The Grave thief

Ilumene felt a tug on his ear; Ruhen wanted to move on. 'I'll leave you to your beer then,' he said, giving the necromancer an ostentatious salute. 'Your lord's won back there, but you've got a few more hours until they admit it.'

As Nai looked back at the Scholars' Palace, Ilumene continued down the path as quickly as he could, trying not to attract the necromancer's notice — he might be one of those drunks with the tendency to recall inconvenient details the next morning, and this was one crowd they didn't want to stand out in.

The path was stony underfoot, there was a smattering of gravel as much to mark the way as anything else, and it made enough noise for Ilumene to be able to talk without fear of Nai hearing them. 'Didn't expect to see that,' he said. 'I'd heard the whole valley was a dead place.'

'Palace,' Ruhen contributed.

Ilumene stopped dead. 'Scholars' Palace?' He pursed his lips. 'You've got a point there; his explanation doesn't hold water, does it? The upper floors are much higher than where he was sitting.'

He turned back to make sure: the ground sloped, but Nai's position was nowhere near the same height as the upper floors of the building he'd just left.

'So that just leaves us wondering if he knew about that place in advance, or was told to look for cracks in the glaze. Where's your money?'

Ruhen didn't answer. Ilumene guessed the child was thinking. He had a clump of Ilumene's hair bunched in his little fist. The boy was a strange one, displaying the traits both of a child and an immortal. He had noticed more than a few childish mannerisms slipping out unconsciously, which made him sure there was a trace of the mortal soul remaining. When Ruhen had ordered him to tell the story of the God of Vain Men, it hadn't been just a reassertion of dominance on the part of Azaer; just as the body the shadow wore needed clothes and food, so the sound of a voice telling a story satisfied some ill-defined need within the child.

So this is me playing Dad; didn't see that coming!

'Why choose?' Ruhen said eventually.

'You think they're both true?' Ilumene shrugged. 'Could be right, I suppose. Lord Styrax sending him fishing is the simplest answer, but Nai was part of Zhia Vukotic's inner circle. No reason she's not still got her hooks into him — he plays the middle ground which is where she's happiest too.' He started walking again, resolving to keep going for as long as he could, but juddered to a halt.

'What do you think Lord Styrax is up to here?' he asked abruptly. 'If he's got Nai checking the boundary of the library, it must interest him more than we realised. What if he's got something up his sleeve?'

'Have faith.'

'Hah. Emin always said, "Better to have faith in your preparation". If it's all right with you, I'll think it through a bit more.'

'Good.'

Ilumene waited, but there was no further advice forthcoming. Damn it, do you deliberately act like Emin to goad me, or was Rojak right in saying you're defined by your enemies?

'If he does have something planned, then it's a worry — it could pull everything here out of balance. Linking Lord Isak to Lord Styrax pits the two greatest powers against each other; the Farlan will only win a war on home soil, but they still have to last long enough. If Styrax gains a significant edge he might roll up the West too fast for us to exploit. The Devoted aren't ready for a saviour, the balance has to be maintained.'

'And if it cannot?'

He slipped Ruhen from his shoulders and gently placed the little boy on the ground before kneeling before him. 'You'd abandon your plans?' he asked, stunned. The shadow was patience itself, its steps slow, but played out over years, decades, even centuries. 'I've never seen you step away from anything before.'

'There was never need.'

Slowly Ilumene nodded. 'You can't control them; by your very design the players are beyond the playwright's power. What contingency plans can we prepare? We can't insert prophecies into the Menin history!'

'What am I?'

'A child,' Ilumene began hesitantly, aware the obvious answers would direct him, however foolish they sounded. 'A boy, a saviour, a mortal… a son.'

'A son and a saviour.'

'The Devoted are primed to worship a saviour,' he breathed, realisation dawning, 'while Styrax's only weakness is his son — but you can be both, and preserve the balance that way?'

He paused for a dozen heartbeats while he thought it through. Eventually he shook his head. 'No, this goes against every instinct I have. No general abandons a successful tactic for the untried, let alone one his forces are ill-suited for. Your disciples are all carefully positioned, your plans primed to bear fruit at specific times — how can we change now?

'Before offering battle a general must place himself beyond the possibility of defeat; it is a crucial precept of war. To throw away years of preparation flies in the face of everything I ever learned about warfare. And you have always told me to treat this as a campaign.'

Ruhen was quiet for a while, long enough for Ilumene to wonder whether he had overstepped the mark. Rojak had told him many stories of those servants of Azaer who had incurred the shadow's wrath. King Emin's secret scribes wandered the Land, collecting tales of hauntings and horror, and Ilumene knew that not all of them were people who had opposed Azaer — some had merely failed him. Their endings were the worst.

'Even the most perfect fruit may decay,' the child said at last. There was something in his voice that Ilumene had not heard before, and it made the hairs on his neck rise. With every passing day Ruhen grew faster and faster, growing into the powers he had possessed as a shadow, but it was in a very human manner. After countless centuries of incorporeal weakness, the shadow had grown impatient with its few months of helpless childhood. 'Consider the forces we play our games with. Corruption is inevitable. We must not fear it.'

Ilumene smiled. 'So speaks the festering remains of Rojak's soul.'

Ruhen nodded, shadows dancing in his eyes.

'Of all my curses, womanly and immortal, I reserve especial hatred for you.'

Nai jerked awake again. He could see no one in the dark valley, but that was not necessarily a good sign.

'Ah, Mistress Zhia?' he ventured in a croak, his throat dry.

'Don't give me "Mistress Zhia", you stub-footed worm,' came her velvety growl in his left ear.

Nai flinched, half-falling off the ledge before his fingers found purchase on the stone. He turned all the way around, still seeing nothing more than black stone and the extinguished lantern beside him.

This time the voice sounded in his right ear. 'Your idiocy is boundless; redeem yourself soon or I will pull out your intestines and hang you with them.'

Nai was ready for it this time and managed not to shy away. In the alcoholic haze of his mind, the necromancer reflected that it would be frighteningly easy for her to carry out the threat.

'I'm here as you told me to be.'

'Did I tell you to announce it to the whole fucking valley?' Zhia snapped. 'Forgive me for omitting the order to stay sober and not be seen doing something supposedly impossible!'

Nai glanced around guiltily. He couldn't see the empty flagon; he must have knocked it off the ledge as he dozed.

At least 1 didn't attract any guardians, he thought with a small sense of relief. She really would have killed me then. A gust of wind whistled over his body and he pulled his leather coat tighter around himself. He didn't respond to Zhia's words, knowing anything he said would only further enrage her.

'I didn't show you this spot just so you could announce it to everyone present; for your sake I hope you didn't risk it for no good reason.'