‘But it was Gilmour’s confidence that got us here. He didn’t want us doing anything until he read that scroll and had some time to experiment with the spell table.’
‘And now he’s questioning that?’
‘Right – but I don’t know why. Something happened to him while I was gone. Nerak must have said something, or done something – you should have seen him tonight; I couldn’t even get him to touch that spell book, never mind read it. Did he look at it at all while I was gone?’
Garec looked thoughtful. ‘Come to think of it, I’ve never even seen him open it.’
‘Me neither,’ Mark added. ‘So what do we do?’
‘I don’t know,’ Steven said. ‘Ride hard, get to Sandcliff as quickly as we can, and do whatever we need to get him as much time with that table as possible before Old Shithead gets back. More than that, I’m at a loss.’
‘What about the staff?’ Garec asked. ‘You seem to have some idea how to make it work for you these days.’
‘Somewhat,’ Steven answered, ‘but most of the time, it feels like the magic comes and goes of its own will. I’ve called it up myself, but not as frequently as it has shown up unannounced.’
‘Or not bothered to show up at all,’ Mark said, recalling the staff’s failure battling the river demon in Meyers’ Vale.
‘That’s true, too, but I did something the day I was at the dump and I know if I could get back to that level of- I don’t even know what, but that frame of mind I was in, maybe: if I can get back to that, I bet I could do it. I could close the Fold myself.’ He tried to grip the air above their campfire – that was the clearest recollection he had, that he had been able to feel the very air around him. The Fold was everywhere, and that day Steven had been able to touch it.
Mark clapped his roommate on the shoulder, jolting him back to the present. ‘You know I love you, buddy, but let’s hope it doesn’t all come down to your all-encompassing maths-and-compassion strategy.’
‘It’s right there, Mark. I can taste it… but I can’t quite get it in focus. It’s like your struggle to make sense of Lessek and your dad. We are on the verge of having this entire dilemma worked out, but until we do…’ his voice trailed off.
‘We’re in some grand rutting trouble.’ Garec finished the thought.
Steven nodded.
‘Well, you heard Gilmour. We can continue pondering our collective quandaries while we skin and cook this meat. He’s made it quite clear he wants to get moving, so let’s get busy.’
ORINDALE’S SOUTHERN WHARF
‘Great rutting whores,’ Jacrys exclaimed, ‘what’s happened to you?’
Carpello Jax pulled the door closed and took a seat beside the spy. He did look different – thinner – and his beard had filled in nicely. The sore on the side of his nose was disgusting: raw and festering, obviously infected because he’d constantly picked at it. Now Carpello dabbed at it periodically with a handkerchief. He stretched his feet towards the fireplace. ‘I am making some rudimentary changes to my appearance. It has come to my attention that this may be an appropriate time for me to fade into the background for a while.’
‘You?’ Jacrys laughed, ‘when everyone knows who you are? Half the city works for you. Your captains cross the Ravenian Sea to Pellia on a timetable more predictable than the Twinmoon. Your cargo is hauled upriver on gigantic barges for everyone in Malakasia to see. You’re supplying an army, Carpello… forgive me, but I don’t believe shedding some excess blubber and carving a hole in the side of your face are going to make much of a difference. And good gods, why did you cut off half your nose, anyway?’
‘It’s no matter,’ Carpello replied, waving the question away. ‘It is something that needed to be attended to, and I have attended to it.’ Versen’s warning echoed in his memory: you’ll be dead and she will make it last for Twinmoons. ‘So tell me. Why are we meeting here and not at my home? And if you don’t mind me saying, you are hardly one to talk about personal appearance: you look hideous yourself. When is the last time you slept in a real bed, Jacrys? And your clothes – you were always such a smart dresser!’
Jacrys resisted the urge to reach out and slap the bigger man across the face. ‘We’re meeting here, because I have Sallax Farro of Estrad here, and I look like this because I have been sleeping here, eating here and working here for I don’t know how many days now, trying to get some information out of him.’
Carpello grimaced. ‘I’m sure you’ve dealt with challenging prisoners before. What’s the problem?’
‘The problem is that he genuinely doesn’t appear to recall that he is Sallax of Estrad,’ Jacrys said. ‘Last time I spoke to him was in the Blackstone Mountains, near Seer’s Peak – he and the others had survived the grettans, a platoon of Seron, even an almor, and they were making good progress on their way here.’
‘So what happened?’
‘I don’t know.’ Jacrys rose and fetched a flagon of wine from a shelf behind the desk. He didn’t offer any to Carpello. ‘But while I was crossing, our prince told me to move west and then north, breaking off my pursuit of the partisans to meet with him here. He told me he was bringing something terrible, something to address the issue, and to retrieve the stone key.’
‘And you think that whatever he sent to deal with the partisans left Sallax half mad?’
Jacrys nodded. ‘I don’t know how they survived the Blackstones. I killed Gilmour. The foreigner, Steven Taylor, had run off by himself and the other, the South Coaster, Mark Jenkins, was trailing him. An unholy storm blew through, snow almost to my waist – I thought for certain we were all going to die. The prince gave me a deer and even with that I barely made it here alive.
‘Sallax’s lot were broken, distraught at having lost Gilmour, and lost and separated in the worst storm I have ever seen – and yet they made it to Orindale and made their way through the pickets into the city, all without Gilmour’s help.’
‘How do you know they all arrived?’
Jacrys was not accustomed to explaining himself to the likes of Carpello, but for now, he needed the merchant’s help. ‘I know they made it here because I shot and possibly killed Garec Haile and because I have Sallax tied up in your warehouse, you horsecock!’
‘All right, all right.’ Carpello raised his hands in apology. ‘Calm down, I’ve been away and I just need to catch up with what’s been going on, that’s all.’
‘You’ve been away supervising a shipment – a likely story, Carpello; do you think the prince will believe you?’
The merchant mopped at the beads of sweat that trickled across his forehead. ‘Look at you, Jacrys, you’re a rutting mess yourself; it’s glaringly obvious that you’ve fallen from the prince’s good graces. All right, I admit it; I had a wretched trip. I lost both partisans. The whoresons jumped ship, even bound, they jumped and then – and you’re going to love this – the rutting Seron he sent me jumped in too. No one could have survived, so yes, I did think it might be best to hide for a few days and maybe let the prince move on.’
‘He’s still here.’
Carpello stifled his gasp, swallowing hard.
‘Actually,’ Jacrys continued, ‘no one has seen him in nearly a Moon, but he hasn’t left the city. I’m assuming you know about the Prince Marek.’
Carpello nodded, then changed the subject back. ‘So what exactly have you managed to get out of Sallax?’
‘Not much.’ Jacrys examined the wine goblet. ‘He keeps talking about wraiths, a rock and a river.’
Carpello shrugged. ‘It doesn’t mean anything to me.’
‘And he’s a gods-rutting disaster. His shoulder looks like it was broken and left to heal in a horribly unnatural position. I brought a healer in a few days ago to re-break it and that was a nightmare – he’s still as strong as a grettan. He was all bent over, twisted in pain all the time. He’s tied up now in that cot you had back there.’ The spy gestured towards the large storage area behind Carpello’s office.
‘You re-broke his shoulder?’