24
THE HOUSE OF CATS AND GULLS

Kuy settled into a stiff high-backed chair. ‘Syannis. He comes here in the middle of the night, asking his questions. Full of them, and so are you. Black powder, disguised as black tea: who would have thought it? And traitors in your temple. Have you noticed, Berren, how the pure are always so full of sin. Sit!’

The command carried a force that made Berren drop where he stood and sit cross-legged on the floor.

‘You saw us. The Two Cranes. Then back to your nest of liars in blindfolds.’ He shook his head. ‘You’re a fool, boy, if you think an open door stays open. I know what questions brought you here and I have answers for them, for some of them, but they are answers you will not like. They are answers not to be shared, not before the year begins its slow slide to death. They will close doors and bar them firmly shut. They will make you mine and you will wonder if you were a fool to come to me. Are you ready for such answers? Do not move!’

Berren had started to rise. He fell flat as though he’d been kicked in the chest by a horse.

‘So you’re looking for Syannis are you? Yes, we came here. I haven’t seen him since. Would you like to see what we brought with us?’

Berren shook his head. Last he’d seen of Master Sy, he was hacking the Headsman’s head off his shoulders. ‘I … I just wanted to know if he’s here.’

‘And I’ve told you that he is not, but that is not the answer you’re looking for. It’s not the one that dares you to come here. Is it?’

‘Do you know where he is?’

‘Thief-taker Velgian, that is what brings you here, with his cold dead seducer song and his warnings that lure you onward.’ Kuy raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes, I take answers from the dead. From their spirits or from their flesh. From wailing ghosts and cold gibbering heads. Would you like to see the one we brought back with us?’

Berren shuddered. He couldn’t move. Wanted to but couldn’t.

‘Tush! And I’d taken you to be one of those young men with a fascination for the ghoulish, for the macabre, for the touch of cold damp skin. Here you are, full of questions and you don’t want my answers? You will have them though, wanted or not.’

Berren shook his head. All I want is Master Sy. But his mouth stayed firmly shut.

‘I know all about you, Berren. Syannis talks of you. He’s proud of his little lookalike bastard brother with the mistake in his head. Come, Headsman, speak! Show the young man that we can do what we say we can, yes?’ Something rolled across the floor of its own accord, something the size of a head. ‘Berren, the ghost of Aimes. I’ve waited many nights for you to come with your questions and now that you are here, you must look!’

Berren shrank away. The Headsman’s severed head was on the floor at the witch-doctor’s feet. He wanted to run but his legs weren’t listening. Kuy’s mouth gulped air like a fish. ‘Berren, Berren. You might have stayed in your bed with your head on your arms and gorged yourself with dreams, but what then?’ For a moment Kuy hesitated. Then, in the gloom, a smile twisted across his face. ‘He’s full of answers, this one. I can show you how to make him tell.’

Berren shook his head again. ‘I just want … Master Velgian … He knew something. Maybe. Whose gold did he take? Do you know?’

‘Do you have his head?’

‘No!’

‘A part of him? A part of what was his? Anything?’

Berren gulped. ‘No. I’m sorry. I didn’t know …’

‘Didn’t ask!’ The shadows around Kuy began to move, closing in on Berren, pressing him down like sticky sheets and nets as heavy as lead. They nailed him to the ground, killing his desires and dulling his thoughts. ‘Where is your offering, Berren? You have no fish to nourish my eyes and my ears!’

‘I …’ He tried to get up but his legs refused to move. ‘I can go and get some! I thought … I thought you were Master Sy’s friend.’

‘Friend? A craftsman and his tool and now I have a better one.’ Kuy’s bloodless lips grinned. Berren bit his tongue.

‘Pluh …’ Please. He didn’t know who he thought he was talking to. The gods? He had to fight these shadows. When he blinked, they were gone, just figments of his imagination, but when he blinked again they were heavy as stone once more.

‘Here you are and you ask for something and yet you have brought me nothing! Ignorance! Rude boy! So now you are here you will listen. I have power. You feel it. You fight it but you mustn’t. Let it be a friend to you. Let it in. Be its master. It will show you how to fight in ways you’ve never dreamed. I know nothing of swords, not even a tiniest little part; but you’re to be a killer, that is certain. Great things wait for you. The Bloody Judge. Gods and ice and lightning and the bringing of the black moon, all of that. You bring me nothing and so I have no answers for your questions, yet I offer you a gift, a marvel. I will show you how to ask those questions of the dead ears who will know. I could show you more if I had a mind to, much more. Speak with the dead? You could raise them from their ashes.’

Berren shook his head again. A sorcerer? Him? Sorcerers were wicked people, that’s what the priests at the temple said. What had Tasahre called them? Abominations! Anathemas! He was still powerless. He couldn’t even lift his hands off the floor. His fingernails dug into his palms.

‘Sorcery?’ Kuy shook as though he was silently laughing. He left the head where it was, lying on the floor, shrouded in its own shadows only a few feet from where Berren sat, and shuffled away into the darkness. He came back clutching strips of paper, a quill and some ink. ‘Now, boy, what was the first thing your master tried to teach you?’

Letters. Those were the lessons Master Sy had tried to give him when he’d first started as the thief-taker’s apprentice. They’d been a disaster.

‘Take them!’ Kuy stood over him, thrusting the quill forward. Berren’s arm rose of its own accord. His fingers uncurled to take it, then a strip of paper, as long and as wide as his forearm, then another. The second had strange symbols written across it. ‘Open the lips of the dead. A simple sigil and every secret in every splinter of the world is yours for the taking if you can find the right mouth to speak it. You want to know where to find Syannis? This one knows where he will be in days to come. He will not give it willingly, but you can take the answer from him. So do it!’

Shakily, Berren’s hand started to move, copying the signs and strokes. He felt distant from himself, as if he was watching while his hands and fingers moved with a will of their own, painting the lines and shapes in their own special order. Why? Why am I doing this? Yet he was. He was powerless and had been from the moment he’d crossed the threshold into the witch-doctor’s domain. And in truth, a part of him watched his own hands with awe, amazement, and yes, with a hunger and a desire. Make the dead talk? Could he do that? What could that mean to a thief-taker? How much was such a gift worth? Priceless, surely!

When he was finished, Kuy nodded. ‘Place your mark upon his skin, boy. See his lips fold back and grin, even though he might be dead, still his secrets will be said. An old rhyme for children. Now you will see its true meaning.’

Berren crawled on all fours towards Kuy’s feet, to where the Headsman’s face lay on its side. The worst of it was hidden by the gloom, but he caught the glisten of a dead eye. The Headsman had been close to bald, so at least there was no hair to brush away. Berren screwed up his face, sneaking a last glance. His hand fumbled towards the severed head. As he touched it, the paper seemed to leap with a will of its own. Berren scuttled hastily away.

‘Good, good! Now ask it! The dead cannot lie, Berren, not like the living. For the living, lies grow like flowers in spring. Ask him what he knows about the dragon-monks. Or why he’s here. Or your lost prince, Syannis from across the sea, where is he? Anything you want, Berren.’

‘Whu … Why? Why, who?’ Berren’s tongue was so dry it kept sticking to the inside of his mouth. He could taste his own blood. He was starting to notice the smell again and it was threatening to make him sick.

‘Ask!’ Kuy steepled his fingers. His pale face smiled. He made a gesture and then sat down a few yards from where Berren still squatted on the floor, and Berren couldn’t have said whether the warlock’s chair had actually been there or not a moment before. He thought not.

‘Ask! Call his name! Headsman! Make him answer!’

‘But he’s dead.’

‘But he’s listening.’

A shiver prickled across Berren’s skin, crawling from his shoulders, down along the length of his arms and all the way to his fingertips. Kuy was watching closely.

‘You can ask a question, Berren. It’s simple enough. Mister Headsman, sir, why did you come to Deephaven? You see. Words. That’s all.’

‘Mister Headsman, sir … Why did you come to Deephaven?’

The head moved. Berren almost jumped out of his skin. He skittered back and fell over and then stopped, paralysed again as the dead man spoke.

‘To bring letters of greeting from Radek of Kalda to the Autarch of Torpreah and the priests of the sun.’ The words were slow and flat and dead. They didn’t sound like the Headsman at all.

Kuy growled. ‘Foolish man! Tell the boy what they wanted, these priests you saw?’

‘They wanted mercenaries from overseas to seize the city.’

‘Yes.’ Kuy bared his teeth. ‘Tush tush. Kind old men with never a harsh word. Serpents! Liars!’ He rounded on Berren. ‘Talk, boy! He is yours! Ask him! Whatever you want!’

‘You … you’re the Headsman,’ Berren stammered.

‘You’re Syannis’ boy,’ said the head slowly. ‘Well well. This one, he’ll cut a piece from you, just like he cut a piece from me. I see that. The dead see what the living don’t. Why have you called me back?’

He almost ran, right then. ‘Why did you come to Deephaven?’

‘You know that answer.’

‘Where’s Master Sy?’

A low groan blew out from the cold dead lips. Kuy snapped his fingers. The head rolled across the floor to his feet. Kuy picked it up. Held up by the warlock’s hand, the Headsman’s face was clearer now, pale and dead with ragged flesh hanging where Master Sy had hacked it apart. It was horrible. Berren couldn’t look, but he couldn’t not look either. ‘I’m dead. He killed me. How could I know what has become of him since, boy?’

Kuy shrugged. ‘Radek is coming. He knows where Radek will be and that is where Syannis will be too. That is all he has for you. Until Radek comes, Syannis hides.’

The head leered. ‘How can this poor corpse know, eh? Syannis will take his revenge if he can, of that I am sure.’ It laughed and its eyes rolled. ‘Syannis. Clever clever like an eel. Deephaven is his home. He knows it like a lover, all its crannies and sweating crevices. No one will find him.’

Kuy held the Headsman in both hands now, facing Berren. Berren felt cold and sick. He shook his head. His world was smashed up enough. ‘Ask, Berren! Ask! Where will Radek be?’

‘Abyss-Day. The first night of the Festival of Flames. Radek will have his ship at the Emperor’s Docks for the start of it.’

‘And why?’ Kuy’s eyes gleamed. The Headsman moaned.

‘He comes with magic Taiytakei rockets for the city. A gift to light the skies as the Night of the Dead draws to an end and the festival begins. His thanks for the chests heaped with gold that the priests of sun will load into his hold. Heh!’ Another hoot that might have been a laugh. ‘If you want to know the real price of all that gold, ask a priest. Ask Sunbright Ansinnas. Yes, you ask. They all deserve what’s coming to them. And now you know, Berren, apprentice of Syannis. That’s what I told him, so that is where he will be. Before and after I’m as blind as the living.’ The head lolled its tongue. ‘Radek would pay a pretty price to take Syannis home with him. You might think about that, boy. Now let me go. I have nothing more for you.’

Kuy cackled. ‘You’ll not find Syannis, my boy.’ He lowered the head. ‘The priests will kill him if they can. Your sword-monks? Do they know what’s been happening under their noses? Was that why they came? Or perhaps they know nothing at all. Perhaps their eyes are blinded by their own light. The city Overlord might be grateful, but Syannis knows too much and he’s not an easy man to quiet. While autarchs and emperors claw each others’ throats, lesser men simply die. A stab in the dark would be the easy way. The mines for the men he’s killed if the justicars catch him, a swift sword for what he knows if a dragon-monk reaches him first. So he hides and neither you nor I will see him until Radek comes. There will be swords and blood and one must fall and no other way is allowed by fate.’ He gave a cold laugh. ‘The Autarch never came. Five thousand swords await across the sea. Do they sit there, furious, raging at their betrayal? Radek is coming. Syannis knows the time and place. No, Syannis is not for you, boy, not for now. Master Velgian, though? Let that be your morsel. Your temple fools will not ask him questions because they fear for his answers and so no one knows why he did what he did but now you have the means. Ask if you wish, if you do not fear to hear the answer.’ He laughed again, scornful and derisive. ‘Priests of the sun? Followers of the light? Who wants them? Hypocrites! Door-closers! Blind to everything but their own righteousness, wearing bands across their eyes.’ His head snapped to the doorway through which he and Berren had entered. ‘Aren’t you?’ He jumped up and hurled the Headsman a fraction of a second before the door smashed open and the brightness of the day flooded the hall. In silhouette, there she was. Tasahre. Her swords were naked in her hands, the sunlight like a halo around her.