“Thervir emanet vis alad egadir.”

It wasn’t much of a charm, just a jaunty snatch from a ridiculous tale about a lackwit called Nigadin. He went looking for his knife and, finding it, recalled he’d left his belt somewhere. Finding that reminded him he’d mislaid his boots. Tracking them down, he realised he was without his breeches and so it went on. But I’d used the charm when young Tedin has lost himself and it had led me to the lad. I held those whose bodies rested in that cave in my mind. The old man Gense, sallow face sunk away from his beak of a nose, wisps of hair still surprisingly dark across his bald pate. A boy whose name escaped me, skin pale as milk, tousled hair touched with red that hinted at Forest blood, his head looking too big for the frail body beneath it. Velawe, long a friend of Zigrida’s, work-roughed hands with swollen knuckles clasped beneath her sagging breasts, even this enchantment unable to smooth the lines of worry and toil graven between her brows. Porsa, her daughter, beside her, silly, pretty face swathed in a frivolous lace wrap, the curls in her hair still as crisp as the day the tongs had made them.

“Thervir emanet vis alad egadir.” Belligerent shouts from the stairs opened my eyes.

“Well?” Ryshad watched me intently.

“Next door.”

The corridor was a scene from an addled drunk’s nightmare. Shadows played on the walls like black flames, licking along the floor and up to the ceiling. Shapes came and went on the edge of seeing, distorted heads and bent bodies scampering on unnaturally elongated limbs. One capered in the stairwell, darkness incarnate, eyes of starshine, teeth and nails the pale silver of a mist-shrouded moon. A valiant arrow shot through it, clattering against the wall behind. The figure ducked, huddling in on itself, shadows folding and moulding anew. We heard determined boots thudding on the stairs, shouts urging them upwards.

The darkness reared up with a new mask, a wolf’s head snarling and weaving, twice life size and topping a man-shaped body with clawed hands tipped with ice-white talons. The beast snatched up the fallen arrow and threw its head back to howl like a gale from frozen -heights. Breath steamed icy from its maw and rolled bodily down the stairs. We heard frantic feet taking flight even before the arrow tumbled down after them.

“Nice to see Shiv paid attention to ’Gren’s yarns,” muttered Ryshad.

I was too busy gaping for comment. Startling illusion overlaid Shiv’s crude disguise with a vision of Eldritch Kin seen in fever dreams. Too tall and too thin for ease of mind, a shaft of moonlight in one bony hand, his skin was the bottomless blue of a still pool caught beneath twilight. His hair was shadow darker than those rarest of nights when lesser and greater moons both quit the sky for mysteries of their own. His eyes were black hollows seeing into the very shades, threatening to suck the life from any who caught their gaze.

Sorgrad and ’Gren crouched by his side, visions to terrify Poldrion’s own demons. A head appeared in the stairwell and the Elietimm man’s jaw dropped as he saw his dread master being butchered by the two eerie apparitions.

“He cut out that lad’s stones and eyes. Why don’t we swap his round?” ’Gren suggested in a low voice.

Ryshad looked at me and I wondered if I looked as unearthly to him as he did to me.

“You said do your worst.” I spoke before he could. “We don’t look, then we don’t have to know. Don’t worry. ’Gren’s on our side.”

“I’ll take your word for that.” Ryshad’s tone suggested we’d debate this further when people weren’t trying to kill us.

The awesome Eldritch Kin that was Shiv stepped forward, levelling its cold, gold spear. The Elietimm man froze on the stair, white faced and trembling in the darkness.

“Bless the ancestors who chose you to witness our retribution.” ’Gren looked up and hissed with silken spite.

“We curse Ilkehan to the ninth generation. Cursed be all who pervert the sacred lore.” Sorgrad rose, a figure born of nightmares, blood dripping from the ivory-handled knife to be greedily sucked up by scurrying rat-like shadows. “Thus to all who profane the compact between dead, living and yet unborn.” His words echoed around the stone walls so uncannily Shiv had to be working some magic on them. The reverberations followed the fleeing soldier down the stairs.

Then Shiv winked at me and I could see through the delusion of light and magic to the reality beneath. “Hurry up.”

We skirted round ’Gren and Sorgrad now chuckling evilly. Ryshad kicked in the door and we found a room dominated by a large table strewn with maps and parchments. A window embrasure held a sturdy chest of unmistakably Tormalin origin.

“In there.” It was locked. I reached for my picks.

“No time.” Ryshad grabbed a handle. “Dast’s teeth!” he rasped as he lifted it on to one shoulder.

Sorgrad appeared in the doorway. “We need to go now or there’ll be too many for us to break through.”

“We’re coming,” I assured him.

Scarlet flame danced on his outstretched palm. “Get clear.”

Sorgrad’s handful of fire skidded the length of the table, igniting everything in its path. The wall hangings blazed around us and I swear I felt the hair on my neck crisp as we raced through the doorway. “Curse it, ’Grad, you nearly fried us!”

“Main stairs or back?”

’Gren was standing by Ilkehan’s body, gory to his elbows. I tried not to see what had been done to the body and just about succeeded; apart from realising it wasn’t the enchanter’s tongue poking from his mouth.

Ryshad glanced down and swallowed hard. Even painted blue, I swear he blenched.

Shiv held the silver salver before him, magical fire from a scrap of burning cloth reflecting oddly on to his painted face. “I don’t have time for this, Planir. Just do what you can.” He shoved the metal inside his jerkin and threw the cloth away.

“Back stairs.” Ryshad jerked his head.

“Sorgrad,” I urged. “We’re leaving.”

“Just a moment.” He was crouched over Ilkehan, his back to me.

I moved to get a clearer look and then thought better of it. “You’ve done enough!”

“I promised I’d carve the boy’s name in this bastard’s forehead.” Sorgrad spoke with slow concentration.

“That won’t lead them straight to Olret?” snapped Ryshad.

“Not unless someone hereabouts can read Mandarkin script.” Sorgrad finished with a flourish of his blade sending drops of blood spattering the wall.

“Let’s go,” I begged.

“Stay close,” warned Shiv, raising his hands. Drawing them close, he flung another sweep of glittering magic ahead. The shadows took on a mossy hue, shifting into spectres of trees. We moved and they moved with us, dappled darkness shifting and changing, Eldritch shapes on the edge of sight passing all around us.

“Here.” Sorgrad reached for the other handle of the chest and Ryshad let it slide from his shoulder so they could carry it between them.

We reached the back stairwell, narrower and more steeply pitched than the one we’d come up. Shiv and I took the lead as we descended as fast as was still safely cautious, shadows alternately deepening and fading around us. The formless blackness shaped itself into foxes, rats and ravens that ran on ahead. The rushing sound that presages the most violent storms in the wildwood surged around our heads before scouring down the stairs.

“Pered’s not the only artist in your household, is he?” At the turn of the stair, I looked back to see Sorgrad and Ryshad balancing the chest between them, each with a blade in their free hand. Rearguard, ’Gren was coming backwards down the stairs, sword and dagger ready. I knew he’d done that often enough not to worry about falling.

As we reached the floor below, a handful of men braver than the rest charged us with viciously flanged maces. Shiv sent them reeling back with a brutal storm of hail crystallising out of the very air. The ice was sharp enough to draw blood from faces and hands before falling to the floor and flowing together to coat the flagstone with lethal slipperiness. The soldiers fell heavily as they struggled to stand, more interested in retreating than pursuit. We ran on down the stairs and along the one corridor we found not peopled with panicked Elietimm. New screams of anguish and horror echoed from the floor where we’d left Ilkehan.