“It’s not. It never has been.”
“You still trying to keep the mystery in our relationship.”
“We don’t have a relationship.”
“And here was me thinking we were becoming friends.”
“What’s your story? You’re not a flower-girl, are you?”
She shrugged. “No. No. I am not.”
“Then what do you do?”
“I get by.”
“Pickpocket? Bawd? Hustler?”
“You don’t have a high opinion of me, do you?”
“I am trying to guess what a young woman your age is doing alone in the streets of the red-light district at this time of night, if she is not a flower-girl.”
“All three of the things you mentioned and some other things too,” she said. “I know people. I put people in touch. I get people things that they want. I find out interesting things and exchange those with interested parties.”
“You’ve a number of sidelines then…”
“A girl needs to get by.”
“Do yourself a favour then, girl and don’t try and pick my pocket. Do right by me and I’ll see its worth your while. Do me wrong and I’ll see you pay for it. On that you have my word.”
“And you’re the man who always keeps his promises,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “I am.”
“Here we are,” Nuala said. They had stopped in front of a tall, narrow-fronted building so rickety it seemed in danger of imminent collapse. Huge beams had been spread between it and the building on the other side of the alley, seemingly in an attempt to prevent that from happening.
“I can see your friend is successful in his trade,” Kormak said.
“There’s no need to be so ironic. Darien is not that interested in the trappings of success. He is not materialistic.”
“I am guessing he will still want my money though.”
“He needs to pay for his research. All those books and alchemical ingredients cost money. He likes his wine and other things too.”
She walked down a very narrow flight of steps disappearing below ground level. She began to rap on a metal door-knocker. Voices shouted from the windows for her to keep the noise down. A light went on within the cellar. Kormak heard someone move closer to the door, grumbling and cursing. He held himself ready. If there was going to be any treachery it would come now.
A slot in the door opened. There was a muttered exchange and obviously Nuala was recognised for the door opened. A tall, thin man, dressed in a none-too-clean robe stood there. He held a small saucer with a guttering candle on it. He looked up the stairs at Kormak and beckoned for him to come down. The Guardian did so slowly. The man did not look very threatening but if he was a wizard that meant nothing. They could be dangerous even when their hands were empty.
“Come inside, man,” the wizard said. “I do not intend to stand out here all night while you decide to take a swing at me.”
Kormak strode closer, still wary. Close up, Darien looked even less menacing. He was tall and thin and scruffy looking and smelled as if he had not washed in many days. There was wine on his breath and the scent of something else, possibly black lotus, one of the many narcotics to which mages became addicted because they believed it enhanced their powers and their ability to study ancient texts. Kormak began to suspect he knew why Darien had need of money. He did not relax his guard any. He had spent a lifetime in dangerous places with dangerous people where appearance was often deceptive, and wizards had a tendency to be among the most deceptive of all.
“A Guardian, eh?” Darien said. “And that would be a dwarf-forged blade, I suppose.”
It came to Kormak that the man had a Sunlander accent and close up he looked like a Sunlander too.
“You are not from around here, are you?” Kormak asked.
“I am from Sideria, the port of Trefal, and I can see you are an Aquilean. I am surprised that you claim you are a member of the Order of the Dawn.”
“You’re not the first,” said Kormak. He was oddly pleased to hear a familiar accent speaking a familiar tongue. He quashed the feeling. Now was not the time to relax his guard. “How did you end up here?”
“Same way as everybody else — I came to search for the mystic secrets of the east. I wound up without the price of passage home, and to tell the truth, this is as good a place as any for a man in my profession. Excellent book dealers, a long history of mystical and astrological research, some interesting systems of thaumaturgy…there’s a lot to learn and a lot to write down. When I get back home I will have the material to astound the old men at the Colleges of Magery.”
As soon as he heard the words, Kormak knew that Darien would never go home. He had just found a delusion to give his life in this distant place meaning. “You trained at the Siderian College then?”
“Yes. I studied under Wigge and Thalman. I was considered quite a promising mage once, you know.” Some remnant of a once-fierce pride smouldered in his voice.
“I hope you have kept your skills honed. Nuala says you are a diviner.”
Darien laughed. “I cast horoscopes for wealthy old women.” He gave the girl a pointed look. “I perform divinations for those who wish to ascertain whether certain residences are protected by magic. It is a way of earning a crust. It is not my real work.”
“That is a pity, for I have need of someone who truly has the gift.”
“You are looking for someone or something.”
“I am looking for a Ghul.”
Darien slumped chair. He looked pale. He leaned over and poured himself a drink out of an alembic sitting on his workbench. “You seek one of the Undying ones. You have set yourself quite a task, man who calls himself a Guardian.”
“I know it. I have followed this one from Belaria. I intend to follow him no further if I can help it. Can you help me?”
“I don’t see why I should. Those creatures are dangerous, more dangerous than I think you can possibly understand.”
“Few know more than I.”
“Said with the confidence of the true ignoramus,” said Darien.
“If you are too afraid to help me I will go and seek the thing myself. I understood you had need of gold.”
“The dead and the damned have no need of gold and I might be both very soon if I went seeking a Ghul. They eat souls and steal flesh you know.”
“A wizard who can tell me what any street-corner storyteller knows-how useful.” He looked at Nuala. “I thought you said your friend was a scholar.”
Nuala shrugged. “He is. He is not normally so backward when the prospect of earning is dangled in front of him either.”
“The child seeks to tell her elders how to behave,” Darien said. “Girl, if what this man says is true, I advise you to walk out the door and don’t look back. Leave the city if you hear of any strange deaths. I most certainly will.”
“There are always strange deaths in Vandemar,” Nuala said.
“Newly dead bodies that look and smell like month old corpses, the worms wriggling through them even as the body decomposes?”
“I have not seen any.”
Kormak nodded. It was clear that in this Darien actually knew what he was talking about. “I have seen one tonight,” he said. “There will be another before morning unless I miss my guess.”
Darien looked at him, clearing judging Kormak as much as the Guardian was judging him. “Why?” he asked. “The Ghul will not need to shift for at least another moon unless the body it currently occupies is sickly. They can dwell within a new form for years sometimes until they burn out all its life force.”
“This one will want to avoid me. It knows I know what its current form looks like. Also it is damaged. It has just been freed from one of Solareon’s amphorae after millennia.”
“And naturally it fears you.” The tone was mocking but Kormak could see the wizard was starting to take him seriously.
“It fears the sword I carry.”
“The stories say Guardians carry magical blades,” said Nuala.
Darien looked at her and laughed. “Is that why you are interested in him, girl? If so, let me give you a piece of advice you had best heed. No one ever got rich stealing a Guardian’s blade. They always claim them back. Kill this one and they will send two more just as deadly and they will never rest until they have what is theirs. You do not wish to cross the Order of the Dawn in matters such as this.”