The Legacy of Lord Regret: Strange Threads: Book 1 (32 page)

He kept a lookout for places where maps might hang in plain sight. He spotted a tavern with an open door, and
ducked inside. A quick glance about showed that he was out of luck, though his eyes lingered over a buxom barmaid. There were
others too – nice girls in this place.

Stay on
, he told himself, turning away.
Keep on
.

Whenever he found his focus waning, or desirous thoughts queuing up to be had, he pictured Braston’s hateful face, and it
pushed all else away. So unforgiving the man had become after the change. So quick to dismiss the years of service Despirrow
had given the court of Althala, just because he’d developed a few little quirks. All those evenings spent together as young
men, sipping wine and discussing the kingdom, had meant nothing in the end. After helping rid the world of Regret, Despirrow
should have been allowed to do anything he wanted, and yet his old friend had made it a personal mission to kill him off.

Thus Despirrow moved past barmaids, and farmhouses likely full of innocent young daughters, and roadside campfires, and whores
standing outside whorehouses with a moonlit shine on their naked chests … and he stayed on, kept on.

Braston had not used a fast-acting poison on Despirrow, oh no. He had wanted, Despirrow was certain, for Despirrow to know
what had been done to him. With cloudy vision and swimming mind, he had fallen out of the whorehouse bed, not able to summon
the concentration necessary to threadwalk to Althala, where Braston had probably been laughing at him.

No, not laughing. Staring sternly with that righteous expression, satisfied that
justice
had been done.

Satisfied. That was worse than laughing.

In those last moments, before Despirrow could do nothing at all, he had killed every whore he could lay his eyes on – punishment
for drugging him, for doing Braston’s will.

Was that justice, you endless fool? So happy you were to spend the lives of others, if it but cost me mine
.

No, he didn’t need to sleep, not yet. Imagining Braston meeting the same end as he had gave him renewed energy.
That
would be true justice. He didn’t care as much about stealing the magic, as he did about seeing Braston’s face, once he realised
what had happened to him.

So he kept on, stayed on.

‘It must be weeks now,’ said Yalenna.

‘Aye,’ said Rostigan. ‘Longer, maybe.’

They arrived at Braston’s quarters, and she crouched to look through the keyhole.

‘Are you all right, Braston?’

There was a moment’s silence, followed by a groan. The lump in the bed sat up.

‘Piss and fire,’ she heard him mumble. ‘What is taking so long?’

‘We don’t know.’

‘Has he died? Has he stopped time, then somehow got himself killed, and consigned us all to limbo forever?’

She glanced worriedly at Rostigan – it was something they had discussed, but neither really knew what would happen if Despirrow
died while the world was frozen.

‘We don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Surely his death would start things again. Besides, how would he die?’

‘Who cares?’ said Braston, and collapsed back into bed.

‘Are you healing?’

‘Taking a while. Fighting infections too, now. Would be better if I could eat, or drink!’

Yalenna glanced at the frozen healer, still poised to enter the room. At least Braston would get a drink as soon as time came
back, but she didn’t think it was worth telling him that now. It might torment him, knowing it was on the threshold, so close
and yet unreachable.

‘We will check on you later,’ she called.

They walked away, though without anywhere in particular to be, it was a rather aimless meander. They had wandered the castle
many times already – where they could get to, anyway – and the city itself as well. They had even climbed the platforms of
water that issued up from fountains in the throne room.

At least Rostigan and Braston had soft beds, as both of them had been in them at the time of the freeze. Yalenna had suggested
that she might borrow Rostigan’s, but he was too worried about what would happen if time started and Tarzi woke up to find
her there in his place.
His counter-offer had been to stay in the room and watch over them both as they slept, so he could wake her if the world unfroze,
but she had been uncomfortable with the notion somehow. Not that there was much need to sleep, beyond a way to break the boredom.
They were hardly burning energy, and were both, in fact, growing extremely restless.

‘Perhaps we should have a race,’ she had suggested at one stage, ‘around the square? Or from castle top to bottom?’

He had given her a rueful look. Not much one for frivolous fun, it seemed, even in the face of such monotony.

They’d had many conversations, about many things. About what was happening to the Spell, about the damage Despirrow was surely
doing with this prolonged use of power, about what should be done with Loppolo.

‘It is only a potential danger,’ Yalenna had said, gazing out across a tableau of courtiers from her perch on the top of a
water font. ‘We don’t know for sure that Loppolo will act.’

‘No reason for us not to,’ Rostigan replied from further down, kicking at colourful fish below the water’s surface.

‘I don’t know that we should tell Braston about it. He will demand retribution.’

‘Retribution for retribution?’

‘He is blind to justice when it concerns himself. He refuses to think that he’s part of the problem. Who knows – perhaps Loppolo
is even being driven by some need of the Spell’s, to restore things to rights?’

‘Braston did raise an army, which we will need should Forger march, or the Unwoven. Surely the Spell does not object to
that
.’

‘He could have raised it anyway. He did not
need
to be king.’

‘Well then, what do you suggest?’

‘I will talk to Loppolo. Try to … I don’t know. Smooth things over.’

‘It’s a big bump to smooth,’ Rostigan had said glumly.

Now they reached the castle roof, and instantly Yalenna could tell something had changed. Her eyes went to the sky, and what
she saw made her miss a breath.

Rostigan followed her gaze.

‘Huh,’ he said.

From star to star in a great line, light crept, like a fissure opening between pressure points. Meanwhile the moon, which
had been brightly fixed in place, now seemed duller, almost as if it were fading from existence.

‘The world is straining in place,’ she said softly, with a heart full of dread. ‘It knows the night should have passed.’

Rostigan sighed. ‘For so long I held my power close.’

The look he shot her made clear it was not only Despirrow’s presence he begrudged.

‘You aren’t the gatekeeper,’ she said in annoyance. ‘This is not Rostigan’s Aorn, you know.’

‘No,’ he said, turning away. ‘It isn’t.’

Seventeen
.

It was flames in the fireplace now, the number of distinct tips reaching up the chimney.

Mergan slumped back on someone’s lap. It was so unfair – he’d only had a few days, a tantalising taste on the end of his tongue,
of life after his long winter. This was
worse
than the tomb, sometimes, maybe … to have these listless companions with him, to see food on the table he could not touch.

Enough to drive a man mad
, he thought, and gibbered.

Ugly thoughts reared their ugly heads, and his eyes wandered over sharp objects – a sword strapped to someone’s belt, the
edge of the bar, even the dangling cloth the innkeeper used to polish a glass. Maybe if he took a run at them he would do
a better job of caving his skull in than he had with the flat wall of the tomb.

And then what? What if these others finally wake, to find me lying apparently dead – if they bury me, will I open my eyes
inside of the earth, prison after prison after prison?

He shook his head. He was not going to succumb this time. Despirrow would have to release him eventually. In the meanwhile,
he knew how to do this.

Of all things, I know how to do this
.

Twenty-five chairs
…

Forger was bored. He could not even be bothered to chastise himself anymore for allowing Despirrow to depart on his
ridiculous errand. So what if Yalenna inherited Braston’s power? She was high on the list of people Forger wanted to kill
anyway.

He sat on a swing in someone’s yard, watching a mother and father play with their little girl. Love was plain on their faces,
the girl caught in an embrace between the two of them as they hoisted her into the air. She was laughing, her little hands
reaching skywards.

Ah, how simple it would be to reduce them all to tears.

‘If I could,’ he muttered.

He had grown shorter again, which added to his bad mood. He could not cause pain to the impenetrable, and thus, as he waited
for the world, his power had diminished.

Nothing he could not quickly correct.

As he daydreamed about things he could do to the small family – more inventive than simply killing one of them, though that
was ever-effective – he thought he heard something. He cocked his head, wary that his mind might be playing tricks on him
– but there it was again! Somewhere in Tallahow, someone was calling out.

Excitedly he slid off the swing onto the little garden path. Careful to avoid the grass, he made his way to the gate, and
clambered over. In the street all was still in the odd light of the faded moon and bright cracks in the sky. He listened,
trying to make out the voice, and what direction it came from.

‘Hello?’ he shouted. ‘Who’s there?’

He began to jog, no echoes sounding from his footfalls. Up towards the keep, that was where the voice sounded!

‘Hello!’ he called. ‘Hello, hello, hello!’

‘Is that Forger?’

This time he heard the words, recognised the voice. As fast as he could, he bounded up through the tiered city towards the
rising cliff face, until he reached the keep. There, in the square, he found Salarkis waiting.

‘Thank goodness!’ Forger said, halting before the stony Warden. He patted his chest affectedly, as if he needed to catch his
breath. ‘I was beginning to think I’d be alone forever.’

‘Hello, Forger.’

‘How did you get here?’

‘I was away to the west somewhat, when this,’ he waved a hand about, ‘occurred. Had to pick my way amongst grassland to the
road.’

‘Oh dear.’ Forger seemed genuinely concerned. ‘That must have been painful.’

‘I have good balance. I was able to keep to the flats of blades, mostly.’

‘Well, I’m very happy to see you.’

‘And I you. Assuming, of course, you can explain to me what the
blood and piss
is going on!?’

Forger blinked, taken aback by Salarkis’s ire. He still did not know where the Warden’s loyalties lay, he realised, though
he hoped for the best.

Mustn’t be too hasty
, he decided.
You’ll fall victim to your own good nature
.

It was even possible that, once time started, Salarkis would whisk away and try to stop Despirrow, even to
save Braston
… that was, if he found out exactly what the plan was.