‘Ten years? Is that all?’

‘He said you fell down the stairs, I believe. Or something like that.’

‘Stairs. Or pitched off the balcony. Maybe both.’

‘And what did you do or fail to do that earned such punishment?’

‘I don’t remember. Only that I was incompetent.’

‘That was long before Gerun saved the king’s life. How could he have afforded the sorcery needed to bind your soul to your body?’

‘I believe he called in a favour.’

Shurq swung back to the door. ‘Does this lead to his office?’

‘No, that one goes to his love-making room. You want the one over here.’

‘Any chance of anyone hearing us talking right now, Harlest?’

‘No, the walls are thick.’

‘One last thing,’ Shurq said, eyeing Harlest. ‘Why didn’t Gerun bind your loyalty with magic?’

The pale, patchy face displayed surprise. ‘Well, we’re brothers!’

Alarms negated, the two undead stood in Finadd Gerun Eberict’s office.

‘He doesn’t keep much actual coin here,’ Harlest said. ‘Mostly writs of holding. He spreads his wealth around to protect it.’

‘Very wise. Where is his seal?’

‘On the desk.’

‘Very unwise. Do me a favour and start collecting those writs.’ She walked over to the desk and gathered up the heavy, ornate seal and the thick sheets of wax piled beside it. ‘This wax is an exclusive colour?’

‘Oh yes. He paid plenty for that.’ Harlest had gone to a wall and was removing a large tapestry behind which was an inset cabinet. He disengaged a number of tripwires, then swung open the small door. Within were stacks of scrolls and a small jewelled box.

‘What’s in the box?’ Shurq asked.

Harlest lifted it out and tossed it to Shurq. ‘His cash. Like I said, he never keeps much around.’

She examined the clasp. Satisfied that it wasn’t booby-trapped, she slid it to one side and tipped back the lid. ‘Not much? Harlest, this is full of diamonds.’

The man, his arms loaded with scrolls, walked over. ‘It is?’

‘He’s called in a few of his holdings, I think.’

‘He must have. I wonder why?’

‘To use it,’ she replied, ‘for something very expensive. Oh well, he’ll just have to go without.’

‘Gerun will be so angry,’ Harlest said, shaking his head. ‘He will go mad. He’ll start hunting us down, and he won’t stop until he finds us.’

‘And then what? Torture? We don’t feel pain. Kill us? We’re already dead-’

‘He’ll take his money back-’

‘He can’t if it doesn’t exist any more.’

Harlest frowned.

Smiling, Shurq closed the box and reset the clasp. ‘It’s not like you and I have any use for it, is it? No, this is the equivalent of tossing Gerun off the balcony or down the stairs, only financially rather than physically.’

‘Well, he is my brother.’

‘Who murdered you and wouldn’t even leave it at that.’

‘That’s true.’

‘So, we’re heading out via the balcony. I have a companion who is about to begin another diversion. Are you with me, Harlest?’

‘Can I still get the fangs?’

‘I promise.’

‘Okay, let’s go.’

It was nearing dawn, and the ground steamed. Kettle sat on a humped root and watched a single trailing leg slowly edge its way into the mulch. The man had lost a boot in the struggle, and she watched his toes twitch a moment before they were swallowed up in the dark earth.

He’d fought hard, but with his lower jaw torn off and his throat filling with blood, it hadn’t lasted long. Kettle licked her fingers.

It was good that the tree was still hungry.

The bad ones had begun a hunt beneath the ground, clawing and slithering and killing whatever was weak. Soon there would be a handful left, but these would be the worst ones. And then they would come out.

She was not looking forward to that. And this night, she’d had a hard time finding a victim in the streets, someone with unpleasant thoughts who was where he didn’t belong for reasons that weren’t nice.

It had been getting harder, she realized. She leaned back and pushed her stained fingers through her filthy hair, wondering where all the criminals and spies had disappeared to. It was strange, and troubling.

And her friend, the one buried beneath the oldest tree, he’d told her he was trapped. He couldn’t go any further, even with her assistance. But help was on the way, although he wasn’t certain it would arrive in time.

She thought about that man, Tehol, who had come by last night to talk. He seemed nice enough. She hoped he would visit again. Maybe he’d know what to do – she swung round on the root and stared up at the square tower – yes, maybe he’d know what to do, now that the tower was dead.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

DRAWN TO THE SHORELINE, AS IF AMONG THE HOST OF UNWRITTEN truths in a mortal soul could be found a recognition of what it meant to stand on land’s edge, staring out into the depthless unknown that was the sea. The yielding sand and stones beneath one’s feet whispered uncertainty, rasped promises of dissolution and erosion of all that was once solid.

In the world could be assembled all the manifest symbols to reflect the human spirit, and in the subsequent dialogue was found all meaning, every hue and every flavour, rising in legion before the eyes. Leaving to the witness the decision of choosing recognition or choosing denial.

Udinaas sat on a half-buried tree trunk with the sweeping surf clawing at his moccasins. He was not blind and there was no hope for denial. He saw the sea for what it was, the dissolved memories of the past witnessed in the present and fertile fuel for the future, the very face of time. He saw the tides in their immutable susurration, the vast swish like blood from the cold heart moon, a beat of time measured and therefore measurable. Tides one could not hope to hold back.

Every year a Letherii slave, chest-deep in the water and casting nets, was grasped by an undertow and swept out to sea. With some, the waves later carried them back, lifeless and swollen and crab-eaten. At other times the tides delivered corpses and carcasses from unknown calamities, and the wreckage of ships. From living to death, the vast wilderness of water beyond the shore delivered the same message again and again.

He sat huddled in his exhaustion, gaze focused on the distant breakers of the reef, the rolling white ribbon that came again and again in heartbeat rhythm, and from all sides rushed in waves of meaning. In the grey, heavy sky. In the clarion cries of the gulls. In the misty rain carried by the moaning wind. The uncertain sands trickling away beneath his soaked moccasins. Endings and beginnings, the edge of the knowable world.

She’d run from the House of the Dead. The young woman at whose feet he’d tossed his heart. In the hope that she might glance at it – Errant take him, even pick it up and devour it like some grinning beast. Anything, anything but… running away.

He had fallen unconscious in the House of the Dead – ah, is there meaning in that? – and had been carried out, presumably, back to the cot in the Sengar longhouse. He had awoken later – how long he did not know, for he’d found himself alone. Not even a single slave present in the building. No food had been prepared, no dishes or other signs of a meal left behind. The hearth was a mound of white ash covering a few lingering embers. Outside, beyond the faint voice of the wind and the nearer dripping of rainwater, was silence.