Nightfire | The Whispering Wall #1 - Chapter 13: Chapter 13

"Here they are."
Arlen glanced up from sharpening his blade and let his boot fall from the table. He leaned over to Usk. "Don't see the boy with them."
"Cuz he isn't." Usk scratched under his chin and repositioned with a short groan, watching three men limp across the room towards the table at the far end.
Arlen looked them up and down, noting the raw red marks on their wrists and tensing.
"They got nicked," he muttered, "Better not have squealed."
"Wouldn't dare come back here if they had." Usk took a long draught of ale and threw his tankard into the basin behind them. "Brave enough coming back without the boy."
Arlen sneered. "If they want money, they're stupid, not brave."
He slid his sharpened dagger into the sheath at his hip and flicked hair from his eye. The three mercenaries had come to a stop in front of a high-backed chair which currently stood empty, and Usk was grinning in anticipation when Arlen glanced back at him. His teeth glinted in the candlelight, wickedly sharp and dotted with silver and gold. All Varthians kept their teeth sharp, but Usk took special care over his. Legend had it that he had once bitten a man's hand clean off in a sparring ring, so efficiently that the man had taken a full minute to start screaming.
Arlen thought the full minute an exaggeration, but was fully prepared to believe that it had happened. He had witnessed Usk neatly remove an ear with them, and it was only a short jump to chewing through a wrist.
The room they sat in was an abandoned beer hall in the dead quarter, long and broad with the original furniture long since looted. The chairs and tables they lounged on were their employer's own, brought from his personal estate. It wasn't just anyone he allowed into their meeting hall, and the three men seemed to know it. They huddled together in the light from the row of candelabras on stands in the centre of the room and kept their eyes ahead of them.
In the darkness at the borders of the beer hall, Nictaven's most prolific criminals watched them and leered.
Arlen curled his lip and held out his tankard. A girl darted from the shadows and refilled it before disappearing again, the whisper of her bare feet the only evidence she had been there. He took a long draught and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
"He's making them wait," he muttered.
"No way he needs them to tell 'im they fucked up," Usk said with a chuckle. "Probably found out hours ago."
"Aye." Arlen cocked his head to fix them with his good eye from behind. "And what a fuck-up. Should've sent me."
"Already tried that," Usk mumbled, "'member? The witch man scared you off."
Arlen's dagger split the wood between Usk's index and middle fingers and stood there, quivering.
"Yddris doesn't scare me," he growled, without looking round. "He just knows how to make a scene. Didn't want to make it public."
"Uh huh." Usk picked the knife out of the table and idly spun it in one hand before offering it to Arlen hilt-first. "Well, the witch men scare me. Should scare you too. Bet it was Yddris had 'em limping out like that."
"Don't tar me with your superstitions, Usk. They're just men. They bleed too."
"They also read minds and shit fire," Usk said reasonably, "And we can't do that. Can be righteously cautious, that considered."
"They don't read minds," Arlen said. "That's a myth."
"Shitting fire is still cause for concern."
"I'm not going to enter a debate over whether they can shit it, but I doubt they can," Arlen muttered, smirking despite himself.
Usk chuckled and began to hum. After a moment Arlen offered a quizzical look.
"Haven't heard that one before."
"Father used to sing it after three measures of moonshine," Usk said.
"What's it called?"
"Sweet Alika's Burning Ringpiece."
Arlen snorted, splashing beer onto the table. He gestured, and the girl reappeared with a cloth to mop it up. She squeaked as Arlen slapped the table and cowered under the resulting glare.
"Do it quicker," he muttered, noting the atmosphere in the room change.
The girl finished and left, slipping back through a hidden door in the wall. At the front of the hall, close to where Arlen and Usk sat, another secret door opened. The mutterings and whispers from the shadows ceased. One of the mercenaries looked around the hall at the men and women gathered there, and his eyes settled on Arlen. Arlen smiled nastily and made a salute to Nict, the death god. The mercenary went white and turned away.
"Kelians," Usk muttered.
The man who stepped through the second hidden door commanded silence from the room the moment he appeared. Marick Silversong was a rogue, a thief, a murderer and a braggart, and his followers expected nothing less from him. It was wiser not to question a man who knew every one of the fifteen Tortures of the Pit and how to perform them, and of whose victims no one had ever found enough to bury.
Judging by the spreading dark patch on one man's trousers and the uncontrollable shaking of another, the mercenaries had some inkling of this reputation.
For all that, Marick was also – outwardly, at least - a gentleman. He was well-groomed, neat, well-dressed, and the smile he offered the three men was deceptively pleasant. Only the knotted scar visible above the neck of his linen shirt, which Arlen knew had a twin that formed an X over Marick's heart, betrayed anything darker lying underneath the façade.
"Well, gentlemen," Marick said, moving to the high-backed chair on the dais and sitting down. "Where is he?"
He clasped his hands and waited. The men fidgeted and grunted at each other in undertones, before one stepped forward; the big one, with the bald head and the impressive black eye.
"We don't have 'im, sir," he said. He put his hands out to stem a bout of fury that wasn't coming. Marick sat perfectly still in the chair, eyeing each of them evenly with sharp, pale eyes. The big man seemed to take his silence as an encouraging sign. A collective wince went around the room, Arlen included.
"See, there was this demon catch..."
"Shut up."
The man fell quiet. Marick continued to stare at him.
"You did not succeed in getting the boy for me. Why you didn't is irrelevant; I wanted results and didn't get them. Which begs the question," he sat forward, "of why you are here, if not to deliver my results."
The mercenaries paused. Arlen sat forward. Usk chuckled darkly under his breath and muttered something derogatory in Tochk.
"I'll give you thirty seconds to decide whether you think it would be wise to take this matter further," Marick said, gaze unwavering.
The big man in the middle took a long, shaky breath. "Sir, please...."
"Thirty seconds."
Something glinted in Marick's hand, partially concealed against the arm of the chair. Arlen, eyes trained to spot hidden weaponry before it could be used against him, saw it straight away, but the mercenaries apparently had no such experience since the speaker ploughed on.
"Please, sir," he said, "I was injured in the fight and can't afford physician's bills if I want to feed my family this dark season. We were just..."
Marick stood up and made a fluid gesture with one hand. The man's words cut off with a gurgle. A moment later he fell backwards, limp as a doll, and lay still on the floor of the beer hall, a dark stain spreading from the gash in his neck.
The two men he had arrived with both dropped to their knees and pressed their heads against the floor.
"Please," one whimpered, "We'll leave, sir. We'll leave. Please..."
"Get out," Marick said, turning away. He wiped his blade on a pristine handkerchief from his pocket, staining it crimson. "Don't bother coming back."
The two remaining men didn't leave it to chance; without even a glance at their fallen companion, they bolted for the door and disappeared into the night.
"Someone go after them and make sure they don't squeal," Marick murmured.
Two shadows peeled themselves out of the gloom in the corners of the hall and vanished through the door. The eyes of those who remained moved to their leader on the dais. It was as if the corpse wasn't even there.
"Arlen," Marick said, moving back towards the hidden door to his quarters, "A word, please."
Arlen got up, draining his beer and throwing his tankard in the basin behind him before sweeping across the hall to follow his employer. Envious gazes followed him, and he stifled a smirk. There were very few in the group who enjoyed personal audiences with Marick, and those who tried to depose him of the rank he had earned were often found in gutters the next day. As far as he saw it, he deserved to be held in that esteem. No gutter tramp was going to deprive him of it by force.
Marick's quarters in the beer hall were small and sparsely decorated; most of the man's possessions resided in a vast mansion wrested from an Orthanian baron before the whole quarter fell to thieves. Arlen had only been inside it once, and had no doubt its riches had grown since, but to look at the plain desk and single candle in the small side-room it was hard to believe Marick was a man of any particular wealth.
"Does the boy have a location for meeting you?" Marick asked without turning round, the moment Arlen closed the door behind them.
"I gave it to him," Arlen said. "Whether he understands the note is another matter. He can't read our script."
"Someone will translate it for him," Marick said.
"If he asks," Arlen added. "I've not seen him in any conversation of note with anyone other than the Unspoken."
"That will change," Marick replied. "He can't cling to Yddris forever."
"And if Yddris apprentices him when he manifests? He's already taken him to the Demon's Brew to keep a close eye."
"You'll find a way."
A short silence stretched between them. Marick didn't turn around. On the back wall of the room was a painting of himself from years before; Arlen couldn't remember a time where it hadn't been there. The only thing that had changed about the room was the gash that had appeared in the canvas, an X carved over the painted figure's chest.
"Did you expect the mercenaries to succeed?" Arlen asked finally.
"No." Marick sighed. "But it was worth a try."
"Do you have a job for me?"
Marick turned, a smile playing on his lips. "I do."
Arlen flicked hair from his eye and waited.
"I want you to go to Silas," Marick said. He switched his gaze to the candle flame. It flickered, reflected in his eyes. "I'm calling in his debt."
"The boy?" Arlen said. "He's still young."
"I need them to suspect nothing of him. They won't look twice at an acolyte."
Arlen nodded. "What do you need him to do?"
"There's a servant in the castle kitchens I want killed. Baron Ethred is due to visit the high lord this evening and he'll undoubtedly take Silas with him."
Arlen covered over his surprise with a cough. "You want his first job to be a kill?"
Marick's lip curled. "His debt is considerable."
Arlen judged it wise not to question further.
"The name is Sebastien," Marick continued, "He works as a pot washer. He ran away from a contract with me and seems to think he's managed to get away with it. I don't care how he dies, as long as it happens. I want you to visit Silas when it is done and retrieve proof from him." He glanced at Arlen and nodded a dismissal. "That is all."
Arlen turned on his heel. The audience in the hall had thinned in his time with Marick, and he passed through unhindered. The night was bitterly cold, the dark season beginning to set in properly. He drew his cloak tighter around him and pulled his scarf up over his head, wrapping it around his mouth and nose. The buildings of the dead quarter were derelict and ramshackle, but the roofs were as sturdy as in any other part of the city. Originally intended to deter demons, they were firm footing for Arlen as he leapt between them.
Being a quarter brimming with the city's worst, it wasn't surprising that he saw very few others as he travelled. It didn't mean they weren't there. On occasion a shadow would jump or fidget in ways that shadows generally shouldn't, but he paid them no mind. That was the code of business in the quarter; don't mess with anyone else's unless provoked. Marick's influence meant that that provocation was infrequent.
He alighted on the cobbles at the edge of the dead quarter. The river Aven rumbled into the reservoir to the west, foaming and spitting. It had risen since the quarter fell, and passage across the bridge was generally conducted along the broad balustrades on either side. The surface of the bridge was submerged in two inches of murky river water.
The balustrade was slimy with growth over wet stone, but Arlen had crossed the bridge many times and knew where to place his feet. His path was a dark smear through the spongy plants that had bloomed over the surface, but he didn't need to see it to know where it was. The toll bridge – no longer taking tolls in any currency except lives – led straight into the Orthanian quarter. After all, half their barons had had freeholds there before the uprising, and none of them had enough influence to push through their petition to have the bridge destroyed.
The difference was stark. Orthanian homes were disgustingly elaborate, painted garish colours with expensive pigments. Unlike every other religious house in Shadow's Reach, Orthan did not have a symbol, but doomsday prophecies and scripts on the inevitability of annihilation and glory adorned house fronts and monuments everywhere, painted in gold.
For a religion which did not worship the death god, Arlen thought, the Orthanians were very preoccupied with death. The painted proclamations, though, always seemed somewhat insincere.
He looked to the temple. It soared over the rest of the buildings, sparkling with hundreds of flames arranged in rows around each level of the tower. The lights bounced off polished stone, doubling them, so that only a twinkling silhouette was visible against the sky.
He stepped into a side street when he heard voices and pressed himself against the wall. Two priests passed without even glancing his way. He waited until he could no longer hear them, and then sprinted down the street. It wound and weaved through dozens of tall houses, at times broad and at others so narrow that one could step from one front door into the opposite house. The temple square was deserted. Arlen reached it just as the bells rang out for evening prayers. He used it to cover his steps as he darted through the shadow of a nearby house, unseen by a long line of priests filing into the temple's main hall.
The cloisters were thrown into relative darkness. A sconce burned at every tenth door. All of them were closed. It wasn't hard to reach the one he wanted unnoticed.
He jumped up onto the roof, using a pillar to scale up and then dropping from the roof into the gardens. For each room there was a narrow window backing onto it. It was easy to pick the lock and slip inside.
He dodged a copy of the Orthanian scripture as it flew at his head.
"I'm sure that counts as blasphemy," he said, pulling the scarf down from around his face. The little chamber was bare but warm. Silas was kneeling up in the centre of the room, arm still outstretched from launching his writing tablet. Arlen gave him an appraising look. The boy hadn't grown much since childhood.
"Arlen," Silas breathed, sitting back on his heels. "I thought you were a... someone else."
"Thief?" Arlen supplied. He grinned as he flicked his hair from his blinded eye and Silas immediately dropped his gaze.
"No." He looked up from under his fringe. "Well, yes. But one I didn't know."
Arlen smirked, bending down to pick up Silas's tablet. The script on the wax was neat and elegant.
"Nice work," he said, handing it back. Silas took it with trembling hands. "Good skill for forgery."
Silas swallowed. "Is that what he wants me to do?"
Arlen experienced a brief flash of sympathy for the boy as he shook his head. He reached into his cloak. What little colour the boy had had drained from his face in an instant as Arlen pulled a stoppered vial out of an inside pocket, double-sealed with wax, and placed it on the boy's writing desk. Next to it he placed a dagger.
"Your first job, boy," he said quietly. "Listen closely. Here's what I want you to do."