Twenty-two days before the Black Mausoleum
Superstition came easy to men who fought monsters and stared at death every day. Outside his own company no Adamantine Man would admit it, but there it was. Every axe had its name. There might not be any such things as ghosts, but there were spirits right enough. Other people had their ancestors to watch over them, but the Adamantine Men were severed from their families, and so they had the memories of all those who’d gone before, right back to the nameless Night Watchman who’d stood beside Narammed and made him the first speaker. Every soldier who’d ever walked the walls of the Adamantine Palace secretly thought he’d know the dragon that would kill him as soon as he saw it. Some were certain they would die by the flames of a green or a red or a gold. For Skjorl, it had been having someone called Vishmir in his company. A Vish made him invincible. The dragon that killed the last Vishmir would be the one to burn him. He’d quietly believed that for as long as he could remember.
And then the last Vish he knew had been crushed by a rock in Bloodsalt, and here he was, still alive. Somewhere up on Yinazhin’s Way, weeks after Jasaan had gone, he’d realised. He’d watched, then, as his superstition crumbled to dust, taking half the things he believed in with it. He thought of the names he’d given to his axe and his shield and would have thrown them away if he could have found new ones to replace them. Ancestors, spirits, ghosts, they were all nonsense. There were dragons. There were alchemists and their potions. There were blood-mages. That was all.
So there he was, all his superstitions broken in pieces and stuffed in sacks to be slowly thrown away, and now he stared at the outsider with the silver eyes, paralysed because here, in front of him, was surely a ghost made flesh. The outsider reached out his hand and Skjorl was transfixed. Tendrils of silver light like moonlight curled from the man’s fingertips. They grew as long as his thumb, writhing and coiling like little snakes, as though feeling for something that wasn’t there.
And then they abruptly vanished as the outsider’s eyes went back to normal. He slumped, and if Skjorl had had a knife on him, he might just have used it. His sword was too long to draw while he was sitting down and he was too paralysed to get up.
‘What in Vishmir’s name was that?’
‘Something the Silver King left behind,’ whispered the alchemist.
Skjorl shivered. Some thing?
The outsider opened his eyes again and looked at Skjorl. Hard to tell what colour they were in the gloom, but not silver and not glowing any more. Human then. Probably. ‘It’s a key,’ he said.
‘A key to what?’
‘Why to a door — what else? The door to where the Silver King went.’
No, couldn’t be. Skjorl shook his head. Had to be some trick. Not some shit-eater from the mountains.
The outsider shrugged. ‘Believe what you want. Doesn’t matter really, does it, what you think. What matters is what she thinks.’ He nodded towards the alchemist. ‘Lucky for me she’s the one of you who can think, eh? So you just be a good little doggy and do as you’re told.’
Skjorl was on his feet. Never mind what sort of creature was inside this shit-eater, he could still wring its neck.
‘No!’ The alchemist’s command caught him mid-lunge. ‘You don’t touch him either. Not one finger, or you’ll feel the pain as if it had been me.’
The outsider smiled. ‘Good doggy.’
There was nothing he could do. The fingers inside his head forced him back down. Skjorl spat at the alchemist’s feet.
‘Oh, bad doggy!’ Siff leaned forward. He bared his teeth at Skjorl. ‘You think I’m making all this up? You must be wondering how is it that some — what was it — some shit-eater from the mountains knows a magic key’s inside him. I didn’t ask for it, I can tell you that. But I know what it is because I found the door, doggy. I found the door to where the Silver King went when he left you, and I opened it. I’ve seen through to the other side.’
‘You followed the Silver King?’ Skjorl shook his head.
‘Better. I met him.’
Beyond belief. Skjorl rolled his eyes and stared at Kataros. ‘Are you so desperate as to believe such a story.’ Hard to explain the eyes and the silver light, but that was just some spirit, wasn’t it? One of those ghosts he didn’t believe in. Or blood-magic. Maybe the outsider was a blood-mage! Or perhaps there was some potion…
Kataros was looking at him. Smiling a little, although there was nothing friendly in her face. A little relish at his discomfort, that was all.
‘Could you lie to me?’ she asked.
Skjorl sat in silence after that, brow furrowed. Inside his head he emptied out those sacks and slowly and carefully put everything back together again, back out where it used to belong. Took a while, but it was all still there. A part of him wasn’t too sorry about that either. Dragon-blooded was a good name. Said something. Had a truth to it. Would have been a shame to lose it.