Fyn pointed at the hallway behind him. ‘There’s a door around the corner. A nice one. This fellow was coming out just as I turned the angle.’ He coiled up his garrotte as he spoke. ‘I checked the rest of the floor. There’s a locked door, a stairwell on the opposite side of the hallway, and no one here, so I doubt anyone will miss him.’ Fyn retied the garrotte to his belt with a quick-release loop, wiped his hands, and cracked his knuckles. ‘What’s next?’
It’s up to me, Annev realised, and tried to sound more confident than he felt. He nodded at the body. ‘Kenton, put him on the balcony and resecure the door. Fyn, go back to the stairwell and keep an eye out for more guards. I’ll check the study door, pick the locks, and disarm any traps. We’ll all enter together.’
Fyn smiled and nodded, the adrenaline from his encounter apparently having put him in a good mood. He slid out a pair of throwing knives and trotted down the hallway.
Kenton hoisted the dead man’s body onto his shoulders. ‘Just like the Test of Judgement,’ he muttered, heading towards the open window, ‘except this time people are dying.’
Annev watched him go, his heart heavy. People died during the Tests of Judgement, too, he thought, remembering Samrel and the scissor-field. Instead of justifying Fyn’s actions, though, he padded down the hallway to the stout grey door Fyn had mentioned.
Ironwood, he thought, recognising the colour and pattern of the grain. Sodar had shown him a piece of it once. He had said it was the toughest wood in the world, as hard as its namesake and not nearly so brittle. According to the priest, it was also quite rare: it only grew in Alltara – past the Darite Empire, on the opposite side of Eastern Daroea – and a clan of trolls was rumoured to inhabit the ironwood forest. The door must have cost Janak a small fortune.
Annev pulled his lock-picking tools out of his crimson glove and knelt to examine the keyhole. Despite the strength of the door, the lock was only moderately difficult to pick – a single-acting lever tumbler instead of the more challenging double-action or the frighteningly difficult triple-action. By the time Annev had unlocked it, Kenton was back from his grisly errand. He went to get Fyn and the pair of them returned as Annev finished checking for traps. He stood, nodded to his companions, and eased the door open. Fyn took point once again, creeping into the study; Kenton came next and Annev followed, locking the door behind them.
The spacious room took up almost the entire storey, with beautiful wood panelling decorating most of the walls and rich carpets covering the floor. Eight perfectly smooth pairs of columns had been spaced through the chamber, supporting the high ceiling and the floors above. Annev noted that three smokeless oil lamps also hung from each of the columns, about seven feet off the ground. Only the lamps at the other end of the room were lit, shedding light and casting shadows.
All around the room’s perimeter, positioned precisely between the columns and the study walls, was a remarkable collection of art: elegant sculptures rested on pedestals, easels displayed colourful paintings, and strange-looking instruments, articles and tools hung from pegs, including a carved wooden gourd, a pair of iron shackles chained to a collar and a tiny silver harp. Annev stepped close to this last one, extended his open palm just above the strings, and sensed a faint aura of magic emanating from the artifact. He did the same as he passed the gourd, expecting he’d feel something similar to what he felt when holding the carved phoenix lantern, but instead he felt nothing.
Not magical then. Interesting …
A similarly rich collection of furniture stood between the columns, positioned to enjoy the art on display: a divan and chaise longue faced a painting of an old woman holding flowers; a circle of armchairs surrounded a sculpture of a woman riding a dragon, her hair aflame; and a delicate ivory bench was positioned opposite a scaly suit of gleaming bronze armour. One gauntlet clutched a tall boar spear, while the suit itself stood at attention with the visor of its wedge-shaped helmet down.
At the far end of the room, past the display pieces, stood an ornate desk that was itself a work of art. A figure in a high-collared, gold-embroidered jacket sat behind that desk. The man’s back was to the door, the light from the oil lamps gleaming off his bald head. The three avatars spotted him in the same instant, fanned out, and crept closer to the halfway point of the long room. As Annev approached, he saw that the man’s chair had two large metal wheels attached to its sides. A pair of gold-flecked blue stones had been set at the hub of each wheel, and a glyph was carved into the centre of the stones. Annev drew even closer and realised that the wheels were, in fact, a pair of reinforced shields ingeniously attached to the man’s chair.
The three avatars slid from the shadows, entering the light that bathed the far half of the room. Annev soundlessly pulled his axe from his belt and slid Mercy from its sheath, his consciousness seeping into the blade until he felt the thrill of magic pulsing in his hand. Kenton glanced at him sharply and Annev toned it down, worried the magically sensitive boy might have somehow felt the blade’s enchantment.
Kenton’s eyes slid away from Annev and returned to their common target. He stalked the perimeter of the room with Fyn mirroring him on the opposite side, both boys staying just inside the shadows. Kenton had drawn his long, curved tachi and held it protectively in front of him. Curiously, Fyn’s hands remained empty, though his muscles were taut as he approached from the right.
‘The Oracle said there would be four.’
Annev went stone-still between the fifth and sixth set of pillars while Kenton and Fyn shrank into the shadows at either side of the room. Oracle? Annev thought, surprised by the man’s words. He can’t mean the Oracle. Sodar said Bron Gloir has it …
There was no time to ponder it, as the man grasped the shields at his sides and spun them, propelling his chair forward around the desk. He stopped at the edge of the writing table, facing the three avatars. In that moment, Annev took in his crippled body, his form no longer hidden behind the large wooden desk. The stranger was in his mid-fifties, sharp-eyed and well-dressed, and his open jacket revealed thick arms and a heavily muscled chest. Had it not been for the atrophied legs beneath the blanket on his lap, Annev would have described him as healthy, strong and alert. He realised he’d been throttling his axe and forced himself to relax his grip.
The man in the chair wiped a meaty hand over the dome of his sun-browned head, studying the avatars, then stroked the handles of his heavy grey moustache. His other hand rested on a small incense lamp tucked into the folds of his black-and-gold blanket.
‘Four horsemen, it said, each with a bird on their shoulder.’ The man’s voice was strong and resonant as his gaze moved between Kenton, Annev and Fyn, sizing each up in turn. He counted off on his fingers. ‘A heron, a kestrel, a rook, and a magpie.’ He looked at Annev. ‘Which are you?’
Annev raised his red glove, unintimidated. ‘I’m a phoenix.’
The man chuckled. ‘I hope so, for your sake.’