“I was not thinking of any such thing,” said Nuala, perhaps a little too quickly. Darien’s smile widened.
“No. I would not have to be a diviner to see that you have something else on your mind, girl. Well, it’s your funeral.”
“You will not help?” Nuala asked. “You can find this thing if you want to. There is nothing you can’t find with your spells and your crystals. You have told me so yourself often enough.”
“What I say when I am in my cups and what I choose to do when I am stone cold sober are two different things, girl. This man is what he claims to be. You had best avoid him. His sort carry death with them wherever they go. It can be contagious.”
“If you truly are a diviner, you could help me find this thing and kill it,” Kormak said.
“I truly am but I would like to go on living.”
“You might not get to do that if you don’t help me.”
“Was that a threat?” Suddenly the wizard, without changing in the slightest, seemed a lot more dangerous. His presence filled the room. His voice crackled with ominous menace.
“There is a Ghul loose in the city. It will take lives and cause havoc. You might be one of its victims.”
“My premises are warded.”
“And you never have to leave?”
The wizard considered him for a moment and seemed to weigh the possibilities. He poured himself another drink and then shook his head.
“I can get you passage back to the west,” Kormak said. The wizard looked up. His interest was piqued now. “I can get you into the King’s Library in Taurea.”
“Could you now? Your Order still has some sway in Taurea, after all.”
“Can you find the Ghul?”
“If you take me to where the last body was, yes.”
“Will you?”
“For the price of passage west and a letter of introduction to the King of Taurea’s librarians? Yes. On one condition. You protect me from this Ghul, come what may?”
“Very well.”
“I have your word on that.”
“You have my word.”
“Then let us be about this business.”
They retraced their steps back through the Mall, heading for the alley Kormak had fled earlier in the evening. He was muffled by a robe he had borrowed from the wizard and his face was hidden by one of the local mortarboard caps. He doubted he would have made a very convincing wizard’s apprentice even without the sword on his hip but it was the best they could do.
There were watchmen everywhere and they seemed alert. There were bravoes that Nuala made them turn aside to avoid as well. “Scar’s allies,” she said. “The bouncers recognised me earlier and know I came with you. They will have passed that on to the orc by now.”
“What are you going to do about that?” Kormak asked.
“I’ll work something out. I may have to leave town for a while. If worst comes to worst, I’ll tell the truth.”
“The Holy Sun forbid you be driven to such a dire expedient! What truth would that be?”
“That you were just some stranger who paid me to show him the way to his place. By the way, when will you pay me?”
“When this is done and I have found out whether your friend is worth his fee. I have not decided yet whether this is not some sort of elaborate trick to part me from my money the two of you cooked up.”
“You are one of those tiresome men who insists on paying by results I can see.”
“I have found it is the one sure way of getting them.”
“That is certainly a point in the method’s favour.”
“When you two have finished flirting perhaps you will tell me when we have found the place we are looking for,” Darien said. “I am starting to catch a strange scent in the air.”
Kormak looked at the wizard with new respect. They were close to the spot where he had found Nial’s body. Another turn of the corner and they were there. The corpse was still present as well. Kormak had guessed that no one had wanted to go near the thing fearing it cursed or plagued or worse. The look of the wasted form did not trouble Darien. He walked right over to the corpse and bent over it. Kormak did the same, being careful as the wizard was not to step into the puddle of black putrescent matter surrounding it.
“Definitely a Stealer of Flesh,” said Darien. He sounded at once frightened and oddly satisfied. “The signs of abandoned possession are all there: the withered corpse, the bites of a million worms, the oily liquid residue, the smell of exhumation. One of Death’s children has been here and that’s for sure.”
He closed his eyes and intoned a chant in High Hardic. He kept at it for several long minutes, moving his head from side to side and sniffing the air. “It left here wearing the body of a woman.”
“So much I already told you,” Kormak said.
“Perhaps you would care to tell me where it is now,” Darien replied. “Or would you just let me perform the task for which you are paying me?”
“Pray proceed.” The wizard straightened up and partially opened his eyes, keeping them slitted as if he was squinting into some bright light. Kormak wondered how much of this was part of the spell and how much was just for show. He sometimes felt that even the wizard’s themselves could not tell. Darien began to pace down the alley that Kormak had taken earlier, sniffing the air. He took a different turn from the one Kormak had, but shortly thereafter he was out in the streets of the Mall and heading towards the Blue Wyvern.
“How could this demon have known to find Scar?” Nuala asked. “Did it steal Ana’s memories as well as her flesh?”
“They can and they do,” said Darien. “They can accumulate a lot of strange knowledge over the years. This is why some sorcerers deal with them. Of course, they are Old Ones. They have much magical knowledge anyway.”
“You know a lot about such things,” said Kormak. He could not keep the suspicion out of his voice. He knew that Razhak was not a true Old One. Perhaps Darien did not.
“I am a wizard. It is my job to know such things and much strange knowledge comes to me as a by-product of my researches.”
“Why would an Old One steal human bodies?” Nuala asked. She spoke quietly so that they would not be overheard. Darien replied in a murmur.
“No one knows. Many of the sages have theories. Some say they wanted to hide among humans when the ancient wars that drove the Old Ones from the Lands of Men began, that they were spies sent among us to sow distrust and dissension.
“Malius says the Ghul were not true Old Ones at all but rather a slave race who sought to emulate their masters and divorced their spirits from their bodies. He claims that the process was imperfect and that the lost souls needed to find new housing simply in order to survive.” Darius looked at Kormak as he said this.
“That would fit with what I have observed,” Kormak said. “Razhak does not leave mortal form for longer than it takes him to jump from one body to the other. He seems to need the flesh in order to survive.”
“Fascinating,” said Darien. “There is a monograph to be written on this subject.”
“Only if we survive the encounter,” said Nuala.
“There is no need for you to be here, girl,” said Darien. “It might be better if you are not. If our Guardian here succeeds in killing the body this demon wears it will be looking around for a new host. The less candidates there are present the better.”
Nuala looked as if she was considering the wizard’s words. Kormak would not have blamed her for departing. “I will pay you for what you have done,” he said. “You have earned at least part of your fee. We can meet back at Darien’s sanctum after we are done and I will settle all scores.”
The girl looked at him and shook her head. “I have come this far. I will see this through to the ending. I am curious now.”