The Fall of the Dagger (The Forsaken Lands) (13 page)

She was shaking so hard now, she couldn’t reply.

He smiled at her, but there was no humour in it. “Remember this. Remember how easy it is for me. And how little I care. I was told to keep Prince Garred alive and well – and you are a convenient instrument to do that, but you aren’t essential.” He sounded tired, not triumphant.

She clenched her hands into fists in an attempt to control her trembling, and noticed the bloodless white pallor of his face and the way he was still propped against the mantel.

“Every time you use your power, you are closer to dying,” she said. In one of her communications before she’d disappeared, Pontifect Fritillary had told them that much. “You can feel your life slipping away, can’t you? Valerian is using you up, burning you like a candle, and once the wick ends, the candle dies. He does that to all his sons. He’s the flame that sucks you of all life.”

For a long time she knelt there, shaking, incapable of climbing to her feet, unable even to wonder if her words would have a disastrous effect, or work to her advantage. How could she ever know what thoughts occurred in the head of a sorcerer’s son?

“I’m my father’s heir,” he said. It was scarcely more than a whisper.

“That’s what you all think,” she replied. “He has many sons.”

He pushed himself away from the fireplace to open the door, then spoke to one of the two guards outside. “Get rid of this body, will you?” he asked. “Fresh meat.”

She wouldn’t have thought the evening could get any worse, but when she saw the guard’s face light up with an expectation of pleasure, she remembered a story she’d heard of a scribe, a man called Clary, who had been cooked and eaten. The meaning of the guard’s anticipation filtered through to her understanding, and her gorge rose. She bent over the bucket, heaving until there was nothing left in her stomach. When she raised her head again, the guard and the girl were gone.

The Foxcub stood, his hands hanging loose by his sides. “You’re a fool,” he said.

“P-probably,” she agreed, shivering as she sat back on her heels. “I’m not very old. Seventeen, still. I’ve seen little of life outside my safe little world. But I think I know not only why you never killed
the farmers who helped me, but why you never asked your Grey Lancers to kill them either. You’re not sure you can control them around dead bodies, are you? Each time that you have to
coerce
them into obedience takes a little more of your life.” He stared at her, the hatred seeping from every pore. She could smell it.

“You need me,” she said. “If I die, you’ll never bring Prince Garred safely to Vavala. Your men would—” She swallowed hard before she could say the words. “What? Eat him the moment your back was turned?”

He left her then, slamming the door behind him.

She doubled over where she was, rocking her body and crying. She had no idea whether she had made things better, or worse, for herself.

P
eregrine Clary always thought of his father before he killed. He would remember his smile, his slow way of speaking, his red-tongued shoes… Then he’d remember the smell of burned flesh, the horror of knowing the Grey Lancers had eaten his father. The memory gave him permission to do the work Pontifect Fritillary had asked of him and Gerelda Brantheld: kill sorcerers. Valerian Fox’s sons, the Gaunt Recruiters.

They were on the trail of their tenth sorcerer. Perie had found the first four in Valence, where they’d been leading troops of Grey Lancers. The next two had been killing Primordials and attacking shrine keepers and shrines along the Ardronese border, in the Shenat Hills.

Soon after that, all the shrines had vanished, and he and Gerelda had set off to Melforn and Boneset in the east, searching for more of the Fox progeny where the Prime’s family had manor estates. There, he killed another couple where they’d been enticing farm folk into joining the Grey Lancers. They’d headed to Hornbeam then, where they’d heard the lancers were killing Shenat clerics. They’d killed the leader of the troop, another Fox son.

When they’d heard that Prince Ryce was under siege in Gromwell Holdfast, they decided to investigate whether a sorcerer was involved. Just out of Melforn, though, Perie had picked up the stench of the tenth sorcerer travelling the road north several days ahead of them, and the trail had led them to Oakwood, not Gromwell.

“We are close to him,” he said to Gerelda after they’d ridden into the town and stabled their horses at a livery. “He’s here somewhere.”

“Just the one man?”

He nodded, then frowned. “That’s odd, isn’t it? But I can’t smell
any Grey Lancers here, none. Just him.” He called it a smell, but it wasn’t really. It was a smutch he could sense, but not with his nose. With his witchery. He shouldered his pack and looked up and down the street, in an attempt to trace the direction of the taint. They were still standing outside the livery, and the strong, rich odour of horse sweat and manure swamped much of his witchery perception.

“Up that way, I think,” he said, and turned in that direction. “This town is a strange sort of place. I’ve never seen buildings like these before.”

Along one side of the cobbled roadway, houses of three or four storeys were squashed up against one another, the frontage of each not much wider than the length of two horses standing head to tail. In fact, each was so narrow that the stairs had been built on the outside. On the opposite side of the road, the buildings were completely different, long and unadorned, with only one narrow door and many shutters that could be propped open to let in air and light. He thought they looked more like barns.

“Oakwood’s more university than town, and you’re in the heart of Shenat country,” she said. “That makes a difference.”

“Where’s the university?” he asked as they walked on into the heart of the town.

“Everywhere. There’s no single building.” She pointed to the barn-like structure. “That’s a student doss house, the cheapest place to stay. If you’re a bit richer, then you rent a room with a family. If you’re really wealthy, then you arrange to stay with one of the professors.”

“So where do students go to
learn
?”

“Classes are held in the teacher’s house, usually. Tutorials, they’re called. Some of the poorer tutors hold a class in a tavern and charge less.”

“Then the most popular teachers are the best and they charge the most?”

She grinned. “That’s the theory, but as I recall, classes in a tavern were top in popularity.” They had come to a cross street, so she stopped and looked at him. “Which way?”

He took a deep breath, tasting the air and that awful smear of tarry vileness that was a sorcerer’s taint. “Down there,” he said, pointing along the broader thoroughfare.

“Might have guessed,” she said, turning that way. “This leads to the better side of town. Our sorcerer wouldn’t be stopping in the run-down section.”

“What would he be doing in a university town anyway?”

“I don’t know. But somehow the idea scares me.”

The town was a labyrinth of winding lanes, some of them noxious and drear, some opening on to wider thoroughfares, even tree-lined boulevards. And everywhere there were students, many of them wearing black gowns with coloured sleeve bands that proclaimed their allegiance to one of the five disciplines: theology, science, mathematics, law or history. Peregrine had already decided that students came in all shapes, sizes and ages. The one thing they had in common was that they all carried something – books, scrolls, slates, pen-and-ink sets or writing tablets. As both he and Gerelda were carrying their packs, they fitted right in, especially as Gerelda was keeping her sword out of sight under her cloak.

Perie touched the side of his thigh where his own weapon was hidden. He had long abandoned any attempt to master swordplay. His weapon of choice was now an assassin’s blade called a spiker, a slender, tapered dagger that was easy to slip into a man’s chest, or into his back, to the heart. It was light to carry, simple to conceal – and a stab from it resulted in little mess.

Nine men, dead on its blade. Number ten was within reach…

“They like their ale, don’t they?” he asked as they passed yet another noisy tavern full of students.

“Cheaper than a meal if you don’t have money,” she remarked.

“Were you one of the poorer ones at your university?”

“Indeed I was. But I had good friends. I got by.” And she smiled, as if remembering something pleasant. “It’s important to have friends,” she added.

He’d never had friends, at least not since he’d started travelling with his Da. Nine years old, he’d been then, and a boy couldn’t find a friend when they were always on the move. He frowned, wondering what he’d missed. Would a friend be better than Gerelda on this quest of his – to kill as many sorcerers as he could? He doubted it.

Although… maybe Gerelda was a friend. He would not have liked it if she left him. Was that what having a friend was?

“How close is he, do you think?” she asked as he guided her into a wide street of handsome colonnaded homes.

“Very. Do you know this road?”

“I do, as a matter of fact. The head of the university’s professorial board lives in that house on the right, the one with the tree outside. He conducts lectures in law on the ground floor. I attended them for one term.”

“You told me you went to university in Lowmeer!”

“Yes, I did. My degree is from Grundorp. But a lot of students do a term or two at other universities, especially if there’s a particularly good scholar giving the lectures. That’s how I met Saker Rampion. He turned up in Grundorp.”

“I’ve heard you mention that name before. Or was it Fritillary who spoke of him? Who is he?”

“Oh, never mind. This is the street where all the richest academics live. Let’s walk down and see if you can work out where our sorcerer is.”

They ambled along as if they weren’t looking for anything in particular, and no one gave them a second glance. At the end of the street, he told her they had to retrace their steps because they’d passed their quarry.

“That’s the house,” he said at last, pointing. “He’s in there. I’m sure of it.” He nodded at an elegant mansion accessed by broad steps up to an impressive doorway. Even as he spoke, one side of the doors opened and ten or so students spilled out, laughing and chattering down the steps.

“Is he one of those?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Let me find out who lives there,” she muttered. Smiling, she waved to one of the students. “Hey, my friend, is this the house of Marmot Crake, professor of law?”

The young man halted, with several of his friends lingering as well, to wait for him. “No, he lives in that one with the tree. This is Professor Hoddison Rork’s house, professor of theology. You must be visiting students?”

“That’s right,” she said, her smile widening. “Not long in Oakwood. Rork. I was going to take his course as well. I heard he’s a fellow with a beard down to his waist, who mumbles all the time?”

“That’s him. But this month, he’s not giving the tutorials. He’s turned over his course to someone else for a term. Arbiter Camber Fox.”

“Oh!” Gerelda glanced at Perie with an expression of dismay before turning back to the student, “Should we be disappointed? I mean, we were looking forward to benefiting from Professor Rork’s expertise, and to have a replacement—”

“He seems to know his stuff,” the student replied. “He gave his first tutorial just now. Young fellow, but entertaining. Hard to believe he’s an arbiter!”

Gerelda pursed her lips. “I didn’t come all this way to be entertained! I want someone with experience, who can give me theological guidance. Tell me, does he advocate putting Shenat teachings before Va-chapel sermons?”

One of the other students, a woman, laughed. “Hardly. He’s the Pontifect’s nephew, for a start. Which probably explains why he’s an arbiter already, when he can’t be more than twenty-five, if he’s a day.”

“So what course is he teaching?”

“‘Va-faith Renewed’, he calls it. The next tutorial is at ten tomorrow morning. And he was enlightening. Made good sense to me.”

The students went on their way and Perie looked across at Gerelda. She was biting her lip and frowning.

He said, “He’s used sorcery on them, just a bit.”

“To coerce them?”

“No. Not exactly. More to—” He thought about it. “What I sense is not evil enough for that. More to charm them, I think. Do you think he’s really Valerian’s nephew?”

“More likely his son. As Pontifect, Valerian can hardly admit he’s sired tens of sons from one end of the hemisphere to the other.”

“I suppose not.”

“Think of the damage this Camber fellow could do teaching a whole term of the theology course, twisting Shenat customs and beliefs until it sounds like a perversion instead of something that protects the land and forests and rivers. He could have those students – most of whom will one day be clerics – calling for the death of witchery and shrine keepers.” She drew in a heavy breath. “Tomorrow we’re going to be students of his. We’d better find somewhere to stay
for the night.” She looked down at herself. “
Not
a doss house, I think. Somewhere with a bath.”

“You look worried,” Perie remarked as they walked to the tutorial the next morning.

“That’s because this one does worry me. It’s different, and when a sorcerer is unpredictable…” She shrugged. “One of these days we are going to be caught.”

He imitated her shrug. “Everybody runs out of luck sooner or later.”

“One keeps on hoping it’s going to be later.” She paused, then added, “We can always stop, if you want.”

He looked at her in surprise. “No, we can’t! We can’t stop while there is a single sorcerer alive.”

“I guess what I meant is that
you
could stop. Fobbing hells, Perie, you’re only fourteen, and you have—” She hesitated.

“—murdered nine sorcerers. Yes. It’s what I do.”

“You don’t feel
anything
?” she asked in a whisper.

He was surprised. “I feel glad. Should I feel anything else?”

Her glance his way was uneasy.

“I asked
not
to feel, you know. It was the bargain I made with the unseen guardian. It’s what I wanted.”

She was silent. He hadn’t told her that before.

“You can’t do this without me,” he pointed out.

He knew that was true; she had no witchery, couldn’t track a sorcerer and never felt that horrible taint of sorcery in the air. He didn’t know whether to pity her for her lack of acumen, or envy her because she didn’t know how foul the spoor of sorcery and ensorcellment was. Moreover, she wouldn’t have been able to kill a sorcerer either, because any one of them would have read her like an open page of a book and used his magic to stop her.

But no sorcerer had recognised him as a danger. Their eyes told them he was just a lad; their sorcery told them nothing of his intentions.

“What you mean, I suppose,” he said, “is that someone my age should be doing something different, like going to school, or learning a trade. Proctor, you keep thinking that I’m just a lad.” When she
didn’t reply, he added, “I haven’t been a lad since the day Da was murdered.”

“What happened that day? After you left me, I mean.”

“I saw what had been done to Da, then I spoke to an unseen guardian. And after that… I was different. The Pontifect knew that when she met me. She
knew
. Both of them, the guardian and the Pontifect, gave me a choice – and this is what I chose, to serve the Way of the Oak. I’m not a lad. I’m not even sure I’m Peregrine Clary any more.”

“I’m a lawyer. I don’t know what the sweet cankers you’re talking about. All I see is a lad who should be enjoying life, not fighting an evil.”

“If I don’t, who will?” he asked, knowing she had no answer.

It was astonishingly simple to gain entrance to Professor Rork’s house. They joined the dribble of students wanting to attend the tutorial. Just inside the door, someone was collecting the fees for attendance, and they were directed into a room, which to Perie’s eyes was more like a chapel hall than anything he’d imagined a classroom would resemble. It had pews rather than chairs, and a raised platform for the tutor. Perie counted the number of students attending – thirty-two. He and Gerelda sat quietly at the back, each with a cheap writing tablet and graphite stick so that they both looked like students.

Camber Fox, who entered the room a few minutes later, was pale and ill-looking, not at all like Valerian, who reeked of a foul energy, powerful, vibrant, knowing, ancient. There was a softer element in Camber’s features, something less assertive in his attitude, something more ambivalent in the way he held himself. Perie’s senses did not scream a warning of wrongness; it was more a whisper. Up close like this, the foulness was still muted.

He settled back to listen, occasionally making a pretence of scribbling notes. The basic premise of the lecture was that the use of a witchery interfered with the natural processes of life, and was therefore antithetical to the Shenat belief in the inviolate essence of nature, and therefore called into question whether Shenat was truly Va predicated. He didn’t understand much of it, except that it sounded like nonsense. Camber Fox was saying that using a fishing witchery to call fish into your nets was wrong, but he didn’t appear to have a
problem with using a net in the first place. Moreover, he was certainly using a mild form of coercion to persuade his audience of the rightness of all he was saying; Perie felt it pushing against him with an incessant gentleness.