And there it was again: Rook’s curiosity. In all his years of thieving, all the jewelry stolen, he had never seen a necklace like that one … except once.
He pulled its mate out from under the collar of his shirt. The stone he wore was an indigo blue that looked like sapphire but was not, wrapped in a yellow metal that looked like gold but was not. Both faux-sapphire and faux-emerald were rough and unpolished, with sharp crystal edges and smooth facets. The two necklaces were different in color, but in theme and design, they were identical.
He could no longer resist the urge to satisfy his curiosity.
Rook inched himself over to the balusters, crawling on his stomach, until he gazed into the courtyard garden. He let the Veil fall into place and waited for his eyes to adjust to the change.
Two men stood. The third sat, tied to a chair. At first glance Rook wondered if he had been wrong to think the victim was male, and even more wrong to think him human. The seated figure had tightly curled hair, layers of fluffy spun sugar. The color was completely unnatural: pastel violet, like the edges of clouds at sunset. The victim’s features were wide and delicate, but contorted in pain and smeared with blood. Still, he was piercingly beautiful.
Rook almost cried out when he realized the victim was a vané. He had never seen one before.
However, the vané’s torturers were very much human. Compared to the vané, they were ugly and unclean. One had the grace of a dancer, solid muscle under watered blue silk. The other dressed in strange, heavy black robes that contrasted with his odd skin—not the healthy brown of a normal Quuros, but pale and ugly as scraped parchment. They made an odd pair. From the embroidery on his shirt and breeches to the jeweled rapier at his side, the first man was a devotee of worldly comfort; the second man a follower of ascetic reserve.*
The hairs on Rook’s neck rose as he watched the pale man: something was wrong with him, something foul and unwholesome. It wasn’t his crow-black eyes and hair, which were normal enough, but something intangible. Rook felt as if he were gazing at a dead thing still walking—the reflection of a corpse with the semblance of life, not the truth of it.
Rook dubbed the two men Pretty Boy and Dead Man,? and decided if he never met either of them face-to-face, he might die happy.
He dreaded what he might see with his sight, but after a second’s hesitation he looked beyond the First Veil again. He winced. It was worse than he’d feared.
Both men were wizards. They both had the sharpened auras that Mouse had taught him was the hallmark of magi—men to be avoided at all costs. Pretty Boy wore plenty of jewelry—any of which might serve as his talismans.
Dead Man’s aura matched his appearance: a hole in the light around him.
Rook’s skin prickled as the urge to run hit him hard.
Pretty Boy picked up a stiletto and plunged it into the vané’s stomach. The prisoner arched up and tore against his restraints, screaming in such anguish that Rook gasped in sympathy.
“Wait,” Dead Man said. He motioned Pretty Boy aside and pulled the stiletto out of the vané, who collapsed into desperate sobbing.
Dead Man cocked his head, listening.
Rook began the mental recitation of the mantra that had saved his life on more than one occasion: I am not here. No flesh, no sound, no presence. I am not here. No flesh, no sound, no presence. I am not here …
“I don’t hear anything,” Pretty Boy said.
“I did. Are you sure this house is empty?” Dead Man asked.
The young thief tried to melt back into the shadows, tried to quiet his breathing, to still it, to be nothing to see, nothing to hear. How had Dead Man heard him over the screaming? I am not here. No flesh, no sound, no presence …
“Yes, I’m sure. The owner is marrying off his daughter to some fool knight in Kazivar. He’s not due back for another two weeks.”
This seemed to satisfy Dead Man, who turned his attention back to the vané. “I believe this one has told us all he knows. It is time for our contingency.”
Pretty Boy sighed. “Must we?”
“Yes.”
“I was rather hoping we might save our new friend for a rainy day and I wouldn’t have to do the blood ritual again. Talon can’t be everywhere—or imitate everyone—at once. People will ask questions if too many of my family members go missing without explanation.”
“Then you’re lucky you have a large family to sacrifice. Do you have enough information to find it?” Dead Man directed his question toward the shadows in a corner of the courtyard.
Horrible, nightmarish laughter echoed through Rook’s brain.
***OH YES. I HAVE SEEN IT IN HIS MIND.****
Rook bit his lip to keep from making noise. That voice hadn’t spoken aloud, but thrust, unbidden, inside his thoughts.
That voice …
Dead Man’s expression didn’t change as he reached out a hand toward the vané. Somehow, his gesture was more menacing than Pretty Boy’s actual torture. A fine flow of energy began to leak from the vané’s eyes, from his forehead, and from his chest—flowing through the air to form a glowing ball of pale violet fire in Dead Man’s fist.
As the last bit of the vané’s soul was pulled from his body, his eyes widened and then stared, unseeing.
Dead Man tucked something hard, amethyst, and sparkling into his robes.
“What about the body?” Pretty Boy asked.
Dead Man sighed and gestured one last time. There was a crackling, crashing noise as energy flowed from the Dead Man’s fingertips this time, radiating out toward his victim.
Rook gagged as he watched the flesh melt off the vané’s body like water, leaving only bloody clothing and a strangely clean skeleton.
The gore whirled in a red miasma and hovered around the bones for a few eternal seconds. Then it flowed toward the shadows, swallowed whole by the gigantic mouth of the demon that stepped out of the darkness.
“Shit!” Rook cursed between shaking teeth, and knew he’d made a mistake—probably a fatal one.
Dead Man looked up at the balcony. “There’s someone up there.”
“He’ll get them,” Pretty Boy said. “You. Fetch.”
Rook dropped all pretense of stealth and ran for the window.
3: THE BLACK BROTHERHOOD
(Kihrin’s story)
I’d ask how you could know what I was thinking that night, but … never mind.*
My turn? How generous of you, Talon.
Where was I? Ah, yes.
* * *
After the auction, I was sick and injured enough that my new owners reached the sale room first. They waited for me like a trio of judges for the dead in the Land of Peace. They were silent shadows, with robe hoods pulled so far down by all rights they should have been blind.
The figure on the right was female; tall for a western Quuros, but average for most Doltari, or eastern Quuros. The figure on the left was tall—very tall. He or she towered above the others, at least a half-foot taller than the next tallest person (which was me). The center figure, the one who seemed hunched and old, hobbled forward toward my escort, a Kishna-Farrigan eunuch slave master named Dethic. The stooped figure held out its hand, gloved in black silk.