Old Man's Ghosts (21 page)

He glanced towards the rear door to confirm his location then cast around for the next breadcrumb. It appeared in the form of a scrap of parchment wedged into a gap in the beam directly above his head. With one final check around he opened it and forced himself to stifle a laugh. In a neat copperplate script were a few nonsensical lines, but they were enough to ease the fears in his aging heart. The handwriting he recognised from decades past and the words echoed through his memory in the same clear voice he’d heard the previous night.

The offer of Lady Healer’s greatest gift, Lord Shapeshifter’s blessing on your greatest disguise, Lady Chance guide you through, Lord Monk greet you.

It was directions of a sort, Enchei realised. He cast his mind back to the friend he’d once served alongside, the man who had composed the words. With a nod of understanding, Enchei walked back down the way he’d come, remembering there was a high-end tavern facing it.

You always called whisky Lady Healer’s greatest gift,
Enchei thought,
so that’s an offer of friendship. Now where’s my greatest disguise?

The tavern had an alley running down the side and with a jolt Enchei saw a washhouse with workers outside.
There we are. Wasn’t quite the finest disguise we ever managed, but you almost pissed yourself laughing at the idea of pretending to be washerwomen back from the river.

He set off, avoiding the traffic on the street and walking briskly down the narrow alley. ‘
Lady Chance guide you’
was a common refrain among soldiers when a risk was unavoidable. One man of violence simply saying to another ‘here you must trust me’ – a gesture of sympathy more than anything else, but one Enchei appreciated still. Lord Monk referred simply to the fact the Ascendant God had once been a religious caste of House Ghost. Within the pantheon, his would be the most familiar face to Enchei.

‘Weapons,’ growled a man standing in the dim back room of the washhouse.

‘How about you fuck off?’ Enchei advised him, scanning the room as he spoke.

‘Drop your weapons,
now,
’ said the man as he slipped his hands out of the pockets of his dark greatcoat. His hands were empty, but that was little reassurance to Enchei.

The room contained a pair of stools, stacked rectangular boxes with linens spilling out of the topmost, and a pair of doorways leading off left and right. The veteran paused, ready to kill in a heartbeat, and each stared at the other. The young man from Ghost was in his middle-twenties, Enchei gauged, with long dark hair that spilled down over his stiffened collar. He was dressed as a merchant caste in expensive and well-fitted clothes, a rapier on his hip.

Astaren would pick whichever caste was most convenient for the time and Enchei noted that his friend’s bodyguard was deliberately not warrior caste – or any that would allow him to carry a pistol. That tended to be a pretence worth using, so if they weren’t it spoke volumes for how much the bodyguard had been altered by the mage-priests of Ghost.

Enchei took a breath.
No point pretending this wasn’t a gamble already.

‘How about you,’ he said slowly and deliberately, ‘fuck off and fetch me a drink?’

‘Dak!’ called a voice from behind the left-hand door, ‘you can retire.’

The bodyguard’s face tightened and he headed for the other door. Grainy daylight spilled through when he opened it, illuminating a look of grim dislike for Enchei, and then he was gone, with the door closing noiselessly behind him.

‘Got yourself a pet, then,’ Enchei said as the other door opened. ‘Stars above! You got fat too.’

The other man chuckled and brushed down his jacket with an affected self-consciousness. ‘I am a man of import now; one must maintain the correct image.’

His landowner-caste clothes were the height of fashion and beautifully tailored; a grey double-breasted jacket with a dozen gold buttons. While he was larger than Enchei, he was hardly fat by the standards of most men their age, but quite a difference to the lean young men of war they’d been.

‘What image is that?’

The Astaren shrugged. ‘Would you ever trust a whip-thin lord who looks like he lives on bread and water alone? If you ask me that’s the sign of a fanatic who should be shot in the head first chance you get.’

‘I suppose so,’ Enchei said in a neutral voice. ‘So – here we are.’

‘Here we are,’ his former comrade confirmed, ‘and before we get down to reminiscing, I should make a few things clear.’

Enchei’s hand tightened. ‘Oh?’

‘We’re not equals, not any more,’ the other said. ‘We’ve taken separate paths and mine involves not having my real name spoken aloud. Understand?’

‘Aye. I’d prefer the same here too. Anything more?’

‘Yes, in fact.’ He cocked his head at Enchei. ‘Best we acknowledge this early – we go way back and I know all about you.
All
about you. I’m here as a friend who owes you, but let’s not act like children. You’re in my power and were before you stepped into this room.’

‘Might be that’s the case.’

The man broke into a welcoming smile. ‘Good. So when I embrace you as a brother and offer you that drink, let’s dispense with the excessive caution, eh? There’s nothing I can put in your drink that gives me greater hold over you than I’ve already got. I deal with half-truths and agendas every damn day of my life so when I share a drink with a brother I’d like not to dance around needlessly. Frankly, if I gave the order you’d likely kill yourself right here in front of me.’

‘Do we have to test the theory?’ Enchei said, fighting to keep his hands from clenching into fists even as he realised the truth in the man’s words.

‘Not at all.’ The Astaren stepped forward and embraced Enchei with a near-bone-crushing force. ‘It’s good to see you, brother.’

It took Enchei a moment longer, but at last he relaxed and pulled the man close. ‘Aye, you too. It’s been too damn long.’

The Astaren stepped back. ‘Too damn long? Is that all you’ve got to say for yourself?’

‘Eh? Well, ah,’ Enchei coughed. ‘Sure, sorry about the whole faking-my-own-death thing. Can’t say it was a choice I enjoyed.’

‘You had reason enough.’

Enchei hesitated. ‘You know about that?’

‘We were brothers,’ the Astaren said gently, ‘I was never going to abandon my brother’s family now, was I? Quite aside from letting anyone try and recruit those girls through memories of their father, I made it clear they were as good as my own and that’s kept the jackals clear.’

‘How … how are they?’

The man’s smile fell. ‘Your girls are good, last time I saw them. Both grown up strong and beautiful. No children of their own, but they were never likely to live the most normal lives now, were they?’

‘And …’ Enchei couldn’t finish the sentence but his friend sighed all the same.

‘I’m sorry, my friend.’

‘How?’

‘A tumour. There would’ve been nothing we could do even if … well. You know the rules.’

Enchei nodded. ‘When?’ he asked, throat suddenly dry and tight.

He felt stupid but couldn’t fight the hollow sense of loss at the words. He had abandoned his wife decades ago, he had been dead to her, but to hear she was truly gone remained a blow. Some small spark in him had hoped she’d found happiness, living with grandchildren to cluck over and a man to treat her right. Treat her better than he had anyway – Enchei had loved his wife, but he’d spend months or years away and then he’d made her believe he was dead.

A poor excuse for a man he seemed, in that light. Any Astaren knew how to kill and dominate others. Enchei had no notions of martial manliness, not when the mage-priests could make anyone super-human. Whatever the cause, he’d failed in his duty of simply being there for Salay. Hearing of her death, though he had half-expected it, twisted and withered something inside him.

‘Almost a decade now. She went peacefully, that I promise you. There was no pain.’

Enchei bowed his head. ‘Thank you. Did she ever know?’

‘About the girls? No, they didn’t want to burden her with it. She worried enough about them, with you dead. Never gave up and she kept on the estate so they were always well-looked-after, but she worried all the same.’

‘Aye, well, she would have.’ Enchei sighed and bowed his head. ‘Strange. I knew I could never go home again, but I always felt something like a thread, running straight the way back there. A ley line pointing that way – pointing towards her. Some days we walked in opposite directions and I felt it tug on my heart, on others we were in step like we were arm in arm again, walking through the woods back home.’

‘You were,’ his friend said quietly. ‘Every dawn she’d walk those hounds of yours round the woods. It gave her time to be with you, she said.’

That brought a small smile to Enchei’s face, but it faded like a whisper on the breeze. ‘And now you’re here,’ he stated, ‘with power over my life. Think I’ll be needing that drink now.’

The Astaren reached into the half-open box and pulled a clear glass bottle from it. As he unstoppered it, Enchei caught the sweet smoky scent of the finest whisky.

‘This should chase the cold away,’ his friend announced, drinking before he offered it to Enchei.

‘Thanks.’ Enchei took a swallow, savouring the taste as he stared at the bottle in his hand. ‘Been a while since we’ve done this,’ he commented eventually. He looked up. ‘Still can’t quite believe we are. How long have you known?’

‘About the girls? Since before their mother died, maybe five years after you left?’

‘And you were never tempted?’

The Astaren snorted. ‘Tempted? No.’

‘Why not?’

His friend gestured toward the other door where his bodyguard had gone. ‘He’s here because he’s bound to me. Of all those in the city he’s the only one I can trust, because his mind will fold in on itself before he betrays me. You’d be surprised how many volunteers there are for that – more than I realised, men and women who work out they’re never going to reach the top based on their own merits.’

‘I realised it myself,’ Enchei said. ‘Doesn’t mean I ever wanted my mind bound to another.’

‘But power never meant much to you. Even with your promotions, you only ever saw power as a burden.’

‘Is that your answer?’ Enchei asked. ‘You were so confident of reaching the top on your own merits you ignored such a huge windfall?’

‘I
am
one of the Five,’ his friend replied with a hint of reproach. ‘Is it arrogance if you turn out to be right? As for the girls – when I found out, I was marked for command already. I knew the path I had ahead and …’ He shrugged. ‘Well. If you’re the sort who’s willing to betray family, you’re not the sort to be chosen in the first place. Before anything else though, before all loyalty and anything else you might hear with a cynical heart, I don’t want to die knowing I’m the bastard who maybe started the biggest war in history.’

He shook his head and reached for a drink. ‘Even if your girls were treated right rather than just as brood mares, I suspect the others of the Five would agree with me. There’s a balance of power in the Empire and we like it that way. Children inheriting Astaren abilities from their parents? That way chaos lies – chaos and millions of dead. Best thing you could’ve done is hide it from us all those years. You did a good job there and I for one am glad to be duped.’

‘Hide it?’ Enchei spluttered. ‘I didn’t know anything had been done to me for years. Not until I heard my daughters talking to each other in my mind!’

That brought the man up short. ‘Honestly?’ he said, an eyebrow raised sceptically. ‘You didn’t know?’

‘Not a damn clue. I guess you know when it happened? Or worked it out, at least?’

The grim look on his friend’s face told Enchei the man knew it all too well, and remembered the reports of Enchei’s impetuousness leading to the death of his comrades.

‘Aye, that’s it, the Lady of Mists. When I fell in that temple vault and cracked my skull, I only knew
she
healed me. She … she and her kin left me to carry a warning back across the mountains. Didn’t occur to me she’d changed something inside me. I found that bit out the hard way.’

The Astaren snorted, some sort of cold amusement at the absurdity of all they had lived through. ‘You led a charmed life, my friend. Most of us never meet a god or high demon once in our lives, but you …’

‘And look what it’s brought me,’ Enchei scowled, gesturing at the difference between his own worn clothes and those of his friend. ‘A dead wife and strangers for daughters. It wouldn’t have been worth it even if I’d gone down in history as a hero.’

‘To some you did,’ the Astaren said quietly, ‘remember that at least, my friend. There’s no power or passing of time that’s likely to make me forget the Fields of the Broken and those who come after me will know it too. I owe my life to few men and women, but in that place I was more scared than I’ve ever been in my life.

‘We don’t get spotless records in this life. You don’t get to trek to the other side of the world and bring everyone back. Not me, not any of the Five or those under our command. So whatever happened in the years beforehand, the Fields of the Broken is what we’ll remember you for. The lives you saved; the godthing you stopped.’

Enchei looked away. ‘Hard to feel like a hero there,’ he said, after a long pause. ‘We almost went mad with fear, even with what we are and how we’re trained.’ He took the bottle again. ‘And now because of it, I’m hunted by hellhounds. Is it one of the Five doing it?’

His friend shook his head. ‘I’m here alone because, well, because there ain’t many survivors of the Fields around. A man came to see me in the spring and asked how many of us there were. He claimed to have met another survivor in the Imperial City. A cagey old man with some brittle edges who said he was retired.’

‘And you confirmed it?’

‘Of course not, but if a man believes something it’s hard to persuade him otherwise. I was all set to have Dak murder him before he reached his next mission – he was never going to go far anyway – but he’s a man with contacts, so I decided to use him if he proved not to be completely loyal to the House.’

‘Use him? Contacts?’ Enchei hissed as he realised what the man was saying. ‘He’s a Gealann liaison? You’ve got plans for one of the groups he has links to and don’t want it traced back so easily?’

His friend put a hand on Enchei’s shoulder and looked him straight in the eye. ‘My friend, you were never good at this game, so here’s a little help. There will always be layer upon layer in what we do – the decisions of the Five and our equivalents in the other Houses too. Be they Dragons, Ghosts, Eagles or any other Great House; to just read one goal in any action would be foolish and dangerous for you.’

‘I see. So what’s my part in this?’

‘With tensions as they are, now’s not a good time for us to run an operation in the Imperial City. We’ve no interest in antagonising House Dragon.’

Enchei frowned. ‘So … what? You want me to kill him for you?’

‘In a nutshell. That’s the price of keeping your family safe – it’s not been easy and I’ve taken more than a few risks in the process. It’s time to repay my benevolence.’

‘There’s a handful of hellhound-possessed soldiers out there, a summoner, a Ghost Astaren and who knows what else – all after me, and you want me to just turn it around like that?’

‘You’re resourceful and a survivor,’ his friend said simply. ‘I have faith in you.’ He gave an apologetic cough. ‘There is, ah, there’s probably also a Benthic Knight leading them.’

‘Oh Gods above!’

‘That’s the one I want, if it’s at all possible. Killing everyone will suffice, but if you can secure that one or trap one of its ghost-slaves for me, you would do the rest of the Empire a great service. No one trusts House Leviathan so we could do with knowing better what weapons they possess.’

‘And I’m going to do that how exactly?’

‘Oh, you don’t have to do the killing yourself,’ his friend said with a cold smile. ‘I informed House Dragon what’s going on several weeks ago. There are two detachments of Stone Dragons and a unit of Firewinds ready in the city. I get the impression they’re somewhat itching for a fight. Their pride was wounded by the goshe and Lawbringer Rhe facing them down.’