Having made the decision, Zarahel was immediately prepared to live with it and the consequences. Still, he would have given a lot of gold to know who the intruder was, and still more to be in a position to cut the man’s tongue out or introduce him to his pet.
Rik entered Mama Horne’s and looked around for Rena. She was nowhere to be seen. He felt a flicker of disappointment. Still, it was probably for the best. He had disposed of his blood-soaked tunic on the way here, and washed his face and hands in a rain-barrel, but he wanted time to look in a mirror and check he had left no more tell-tale marks of his night’s activities. And he wanted to get his hands cleaned and bandaged too.
Even as the thought crossed his mind, he saw Weasel and the Barbarian coming across the room towards him.
“Where have you been?” asked Weasel. “We were starting to wonder if some hill-man was cutting your private parts off with his knife.”
“Personal business,” said Rik. He reinforced the warnings to silence he had given Leon on the way back, with a look. Weasel noticed it and shrugged.
“You’ll never guess who came in,” said the Barbarian.
“I’m not even going to try. Why not tell me?”
“Only half our bloody junior officers, is all,” said Weasel.
“Exalted? Here?”
“Aye. They’re slumming on Solace night.”
“Can’t say as I blame them,” said the Barbarian.
“Who is it?”
“Sardec. Jazeray. Marcus. Paulus. Wankers, the lot of them.”
“It would be a shame if anything happened to them,” said Rik.
“Now don’t even think that,” said Weasel. “There’s things that have been done here tonight that would not bear the slightest investigation by the powers that be.”
You don’t know the half of that, thought Rik. He wondered whether he should tell his comrades about what he had overheard. He was not at all sure. There was really not a lot they could do about it. They could not run and tell the authorities without giving away what they had been up to. The most sensible course of action was simply to shut up and stay shut up.
Part of his mind gibbered about the possibility of Uran Ultar being raised. He tried to tell himself that there was no chance of that. Zarahel was a human, not a Terrarch. There was no way he could perform the necessary sorcery even if he did possess the books.
But the man himself had thought differently shrieked the fear-filled part of his mind. Rik shook his head. He did not want to be here if the demon god was unleashed. He did not want to visit the dungeons of the Inquisition either. Why could he not have left well enough alone, he wondered? Why had he bothered to preserve those damned books in the first place?
“Cheer up, Halfbreed,” said the Barbarian. “It’s Solace night and you’ve money in your pocket. It can’t be all bad.”
“For once you’re right.” Best leave tomorrow’s worries for tomorrow, Rik thought. “Have you seen Rena?”
Sardec rose from the bed. He felt replete and he felt soiled. Some of the effects of the alcohol and the drugs had had worn off, enough for him to realise what he had done. He looked down on the naked girl all too aware of what she was.
How had it come to this, he wondered?
Looking at her, he knew. She was not like his other lovers. Her breasts were larger, her hips wider than a Terrarch woman’s. And yet she was beautiful, and there was something about her that moved him to lust in a way that they had not. It was the fascination of the forbidden, he thought. His shame was an integral component of his lust, not its mirror image.
He began to put his costume back on, aware too that it was to blame for this as well. It had provided him with a disguise. It had taken him out of himself. It had, for this one night, given him a new identity. He had become someone else, but now it was time to return to reality, to put this sordid event behind him, and make sure that it never happened again.
He looked at the girl. She looked at him, empty eyed, and he wondered what she was seeing. Did she despise him? Did it matter? Who was she to judge him? There were other matters to be thought of, things he had never dealt with before. What was he supposed to do about payment? How much? Was that why she was staring at him- did she expect coin?
He opened his purse decisively and flipped a silver coin to her. He caught the flicker of disgust and perhaps shame on her face. She made no attempt to catch it.
“That will be sufficient!” he said, hoping it was and hoping it sounded decisive. He did not want to show weakness in front of this human woman.
She nodded to him. Part of him felt appalled at the way he had behaved. It was not the way he had been brought up. Suddenly, he did want to face the others gambling in the room. He wanted out. He put on his mask and opened the door.
As he did so, someone walked past. He was tall. Even masked and costumed he moved like a Terrarch. He turned and looked through the door, and his eyes appeared to widen in surprise. Sardec nodded amiably to him and passed on down the corridor, leaving the figure looking at the door that had swung shut behind him.
Rik glared at the door and was tempted to open it. A strange cold rage filled him. He had recognised Rena on the bed, just as he had recognised Sardec in his costume. The stab of jealousy caught him completely by surprise. The memory of Sabena and her lover came flooding back. He felt an urge to kick open the door and go in and berate the girl. He felt the urge to follow Sardec and punch him to the ground despite the pain in his hands.
Instead he did nothing. He merely stood there. Numb. He had been stupid to have expected anything different from a girl in her profession. He was an idiot in fact. This had been a predictable thing. The girl was, after all, a whore.
Whore. Whore. Whore, he thought, repeating the word as if it would give him some comfort, feeding his anger so that it would burn away his pain. This, he thought, was one of the worse nights of his life. He had failed in his effort to get the books, learned secrets he did not want to know, and now had seen Rena in bed with the Exalted he most despised.
He cursed. He did not know why he had expected anything different. This, after all, was the way the world was. The Terrarchs got what they wanted at whatever the cost. Humanity could go to hell.
He cursed the damned books and his obsession with them. Maybe if he had stayed behind with Rena this would never have happened.
Who was he kidding? Sardec was a Terrarch noble. She would have walked out with him even if Rik had been standing right beside her.
He stalked off down the corridor, filled with an overwhelming sense of defeat and failure. Let Zarahel raise his bloody demon, he thought. Let him smash the whole world to flinders. Why should he care?
He was going to get drunk.
Chapter Thirty
Sardec woke the next morning with the worst hangover of his entire life. He stared at the window and realised he was back in his own room at the camp. He could not remember how he had gotten there. He was conscious of a deep feeling of shame, although he was not entirely sure of what he had to be ashamed about.
Slowly, memory of the events of the night before came back to him, and he recalled the girl, and all the rest of what had happened afterwards. There had been a great deal of drinking, and the press of rough costumed bodies around him. He realised now he had been very lucky indeed to get back to the inn unscathed.
He felt as if his whole life had changed. He thought of sweaty bodies, of lust, his own and the girl’s. The memories still carried an erotic charge that aroused him and made him feel even more ashamed. He rose from the bed, aware that the banging he heard was not entirely caused by his throbbing head. Someone was pounding on the door.