The Iron Ghost (6 page)

Tamlyn Nox glowered at her. ‘It was stolen by the Narhl, a tribe of –’ her face twisted as though tasting something bitter – ‘a tribe of people from beyond the northern mountain pass. We have long been enemies.’

‘Why would they take it?’ asked Sebastian. The big knight had been strangely quiet, watching the proceedings without comment.

‘Why?’ Tamlyn snapped. ‘The Heart-Stone is the centre of Skaldshollow, the foundation of our lives, of our every success. You have seen the werkens? The Heart-Stone wakens them for us, and Skaldshollow prospers. Without it, we are crippled, limited to the werkens we have already constructed. To see us fail . . .’ She touched the beaded necklace at her throat. For the first time, Frith noticed that, like Bors, she had a piece of green rock embedded into the palm of each hand, and two more pieces set into the lobes of her ears. ‘To see us fail is the only goal of the Narhl.’

Nuava pulled another book from the plinth and flicked through the pages. Almost absently she added, ‘The Narhl believe the mountains to be sacred, and that the Heart-Stone is truly the physical heart of a great mountain spirit. They object to us chipping bits of it off.’

‘Superstitious nonsense,’ snapped Tamlyn. She shot Nuava a dark look. ‘The Heart-Stone is pure Edeian, that is all.’

But Sebastian’s long face was stern now. ‘How do you know it is not the heart of the mountain? How do you know you are not doing harm?’

Tamlyn scowled. ‘When I employed the Black Feather Three, I did not expect superstitious objections. I expected action.’

‘And you’ll get plenty of that, don’t you worry,’ said Wydrin hurriedly. She fingered the pages of one of Nuava’s books. ‘These Narhl – you believe they’ve taken this Heart-Stone back to their own settlement?’

Nuava passed her a map. ‘They live beyond the treacherous mountain pass known as the Crippler, in a fortress called the Frozen Steps. This is where they have taken the stone.’

‘Why do you not retrieve it yourselves?’ asked Frith. He saw Wydrin glare at him from out the corner of his eye and ignored it. ‘These werkens of yours seem formidable. Can you not take a force of these creatures and storm the fortress?’

Tamlyn Nox snorted. ‘Do you not think we would have done that if we could?’

Nuava cleared her throat. She briefly met their eyes before looking back down at her books. ‘The pass is called the Crippler for a reason. It is so narrow that men and women must walk it single-file, and therefore much too narrow for a force of werkens. The Frozen Steps itself is made of sheer ice, impossible for a werken to scale. The Narhl have an interesting relationship with ice.’

‘But you three,’ Tamlyn came over to them, her dark eyes narrowed, ‘if the stories are true, you will have the talents necessary to get past their defences.’

Frith nodded, thinking of the boiling flames that were only a moment’s thought from his fingers. ‘That shouldn’t be a problem.’

‘Good. Then we have an agreement.’ Tamlyn nodded shortly. ‘How soon can you leave?’

‘We’ll need to rest up after the journey we’ve just made,’ said Wydrin. ‘We’ll want to prepare, and get some supplies together as well.’

‘Very well.’ Tamlyn gestured to her niece. ‘We have rooms prepared for you. Bors will show you where they are.’ With that she left, marching across the enormous hall without looking back. Nuava gathered up the books and hurried to one of the chambers, casting a curious last look at them before she vanished from sight.

Tamlyn moved through the dark corridors of the Tower of Waking with her eyes on the polished floor, letting her familiarity with its stones guide her to her destination. She was troubled.

First, she did not know what to make of the Black Feather Three. If the stories were true, then they had done the impossible and defeated one of the old gods, and the retrieval of one simple rock should present no serious difficulty. But bringing strangers here to solve their own problems felt like a misstep, whatever the Prophet said. Worse than that, it felt like cowardice.

And then there was the Prophet herself, of course.

She was working her way gradually upwards now, following flights of dark uneven steps, lit here and there with guttering candles. The Prophet had insisted on being ensconced in the highest room in the tower, so that she might look out across the mountains.

Thinking of the Prophet, Tamlyn felt a thick rope of worry twist in her stomach, and she swallowed it down. Whatever the Prophet was, she’d been right about everything so far. Whatever she was, she had great wisdom, beyond even that of an Edeian Crafter.

Tamlyn paused outside the room, taking a few steadying breaths. For some reason she had rushed the last part of the way and now she almost felt giddy. She put her hand up to knock when a soft, young voice called from within.

‘Come in, Tamlyn dear.’

Inside, the room was cosy, or as cosy as any room in the Tower of Waking ever got. The floor was covered in thick, colourful rugs, and huge tapestries covered the bare rock walls. Braziers were dotted here and there, and oil lamps covered several small tables; the Prophet came from a land of endless sun and warm breezes, and they had endeavoured to make the room as comfortable as possible for her. In the middle of the room was an enormous four-poster bed, draped in several layers of thick, white gauze. Tamlyn could just make out the slim figure of the Prophet beyond the curtains, a ghostly shape sitting cross-legged on the bed.

‘They’re here, then.’

Tamlyn cleared her throat and held her hands clasped behind her back. She never felt comfortable in the Prophet’s room. It was probably the heat.

‘Yes. They are just as you described. The woman seems eager enough. The lord is cautious, and the knight is downright reluctant.’

The shadowy figure rocked back and forth slightly, chuckling. ‘Of course, of course. The Black Feather Three, indeed. They are exactly who you need, Tamlyn Nox, Mistress Crafter.’

Tamlyn shifted her weight, feeling the first trickle of sweat run down her back. Had there been a hint of derision in the Prophet’s voice?

‘I hope you are right. Without the Heart-Stone—’

‘Yes, yes, without your precious stone your world will end; it is all very tragic. Tell me, do they look well?’

Tamlyn blinked. ‘I . . . they look well enough to me.’

‘And the knight?’

Tamlyn shrugged, unsure if the Prophet could see such a movement through her curtains. ‘He had a scar on his face and he looks tired, but they have journeyed from far Crosshaven, they are bound to be weary.’ She bit down on her own impatience. ‘Either way, he looks as strong as an ox.’

‘Or a werken, would you say?’ asked the Prophet, a playful note in her voice.

‘I suppose I would say that,’ said Tamlyn. ‘They will be leaving once they have their supplies gathered, and Nuava has made copies of all the maps for them. I must go and check their supplies over myself.’

‘Oh, just one thing, Tamlyn, my dear.’

Tamlyn paused, half turned towards the door. ‘What is it?’

‘Show them the tomb, won’t you? Before they go.’ The Prophet scooted over, bringing her face closer to the curtains. It was possible now to make out the round shape of her head, the darker shadows where her mouth and eyes were. ‘Take them down there, give them a tour.’

Tamlyn scowled and touched the beads at her throat. ‘Why should I do that? I mean, why would you have me do that?’

The Prophet made a gesture, lost behind the curtain. ‘Oh, I think they’ll enjoy it. This lord is a mage himself, after all, and I think he’ll be curious to see such a thing, don’t you? Really, Tamlyn, you must learn how to be properly hospitable to your guests.’

Tamlyn glanced around at the lavish room. The smell of smoke from the braziers was tickling the back of her throat. ‘As you wish.’

Siano watched the man come into the room, all shuffling and unaware. He paused, the light from the dingy oil lamp painting a yellow circle on his bald head.

He can smell it somehow
, thought Siano, suddenly certain.
He can smell the death in the room.

But the older man simply took a ragged bundle from the table – wax and string, curls of treated paper for messages – and left, never coming over to the dark corner where Siano crouched, her fingers still pressed deeply into the throat of the man’s son.

I am too jumpy
, mused Siano. She turned the head gently in her hands, listening to the little crunching noises that signified a broken neck
. I’m looking for difficulties where there are none. But it is best to be cautious.

Caution was an essential lesson at the House of Patience.

Silently she laid the body of the younger man down on the floor, making sure it lay deep in the shadows, and quickly opened a vein with her smallest knife, filling the slim glass vial in seconds. When she was done, she put out the oil lamp before moving over to the open door. It was late in the morning, the sky a pale blue, and most of this family were already dead. She had killed the aunt on her way up the hill, a sturdy woman with bird shit on her shawl and a face crinkled from years of living in this sun-soaked tower. The old woman had caught sight of the flicker of shadow as Siano danced out behind her but had turned too late, and the long, thin knife had threaded up through her back, piercing her heart. The bags of potatoes and leeks she’d been carrying home for that night’s dinner had slipped from her fingers, and Siano had caught her and dragged her off the road, the only sound the scrape of her boot heels on the stones.

She listened at the doorway. She could hear the birds cooing and chirping in their chamber at the top of the spindly tower, and the soft music of the flute-shaped weather vanes that sprouted all over like strange bronze plants. She could also hear the old man’s footsteps as he made his way up the spiralling outer staircase, no doubt on his way to attach a message to one of the birds and send it on its way. Siano reached within her belt and removed a shining silver wire suspended between two pegs and, holding it comfortably in both hands, made her way swiftly up the steps behind him.

Only two more to go, and it was hardly midday. Siano allowed herself a moment of pride. The client had asked that the entire family be killed quickly and without fuss, and Siano was performing as expected: perfectly, in other words.

Still, the thought of that severed head and, more specifically, the voice that came from it, made her uneasy, so she pushed it from her mind and refocussed. No distractions, no speculation. Only patience.

The aviary at the top of the tower came in sight so Siano slowed, watching the entrance. She moved up to the top step, her soft boots making no sound at all on the worn wood, and watched as the father of the family moved unconcernedly around the elaborate clay coops, muttering to himself. It was colder up here, and the wind was erratic, so Siano kept especially still, aware that a sound at the wrong moment could easily reach the man on the changeable air. She touched her hand to her belt where the vials were securely attached, each wrapped in its own slip of velvet to stop it clinking against its neighbour.

The old man bent to one of the coops and came up with a bird in his hands. Siano was watching him attach a message to its leg when a pair of birds returned to the aviary, causing a flurry of squawking and feathers.

Siano took half a step backwards, more from the sudden waft of bird shit stench than any real alarm, and the old man saw her.

‘Who are you?’ The old man let go of the bird and it flapped to his feet. Siano pursed her lips. She hadn’t been trained to talk to the victims.

‘I come from the House of Patience.’ She cleared her throat. ‘You—’

‘If you want to send a message, you need to pay up below like everyone else. You don’t come traipsing up here, disturbing my birds.’ The man nodded, a dismissive gesture. ‘My boy is below, he’ll take your coin.’

Your boy is dead and boneless in the dirt
, thought Siano. Something in her face or her stance must have given her away, because suddenly the old man looked worried, his skin turning grey almost as Siano watched. Or perhaps he’d seen the wire in Siano’s hands.

‘Here, who are you?’ He backed off, scattering birds. ‘You can’t just come up here.’

The wire was really a weapon of surprise, a lethal knot round the neck when the victim was looking elsewhere. Siano didn’t want to grapple with the old man; there was bird shit on his shirt, and it would ruin her fine black velvet. She tucked the wire away, making sure the old man saw her do it.

‘Many apologies, sir. I come from the House of Patience, and it is my honour to attend you today.’

‘House of Patience? Never ’eard of it.’ The old man pursed his lips, but the look of fright on his grey face had been replaced with confusion. ‘What are you talking about?’

Inside her jacket pocket Siano’s fingers closed around the handle of her throwing knife, and this time the old man really did sense something because suddenly he was off, running for the archway on the far side of the aviary. Siano’s arm moved of its own accord and the knife followed him, a deadly silver streak that caught the old man dead in the centre of his wrinkled neck just as he made it to the stairwell. Siano saw the blood fly from his throat in a red shout, so bright against the blue sky, and then the old man was tipping over the side. A brief scramble against the stone and he was gone.

Messier than I would have liked
, thought Siano.
And now I will have to go and collect my knife.

She walked through the aviary, feeling the half-mad gaze of a hundred birds settle on her back. She had just reached the balcony and was peering over the side to see where the old bastard had landed when someone started shrieking from below. It was a young woman, arms held stiffly to her sides, her mouth wide with shock. She’d obviously just seen the man fall, may even have seen the blood in the air when the knife took him, and she was clearly his daughter; the last name on this particular list.

‘One more to go,’ muttered Siano. She took a serrated disc of metal from an inner pocket and curled her wrist. ‘It’s almost too easy.’