was small for a white-eye, but he was the Chosen of Larat and Lord of
the Hidden Tower, and his mind was sharper than his blade. He wore no armour and carried only a long dagger, but years of study had armed him with weapons few soldiers would even understand. Though the Menin were Karkarn's chosen people – the War God's own – Salen had always preferred the controlled ways of Larat to Karkarn's brutal strength. In Lord Styrax's absence, he had quietened this city with mere words. When he stirred himself to action, the very bedrock of Thotel would tremble.
'Lord Salen?' The messenger coughed uncomfortably, trying not to look too hard at the charms and amulets set into each of the brightly coloured fragments of cloth. Some made his eyes water, writhing to avoid his gaze; others, of tarnished metals, had gems that sparkled too brightly in their pitted settings. A few were impossible to make out in the gloom. Those were the one Mikiss found his eyes drawn to the most – he was glad that he couldn't discern any details.
The mage didn't move.
'My Lord, a message from Larim,' Mikiss repeated.
'The maggots are quiet tonight.'
'My Lord?'
'The Chetse. Don't you think they live like maggots, Mikiss? Tunnelling their way through these great stones; riddling these ancient forms with holes. There's been violence every night since we took the city, but tonight is quiet. Perhaps even maggots have primitive senses, enough to smell something in the air.'
'I wouldn't know, Lord. One of the patrols killed some youths break¬ing curfew – one was carrying a weapon, so they were all executed, according to your standing orders.'
'And the benefit of those orders is now plain to see: I am enjoying the peace it has brought to the city this evening. These people can only be cowed; a shame Styrax could not see that.' The white-eye leaned over the balcony and looked directly down. Mikiss could hear the man's rings scrape on the stone as he watched a ripple run though Salen's robe, though there was no hint of any breeze.
Ah, the message, my Lord?' Mikiss said again, trying to hide the apprehension in his voice. 'Lord Larim has seen the wyvern approach¬ing. Lord Styrax will be here very soon.'
'Good. I've been waiting for him. I wonder what he's been up to; what can have taken so long.' Salen's aristocratic voice was measured
and calm, but Mikiss still found it sinister and shivered – he imagined a lizard would speak that way. Larat's adepts were all like that: their words were measured, whispery, their eyes were clinical and inhuman. He knew treachery was planned, and he was beginning to feel as if the foulness in the messages he'd carried over the last few weeks had seeped out to infect him with the poison of Larat's influence. A long-forgotten sense of duty, of honour, was awakening, crying for action, but he had felt Salen's gaze on him constantly over the last week and he could hardly eat or sleep with that unnatural presence sitting cold and heavy at the edges of his mind. The weight of exhaustion dragged at his heels.
'Go to Quistal; tell him to be ready to welcome our lord.'
'I-' He stopped suddenly.
Salen turned around, slowly. His thin face tightened. 'You have something to add?' One manicured nail tapped at the ivory hilt of his dagger, the other hand played with something in a pocket. Mikiss knew enough of the adepts of Larat to fear what was hidden more.
He couldn't bear those unblinking white eyes. He looked down at the floor and asked, 'Do you wish me to find Lord Kohrad and General Gaur?' He knew the mage wouldn't want his lord's son and most loyal subject alerted, but it was as close to a protest as Mikiss could manage.
Salen didn't bother even showing his contempt. 'They are out of the city with the Third Army. I am quite sure they will join Lord Styrax soon enough.'
'Very good, my Lord.' Mikiss fled, stumbling on the uneven floor of the stonedun's tunnels. Torches flickered weakly at each turn, barely sufficient to light the roughly hewn stone. As he descended the steep stairway to the main gate Mikiss felt a sudden breeze rush up past him, the tunnel channelling the unexpected wind. He flinched down, hands over his face, but was too slow to prevent the fine sand that lined the floor getting in his eyes. Cursing, he slowed, trying to blink the grit away.
At the ruined remains of the massive main gates, Mikiss saw a party of horsemen, one of the night patrols that kept the curfew, returning with a report for Salen's staff. A soldier stood facing away from him on the high steps below the gate. Mikiss smothered his jangling fears and walked out from the shadows, blinking furiously and tugging at his sleeve, which had snagged on the vambrace on his left arm.
The soldier on the steps gave a start at the sound of footsteps and spun around, reaching for the axe at his belt. Untangling his sleeve, Mikiss revealed the brass vambrace that had his messenger warrant inscribed in deep Menin glyphs.
Something about the soldiers puzzled him. Mikiss squinted until he was able to read the painted glyphs on one man's shoulder-plate: Cheme 3rd Legion. The Cheme legion? Weren't they were part of the Third Army?
'Hold it there, messenger,' growled the man bearing the furled unit banner, 'and where are you bound this fine evening?' The banner-man, swathed entirely in a long grey cloak, pushed back his hood to reveal bristling fur and long tusks. Mikiss froze; it was not a man at all but General Gaur. Oh Gods.
The air was dry and light. The soft taste of the southern plains tickled the back of his throat as he brushed past the rough stonedun walls. He noticed the forced silence: a few weeks of Salen's rule had changed the atmosphere of Thotel completely. The Chosen of Larat had done exactly as expected, performing one last act of service, however un¬wittingly, for the lord he had plotted against for years.
Here inside the stoneduns, Styrax could feel the pain of those slaughtered here, the entire extended family. Salen would not have noticed the voices, nor been able to sense the tears, the loss, echoing around the bloodstained tunnels. Rusty lines streaked the steps and sloping walls where blood and excrement had run down towards the deep heart of the stonedun.
He ran his stained fingernails over the rough-hewn surface. As ever, his left hand was ungloved. He almost savoured the discomfort of his damaged skin. The duel with Koezh Vukotic had left the feeling impaired in his pale and scarred hand, but it had been replaced with a less worldly sensation. He couldn't feel the evening breeze on his skin, but it sang when power flowed through his body. Right now, the sensation was one of needles being pushed into the back of his hand.
He could feel the currents of magic running through the city, where both Menin and Chetse mages were engaged in a variety of activities. He wondered what else was busy in the city that night, what other treachery waited in Thotel's dark streets. He thought of the daemon that had warned him of Salen's betrayal, the shadow that lingered on the edge of sight. It had spoken to him in the desert as he left his forces and went after Lord Bahl. It claimed to have nothing but contempt for its own kind, but who could tell, in truth? Was it watching him now, waiting to exploit events as they unfolded for its own purpose?
His footsteps silent, his black armour melting into the shadows, Styrax felt insubstantial, temporary, nothing but a memory when compared to the solid, immovable stone that encased him. As he reached the high chamber he stopped and waited, buoyed by the ac¬cumulating power inside him. After a while he decided the time had come. He scuffed the sole of his boot lightly on the ground.