The day was a mess after that. There were no lessons, not from the monks, not from Sterm, not for anyone. Berren milled aimlessly with the other novices, watching the city soldiers do much the same, being herded away and out of sight by the priests, then slowly milling back to stare at the soldiers again. None of them had the first idea what was happening or why.
He fingered the token around his neck. He had a purse with a handful of silver crowns and a pocket full of pennies, enough to buy him passage up the river. One gold emperor for emergencies. He had a sword now too, hidden in its bundle up on Wrecking Point. For a while, he wondered if he should run. Maybe go to one of the taverns where the lightermen who plied the river went to have their fun, buy a few drinks and find someone who would take him up the river, quietly, no questions asked, and leave what happened after in the hands of the stars. Maybe he’d get to Varr and just freeze and die when winter set in and the snow fell thick and heavy enough to crush whole houses flat. Or maybe he’d find his fortune. There’d be no Master Sy, no Justicar Kol, no Headsman and his ilk, no Tasahre. Just him.
But if he ran, he’d be running away. By the middle of the morning, he knew that as surely as he knew the sun would rise, and he knew that what he ought to do was find Master Sy and find him first, before Kol. He needed to understand what was happening and warn his master that the whole world was looking for him, if he didn’t already know. That was his place — at his master’s side. He tried to think where the thief-taker would go. Not to the justicar, nor any of the other thief-takers, that much was obvious. Teacher Garrient at the moon temple? But Kol would surely have been there already and Master Sy wasn’t that stupid. Kasmin was dead, so what friends did the thief-taker have left? None?
No. There was the House of Cats and Gulls.
He shivered. There had to be somewhere else, but if there was, he couldn’t think of it, and the more he thought, the more he saw Velgian hanging from the edge of a rooftop. You’ve got to tell Syannis one thing for me. You tell him that Saffran Kuy is not the friend he thinks. Only he hadn’t said why. Maybe it mattered. Maybe it had something to do with this. Or maybe it didn’t.
He slipped out of the temple. It was easy; if anyone even noticed him, no one stopped him. Find your fear and face it. Fear is the killer of thought. Easy words to say, not so easy when you had to go and do it. He tried to think where else he could look as he hurried down to the river docks and vanished into the market crowds there; and he was still trying to think where else he might go when he was standing at the door to the House of Cats and Gulls at the end of the docks where the crowds thinned to nothing. The air was ripe. Dozens of green and amber eyes peered out from nearby alleys and all the dark corners. A scattering of fish parts littered the ground.
Fear is the killer of thought. He swallowed hard and banged on the door. Something hissed at him.
The door opened. Berren didn’t recognise the man standing behind it, but there was only one person it could be. The witch-doctor. Saffran Kuy — the Headsman’s grey wizard who could make the dead speak and who’d been with the thief-taker on that night. For the first time, Berren saw the witch-doctor’s face, old and watery-eyed, pale white skin like the men from the far north. Like a ghost. He was clean-shaven with strange tattoos on his cheeks and on his neck, disappearing down beneath his robe.
The death-man, the witch-doctor. Berren took a pace backwards then stopped himself. He was a man now, not a boy, and he had no cause to be afraid of anyone.
‘I’m looking for Master Sy,’ he stammered. ‘I mean Syannis. Syannis the thief-taker. Is he here?’
Kuy looked him up and down. He beckoned Berren to follow then turned and withdrew. Berren went after him. The door closed as he passed. Outside, the sky was clear and the sun was bright; inside, the darkness was so thick you almost had to push your way through it. The windows were boarded and shuttered, a few pale and feeble rays of sunlight poking through the cracks and that was all. Candles lit a short hallway and then an expanse of space, a huge black room filled with shadows and shapes and more candles, candles everywhere, so many of them and yet all so dim. Despite their little flames, most of the witch-doctor’s home was lost to the gloom.
Saffran Kuy turned to look at him.
‘I’ve been expecting you,’ he said.
PART THREE
24
Kuy settled into a stiff high-backed chair. ‘Syannis. He comes here in the middle of the night, asking his questions. Full of them, and so are you. Black powder, disguised as black tea: who would have thought it? And traitors in your temple. Have you noticed, Berren, how the pure are always so full of sin. Sit!’
The command carried a force that made Berren drop where he stood and sit cross-legged on the floor.
‘You saw us. The Two Cranes. Then back to your nest of liars in blindfolds.’ He shook his head. ‘You’re a fool, boy, if you think an open door stays open. I know what questions brought you here and I have answers for them, for some of them, but they are answers you will not like. They are answers not to be shared, not before the year begins its slow slide to death. They will close doors and bar them firmly shut. They will make you mine and you will wonder if you were a fool to come to me. Are you ready for such answers? Do not move!’
Berren had started to rise. He fell flat as though he’d been kicked in the chest by a horse.
‘So you’re looking for Syannis are you? Yes, we came here. I haven’t seen him since. Would you like to see what we brought with us?’
Berren shook his head. Last he’d seen of Master Sy, he was hacking the Headsman’s head off his shoulders. ‘I … I just wanted to know if he’s here.’
‘And I’ve told you that he is not, but that is not the answer you’re looking for. It’s not the one that dares you to come here. Is it?’
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘Thief-taker Velgian, that is what brings you here, with his cold dead seducer song and his warnings that lure you onward.’ Kuy raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes, I take answers from the dead. From their spirits or from their flesh. From wailing ghosts and cold gibbering heads. Would you like to see the one we brought back with us?’
Berren shuddered. He couldn’t move. Wanted to but couldn’t.
‘Tush! And I’d taken you to be one of those young men with a fascination for the ghoulish, for the macabre, for the touch of cold damp skin. Here you are, full of questions and you don’t want my answers? You will have them though, wanted or not.’
Berren shook his head. All I want is Master Sy. But his mouth stayed firmly shut.
‘I know all about you, Berren. Syannis talks of you. He’s proud of his little lookalike bastard brother with the mistake in his head. Come, Headsman, speak! Show the young man that we can do what we say we can, yes?’ Something rolled across the floor of its own accord, something the size of a head. ‘Berren, the ghost of Aimes. I’ve waited many nights for you to come with your questions and now that you are here, you must look!’