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  "It's a hard life for anyone. Any issue?"

  "You mean children?" Thantos shook his heavy head. "No. A sickling son who died. Think that's why his woman left. No other kin."

  Parsellon nodded thoughtfully. "That's a shame." After a final glance, he rolled up the map and slid it into one of his desk drawers. "When you send the rider to Citadel Enferac, tell him to mention to Vicarius Torchia that the man who found the silver strike was, regrettably, killed only a day after making his claim. A robber, most likely. He was flashing his money around too much in a bar. These things happen in a lawless town."

  "They do," Thantos agreed neutrally.

  "This tragedy only underscores the importance of having Hellknights here to keep order."

  "It does." The big man tapped the hilt of the knife at his belt, then reached for the doorknob. "I'd best dispatch that rider soon. Wouldn't want his tidings to prove stale. Make the other arrangements, too. Anything else?"

  "Is there a tailor in town at the moment?"

  "Widow Lascia takes in washing. Believe she does a little mending, too."

  "Good." The governor plucked the stole from his neck and held it out to his bodyguard. He hated to give it up, but if he was going to draw the eye of Egorian to his long-ignored corner of the empire ... "Tell her to take off the brocade."

  Chapter Eleven

  Devil's Perch

  We are grateful for your government's assistance in these trying times. Imperial Cheliax is blessed to have such steadfast allies."

  "We are honored to serve," Isiem replied. At twenty-five, he was the senior of the two shadowcallers seated before the desk, and so he spoke for both of them.

  Vicarius Torchia nodded, accepting the statement as no more than his due. An iron mask forged to resemble a Hellknight's helm concealed his face. Gray eyes, gray hair, a gray wolfskin cloak that seemed better suited to a barbarian warlord than the Chelish wizard he was: that was all the lord of Citadel Enferac showed to the world. Around his neck he wore the mummified claw of a bone devil, studded with ruby-headed pins between its knuckles, in lieu of a formal symbol of office. The devil's claw made the same point, and more graphically: Citadel Enferac was a place where the denizens of Hell served men, willingly or otherwise.

  Throughout Cheliax and beyond, the Hellknights commanded respect—and no small measure of fear. Implacable, pitiless, and iron-willed, they modeled themselves after the armies of Hell and enforced the law at any cost. They owed allegiance to no king or country—not even to Her Infernal Majestrix, to the Chelish throne's eternal irritation—but they could, for the right price, be persuaded to assist in stamping out rebellion.

  Even by the standards of the Hellknights, the Order of the Gate, based in Citadel Enferac, was unusual. Most Hellknights relied on sword and shield, but the crimson-cloaked signifers of the Order of the Gate wielded magic as their primary weapon. It was said that no secret escaped them—meaning both that the Order of the Gate could ferret out any secret they wished to know, however well concealed, and that they revealed none of their own.

  So it was said. Whether the saying was true remained to be seen. The Hellknights were allies of Nidal, just as Cheliax was. But every wizard seated in this room had his secrets, and each of them wanted the others'.

  "Honored to serve," Torchia repeated. He smiled, showing a flash of his own teeth through the mask's visor. They were long and yellow, almost devilish. "You've done well with that so far. The two of you distinguished yourselves in Westcrown. I have, accordingly, a new proposition to put before you."

  "What might that be?" Isiem asked. He was careful not to look at his companion, a younger shadowcaller named Oreseis, whose hair was already pure silver although he was only twenty years old. The two of them had served together in the Midnight Guard of Westcrown, but their patrols had seldom overlapped and Isiem had never gotten to know the man well. He had no idea what the Vicarius meant when he referred to Oreseis's distinguished duties, and so he kept a neutral face.

  "Crackspike."

  "I am not familiar with that name," Isiem admitted.

  "Her Infernal Majestrix Queen Abrogail II has recently come into possession of a substantial silver claim in the region of Devil's Perch. Its original owner met some fatal misfortune and left no kin, so his claim reverted to the throne. The miners' settlement is called Crackspike. After some local landmark, I believe." Vicarius Torchia steepled his fingers and rested his chin atop them. The near-black rubies on his chained rings glimmered. "The mine's wealth is vital to Imperial Cheliax, but its extraction is proving difficult. The region is rife with hostile creatures. They must be pacified so that the mines can be brought to their full potential. This is, you may appreciate, a matter of some importance to the throne. Your aid would be a boon."

  "You called them ‘creatures,' not people," Isiem said carefully. "They are not human?"

  Torchia shook his head. "I speak of the strix." He unlaced his fingers and lifted the devil's claw on its chain, regarding the wizened gray flesh as if he might read Crackspike's future in its palm. "Black-winged creatures with burning eyes. They eat the flesh of men raw from dripping bones. They know no mercy, and they deserve none."

  "They must be formidable foes if you're seeking our aid against them."

  The Vicarius shrugged. "They know the land, and they have no compunction about using terror as a weapon. The strix have always been restive subjects of the throne, and now that men are moving into Crackspike in larger numbers, they have become even more savage. Their atrocities demand answer."

  "Do we have a free hand to pacify them," Oreseis asked, "or would you prefer more ...restraint? They are the throne's subjects."

  "They might have been, had they chosen otherwise," Vicarius Torchia said. "Instead, they are rebels. Do as you will with them."

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  "What do you suppose the odds are that this assignment is really a reward for distinguished service in Westcrown?" Oreseis asked as he walked with Isiem back to their rooms in a far wing of the citadel.

  "It isn't," Isiem said. "This is just a ploy to keep us from spying on the internal workings of their order. We might stumble on something worthwhile if we stayed in Citadel Enferac, so we're being sent to some remote reach of Cheliax where there's no risk of our seeing anything more important than snakes and scorpions and dust. For supposed friends of Nidal, the Chelaxians have never trusted us far."

  The Nidalese were staying in a single drafty room high in Citadel Enferac's eastern tower. Their rank would have afforded them individual quarters in a less remote reach of the citadel, had they wanted that, but they preferred to stay together in an isolated hall. One room was easier to ward against scrying, and fewer ordinary interlopers were likely to wander up this way.

  Isiem unlocked their door—black iron and weathered wood, almost gloomy enough to belong in the Dusk Hall—and locked it again, using a different key, once they were both inside. His own key offered far more protection. As long as they remained in this room, their voices would be silenced against eavesdroppers, and their doings would be shielded from magical eyes.

  "I wouldn't trust us either." Oreseis pulled open a drawer and took out his spiked prayer chain. He took out a small black sack as well, offering it to Isiem. "But perhaps we can turn this to our advantage. Western Cheliax is a wasteland, but that only means there will be no one to watch us. No vicarius, no lictors, no suspicious Chelish nobles. We'd be poor Nidalese indeed if we couldn't find some advantage in this."

  Isiem opened the sack. It held a dozen candles. Each was a squat, fat taper, yellowish and soft, with a wick of braided human hair. Consecrated to Zon-Kuthon, the candles had been made of fat carved from the living bodies of sacrificial victims; their wicks were woven of those same victims' hair. When lit, they enhanced Kuthite meditations with visions of remembered pain.

  He snuffed out all but two of the candles already burning in their room. Beeswax, being expensive, was reserved for high-ranking Hellknights and magic
al rituals; the Nidalese were given tallow to light their evenings. The smell was unpleasant, but at least it would mask the equally foul odor of their vision candle.

  "Anyway," Oreseis said, "Torchia can send us away, but we won't be completely blind to his order's intrigues. I'm leaving a scrysphere with one of his charming little disciples."

  "What does she think it is?" Isiem asked, amused. He took a candle from the bag, lit it, and thrust the stub end into a holder. "A sweetheart's necklace to remember you by?"

  "Something like that." Sitting on the bare stone floor, Oreseis began winding the barbed prayer chain around his calves in preparation for his nightly communion. "It is a well-made piece. And I gave it some small enchantment to make it useful, so she'll keep wearing it even when she finds a handsome new Hellknight to take my place in her bed."

  "Clever."

  "If you'd done something like it for your diabolist, we might not have to be here now."

  "If I had tried something like that on her, I certainly wouldn't be here now. Velenne was not a forgiving woman." Isiem moved across the room and sat crosslegged on his bed. The blankets were coarse wool, scratchy under his thighs. Leaning back, he willed himself to relax, waiting for the candle's visions to begin. "But she is not in Citadel Enferac."

  "Does that disappoint you?"

  "It relieves me. Shouldn't you be praying?"

  "Of course." Oreseis relaxed into his bonds for a moment, then shifted into a kneeling position, driving the chains into his legs as the barbs were caught between his flesh and the floor. Blood began to seep into his petitioner's robe, already crusted with the residue of past prayers. "Shouldn't you?"

  "I prefer magic to piety."

  "They are one and the same. You know this."

  They are not, Isiem thought. The candle's smoke reached for him, redolent of burning hair and bubbling fat, and under that a whisper of dark, sweet incense.

  He closed his eyes and inhaled.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  They left Citadel Enferac the next day.

  Twenty Hellknights and armigers traveled with them. Vicarius Torchia claimed their escort was an honor guard, in addition to serving as much-needed reinforcements for Devil's Perch and its outlying settlements, but Isiem knew that the Hellknights' true purpose was to keep an eye on their Nidalese allies—and, perhaps, to delay them as well. Had they been traveling alone, the shadowcallers might have used magic to speed their journey, but they could not leave the Hellknights behind, and they did not have spells enough for their entire company.

  So they rode. They made a motley company: the signifers in crimson cloaks, the Nidalese on black steeds woven of spells and shadow, and scattered between them, like copper beads between gems, the curly-coated, potbellied goats that bore their food and supplies.

  Isiem thought the goats looked faintly absurd with their bulging panniers and strapped-on water barrels, but they could survive on poorer fodder—and less of it—than horses or mules, and they were sure-footed on the rocky mountain trails. The Hellknights lost their first destrier to a broken leg on the second day, but the goats never stumbled.

  There was much for them to stumble on. The western Menador Mountains were not as high or cold as some of Avistan's other ranges, but they were deadly nonetheless. Citadel Enferac sat above a valley that fed its horses and supplied its soldiers. To reach the lowlands of Devil's Perch, they had to go up before they could go down. It was not an easy journey.

  They began their journey amid pale granite, gnawed by ancient glaciers and sliced by rivers. Canyons furrowed the peaks; treacherous scree slopes skirted their bases. Icy mists billowed down from the blue-white glaciers above them, sweeping over the riders and their mounts in ghostly crystalline veils.

  "It must be difficult to reach the citadel in winter," Isiem said to the Hellknights' leader, a scarred and stocky signifer named Erevullo, as they rode through a pass that was little more than a crooked crack in the mountains. Walls of sheer stone hemmed them in on either side, close enough to bump the heavily laden goats' burdens. A single heavy snowfall would block it, Isiem judged; a hard spring rain would flood it. Splintered bruises in the walls showed where rain-washed boulders had tumbled through in past years.

  "Impossible," Erevullo confirmed. "On horseback, that is. Many of our visitors come by other means. The rest must wait until spring."

  "Doesn't that hinder your work in the field?"

  "Not as much as you might imagine. Most of our work is done by single agents. As we seldom rely on brute force, it hardly matters that we cannot easily send armies in winter." The signifer shifted his weight in the saddle, trying to find a more comfortable position. "It is true, however, that the strix complicate matters. Not only do they harry lone riders, but they hunt our imps and birds out of the sky. It's a nuisance. If we are to maintain any worthwhile presence in Crackspike, we will need alternative methods of communicating with the citadel. I may ask you to assist with that when the time comes."

  "I would be honored," Isiem said. Erevullo grunted in acknowledgment, and rode on.

  A week after they left the citadel, the barren snow and stone gave way to thick forests of stern green pines and silver firs. Occasional broad-leafed trees dotted the slopes with red and gold, already fading toward crinkly brown as autumn slipped into winter. One morning brought a heavy fall of wet snow. It melted by sunset, but it made Isiem grateful that they were out of the passes. Up there, the snow might have delayed them for days.

  Bold black squirrels with tufted ears and red-tipped tails scolded them from the branches, mocking the armigers' threats to shoot them. Now and again Isiem glimpsed distant lakes shining like tourmalines set in silver, or heard the laughter of unseen streams chasing each other down the mountain. But for the most part it seemed to him that water was growing scarcer as they descended.

  Once they stumbled across a mountain clearing where a titanic battle had been fought only days before. Mature pines were smashed like kindling around the periphery; enormous claws had gouged ten-inch tracks into their trunks. Blood and coarse brown fur littered one patch of churned earth, and the smell of rank animal musk lingered heavy there.

  Amid it all, a single chipped, white scale lay, soft rainbows shimmering in its depths like mother-of-pearl. One of the Hellknights picked it up and flipped the palm-sized scale to Erevullo.

  "What do you make of that?" the Hellknight asked.

  Erevullo frowned, turning the scale over in a gloved hand. "Dragon. Or drake." He gestured to the two other signifers in their party who had winged familiars. "Eyes to the sky. Most likely it's flown off after feeding, but we'll take no risks. If your pets see anything—anything—call the alert. I've no wish to end my service in a dragon's belly."

  But none of their birds or imps saw anything. The dragon was long gone, if dragon it was, and whatever it had killed in that clearing seemed to have sated its hunger.

  Isiem, awed to have crossed paths with such a powerful creature and relieved to have come no closer, kept the scale. This was an old land, he felt, and beholden to its own wild powers. Drakes and dragons were unimpressed by human thrones and gods; Cheliax might claim these lands on a map, but those who lived among these rocks had no use for its laws.

  Gradually the trees dwindled to sparser, scrubbier remnants, then vanished altogether as the party continued its descent. The mountains' gray stone gave way to red and dun and white, dotted with blue-green needled bushes whose names Isiem did not know. Tall grasses swayed like golden seas between the steep wind-carved stones, while narrow-winged birds skimmed lazy circles overhead.

  Isiem watched those birds for a long while. Hunters or scavengers, he didn't know; these hills were home to both vultures and hawks. But they made him think of the strix, and wonder which those would prove to be. Killers, or just eaters of the dead?

  The birds dipped behind a lonely ridge to the west. Isiem watched a little longer, waiting, but they did not return. Sighing, he flicked the reins and turned away, rejo
ining the group that had ridden on without him.

  Chapter Twelve

  Crackspike

  Crackspike was chaos.

  Isiem had never seen anything like it. Everywhere he looked, men swarmed like ants: hammering, shouting, digging, driving. Building. They were willing a town out of nothing, forcing some semblance of civilization on a land of inhospitable rock and sun, and the sheer vitality of their enterprise amazed him.

  The town was a bare sketch—an idea, really—amid clouds of dust. Two-thirds of its buildings were nothing but foundations and wooden frames. Enormous copper vessels and iron pans sat in stacks between piles of lumber and barrels of salt and mercury, all waiting to be used in the as-yet-unbuilt mines that were to make this place's fortune.

  Most of Crackspike's people had no real homes yet; they lived in tents or covered wagons or one of the boarding houses built of mountain pinewood so green it spat sap every time a nail went in. Pigs and scrawny chickens wandered freely through the confusion, poking along the roadside in hopes of forgotten food.

  A few of the buildings were finished. Alehouses, gambling parlors, a brothel whose walls were shaggy with dust-coated beads of sap. A sash of painted linen hanging from the brothel's balcony proclaimed it the Desert Rose.

  Isiem had stopped under that banner, marveling at the miners' appetite for vice, when an unshaven man with a cracked silver nugget in place of a front tooth sidled up to his horse.

  "It's a fine place," he said, nodding toward the banner with a smile likely meant to be encouraging. "Posie's girls can do anything you want. Be anyone you want."

  "What do you mean by that?" Oreseis inquired, nudging his shadow-steed toward them.

  "Posie's only got five whores, but she taught 'em all a bit of magic. Illusion. So they can be whoever or whatever you want. You like redheads, for a few extra bits of silver you can have one for an hour, sweet as strawberries and cream. You're a dwarf who's feeling lonely and missing the ladies of your kind, well, might be one of Posie's girls could help you forget that for a while. If you don't ask her too closely about growing up in Janderhoff, anyhow." The man sucked his silver tooth, causing it to whistle through the crack. "Might find something in there that appeals even to suchlike as yourself."