The Complete Twilight Reign Ebook Collection (166 page)

‘No!’ Emin shouted, but before he could say any more, Morghien had plunged his hand into the pocket of his jacket.

‘We are not your enemy,’ he roared, rising. ‘You are blinded by what has been done to you, and you cannot see the danger emerging from the shadows!’

‘Kneel before your God,’ Death snarled, his voice crashing against their ears with savage force. ‘Kneel, or I shall strike you down and consign your soul to Ghenna.’

‘You will do neither,’ Morghien snapped, ‘and nor will you threaten a newborn out of pique.’ His fingers closed around the Skull in his pocket and a surge of energy flooded his body. ‘Our war is with the shadow - whether or not you see the threat, I will not let you stand in our way.’

‘You threaten me?’ Death roared, raising his sceptre.

In response Morghien pulled the Skull from his pocket and held it in the air between the chalk circles. ‘You are weakened, diminished by what happened in your temple in Scree. I have felt the Reapers in Lord Isak’s shadow. They are broken free of your grip and the loss has wounded you gravely. I may not have the strength to defeat you, even with this Skull, but you know the hurt it can cause you. To kill me will cost me more than you can afford.’

‘You declare war on your God? Such foolishness shall be your damnation.’

Death’s reply was considerably quieter. Morghien could feel His attention fixed firmly on the Crystal Skull. For creatures of magic, fighting from within a containing circle would be like an army fighting up a mountain slope, with every step requiring huge effort. The power of one of the Crystal Skulls would be like a river running down that slope.

‘I do not,’ Morghien said as calmly as he could with magic coursing through his body. ‘You are the Lord of Final Judgments and no mortal can deceive you. So I say this: I believe we serve your interests. I believe we do what must be done and that if we fail, so will our Gods. For this reason I must threaten you, for I cannot allow even you to stop us.’

‘You do not lie,’ Death said in an emotionless voice. ‘As misguided as your words are, I see your belief.’

Morghien pressed on, not even trying to understand the mind of a being so old and powerful. He just had to hope the God’s blinding wrath was not all-consuming, that there was some sense of the divine judge left.

‘Then please, accept my apology and permit us to go about our mission.’ He took a slow breath and played the last card he held. ‘At the end of the Wars of the Houses you appeared before Aryn Bwr as he was about to slaughter his defeated foes. You spoke to the fallen princes; you heard their words, and you forgave their deeds as honestly done. You prevented Aryn Bwr from wiping them out, and thus healed the rift between the noble houses.’

Death did not answer immediately. Morghien felt his chest tighten as the enormity of what he was doing struck home. Bargaining a truce with Death? What am I doing?

‘You appeal for clemency? Very well, it shall be granted. I shall not destroy you or your nation for what you have done. But no more are you welcome in my temple. Your war is foolish and my servants shall give you no aid. Neither ally nor enemy, until the day of your judgment.’

Both men bowed, neither trusting themselves to speak in case they disrupted the fragile balance in the air. With an effort Morghien cut the flow of magic to the circle and reached out to scuff the chalk with his hand. It was a risk, but they had to take it.

Death remained motionless. Morghien could feel the God’s gaze on him, even with his head bowed low. In the next instant it was gone, and they looked up to find an empty room. The sheet lay where Emin had let it fall, but the shadow imprinted upon it had left the linen charred and crumbling. A gust of freezing wind blew in the window. A few flecks of ash skittered away over what remained of the sheet, revealing a sooty stain on the stone underneath.

‘By the Dark Place,’ Emin whispered hoarsely, ‘what have we done?’

Mihn realised he was lurking outside the Chief Steward’s office. He kept to the shadows and ignored the men and women who walked past - he was not exactly waiting, nor exactly hesitating… He was glad the palms of his hands had at last stopped stinging. His feet were another matter, but he’d already padded his boots with wool and there was very little more he could do beyond easing from one foot to the other, an occasional, small reprieve.

For the twentieth time that day he inspected his hands, squinting in the poor light. It was late evening now and most of the staff who worked here had gone home, braving the icy streets. Mihn had spent most of the day in Lord Isak’s chamber, keeping an increasingly frustrated Xeliath company, or sitting with Isak himself.

The white-eye wasn’t a garrulous person at the best of times, but the last week had seen him turn even further inward. Now he was spending hours sitting on a ledge above his own ducal chambers, with his feet hanging over the edge and the bitter wind constantly buffeting him, watching the Land pass by. The slippery stone and treacherous swirl of winds meant he had been completely alone until Mihn had clambered out to join him.

Now it had become a strange little ritual, one that left even Lady Tila and Carel shaking their heads in incomprehension. Mihn would make his way up to the roof a while before dusk to find his lord there, a strange sort of gargoyle perched on the edge of his ledge and puffing on a pipe. Without a word Mihn would claim whatever space was left on the ledge and sit for as long as Isak was there. Isak remained silent while Mihn sang whatever songs occurred to him, from laments to lullabies.

The only response Mihn ever elicited from his lord came when he spoke the short prayer that accompanied the setting sun. Each day Isak frowned at the words and each day Mihn ignored it entirely, refusing to allow the upheaval in the cults to affect his own habits.

Without warning the office door jerked open and Mihn looked up with a guilty expression, quickly hiding his hands behind his back. Tila started out of the door, exclaiming in surprise when she saw him.

‘Merciful Gods, what are you doing lurking out here?’

Mihn let her imperious gaze wash over him without reaction before he replied, ‘Waiting for the Chief Steward, of course.’

‘If he sent for a painted lady I think you might be something of a disappointment,’ she said, trying to elicit a smile. There was a famous pair of statues overlooking the largest of the river’s docks; a man and a woman, side-by-side, known to the locals as Fisher and the Painted Lady. Someone had made the comment on the training ground the previous day, having seen Mihn’s hands, and by the next morning it had spread throughout the palace.

‘Or perhaps something rather more serious, judging by your expression,’ she added, giving up.

‘Something rather more serious,’ Mihn agreed. He knew he frustrated Tila. She could be a charming girl when she wanted to be, and combined with her looks, it meant most men in the palace did exactly what she wanted. Aside from Isak, Mihn was the only man she couldn’t influence, and she didn’t conceal her annoyance on that front.

‘You do realise one day you’re going to have to trust me,’ she said sharply. ‘I spend all day as Lord Isak’s representative while Lesarl runs the nation. I’m party to state secrets and yet you won’t even trust me with what you had for breakfast!’

Mihn gave her an encouraging smile. ‘Then to make amends I will make a point to tell you that every day. This morning it was porridge. Yesterday it was also - ‘

‘Oh shut up,’ she said, more amused than exasperated. ‘How about giving me something a little more substantive than that?’

Mihn screwed his face up in thought. ‘More substantive than porridge?’

‘Information! Don’t try your pantomime skills on me, I’m too tired.’ She gestured towards his hands. ‘What about those? Tell me about the circles.’

The emotion fell from his face and his expression was blank again. ‘There is nothing to tell.’

‘Hah. It’s just as well I’m too much of a lady to respond as Vesna or Carel might to that.’

Mihn bobbed his head in acknowledgement. ‘And I am grateful for it.’

‘Might I at least see them?’

Her voice was softer now and Mihn hesitated, running the sounds of each word through his mind. Harlequins were trained to speak every dialect, to mimic every mood. Few were as adept at scrutinising intonation as they, and after a moment’s thought he nodded. She wasn’t trying to charm him now; her words contained only honesty.

He held out his left hand and let her take it and turn it palm-up. It was a strange sensation for a man who had been effectively celibate his entire life. Harlequins kept their gender a secret, and Mihn’s subsequent exile had not given him much opportunity to explore or worry about such things.

Her soft fingers on his sent a tiny electric tingle up his arm. Tila, oblivious, bent low over his palm. She was taller than he, but slender, even compared to his lithe frame. Fascinated, she brushed a finger in a gentle circle over the tattoo covering most of the palm of his hand. Only his physical training stopped him twitching at the touch, but Tila still glanced up at him as though he had flinched.

‘And Ehla did this for you?’ she asked.

‘It would have been hard to do myself,’ he replied, noting that she, like many of the Farlan, was uncomfortable calling the witch of Llehden by her title - despite the fact that the tribe was noted for its attachment to titles. Instead of referring to her as ‘the witch’, they had all latched onto the name she’d provided. Fernal’s words returned to him: ‘A name shapes, just as it is comes from shape.’

How true, and more people know her as Ehla - light - than her real name. But has she made herself vulnerable by allowing a name to be bestowed, or does she have a purpose in mind for what that name might change in her?

‘Why an owl’s head?’ Tila asked, breaking his chain of thoughts.

The tattoos, on the soles of his feet as well as the palms, consisted of three concentric circles, and in the centre of each was a stylised owl’s head. The two outer rings contained writing, angular Elvish runes for the inner and a stylised form of the witch’s own western dialect for the other, mantras she had chanted as she tattooed his skin, imbuing his body with words of silence and stealth.

‘It seemed appropriate,’ Mihn replied. He slid his hands from her grip and adopted a firmer tone. ‘I must speak to the Chief Steward now.’

‘What about?’

‘A personal matter.’

‘Personal? Since when do you and he have personal business?’ she said sharply. ‘Has something changed since last week? You normally scurry around these corridors avoiding him in case he asks you to be his principal agent.’

‘Scurry?’ Mihn said, arching an eyebrow. It got the desired reaction and Tila laughed.

‘Perhaps that was not the most appropriate word.’ She waved him into the room. ‘Come on, and I’ll sit in - I’m sure Lord Isak will want to hear about whatever it is Lesarl is trying to get you to do.’

Mihn acquiesced with a curt nod and followed her inside. The Chief Steward’s office was a long thin room with a pair of windows at the far end. His desk, an enormous carved monstrosity inlaid with ivory, squatted in the very centre, the only piece of opulence the day-to-day ruler of the Farlan permitted himself. The long walls on either side were shelved from floor to ceiling and crammed with tied leather files. Between the windows, a pair of bookcases were placed back-to-back. One shelf was not full, Mihn noticed, but he guessed it was only a matter of time.

‘The most accurate history of our last two hundred years,’ Lesarl announced when he saw Mihn looking around at the files, ‘if you know the way to read it. Can you guess which file is yours?’

‘I expect one of the more recent ones on that bookcase behind you,’ Mihn said, approaching the desk. Two straight-backed armchairs were positioned next to it.

‘You’d hope so, wouldn’t you?’ Tila commented breezily, walking around the desk to her own chair, ‘but it turns out our Chief Steward’s paranoia knows no bounds. The numbering system allows for new files to be inserted into the system at apparent random and I have yet to work out how to identify either the dummy files or the false documents inserted into most of the folders in case the wrong eyes do find them. I have started to get the hang of his elliptical style of notation at last, so the infrequency of names is proving less of a problem now.’

Lesarl smiled at Mihn like a snake about to swallow a mouse. ‘It would be foolish to rely solely on the security precautions of the palace, don’t you agree?’

Mihn shrugged.

‘No desire for idle banter?’ the Chief Steward asked. He was a thin man, with spidery limbs and a narrow, pointed face. His grin was one of the most malicious expressions Mihn had ever seen, and it was clearly one of Lesarl’s favourite from a selection that might not have been as varied as a Harlequin’s repertoire, but was certainly as accomplished.

He stood up and said, ‘As the Lady Tila is quick to point out, my paranoia imposes significant demands on my time, so if you want to just sit there and stare, that’s fine; you’ll forgive me if I get some work done in the meantime.’

‘I want some information,’ Mihn said.

The smile returned to Lesarl’s face. ‘It is something I have in abundance, but you may have to be a little more specific’

‘A journal - a very unusual journal, one Lord Bahl read before his death.’

It was almost imperceptible, but Mihn thought he detected a very slight hesitation before the Chief Steward answered him.

‘Our lord was an erudite man; you would have to be more specific.’

Interesting - you know what I’m talking about, and it’s a subject you don’t want to discuss. Either you’re not the sadist you’re reputed to be, or there’s something here you’d prefer didn’t come to light.

‘I think perhaps you know the journal,’ Mihn said.

‘Perhaps I can make an educated guess,’ Lesarl replied coolly, ‘but what of it?’

‘I want to read it - do you still have it?’ Mihn ignored Tila’s bewildered expression.

‘You arrogant little - !’ Lesarl snarled suddenly. ‘Are you fishing to find out if I have sold it?’ He leaned forward on the desk. ‘I have done nothing of the sort, and nor would I - how dare you suggest such a thing?’ The Chief Steward was almost shaking with anger. ‘I take my position here more seriously than any of you - you children could possibly understand. My remit is specific and to stray beyond that would mean immediate execution without trial - ‘