Tivi's Dagger Read online

  “So our pursuers are ahead of us,” Lana mused as we began to walk. “And yet while facing danger, Brindar has sold his armor. What a topsy-turvy world we live in!”

  Chapter 5

  The ruined city of Khar Tam was nothing like my imagination had painted it. I’d pictured mysterious black rock buildings smoothed away by time, carved walls and steps, a still-fine palace basking in beautiful decrepitude, perhaps shrouded by creepers that had made their homes in the cracks. Instead, we found ourselves standing at the meeting of the path and three sheer rock faces with no more room to walk more than twenty steps between them. The city — if that was what it had been — was little more than a set of lofty spires far above us. The rock had crumbled away from part of the ancient wall — almost indistinguishable from the mountain it was carved from — to reveal black holes which must once have been fine walls of rooms and passages not lived in for a long, long time. Through the thin layer of mist that hung eerily about the place I could just about make out the outline of a shattered tower. Arrow slits gaped darkly down at us like watchful eyes.

  Before us lay the black entrance to the caverns.

  Kel scratched his head, craning his neck to see what was left of the city. “Call me intellectually inferior if you dare, but I don’t see any way up there.”

  “The only way up is through the caverns below.” Kari nodded ahead.

  “Impregnable,” Kel muttered, apparently awe-struck.

  “I think it’s about time you stopped beating about the bush and told us what’s in there, Kari,” Lana said, fixing her daggers at her side. “You said there was some danger to Ned — I want to know everything.”

  Kari nodded. “I did not intend to beat about any bush, but nor did I wish to burden your minds with apprehension. When I passed through the caverns I saw nothing but the swords that hang from the roof and the spears that grow from the ground. It felt as if I was in the dark maw of some giant beast, but I was with my grandmother, who has seen the caverns more than once. It’s said that many ages ago a portal from the fae world was strong here, but over time the rip has begun to heal, much as skin grows over a wound. You must keep your heart calm, for it’s said that fae creatures can yet see through the skin, and will feast upon your fears and drive you to madness if they should detect your presence. That’s why passing through these caverns is a test for all who take the silver, for Matativi teaches us that true warriors must have peace in their hearts at all times. If that’s the case, you should feel little more than a prickle at the back of your neck as the fae gaze sweeps past you and into the darkness beyond.”

  “Seems a bit contradictory,” Kel said, scratching his chin. “From the little I’ve seen of warriors, they seem to roar and rage as easy as sup an ale.”

  Kari shrugged. “Rage serves only to blind. Methar’s warriors are accomplished and feared, it’s true, but we are relatively few in number, so we must choose our battles wisely with open eyes. For you, Ned…I fear I do not know how to defend against any fae possession, since I’ve never had cause to study it. You know your own magic; have you ever encountered such dangers before?”

  I confessed I had not, although my heart began to beat harder with apprehension now that I was finally staring into the darkness of the caverns. “My magic is weak and little used, Kari. Let’s hope it’s not enough for the fae creatures to desire.”

  We looked at the maw of the cavern, and at each other.

  “Well, we won’t get to Thar Mati by standing here,” Lana said. “Come, let’s tiptoe through the halls of the fae and hope our footsteps will be silent.”

  We entered cautiously, eyes wide. As our vision adjusted to the darkness I saw the spears and swords Kari had spoken of, long clusters of pale stone beside and high above us. There was a warmth around us that clung to my sweaty skin like unpleasant oil. The rock beneath our feet was slippery, yet the sounds made by our feet were somehow muffled. It was not cave dark, and as we left the mouth of the cavern behind I wondered where the light was coming from, an ethereal glow that bathed the walls in shadows. The surfaces of the rocks were like nothing I’d ever seen before. They looked like shelves of creamy waterfalls frozen in time, and on the ground there seemed to be tiny cities of coned dwellings. Everywhere my eye was caught by weathered figures, so human they had surely been carved by a man’s hand, yet when I got close they revealed themselves to be nothing more than lumpen pillars of rock. Kel was chewing his braid, obviously trying not to be spooked while Lana looked all around with an awe-struck expression. The light grew stronger, illuminating us from below and casting unflattering shadows across our faces.

  I took regular breaths and tried to empty my mind, squeezing Kari’s hand for comfort. It was almost as he’d described, like being in the maw of a giant stone beast. My brother forged ahead, leading the donkey, hands thrust in his pockets as if he was strolling through nothing more threatening than a field of sunflowers. The donkey seemed unperturbed by its creepy surroundings and walked beside my brother as docile as ever, twitching its tail as its burden jerked from side to side.

  Something moved in the shadows, and the hair rose at the back of my neck.

  Then I saw that it was the shadows themselves that were moving. The tiny cities I’d fancied seemed suddenly real. In that instance the cavern seemed to give a yawn as if the stone beast was waking up. I heard distant chattering as if there was a market nearby and I was hearing its sounds from inside a thick-walled dwelling. The air was stifling and stale, unbreathed for thousands of years. The whispering and scuttling continued and I began to tremble despite the sticky warmth.

  Then I saw them. Tiny, twisted people with claws for hands and pointed ears, scampering deep into the gaping doors in the frozen pouring of layered cream-colored rock that served as their home. “Don’t you see them?” I murmured, feeling my limbs begin to petrify just like the swords and spears around us. It felt as if a giant eye was opening in my mind, pushing me into a dark space behind from where I could only observe. Strangely, I felt no fear, but the sweat was thick on my back.

  The cavern was suddenly bright with yellow and orange light, and my skin felt oily to touch. I shivered, longing to wash the taint away but then I saw the little people again and they were no longer the gnarled, gray, scuttling things I’d initially noticed, but tiny, slender beings of light and shade, not scampering like rats but gliding gracefully over the stone while light poured from pinprick windows all over their city. Their voices were melodic and beautiful but it was like listening to an orchestra while one off-tune instrument plucked a deep, discordant tone.

  Kill the intruders.

  A cold hand clutched at my heart as I turned my head and laid eyes upon the most fearsome and horrifying creatures I’d ever seen. Four dark, lumpen figures with pinched mouths and black holes for eyes lurched toward me, arms outstretched much as those of the Night Walkers but much more terrifying. The stench of them was overpowering, and what was worse, no light reflected against their shapes. They were, I realized with terror, the absence of light. And they were surely intent on consuming me. They were uttering meaningless, evil-sounding words I could not understand; a dire incantation I had to stop before it was too late.

  Power surged through my being and I saw my hands bloom with radiant light. “You will die here,” I said, and my voice boomed around the dazzling caverns, my words echoed in deafening whispers from all the others who feared... The light flashed and knocked one of the creatures away, but they moved faster than I had imagined. I could not understand why they — and all those who had come before them — would not simply leave us alone. One of them emitted an unearthly shriek which chilled me to the bones; it was the triumphant call of a carrion bird circling a dying animal, but I knew if I dazzled them with all the light I could muster, that these dire shadows would be obliterated once and for all, just like all the others.

  The light seemed to move across the cavern floor, pooling at my feet, travelling up my body and wrapping around my lim
bs like a creeping plant. It was on my skin, in my blood, in my bones. I had never felt so alive. The power of it made my head spin. Just as I was ready to discharge another blast of light, a sharp pain hit me on the back of my head. I staggered for a moment, then my consciousness dropped down into the darkness like a stone down a bottomless well.

  Chapter 6

  When I finally came to, my head ached and my eyelids felt heavy and slack. A crack of sunlight burned toward my brain as the world came back into focus. It was not the ethereal light I remembered from inside the caverns but good, old-fashioned sunlight which warmed my skin and soothed my heart.

  I struggled up into a sitting position, then paused. Lana sat at my knees, white-faced and clutching a bloodied rock while my brother and Kari interrupted their prayers with excited exclamations. Caution tinged their expressions nonetheless.

  “Is it you, Nedim? Are you yourself once more?”

  I nodded slowly. “What happened? Did you kill the monsters?”

  “Monsters?” My brother wiped a tear from his eye. “There were no monsters, brother. It was us you attacked and would have sought to destroy, had Lana not had the wit to knock you senseless. May the Thirteen have mercy on me for my selfishness! Ah, brother! You scared me so.” He grabbed me into a brief but firm hug and I froze for a moment, surprised.

  Wiggling my toes, I stretched out my limbs. I felt strangely well, like a snake that had shed a too-tight skin. Like the creeping fingers of a nightmare passed, the memory of what had happened in the caverns was beginning to fade from my mind. It felt good to be myself again, and I rubbed the back of my head once more, feeling the blood caked in my hair around an egg-sized lump. There was a faint smell of something burnt, and I realized that Kel was busy changing his clothes behind a bush.

  “You blasted him with something,” Lana said, throwing the rock away. “But thankfully it was as you said; your magic is weak and you did little but singe his leathers.”

  I shivered suddenly. That was just a warning. But then that memory too folded in upon itself and I was left once more puzzled and empty, as if I was indeed just a vessel from which thoughts and experiences could be poured as well as added. It was a depressing thought. Still, I was cheered to see my cousin smile while his bare arse wiggled in the cooling breeze — thankfully, I had done little harm.

  I turned to my brother who regarded me still with reddened eyes and a sorrowful expression, and sought to reassure him. “Enough with this dreary visage, Brin. I believed that you would not allow me to be possessed, and you did not. You’re my brother. I trust you.”

  It seemed like the right thing to say, given the circumstances. I was beginning to harbor some hopes that my brother did not despise me as much as he often appeared to. Perhaps it would please him to see my obedience to the Rite and he would stop instructing me and talk to me as he once had. But my words seemed to upset him even more. He shook my shoulders with a half-sob, half-laugh.

  “Oh Nedim, ever oblivious to danger and trusting of the wrong people! If I was not so happy to see you yourself once more I would strangle you with my own hands!”

  Puzzled once more, I stared at him. “Why do you say such things when you’ve bound me to your every command? I had no choice but to pass through the caverns, as well you know.”

  But Brin was lost on some path of thought that had obviously been troubling him for some time, and was oblivious to reason. “The Rite? To instruct, Ned! I did not mean to cut out your tongue! Ah, my foolishness knows no bounds, but I didn’t have any choice! I warned you time and time again how much danger you were in back in Azmara, yet it brought you no fear nor spurred you to change! It was only when Father reminded me of the Rite that I saw the chance to get you out of that cursed tavern to safety, for Sardar Pol intends not only to shut the taverns but to burn them to the ground with the drunken sinners who frequent them still inside!”

  “The Duck and Swan?” Lana said, her eyes shining with sudden sorrow. “Surely Kaldar’s contacts will warn him as they have always done. Don’t you think so, Ned?”

  My brother was weeping openly now, a sight which distressed me more than anything. “Ah, Nedim!” he went on. “You asked me before what happened to me in Azmara…Do you know why my candidacy for leadership of the Protectors was refused, not once but three times? Because my family has ever been my weakness, and yet everything I’ve wrought was for your protection. Everything! Including this Rite I’ve invoked to bind you to me, for it was the only way to get you out of Azmara to safety. I told myself it was better that you hated me than suffer such a fate at the swords of Pol’s men. But your anger and resentment were so much easier to bear than your trust and forgiveness. I do not deserve either. I am nothing but a miserable failure as both a brother and a Protector, and this apostate’s brand is as good a label as I’ve ever had!”

  With that miserable proclamation, he hauled himself to his feet and limped off round the corner of the path.

  Lana watched him go and a tear rolled down her cheek. “Your poor brother, Ned. You must go to him, for I fear we have both misjudged him terribly. He may have saved us both from this terrible purge of Pol’s, may the Evil One consume him in the black flames of the Ashen Plane.”

  I slumped back to the ground with a groan as all the pieces of the puzzle slotted into place inside my aching head. Everything made a ghastly sense at last. I cast my mind back to the fateful evening my brother had invoked the Rite. A gilt-edged party invitation had just been delivered to our mansion by a courier dressed in black and swathed in a purple cloak bearing the insignia of our favorite tavern. There was to be wine and a buffet, accompanied by a band of travelling musicians. Kaldar’s buffets were the stuff of legends. Magnificent spreads of stuffed game and bowls of lightly spiced vegetables, platters of aged cheeses wrapped in thin bread with plump grapes and olives, and bowls of fragrant jasmine rice beside silver tureens of curried meats. It was ever my opinion that the Protectors should have approved of such feasts, as they helped to control our baser natures by ensuring that everyone was often too bloated and sleepy to engage in carnal activities afterwards.

  “More gorging and fornication, Ned? By the Gods, you shall not go to that party, nor any other.” Brin, who had been in the foulest of moods since his excommunication, had snatched the invitation from my hands and ripped it into tiny pieces. Then he went on to tell me that all my social engagements were to be cancelled for the foreseeable future, while our father nodded in support of his every word. Finally, Brin invoked the Rite while our father confirmed the threat of disinheritance it entailed, before the old bastard fell asleep in his armchair beside the fire, mouth agape and lips dabbled red with wine. I stared at them both in mutinous fury but I could do nothing about this appalling turn of events, and the horror of disinheritance reined in my tongue until the taste of my acquiescence was bitter in my throat.

  Later that evening Lana had called upon us, wondering why I had not shown up to meet her. I had little time to tell her, for my brother had forced me to start filling a pack, so I was obliged to send my best friend away. Brin had dragged me from my bed before the sun had come up to beg forgiveness for my wicked actions at the family shrine until my knees ached, and by lunchtime the following day we were on our way out of Azmara with our cousin in tow.

  It had all happened so quickly.

  Lana had been waiting for us beside the gate to the Nobles’ Quarter, packed and ready with her daggers swinging by her side and her mouth and cheeks smeared with grease from a final rat kebab. I’d never been so grateful to see a friend in all my life. If Brin hadn’t been in such a hurry I would have fallen to my knees and kissed her boots. He had been less than pleased about her appearance, but could not prevent her from accompanying us, as his clumsy attempts to dissuade her were met by naught but cheery rebuffs.

  Everything I’ve done has been for your protection.

  How had my brother and I grown so far apart?

  Brin was sitting on a rock not far round
the corner, head in his hands. All my life he had been my polar opposite — strong, devout, and selfless. It was a dreadful sight to see him so wretched. When he heard my footfalls he looked up with a sorry frown, and I felt a sudden rush of affection for him. I stood in front of him and put my hands on his shoulders. “Look at me, brother. I’m truly sorry for all I’ve done, all the trouble I’ve caused for you.”

  “Ah, Ned.” He let out a sorrowful sigh. “Do not apologize. If I’m honest, this pilgrimage has been more for my benefit than yours. Do not think you’re the only reason we’re here. I owe you so many apologies. It was wrong of me to take out all my anger on you before, and I’m sorry for it.”

  I smiled wryly. “Do not pretend you didn’t enjoy whipping me, Brin.”

  His stared at his knees for a moment, then his lips twitched. “Well, perhaps I did. I don’t think there’s a living soul in this world who can infuriate me as you do. You’ve been a thorn in my side most of my life, but when all’s said and done you are still my little brother. It has ever been my duty — and my privilege — to protect you.”

  I sat down beside him, wriggling to get comfortable on the jutting edges of the rock.

  He went on, seemingly glad to unburden himself at last. “When I became a Protector, our mandate was simply to guide. We kept order in the streets and the worship of the Evil One in check. There’s a reason the Gods keep him in a cage, alive yet contained — for he lives in all of us. Like all of the Thirteen, the Evil One must be appeased through worship and ritual, lest he break the cage and consume the world with his fury for balance must be maintained. That was ever my belief, and Sal’s too. But Pol has taken it too far. He believes that our mandate should be to rid Lis of the Evil One’s influence entirely and to wipe out those who burn the black candles. To prevent, not to protect. Initially I had no mind to contest his bid for leadership, as I’d already failed twice long before, but I was persuaded by Pol’s lackeys — men I thought I could trust — to put forward my opposition at the last minute. And then Pol was victorious, his mandate became Divine Law, and the rest…the rest was as you already know.”