It wasn’t the first time Shadrak’s size had worked to his advantage. The mockers could say what they liked, but at three-feet tall he had more options for entrance and egress, better chances of hiding, and slender, childlike fingers that could find a hold on even the tightest mortared walls.
The chief problem with New Londdyr’s Cyclopean Walls was the size of the blocks they were comprised of, each as tall as a regular man and just as wide. Shadrak’s solution was the pair of punch daggers he’d picked up in Sarum back home on Urddynoor: stiffer than steel, unbendable, and possessed of a sheen that never tarnished.
He’d not thought of it at the time, but ever since he’d found the thundershot in the tunnels beneath Sarum, he’d had a notion the daggers were also leftovers from the world of the Ancients, antiques that had passed from collector to collector until Shadrak broke the chain.
He remembered dropping down a disused chimney, startling the fat scut of a merchant just sitting down to dinner, and catching him with a razor star before the man could reach whatever “equalizer” he was dashing across the room to get to. Turned out it was the punch daggers, encased in glass and mounted on the wall.
The twin blades penetrated the mortar of the Cyclopean Walls as easily as they did flesh. Hand over hand he went up one vertical seam, before strafing across to another. An itch on the back of his neck told him the feat wasn’t unobserved, though. Without the goggles on, he couldn’t see the wizard eye, but he’d no doubt it could see him, and that it relayed every last detail to whoever put it there.
Something told him the eye wasn’t an aid to the soldiers manning the walls. If it was, they’d have been calling down to him now, threatening to dislodge him with spears, or taking pot-shots at him with crossbows. But the battlements remained empty. Even the barbican roof was devoid of activity; no one had moved there since the soldier had called down to him and Nils. Either New Londdyr was growing complacent, or the Senate had made cutbacks.
It was the same when Shadrak rolled over the top of the curtain wall and crouched low on the parapet. Nothing.
The scent of spiced beef and cider wafted up from the market stalls hundreds of feet below, nestled in the shade of the walls. There wasn’t much crowd noise—it was still early, but he knew from experience it wouldn’t be long before the place was teeming with smiths and smelters on their way to work in the industrial district. Not that he had a problem with that: the bigger the crowd, the easier it was to slip in among them and pass unnoticed. No, it was more a case of getting to a sausage stand while there were still sausages to be had.
Fifty yards along the parapet he came to an open door set into the turret of a guard tower. Maybe the soldier who was supposed to be on patrol had popped in for a piss and would be back any moment. Maybe he was taking an unofficial nap inside and had forgotten to close the door. Thing was, in the old days the towers had been hives of activity, the wall-tops perpetually patrolled.
Shadrak returned the punch daggers to his baldric and slipped through the doorway. A guttering torch spewed black smoke from its sconce a little way down the spiral stairs. He covered his nose and mouth and crept through the smog till he passed beneath it.
There were closed doors leading off the stairs at every level, but he saw no point opening them. Instead, he continued silently level after level till his knees burned with the effort.
At the bottom he came into a round chamber with a wide open door leading onto the street. A lone guard was leaning against the jamb, watching the the trickle of workers passing through the market stalls, spear propped against a chopping-block table, upon which were the remains of a meal and a pitcher of water. At least it should have been water, but with Shadrak’s sense of smell he couldn’t miss the scent of malted barley and hops.
He was halfway across the floor before some sixth sense made the guard turn. Shadrak lunged at him, grabbed both legs beneath the knees, and took him to the ground. The guard hit with a thud, but before he could cry out Shadrak rolled him, took his back, and choked him out with an arm round the neck, same as Ilesa had done to Nils.
It was only when he slipped out of the tower and kept pace with a group of workmen heading for the stalls that Shadrak realized what he’d done, or rather, what he hadn’t. He hadn’t killed the guard, cut his throat, ensured he couldn’t describe his assailant. That was the secret to being unseen: you couldn’t rely on stealth alone getting the job done; more often than not someone had to pay for your failure to go unnoticed. But this time he’d not even thought about it.
Kadee again, it had to be, worming her way into his psyche, changing him before he even knew it. He consoled himself with the fact that it didn’t really matter; the wizard eye had already observed him entering the city. Would it really make that much difference if anyone else knew he was back?
Nils was waiting for him in front of a food stall, half-eaten bread roll stuffed with sausage and dripping grease in one hand, untouched one in the other.
“How much do I owe you?” Shadrak said, snatching what he assumed was his and biting into it. He couldn’t suppress the shuddering sigh of satisfaction as the grease hit his palate.
“On me,” Nils said.
Shadrak paused in his chewing. “Oh?” A thief giving out freebies? That was never good.
“I ain’t lost it,” Nils said, glancing nervously back down the street at a food stall he’d presumably nabbed the grub from.
Shadrak grunted and resumed chewing as he headed across the road to a narrow thoroughfare between two rows of crumbling brick buildings. Funny thing was, they were new-builds, compared with the original parts of the city that had been constructed by Maldark the Fallen and his dwarves.
“Where we going?” Nils asked, following with big awkward gangly strides.
It was a shogging embarrassment, being robbed by an idiot with the grace of a hobbled cow. Shadrak glanced up at Nils, almost said something about how tall the lad had grown since the guild days, when Nils’s father, Buck, was just some lowlife who washed the dishes and took the garbage out; but that would have been one stage too familiar. Last thing he wanted was Nils thinking they were friends.
And as to where they were going… “That’s for me to know and you to discover when we get there.”
“Thought you wanted my help.” Nils stopped walking. “Look, I don’t have to come, you know.”
Shadrak slammed him against a boarded-up shopfront, held him there while he took another bite of his roll and sausage. After a second or two, he let go. There was no need to say, “Yes, you do.” Nils knew it. Shadrak could tell by the way the lad dusted himself down and continued to follow him like a puppy. There was no way he was letting Nils out of his sight till he had the ring in his possession once more. And if he didn’t find the ring, he’d take Nils back to Pellor with him and offer him to the Stygian by way of compensation.
They emerged from the alley onto an avenue teeming with carts and wagons and workers. There was still a fair glow coming from street lights topped with radiant balls of crystal, despite the suns already kicking out a steely light. Most of the city used oil lamps or torches, but they were within a half mile of the Wizards’ Quarter, and the Academy’s sorcerers had created a demand for this sort of thing.
Shadrak slung the last of his roll onto the cobbles. Instantly, a scrawny-looking dog darted out of a hole in the wall and dragged it from sight.
Nils ripped a poster from a shop window. It was browned over with age, curled at the edges, but the likeness sketched on it had weathered the handful of years that had passed since Shadrak last set foot in New Londdyr. Actually, it was a pretty good likeness, which was even more reason why he should never have come back.
“Wanted,” Nils said, like he was having a laugh. “Shadrak the Unseen.” He held the picture up beside Shadrak’s face for a comparison. “One-hundred denarii reward. That’s got to be tempting.”
Shadrak snatched the poster from him and tore it into pieces. “I’d find you, Nils. I always do.”
Nils licked his lips. “I was only joshing. You know I’d never shop you. We was both Night Hawks. Thicker’n blood.”
“Thick as two short planks, you mean.”
Shadrak set off along the avenue and crossed over to another alley, looking out for landmarks that had etched themselves permanently into his memory.
“They put the posters up as soon as you left,” Nils said. “Soon as you killed the First Senator.”
Shadrak shot him a glare. “One more word out of you…”
Nils covered his mouth, looked around to see if anyone had overheard, but there was no one else in the alley. “Sorry. I ain’t done this sort of thing for a while. Ain’t no need for secrecy at the Academy. Well, there is: academic jealousy and all that, but no rules like what we had in the guild. Shog, it’s only been a few years, and I’ve already lost it.”
“Not when it comes to sausages,” Shadrak said. “Not when it comes to picking pockets, either.”
“No. Suppose not. Just need to learn to keep my gob shut from now on.”
“That would be good. Oh, and Nils…”
“What?”
“How’d you do that invisibility thing?”
Shadrak stopped them where the alley intersected with a street.
Nils slipped his hands in his pockets, shrugged his shoulders like it was nothing. “Spell. A spell. Master Arecagen taught me it.”
“Words, physical buffers, that sort of thing?”
Nils nodded vigorously. “Yes, that’s about it.”
“What words?”
“Eh?”
“Tell me the words of the spell.”
Nils’s mouth worked, as if he were chewing gristle.
“Let me guess,” Shadrak said. “You’ve forgotten?”
“Uh…”
“He inscribed it in your memory, just one use, and then puff?”
“Yes,” Nils said. “How’d you know?”
“Just a hunch.”
“You calling me a liar?”
“You’re a Fargin, aren’t you?”
“I can do magic. Wanna see?”
“Not really.”
The lad was lying, and no demonstration of party tricks was going to convince Shadrak otherwise. Nevertheless, Nils pulled a crumpled piece of parchment from his pocket and straightened it out.
“I’m impressed,” Shadrak said.
“What? No, you plonker, that ain’t the spell. Look closely.”
There were handwritten words all over the paper. Shadrak took from his own pocket the page he’d found by the abandoned campfire when he’d been trailing the “invisible thief”, held it up beside Nils’s for a comparison.
“You’ve been writing out the same thing over and over. I’m in awe of your sorcerous power.”
Nils snatched Shadrak’s parchment, scrunched it up, and threw it into the gutter. “That was an old draft. This is the newest one. Now, watch.”
He muttered some incomprehensible words while he ran the flat of his hand over the page. When he’d finished, the writing had gone. Save for a few faint smudges, it was a virgin piece of parchment.”
“What else?” Shadrak asked.
“What do you mean?”
“What else can you do? ”
“I’m still learning.”
“That’s it? You’ve been at the Academy how long? And that’s all you can do? Erase ink from paper. I don’t like having to break it to you, Fargin, but you’ve been sold a bill of goods. You ain’t nothing but a dogsbody to those scholars. Arecagen’s been feeding you scraps just to keep you compliant. Eraser spell! No more than a cantrip. I take it you can reverse the effect, bring the words back again? I’d hate for you to have lost your story.”
Nils’s mouth fell open.
“You can’t? You’re not telling me that was your only copy?”
“Shogging bloody bollocks!” Nils said, ripping the parchment to shreds. “Do you know how long it took to write that?”
“Maybe you should have told me the story before you cast your poxy spell.” Shadrak tapped the side of his head. “One of the advantages of a perfect memory.”
He gave a smug smile and continued on out into the street, chuckling to himself as Nils cursed and grumbled behind.