Aric had laughed at Vanis's insistence on hiring bodyguards. 'He is a merchant like you, Vanis. You think he would risk himself by hiring killers to hunt you down? If any were captured - and named him - he would lose everything. We'd have his palace and whatever of his fortune rests hidden in the palace vaults. By Heaven, it is almost worth hoping that he does send assassins.'
'Easy for you to say, Aric. Did you hear about his hunting down of the raiders who attacked his lands? Thirty of them, it is said. And he killed them all.'
'Nonsense,' sneered Aric. 'There were around a dozen, and I don't doubt that the Grey Man had most of his guards with him. It is just a lie put about to enhance the Grey Man's reputation.'
'A lie, eh? I suppose it was a lie that he killed Jorna with a single blow to the neck and then slew Parellis with his own sword. As I understand it, he did not even break sweat.'
'Two stupid boys,' said Aric. 'Gods, man, I could have done the same. What possessed you to use such simpletons?'
'It was an error,' said Vanis. 'I thought they were planning to surprise him in the grounds of his palace. I did not expect them to make the attempt at a ball in front of a hundred witnesses!'
'Ah, well, it is over now,' said Aric smoothly. The Grey Man gave in without a struggle. Not even a raised word. Have you thought what you will do with Parla's fifteen thousand?'
'Thirty thousand,' corrected Vanis.
'Minus my commission, of course,' said Aric.
There are those who might feel that your commission is a little excessive, my friend,' said Vanis, struggling to control his anger.
Aric laughed. 'There are also those who believe that, as chief magistrate of Carlis, I should be investigating what caused those two hitherto exemplary boys to commit such a deed. Are you one of those?'
'You have made your point,' muttered Vanis. 'Fifteen thousand it is.'
Even now, some hours later, the conversation left a bad taste in his mouth.
Vanis finished a third cup of Lentrian Fire, and heaved himself once more to his feet. Moving somewhat unsteadily across the room, he pulled open the door and staggered to his bedchamber. The satin sheets on his bed had been pulled back and Vanis peeled off his robe and slippers and sat down heavily, his head spinning. He fell back on to the pillow and yawned.
A shadowy figure moved to the bedside. 'Your nephews are waiting for you,' said a soft voice.
Three hours after dawn a servant brought a tray of fresh-baked bread and soft cheese to the bedroom of the merchant Vanis. There was no reply to his gentle tapping, and he knocked louder. Thinking his master in a deep sleep the servant returned to the kitchens. Half an hour later he tried again. The door was still locked, and no sound came from inside.
He reported this to the head manservant, who, with a duplicate key, opened the door.
The merchant Vanis was lying back on blood-drenched sheets, his throat cut, a small, curved knife held in his right hand.
Within the hour the chief magistrate, Lord Aric, was at the property, along with the dark-bearded Eldicar Manu-shan, two officers of the watch and a young surgeon. The magicker ordered the little page-boy, dressed now in a tunic of black velvet, to wait outside the door. 'Not a scene to be witnessed by a child,' Eldicar told him. The boy nodded and stood outside with his back to the wall.
'It seems fairly obvious,' said the surgeon, stepping back from the body. 'He cut his own throat and died within a few heartbeats. The knife, as you can see, is very sharp. There is only the one cut - a deep slash that opened the jugular.'
'Strange that he removed his robe first, don't you think?' offered Eldicar Manushan, pointing to the garment on the floor by the bed.
'Why strange?' asked Aric. 'He was getting into bed.'
'To die,,' said the magicker. 'Not to sleep. This means he knew his body would be found. Let us face it, gentlemen, Vanis was not a handsome man. Bald, monstrously fat and ugly would be an accurate description. Yet he disrobes, sits down upon white satin sheets and ensures he will be found in the most disgusting of positions. One would have thought he would have left his clothes on. A second thought concerns the wound itself. Very messy and painful. It takes a man of great courage to open his throat. Just as effective would be to open the arteries at the wrist.'
'Yes, yes, yes,' said the surgeon. 'This is all very interesting. But what we have here is a man dead in a locked bedroom, the instrument of his demise in his hand. We will never know what was going on in his mind at the time of his death. I understand his beloved nephews were killed only days ago. His brain was obviously unhinged by grief.'
Eldicar Manushan laughed, the sound horribly contrasting to the bloody scene within the room. 'Unhinged? Indeed he must have been. For he was so frightened of the thought of being killed he surrounded his house with guards and dogs. Then, once he was safe, he cut his throat. I would agree that sounds unhinged.'
'You believe he was murdered, sir?' asked the young surgeon, icily.
The magicker walked to the window and gazed down at the grounds below the balcony. He swung back. 'If he was murdered, young man, then he would have to have been killed by a man who could move in utter silence through a screen of guards and vicious dogs, scale a wall, commit the deed and depart without being seen or scented.'
'Precisely,' said the surgeon, turning to Lord Aric. 'I shall send for the morgue wagon, my lord, and prepare a report.'
With that the young man bowed to Aric, nodded towards Eldicar Manushan, and left the room.
Aric looked at the grotesque bloated body upon the bed, then swung to the two officers of the watch. 'Go and question the servants and the guards. See if anyone heard or saw anything - no matter how inconsequential it may have seemed at the time.'
The men saluted and walked away. Eldicar Manushan moved from the window and pushed shut the bedroom door. 'Would you like to know what really happened?' he asked softly.
'He killed himself,' whispered Aric. 'No one could have got to him.'
'Let us ask him.'
Eldicar stepped to the bedside and laid his hand upon the dead merchant's brow. 'Hear me,' whispered the magicker. 'Return from the Void and flow once more into this ruined shell. Come back to the world of pain. Come back to the world of light.'
The bloated body spasmed, and a choking, gargling noise came from the throat. The body began to tremble violently. Eldicar thrust his fingers into the man's mouth and dragged out a rolled-up ball of parchment. Hissing breath blew from the dead man's lung, and the remnants of his blood bubbled from the wound in his throat.
'Speak, Vanis,' ordered Eldicar Manushan.
'Grey . . . Man . . .' croaked the corpse. The body sagged back, arms and legs twitching. Eldicar Manushan clapped his hands twice. 'Return to the pit,' he said coldly. All movement ceased.
The magicker glanced at the ashen face of Lord Aric, then lifted the wet ball of parchment he had pulled from the merchant's throat. He opened it and spread it on the bedside table.
'What is it?' whispered Aric, taking a scented handkerchief from his pocket and holding it to his nose.
'It appears to be the contract for the debt the Grey Man waived. It contains all the promises made by Vanis for repayment.' Eldicar laughed again. 'One might say that Vanis was forced to eat his words before his demise.'
'I shall have him arrested!'
'Do not be a fool. I told you the game was not yet over. What evidence will you offer against him? Will you say that the dead man spoke to you? I do not wish that to happen. Great events will soon be upon us, Aric. The dawn of a new age. This matter is closed. As the surgeon said, Vanis took his life in a moment of terrible grief.'
'How did the Grey Man do it? The guards, the dogs . . .'
'What do we know of him?'
'Very little. He came here some years ago from the south. He has business interests in all the great trading nations, Gothir, Chiatze, Drenan, Ventria. He owns a huge fleet of merchant vessels.'
'And no one knows where he comes from?'
>
'No - not for sure. Lalitia enjoys his favours, but when I spoke with her she said he never talks about his past. She believes he has been a soldier, though she does not know with which army, and he speaks with knowledge about all the countries with which he has dealings.'
'A wife, children?' asked Eldicar.
'No. Lalitia says he once spoke of a woman who died. But he has been bedding Lalitia for more than a year now, and still she has managed to elicit no useful information.'
'Then I fear it will remain a mystery,' said the magicker. 'For within a few days the Grey Man will be gone from this world - as indeed will many others.'
Just before dawn a blond-haired man wearing a red shirt, embroidered with the coiled snake emblem of Vanis the merchant, rowed a small boat to the edge of the beach below Waylander's palace. Stepping into the shallow water he dragged the boat free of the tide then walked up the steps and through the terraced gardens. As he approached the rooms of the Grey Man he pulled a black skull-cap from his head. The blond hair came away with it.
Pushing open the door of his rooms Waylander returned the skull-cap to a hidden drawer at the rear of an old wooden cabinet, then stripped off his clothing. The red shirt he rolled into a ball and tossed into the fireplace, atop the dried logs. Taking a small tinder box from beside the hearth he struck flint and lit the fire.
Waylander's mood was dark and he felt the heaviness of guilt upon him, though he did not know why. Vanis deserved to die. He was a liar, a cheat and a would-be murderer who had caused the death of two innocent boys. In any civilized society he would have been placed on trial and executed, Waylander told himself.
So why the guilt? The question nagged at him.
Was it, perhaps, because the kill had been so easy? Moving through to the small kitchen, he poured himself some water and drank deeply. Yes, it had been easy. Always the miser, Vanis had hired cheap guards, getting one of his servants to conduct the negotiations. There was no guard commander, the men having been hired singly from the taverns and docks, and told to patrol the grounds. It was after dark when Waylander, dressed as a guard, had scaled the wall and made his way to the tall oak some twenty feet from the house. Once there he had sat quietly in plain sight, crossbow in hand, watching the wall. One by one the hired men moved below him, occasionally glancing up and waving. The dog handler had also been hired independently, but in order for his dogs not to savage the guards he had walked the beasts around the grounds, letting them pick up the scent of every man dressed in a red tunic shirt. Thus when the man was on his rounds Waylander climbed down, chatted to him and patted the dogs, who sniffed at his boots, then ignored him.
After that it had been simplicity itself, waiting in the tree until the depths of the night, then scaling the wall and hiding patiently behind the velvet curtains alongside the merchant's bed.
He had not made Vanis suffer. The kill had been swift - one fast sweep and he had sliced the knife through the merchant's jugular. There was no time for Vanis to make a sound and he fell back on the bed, his blood pumping to the satin sheets. As a last flourish Waylander thrust the crumpled contract deep into the dead man's throat. Moving to the balcony he waited for the guards to pass, then climbed down to the gardens below.
Once over the wall he had strolled through the near-deserted streets of Carlis, climbed into the small boat he had left moored in the harbour, and rowed across the bay.
It was while in the boat that the guilt had come. He had not recognized the emotion at first, putting it down to the same malaise he had been suffering for months now; a dissatisfaction at his life of riches and plenty. But it was far more than that.
Yes, Vanis had deserved to die, but in killing him Waylander had returned, albeit briefly, to a way of life that had once filled him with contempt and shame: the dark days when he had been Waylander the Slayer, a killer for hire. He knew at that moment why the guilt was growing. The deed had reminded him of an innocent, unarmed man, whose murder by Waylander sparked a terrible war and the death of thousands.
There is no comparison, he tried to tell himself, between a Drenai king and a fat, murderous merchant.
Stepping naked into the dawn's golden light, Waylander made his way around the terrace to where a small waterfall was bubbling over the rocks. Wading into the shallow pool below it, he stood under the cascading water, half hoping that it would wash away the bitterness of his memories. No man could reshape the past, he knew. If it could be done he would ride back to the little farm and save Tanya and the children from the raiders. In his nightmares he still saw her tied to the bed, the gaping, bloody wound in her belly. In reality she had been dead when he found her, but in his dreams she was alive and crying for help. Her blood had flowed across the floor, up the walls and over the ceiling. Crimson drops fell like rain upon the room. 'Save me!' she would cry. And he would scrabble at the blood-drenched ropes, unable to untie the knots. Always he would wake trembling, his body bathed in sweat.
The waterfall flowed over him, cold and refreshing, washing the dried blood from his hands.
Leaving the water, he sat down on a white marble boulder, allowing the sun to dry him. A man could always make excuses for his actions, he thought, seeking some sense of self-worth for his stupidities or meanness of spirit. Ultimately, however, a man's actions were his own, and he would have to answer for them at the Court of the Soul.
What will you say? he wondered. What excuses will you offer?
It was true that had the raiders not killed his family Dakeyras would never have become Waylander. Had he not become Waylander he would not have taken the life of the last Drenai king. Perhaps then the terrible war with Vagria would never have happened. Hundreds of villages and towns would not have been burned, and scores of thousands would never have died.
Guilt merged with sorrow as he sat in the sunshine. It seemed incredible now to Waylander that he had once been a Drenai officer, in love with a gentle woman who wanted nothing more than to raise a family on a farm she could call her own. He could hardly even recall the thoughts and dreams of that young man. One fact was certain. The young Dakeyras would never have donned a disguise to butcher an unarmed man in his bed.
Waylander shivered at the thought.
He had, over the years, tried to change his life so many times. He had allowed himself to care for another woman, Danyal, and had helped her to raise the two orphan girls, Miriel and Krylla. After the Vagrian War he had built a cabin high in the mountains, and assumed the life of the peaceful Dakeyras, a family man. He had almost grown content. After Danyal died in a riding accident he had raised the girls alone. Krylla wed a young man and they moved away to a distant land to build a farm and start a family.
Then the killers had come into the mountains. Dakeyras had no idea why Karnak, the ruler of the Drenai, should send assassins after him. It made no sense. Until the day he discovered that Karnak's son had unwittingly caused the death of Krylla during a drunken chase. Terrified that this action would result in Waylander seeking revenge, Karnak took precipitate action. Assassins were despatched to kill him. They failed. They died. And the days of death and blood had returned.
Eventually Waylander moved to the distant Gothir city of Namib, where he tried to rebuild his life. Once more assassins came for him. He led them deep into the forests outside the city, killing three and capturing the fourth. Instead of executing the last man he made a deal with him. Karnak had offered a fortune in gold for the head of Waylander. Proof of the killing would come with the handing over of his famed double-winged crossbow. One of the dead assassins bore a passing resemblance to Waylander, so he cut the head from the corpse and placed it in a sack. Then he gave his crossbow to the survivor. 'With these you will become rich,' he said. 'Is our business concluded?'
'Aye, it is,' said the man, who returned to Drenan and pocketed his reward. The skull and crossbow had then been exhibited in the Marble Museum.
Once more Waylander had journeyed to far places, choosing the distant realm of Kydor
and attempting to immerse himself in a life of riches and plenty.
Yet now he had become the assassin once more. Not through necessity but through false pride.
It was not a pleasant thought.
Perhaps, he thought, when the ship comes in ten days' time, and I journey across the ocean, I will find a life that does not involve violence and death. A world without people, a vast land of soaring mountains and trickling streams. I could be content there, he decided.
Deep inside he could almost hear the mocking laughter.
You will always be Waylander the Slayer. It is your nature.
Ustarte the Priestess stood by the window. Far below her she could see the Grey Man sitting beside the waterfall. Even from here she could feel his shame. She turned from the window. Her three shaven-headed acolytes waited silently at the table. Their thoughts were troubled, their emotions strong. Prial was the most fearful, for he was the most imaginative. He was remembering the cage and the whips of fire. His heart was beating wildly.
The powerful, brooding Menias also felt fear, but it was leavened by frustration and anger. He hated the Masters with all of his being, and dreamt of the day he could Change and tear into them, ripping the flesh from their bones. He had not wanted to escape through the gateway. He had urged them all to remain and fight on.
Corvidal was the calmest of the three, but then he was the most content. All he desired was to be in the company of Ustarte. The priestess felt his love, and though she could not return it in the way he desired she still found great joy in it, for it had freed him from the hatred that still chained Menias. The simple fact that love could conquer hate gave Ustarte hope.
'Do we go?' asked the golden-eyed Prial.
'Not yet.'
'But we have failed,' said Menias, the shortest and heaviest of the three. 'We should go home, find others who have survived, and continue the fight.'