Vergence (40 page)

“Walk onwards,” the glamour grumbled.

Moments later, Ebryn heard a panicked squawk behind him, and turned to find Addae wrestling a figure dressed in a dark full-length cloak near the entrance of the alleyway.

“It's Shiggle's assistant,” Ebryn said.

Even beneath a hood, the bony cheeks and protruding teeth were obvious.

“You let go of me, you're hurting me arm,” the man said.

“Why are you following us?” Ebryn asked.

“I don't mean no harm, honest. Except I heard you was talking to Master Shiggle about one called himself Khet'Tuk.”

“What do you know about Khet'Tuk?” Addae asked.

“You helps me some, and I helps you,” Shiggle's assistant said, holding out his free hand face-up.

It took Ebryn a few moments to understand the man expected to be paid for the information. Reluctantly, he felt in his money bag, extracted the smallest bronze guilder he could find, and dropped it onto the palm of the waiting hand.

The hand remained open face-up, the lone coin looking lost in the dirt-creased palm.

The man looked at Ebryn with a hurt expression. “How's about a bit more, so I gets something for me arm what's sore, and for the trouble what I had remembering for you?”

Ebryn frowned, but reached into his bag again, and dropped three more coins into the outstretched palm.

“That'll be it,” Shiggle's assistant said, giving Ebryn a skeletal grin. “The man you'll be wanting is Phar Salsa. Shiggle, he's a broker, see, buys and sells stuff. That Khet'Tuk was wanting too much, more'n Shiggle could get his hands on, so he passes him to Salsa for a tip and a favour.”

“Where is this man called Phar Salsa? Where can we find him?” Addae asked.

“Can't say, but you find him easy, and don't say I told nothing, right?”

Ebryn nodded, and Addae released him. In a moment the thin man had disappeared back into the stream of people walking along the main road.

“What do you think — do you trust him?” Ebryn asked.

“I cannot say, my friend. I will seek answers to this question — a man who lends great sums will be known from one side of this great city to the other.”

Maps

F
LA WATCHED
the playwright Teblin scribble a scene change on the section of script he held, mouthing words silently, tugging at his beard as he struggled with a line. The round-faced man had a loud, sometimes annoying voice, and a personality big enough to fill up the huge open-air playhouse all by himself.

He'd found a place half-way up the stalls, on one side of the theatre, where he could remain concealed. From here, he could see nearly the entire stage, and part of the wings, behind the side curtain. Fla sat hunched in the shadows, through long hours of practice, watching Sashael. He moved only when he must, to find food or relief, and to work loose the cramping pain in his leg and back muscles.

He seldom returned to his underground home now, except to sleep at night, his experiments abandoned, the cages in his rooms emptied of animals. Wherever Sashael went, he followed, drawn from his night-time world to her daytime one. Much of her day she spent here, practising for the play, to be ready in time for the opening performance in the afternoon of the festival of stilts.

The play seemed tortuously lengthy to Fla, with a complicated plot, and pointless conclusion. But it kept her conveniently in one place most working days, concentrating on her illusions, while he drowned in her beauty.

Teblin paced back and forth across the stage, trying new lines, before cursing and moving to sit on the edge, with his feet dangling a yard above the ground. Sashael had joined the actors, standing half inside the far wing curtain, where they waited for him to finish.

When it became clear they wouldn't be resuming any time soon, Leon approached Teblin, bending over to speak quietly, their heads almost touching.

After a few moments Leon placed an arm around Teblin's shoulder in a one-armed hug. When he stood, he shook his head at the others — rehearsal over for the day, it seemed.

Fla clambered to his feet, steadying himself with his staff, and used a casting to wrap the shadows around himself — a glamour of shade and silence, nothing like invisibility, but powerful enough to turn casual eyes away as he made his way down to the street. At the top of the steps, he turned back, leaning on the back of the uppermost bench to ease the pain in his hip.

Sash had gone.

Fla hurriedly scanned the faces below, trying to find her, risking a far-sensing to feel into the parts of the theatre he couldn't see, trying to locate her distinctive presence. He found no trace of her inside.

He turned quickly, ignoring the sharp, lancing pain in his knees, extending his senses further out — beyond the confines of the building, until he found her in the street outside, moving around the side of the theatre building in the direction of the centre of the city.

Fla cursed inwardly. Usually she left at a leisurely pace with the other members of the acting troupe, giving him time to get downstairs, and follow her towards the claws.

His chest constricted at the thought of losing her for the rest of the day. A flicker of caution quickly extinguished in the face of his desperate desire. A rarely used casting lifted Fla up into the air, propelling him high over the roof, an ungainly clot of dark robes scattering flocks of roosting leatherwings, before dropping softly back to the cobbled street below.

Sashael set off towards the circle road, a hundred paces ahead of him, walking at a determined pace, and Fla soon realised she meant to go to the library. He ground his teeth, knowing she would quickly outstrip him.

As a student and apprentice, he'd studied while his fellows played — delving into hidden corners and dark secrets, developing skills to match any of the masters. Power and knowledge he'd carefully guarded, concealing his burgeoning talents like a miser hoarding a sack of gold.

Master Brack sensed it, and Orim, who saw him as clearly as anyone, suspected more. Yet he knew he couldn't risk using castings to keep pace with her on the quieter streets of the inner city, as he might in the more crowded quarters.

He'd barely eaten in a day and a half, trying to conserve his dwindling supply of coins. Those Orim had given him for guarding Ebryn were all but gone, and now he must decide between paying for a symor to carry him, or risk losing track of her.

Ebryn looked up, surprised when Sash walked through the library doorway. He'd been nearing the end of a game of drake and ducks, steadily losing piece after piece to Hoi. Ben-gan hadn't been in any of his usual places that morning, and Ebryn had conceded time to play a round with Hoi while he waited.

He felt oddly unsettled seeing her, as if she'd walked in on him in the midst of doing something illicit or shameful. Sash spotted him at once and changed direction, smiling broadly as she steered past the jumble of tables and chairs.

“I thought you might be hiding away in a dark corner. I hoped you'd be reading out here, or something,” she said, her eyes passing over the game board and the collection of captured playing pieces on one side.

“What are you doing here?” Ebryn asked.

“Teblin stopped rehearsals for the day, so I came to see if you had time for a break.”

“Um … yes,” Ebryn said, ignoring the look of disappointment on Hoi's face.

“First, before we go, I want to see if there are any recent maps of the city.”

“To see where the other spikes are?”

Sash laughed, and eased into the chair next to him. “Am I that predictable?”

“No,” Ebryn said. “I've been meaning to find one — to see the placement of the spikes myself.”

From the corner of his eye he noticed Suru Hava and Tuk Myre looking at each other.

“Wait until your game's over,” Sash said.

“I'm going to concede,” Ebryn said to Hoi. “We already know who's going to win.”

“I'll take the young fellow's place,” Sevoi said, making Ebryn jump as he spoke. He'd approached so quietly from behind them, he almost seemed to have appeared from nowhere.

Sevoi dragged a chair to the end of the table, next to Hoi, and sat down.

“My, my. Such a rare thing to have you all to ourselves, without Ben-gan dragging you off to do who knows what in the dark corners. A chance to get to know you better,” he said, leering at Sash.

Sash looked at Ebryn. “Ben-gan?”

“He's been showing me where to find the books I need,” Ebryn said, avoiding her eyes.

A sly smile appeared on Sevoi's face. “It's such a thing to see the one at the beginning, and the one at the end of our kind's troubles, working together.”

“What do you mean?” Sash asked.

“Careful, Sevoi,” Suru said sharply, glancing up from her book.

Sevoi held up one arm and tapped on his sevyric manacle with his nails. “Now, now Suru. It's hardly a secret. Our friend here is the only one able to rid us of this stuff, and Ben-gan the only man who knows how to create it.”

“Ben-gan made all the sevyric iron?” Sash asked. “Everywhere?”

“Yes,” Sevoi said through a thin-lipped smile. “Every single piece is from the hands of the great Ben-gan. Didn't you know this is his great secret?”

“There's more to it than that,” Suru said repressively, giving Sevoi an acid look.

“Like what?” Ebryn asked.

Suru let out a heavy breath and closed her book, motioning them over to her table.

“I don't want to shout. There is no secret here, but it's a subject best discussed little, and then quietly. Many in the orders know too little of the history of this city, and they're too ready to pass judgement on what they don't understand.

“It's true, Ben-gan has created every last piece of sevyric iron we have, but you must understand the necessities of the time. At first, it served as a defence in the war which led to the fall of Volane. Later we needed the second form of the iron to preserve this city. Without the iron, we could not build our world-ships, and the ships bring food, without which our people would have long ago starved.

“Now, the second form of sevyric iron is used in so many things. There is a near limitless hunger for the stuff. When Ben-gan stopped fetching it, there was a great deal of theft. Some of the pieces stolen were so vital to the well-being of the city, his hand was forced, and he had to start again. You can see, it's easy to malign a man if you don't know all the facts,” Suru said.

“Is that why there's a cheg guarding the tower with the sevyric spike?” Sash asked.

Suru gave her an appraising look. “It may well be, or it may be part of some archaic tradition the cheg are wedded to — who can say? Now I believe you wanted to look at a map? Shall we see what we can find, hmm?”

“I'd like to find something big and detailed,” Ebryn said.

“No, you stay here,” Suru said to Ebryn as he pushed forward in his chair to stand up. “We don't need three to fetch a map.”

He sat back to wait, allowing his gaze to wander over the tables and bookshelves. Sevoi seemed to be giving Hoi a better game, and the old man had his head down, concentrating on the board. Ebryn tapped his fingers absent-mindedly on the polished table surface, until Tuk looked up with a frown on his face.

A handful of students wandered through the library foyer, some holding books, looking for unoccupied tables, while others headed at once into the dark cavernous recesses.

His eyes were drawn to a short man entering through the main doors, walking bent forward over a staff, hood pulled far forward to conceal the face.

“Who's that?” he asked Tuk, recalling the same man sprawled out on the floor of the menagerie.

Tuk turned his head, nose wrinkling, as if he'd discovered a bad smell. “He's called Fla. One of the worst troublemakers in years.”

“How so?” Ebryn asked. The man hobbling past the rows of shelves seemed barely capable of standing without support.

“He was of the Aremetuet, before he left the orders.
Asked
to leave, I suspect, but you'll never discover the true reason by asking. Wherever he went, hurt followed close behind.”

Fla moved out of sight behind a bookshelf just as Sash returned with Suru. They were both smiling at something, and Sash carried a large fabric roll almost two-thirds her height.