Текст книги "The Raven Collection"

Автор книги: James Barclay

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Текущая страница: 205 (всего у книги 235 страниц)

Chapter 2

But it was a shifting grey and an indistinct horizon this time. Not like any other time. Yet the same. The abject helplessness still ripped at his soul and the cries for aid speared his head like needles driven into his brain. And the hands reached for him and the faces were of those he loved drawn into pictures of torment. Their desperation bit deep inside him.

He reached out for them as he always did, to help as he always had done and always would. Though when he did he could not reach them. A barrier he could neither see nor sense kept him from them, kept their fingers from locking together. And the more he strained and grasped, the further they were from him. He shouted for them to come back but the smoke engulfed them once more.

Sol was bolt upright in bed. The sweat was slick on his face, on his shaven head and across the powerful chest on which grey hairs had begun to dominate. He knew his eyes were wide, sucking at the half-light, desperate to see. He tried to drag in his breath quietly. Failed.

‘Sol?’

Sol looked down at the shape next to him in the bed. Earlier that afternoon, they had been as close as he had remembered for a very long time. Like a memory of a decade past. Now, the veil of disappointment had risen once more. One word was all she had said. And it carried so much frustration.

‘I’m sorry, Diera.’

‘Same dream, huh?’

‘What would you have me say?’ he asked.

‘That you believe it is a dream. It’s all I ever want you to say.’ Diera whispered the words.

Sol reached out a hand to her, touched her bare shoulder where the sheet had fallen from her soft skin.

‘I won’t lie to you,’ he said.

Diera shrugged off his hand, threw the covers aside and stood up, her back to him. He watched her take in a deep, relaxing breath before she reached for her shirt and skirt. There was nothing more to be said. There never was. But he couldn’t let her leave the bedroom like this. It was a mistake too often repeated.

‘I’ve tried to tell you how real the vision is. How intricate the detail is that I have seen and, Gods drowning, I have seen it so many times. How can it be a dream?’

‘How can it be anything else?’

She wouldn’t face him.

‘It’s a message.’

Now she did and on her face, still beautiful and framed in fair hair streaked with grey, was the contempt that had become depressingly familiar.

‘And one day you’ll be able to tell me what it says, right? And when will that be? Right now? Tomorrow?’ She picked up a shoe and threw it at him. ‘Never?’

Sol caught the shoe and dropped it onto the bed. He pushed back his covers and stood. They stared at each other for a time from opposite sides of the mattress. Diera snatched her shoe back off the bed and rammed a foot into it.

‘The visions have been more vivid of late,’ he said into the void. ‘But I still don’t understand it all.’

‘Don’t say it,’ said Diera, expression a warning, the bed an inadequate barricade. ‘Just don’t.’

‘They’re in trouble. I cannot ignore it.’

‘Trouble? How can they be in trouble?’ Diera jumped onto the bed. She raised her fists to beat him but he snared them easily enough. ‘They’re all dead, Sol! Dead. Their troubles are over.’

Sol caught her gaze and held it. He could see the pain within her. The desperation for him to be other than he was. As for the love, that was fading. He let go her fists and her arms dropped to her sides.

‘Death is no guarantee of peace,’ he whispered. ‘The demons taught us that.’

Diera sobbed. Her face crumpled and she held the sides of his head in the palms of her hands.

‘But the demons are gone,’ she said. ‘You of all people know that. The threat is finished. It’s over.’

‘I want nothing more than to believe that is true,’ said Sol. ‘But I don’t.’

Diera slumped to the bed and buried her head in her hands. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

‘Doing what?’

‘Five years, Sol. Five years of this and you’ve been getting worse and worse. The Raven is gone a decade past. We are your life now, me and the boys.’ She raised her face to him and the tears spilling from her eyes drew some to his own. ‘Please, Sol, this obsession is killing us. Let the dead be. Come back to me. I need you. We all need you.’

‘And I am here,’ he said. ‘But I must find out what is happening. I cannot rest until I am sure they are at peace.’

‘How can you ever know? They’re dead!’ Diera shouted the word into his face, levered herself from the bed and strode towards the door.

‘There—’

‘I won’t hear this any more, Sol. I won’t.’ Diera smoothed her skirt and faced him, forcing herself to relax. ‘I can’t deal with it. When you were hunting the demons I understood. Because I wanted a future free of those things for our boys just as you did. But this? This is chasing shadows. It will always be unfinished and I am sorry for that. But you have to accept it. Open your eyes to what is in front of you now, don’t keep them on the distant past.’

Sol sat on the bed and massaged his hip. It was beginning to ache. The spell was wearing off again.

‘It doesn’t feel distant. Not to me.’ He looked up at Diera. She was studying him but wouldn’t meet his gaze. ‘I stood in that doorway and watched Hirad die. I could have done something. I could have saved him.’

‘And that’s what all this is about, isn’t it?’

‘What?’

‘Redemption for you, for your imagined failings.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ll never understand why you torture yourself. None of the other survivors are. They know what they did and they know what you did. You’re the living embodiment of a hero, Sol. Why can’t you see that?’

‘Because heroism didn’t save Hirad or Erienne, or Ark or Thraun, did it?’

‘No, but it saved Balaia and me and Jonas and young Hirad. Those of The Raven died doing what they always did. Be proud, not desolate.’

‘I am proud. And that’s why I have to know if there’s trouble.’

Diera shook her head. ‘You hear but you do not listen. And you are blind to what you are doing to me and the boys.’

‘No, I’m not,’ said Sol, moving around the bed towards her. ‘It is as much to protect you as it is to help my friends if I can.’

Diera gave a short laugh. ‘Don’t try and justify your obsessions using us, Sol. At least be honest with yourself even if you can’t be anything else. I’m asking you one last time. Think, really think about this. Then come down and join your family or don’t come down at all.’

There was a hammering on the door downstairs. Diera cracked.

‘Can they not give us a moment’s peace?’ she shrieked. ‘We’re not open for three hours!’

Sol was in front of her in a moment, taking her by the shoulders and sitting her back down on the bed.

‘I’ll go,’ he said quietly.

He pulled on his clothes and left the bedroom without saying more though his mind was drenched with words. His heart was beating hard and he was aware of a growing confusion. Sol shivered and tied his shirt tight at the neck. On the stairs, pain flared in his leg, an old memory resurfacing. The docks at Arlen. The sweep of a sword. Hirad saving his life. Again. The imagery was so intense it was within a ghost of being real. Sol leaned against the wall and descended more slowly, letting his shoulder slide along the age-smoothed dark timbers.

The hammering on the door was repeated.

‘Patience!’ roared Sol. ‘I’m coming. The Gods save me from the curse of the impatient drunk.’

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, Sol could feel the heat from the ovens in the kitchens to his right. A clatter of pans told him at least one of the staff was already in. Evenings at The Raven’s Rest were always busy. It helped that so many of the city’s influential people were regular customers but Sol liked to think that both the food and the wine cellar were worthy of those he served.

Ahead of Sol, a short passage led out to a fenced yard where he could hear at least one of his sons, Jonas probably, playing a loud game with friends. And to his left, his pride and joy, if he could be said to experience joy these days. His bar. No. Their bar. A place of laughter, memory and reminiscence. The place where he always retreated when he tired of the attentions of state. When he was allowed to.

The place where The Raven would live forever.

But now, walking towards the heavy, bound oak door that let out on to the street, he wondered if this shrine to his past really was poisoning his mind. Diera thought so. Sol walked slowly past the portraits of his friends a decade and more dead. He didn’t feel the barbs of grief as he had done in the early days but he didn’t think he’d ever shake the regret that he would never stand with them again.

Sol could hear Diera’s voice in his head, telling him to move on. Celebrate their triumphs, learn to smile.

He couldn’t. He never had been able to, and now his head was full of disaster like it hadn’t been in five years, ever since he stopped hunting demons. Sol let his gaze trail over the portraits of Erienne, beautiful of face but sad of mind; Thraun, forever troubled but so loyal; and Ilkar, sharp-featured and acerbic, before pausing as he so often did at Hirad.

The barbarian’s scarred face was packed full of belief and raw power and it sported that damned smile with which he had died.

‘So, old friend, what is it? I’m either right or I’m losing my mind. No in between, as you’d have said. Trouble is, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to begin. Any ideas?’

It was a moment before Sol became aware that he was actually waiting for a response.

‘Talking to a picture.’ Sol shook his head. ‘I think we have an answer, don’t we?’

Another bout of hammering on the door, and this time Sol was relieved to hear it and let it distract him from himself.

‘All right, all right. I’m here.’

He strode to the door, drew back the top and centre bolts, kicked up the bottom one and turned the key in the lock. The levers moved back with a satisfying, heavy sound. He pulled the door open, stepping back as he did so. You can never be too careful.

The man who stared at him with an expression bordering on elation was young and smartly dressed very much in the style of a merchant. There was blood all over his left shoulder and chest. Sol frowned. He looked at the wound and wondered how the man was still standing.

‘Unknown, is it really you? Did I really find you?’

Sol flinched at the sound of his old name. The man made to move forward, his arms reaching out.

‘No one calls me that,’ said Sol, his voice gruff. ‘Not any more.’

‘Shame,’ said the man, raising his eyebrows. ‘I always thought it rather suited you. It was one of Ilkar’s better nicknames.’

Sol’s skin prickled and his head cleared. He stepped forward and jabbed the man in the chest.

‘You are treading a very fine line with the memories of my friends.’

‘Don’t you recognise me, big man?’

‘Clearly not,’ said Sol. ‘And be assured that if you make one more familiar remark, I will deck you.’

‘The body is unfamiliar but the soul and the shadow are mine, Unknown. And you have to help me. You have to help all of us.’

Sol felt cold. He straightened. The man’s eyes held a desperate sadness, and he was frightened. Not of Sol but of something far, far more deeply embedded in his mind. There was something about him Sol couldn’t grasp, something recognisable. But he’d been begged for help by passing acquaintances before. Everyone knew Sol’s face and reputation.

‘Who are you?’

The man smiled and a spark lit his eyes just for a heartbeat. He spread his arms.

‘It’s me. It’s Hirad.’

Sol decked him.

‘Bloody hell.’ The merchant put a hand to his left eye. It was already beginning to swell. ‘Didn’t lose your strength when you got the wrinkles, did you?’

Sol paused for a moment and glanced up and down the street. The Thread was busy as always. Heads were turning and no doubt jaws already exercising opinions laced with ignorance. There were always stories to be invented about the first and reluctant king of Balaia. Sol stooped and grabbed the merchant by his lapels. He pulled the man upright and threw him inside the bar, where he slithered to his knees. Sol walked in and kicked the door shut behind him.

The merchant displayed no fear when Sol loomed above him.

‘I’ll give you one more chance. An abject apology just might save you from a few more broken bones.’

‘You need to believe me, Unknown. Balaia’s in trouble. The whole dimension and loads of other things only Ilkar understands.’

‘Right, that’s it.’

Sol grabbed the merchant by his wounded arm and dragged him to his feet. He clamped a hand around the back of the man’s neck and marched him to the picture of Hirad.

‘Take a good close look, you little bastard. This is Hirad Coldheart. This is the heartbeat of The Raven. A man I loved and a man I miss every single day. You will not pass yourself off as one of Balaia’s great heroes. Do I make myself clear?’

The merchant nodded. ‘You do. And it’s a good likeness though I remember my teeth being straighter than that.’

‘Fucking weasel.’

Sol hurled the merchant across his bar. The man knocked aside two chairs, sprawled across a table and collided with the back shelf, upsetting a candelabra and smashing the glass in two lanterns. He scrabbled for purchase. Sol could see his eyes. There was fear of him in them now. Too late.

Sol’s cudgel for the control of the unruly was hanging in its brackets on a cross beam just above his head. He fetched it down and advanced.

‘Why didn’t you listen to me?’ The cudgel’s face slapped against his open left palm. ‘No one plays with the memory of The Raven. Certainly not some puffed-up pretty boy like you. I’m going to make sure that cut on your shoulder is the least of your concerns.’

The merchant pushed himself to his feet and backed away. There was nothing behind him but the corner of the alcove into which he had been thrown. He felt the wall behind him and held out both hands.

‘Unknown, please. You have to believe me. I’m not taking the piss. Please.’

‘No one calls me that and walks out of here. Not any more.’

Sol pushed a chair aside and dragged the table from in front of the merchant. The back of his neck was hot. The cudgel felt good in his fist. It had been a long time since anyone had tried it on with him. It seemed that not quite everyone had got the message.

‘I love that you are the protector of our memories. But we’re in trouble. You have to listen. I know you’ve been having dreams. Ilkar’s been—’

‘It’s about respect,’ said Sol. ‘And the young never seem to show any these days. I try and be reasonable but some of you just don’t do reason, do you? So be it.’

Sol stepped into range and cocked the cudgel for a blow to the legs. The merchant tried to protect himself with his hands.

‘Unknown, no! I can show you where you died. Where your body still lies. Please.’

It was an arrow to the heart of him. Sol froze and swallowed hard. The cudgel dropped from his hand. The fury drained from him and the strength left his legs. He sagged to his knees, supporting himself with a hand on the table top. His fingers rested on last night’s candle wax.

‘No one knows about that,’ he said, his voice a whisper, blood pounding in his head. ‘How can you know about that?’

‘Because I am Hirad, Unknown. I know how I look. The body is different but the soul is the same. And we need you. The Raven dead need you. You are our beacon. The rally flag on the battlefield. And we have to make a stand or we are all lost. The living and the dead.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Sol stared at the merchant, looking for the lie in his eyes. ‘A soul cannot return. You cannot be here.’

‘Think I want to be? It hurts, Unknown. Badly. Ilkar will be here soon enough, I’m sure. He’ll make you understand.’

Sol put his head in his hands. ‘This can’t be happening. Not really. I have . . . dreams.’

‘Told you.’

Sol snapped his head up. So like him, those words. So typical. The merchant was standing over him, offering a helping hand.

‘If you promise to hear me not hit me, I’ll help you up. We could have a glass of wine. Does Blackthorne still do that red of his? I wonder if I can taste it?’

The merchant wore a crooked smile. Sol glanced over at the picture of Hirad and shuddered. He allowed himself to be helped to his feet.

‘I have truly lost my mind.’ Sol gestured to a chair. ‘Pick it up and sit on it. I’ll get us a drink. While my back is turned, you have the option to leave. If I come back and find out you’re lying, I will kill you where you sit.’

‘I have missed your administrative guidance,’ said the merchant.

Sol jabbed a finger into his chest again. ‘Don’t push your luck.’

He blew out his cheeks and wiped a hand across his head on the way back to the bar. There were footsteps on the stairs. Diera appeared and treated him to a scowl as she tied on her apron. She looked beyond him into the inn.

‘Been rearranging the furniture, have you? Can’t say I like the upturned chair and broken glass look. What the hell has been going on? And who is that? We aren’t open yet.’

Sol stared at her for a moment, considering the lie that would best placate her. He dismissed every option. He plucked two pewter goblets from the bar top and wrapped his little finger around the neck of a stoppered bottle of wine. Half empty and not the good stuff.

‘He says he’s Hirad Coldheart, back from the dead.’

‘And you believe him?’ she asked. Sol said nothing. ‘My darling husband, where have you gone?’

Diera cupped her hands around his face. A single tear fell from her left eye. She sucked her lip, turned and walked out of the back door and into the yard, where the children still played.

Chapter 3

‘I take it the good Lady Unknown doesn’t believe me?’

Sol said nothing while he poured them each a goblet of wine. He sniffed his to make sure it was still drinkable and took a hearty sip. The Gresse red had a mellow flavour and a strong aftertaste.

‘Good with stew,’ he said.

‘I’ll remember that next time I’m cooking.’

Sol stared at the man. Young and proud-looking. Shoulder-length brown hair tied in a ponytail. Sharp green eyes stared back above a crooked nose and a mouth in which the teeth were starting to discolour. The wound in his left shoulder was deep. Deep enough to be fatal. Sol could see torn flesh and bone showing through the ripped clothing. He should have been pumping blood onto the inn floor. Sol was thankful for the mercy.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘I’ll repeat it until you believe me, you know,’ said the merchant, eyes twinkling briefly. ‘You do believe me really, don’t you?’

‘Let’s just say I’ll listen to you. Give you a chance this side of doubt. But believe? What’s to believe?’

The merchant took a sip of wine and a look of almost beatific pleasure crossed his face. ‘Now that was almost worth coming back for.’

‘Almost?’

‘Another time, Unknown. But for now accept that returning from the dead isn’t all it might be.’

‘If you say so.’

Sol cursed himself, feeling drawn in already and wanting more. He wanted it to be true, that much he would readily admit.

‘Look, think about this logically.’

Sol laughed. ‘Logically? Now that is something very much in the Hirad mould. The ability to choose absolutely the wrong word at will. You appear at my door, sporting a wound that should have put you on the slab, and claim to be my friend returned from ten years dead. Logic? Please.’

‘All right not logic then, just what is in front of your eyes. Rely on what you know.’

‘I know Hirad Coldheart is dead. I am still counting the days, wishing it wasn’t true.’

‘And you also know that this wound has carved through my left collarbone and has torn nerve, sinew and artery. It’s a killing blow and you’ve seen enough to know one, right?’

‘Which means I’m looking at a fake of some sort. Because dead men cannot walk.’

‘Put your finger in, then. Give it a wiggle.’

The merchant demonstrated. Sol winced.

‘Isn’t that painful?’

‘It’s fucking agony.’

‘Well, stop it, then.’

‘Do you want a go?’

Sol stared at the merchant yet again. Memories thronged his mind and dragged to the fore emotions long-buried. Thousands of words that should have been said. Wrong body, wrong voice. An impossible return. And yet there in the cock of his head and the manner of his speech. So much familiarity.

‘It cannot be you,’ he said. ‘How can it be you?’

‘I take it you’ve had your fair share of fakes?’

‘You could say that,’ said Sol.

‘What people will do for a free drink, eh?’

‘They’re just the sad cases.’ Sol rubbed his nose. ‘It’s the ones that trade on my memories for profit. They make me angry.’

The merchant reached out and patted Sol’s hand.

‘Well you hide it very well.’

Sol burst out laughing. He refilled both their goblets. ‘Remember you’re still on probation here. Though I must admit, I’ve never seen anyone as convincing thus far.’

‘You’re telling me you’ve had others come to you like this?’

Sol nodded. ‘People claiming they were possessed by the spirits of one or other of The Raven fallen.’

The merchant straightened his shoulders, grimacing at the pain. ‘Recently?’ he asked.

‘Last four or so years . . . until I introduced the cudgel.’ Sol frowned. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Anything very recent might not have been a fake.’

‘You mean I might have beaten the backside out of Ilkar or something?’

‘Ilkar’s rather confused living host, to be precise. We were trying a number of ways to get hold of you.’

‘A number?’

‘Two.’

Sol sighed. ‘If you are Hirad, I have to tell you your jokes have not improved.’

‘It’s important, Unknown.’

‘All right. But you’d better surprise me or it’s the cudgel and a trip face down along the river.’

‘Ilkar is much better at this stuff. Basically, we’ve been trying to get to you through your dreams but although if we got together we could sense you, all we could do was the equivalent of wave at you in the fog. You were always so close but just out of reach. And then, when the walls of the dimension started to fall, we started to try sending ourselves out and getting hold of bodies to speak for us. They were always of the living and I guess you just found possessed people annoying. But I thought I might as well give this a try. Y’know, finding someone freshly dead and using them. Didn’t have to wait too long in the north alleys to find a host.’ The merchant paused. ‘Are you getting this so far?’

‘What? Sorry. Just trying to work out how it is you could describe my vision to me.’

‘Because we sent it.’

‘Who?’

‘The Raven’s dead.’ The merchant stared into Sol’s eyes. Desperation and bottomless pain flooded out. ‘We need you, Unknown. They are come and we cannot stop them.’

Sol bit back on the threat of tears.

‘I’m losing my mind,’ he whispered.

‘No you’re not, Unknown. This is real.’

Sol’s vision was blurred. He wiped a hand across his eyes. He couldn’t stop himself. With Diera, it was too fraught. With this stranger, as natural as sunlight.

‘Don’t you know how much I want that to be true? Every day I walk past those paintings and I crave the company of the men and women I see. I want it so much I see movement within the frames. I crave our bond and to live by our code once more. The pride of standing in line with them. The sheer energy of our battle. The closeness that comes with facing death together day by day and living till morning yet again. The knowledge that any of them would die for me and that I would do the same for them. Things I can only embrace now when I sleep.

‘I want to tell them so much. About my joy that I can see my sons grow up; that I awake each morning and see my wife. That I am living everything I dreamed of but that it is just a puff of smoke rising from the embers of the life I had, and to which I can never return. That on some days, too many days, I wish I too had fallen that day. A hero to live on in the memory, not growing fat behind a bar and dreaming of glories past.’

The merchant was silent. He drained his glass. Sol did likewise and refilled them both. He cleared his throat and stood up, needing to fill his hands with something, anything. The Raven’s Rest felt a little gloomy. Apt in one sense but no good for the custom Sol expected through the door later. King or not, he still had an inn to run.

The fire needed laying but that would wait. He lifted a lantern from its alcove and retrieved flint and steel from his pocket. He was aware of the merchant’s gaze on his back.

‘Don’t repeat any of that,’ said Sol.

‘You’ll be able to tell them all personally before long. And you’ll wish you couldn’t.’

‘Why would I wish that?’

Sol struck sparks onto the oiled taper which sputtered to yellow life.

‘Because with the best will in the world, Unknown, we are not happy to see you. Not here, not in this dimension. We’re dead, big man, and we want to stay that way. But we’ve been attacked. Our dimension has been plundered and we are cast out. It hurts and it is lonely.’

‘And you want my help to get you back where you belong, is that it?’

‘If only it was that simple.’

The Unknown chuckled. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. If you’re telling the truth, that is. It’s just that—’

‘Nothing’s ever that simple with The Raven.’

Sol nodded, feeling the warmth of familiarity return. It felt like grasping an elusive childhood memory. He put the taper to the lantern wick, trimmed the wick to stop the flare of flame and replaced the glass before returning the lantern to its alcove. The light cast garish shadows in the dim room.

‘Looks like I’ll have to light the whole lot n—’

The taper dropped from Sol’s fingers. The merchant was casting a shadow on the opposite wall. It spoke of a powerful upper body, long hair tied into waving braids and a thick fist wrapped around the goblet. It was utterly at odds with the man sat at the table and Sol knew the silhouette so well.

‘Gods burning, Hirad, it is you.’

Sol’s heart slammed in his chest and he shuddered throughout his body. His face felt hot and for a moment he thought he might faint. He strode to the table and stopped only when Hirad held up a hand.

‘Best not hug me, big man. This shoulder’s really starting to sting.’

‘Then we’ll bring Denser down to fix it. I’ll send one of the boys. How could you possibly find me? How did you know I was here? How will the others get here?’

Sol felt giddy, light-headed like after his first sword fight. A mixture of excitement and fear but this time overlaid with an odd sense of detachment.

‘This can’t be real,’ he muttered.

‘I wish it wasn’t,’ said Hirad. ‘Look, I can’t answer everything. Ilkar understands it so much better. And Erienne too. It’s to do with the familiarity of our souls. Almost like they are linked in some way. It meant we could all find each other when the attack started.’

Sol’s elation dissipated. He sat back down and looked at Hirad in the merchant’s body. He was quite still and in his eyes was an aching sadness.

‘What happened?’ asked Sol.

‘How do I explain to the living how it feels to be thrust from rest?’

‘Is that what it feels like when you’re dead? Rest? What does it look like?’

‘There aren’t the words, Unknown. Or I certainly don’t have them. There is no time; there are none of the things you associate with life. I don’t know if there is colour but I do know there aren’t trees, cities, any of that stuff. People assume that a glorious death will be like the sunniest day they can remember. It’s nothing like that. Maybe Ilkar can describe it to you. I can’t. But I do know it is peaceful and it is comfort and it is happiness. Or it was.

‘We cannot fight and we cannot defend ourselves.’ Hirad allowed himself a small smile. Sol was struck by how characteristic it was of him despite the merchant’s face. Hirad continued. ‘And that hurts almost as much as being here now. All those dead around you, you can sense them, you see? And you can taste their fear and feel their despair. They had nowhere to run. Most of them. Nowhere to go.’

Hirad’s expression had become vacant and the body of the merchant wobbled before steadying. A hand gripped the table. The other put the wine goblet to his mouth.

‘Fear makes you call out for those you love, Unknown. To be saved and be saviour. That’s how we found each other again. And when the skin of the dimension was finally torn, we could sense you too. And Denser. You represent the end of a path and we found we could travel it, though it is like clinging to a rope in a hurricane. We dare not let go. Souls cast into the void will never be found and will roam without rest.

‘None should suffer that. Not even the most evil of men.’

‘But they are suffering it, aren’t they, Hirad?’

A tear fell from Hirad’s eye and ran down his pale cheek to drip onto the table top.

‘Thousands of years and countless souls. No wonder the demons tried so hard to open the door to the dead. So many are already lost to the void and immeasurably more will follow. Any who cannot find a path back to the land where they once lived will become victims.’ Hirad looked up and he was pressing his jaws together to hold back a sob or worse. ‘You can hear them scream when they are torn away. Each one like a piece of skin ripped from your living body.’

Sol heard someone coming through the back gate and it reminded him he needed Jonas or young Hirad to go and ask for Denser up at the Mount of Xetesk. Just a short and familiar walk.

‘What can be done?’ asked Sol. ‘Who is this enemy? Why do they attack you?’

‘I have no answers,’ said Hirad. ‘We cannot see or feel them. All we know is that they are tearing our resting places apart and that they are following the fleeing dead too. We have to find a way to stop them. Should they wish to plunder Balaia too, we could all be lost.’

‘But you have no reason to think that they will.’

‘And also none to think they will not.’

‘What do they want?’ Sol’s delight at Hirad’s return had given way to a chill anxiety.

‘I don’t know, Unknown; I’m dead. We don’t spend our time gazing out at the living and being happy for your continued life, you know. Can you imagine how frustrating that would be?’

‘We need Denser,’ said Sol.

‘Then it is fortunate that Denser is here already.’

Sol turned. Denser was walking around the bar, Diera following him. She was wringing her hands and had obviously been crying. He looked much as ever: frowning, severe and with the cares of the world on his shoulders.