‘Where are you taking us, and why? Let’s start there.’
They’d told Kiown to sit cross-legged, directly in the middle of the platform. Case was behind him, still invisible, Eric to his side, well out of reach of a lunging charge. ‘To Hane,’ Kiown answered, ‘like I told you. I have contacts there.’
‘Then where?’
‘Then to find Anfen,’ said Kiown. ‘Believe it or not, that much is true. I’m supposed to take you back to him then carry on in his group, give them the same story I gave you. I suppose now I’ll have to dump you at his feet and run, since you have things to tell him about me.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Eric. ‘I have trouble trusting the word of someone who can kill the companions they slept beside the night before.’ Not just kill, either … kill like someone possessed. Eric recalled the manic viciousness of Kiown’s sword slicing into Doon’s back, the savage way his boot had stomped down.
The conflict across Kiown’s face was visible — admit it, or keep denying? ‘Let me ask you something,’ he said. ‘What makes you so sure you know these things? Who’d you speak to? Something happened, something changed, from dinner last night to now. Something made you go from regarding me as a friend to … to this.’
‘I’m not sure we were friends.’
‘We can be!’ said Kiown. ‘I don’t hold a grudge. Maybe we have a lot in common, more than you think. Our best interests, at least.’
Eric laughed at him and saw the sincerity instantly crumble to make way for the swiftly rising anger he’d seen before. ‘Do you know what Anfen and the rest really are?’ Kiown snarled, giving in to it. ‘Do you know what the “Free Cities” really are? They hold back the progress of the race! They always have. They’re parasites, they’re pointless. Do you know what we are creating at the castle, right now? We’re making ourselves gods. Do you understand that? Do you know what secrets we will learn, what power we’ll command? And you can be part of it. Lay one brick down in the great structure, you share in the glory.’
‘You used the plural, I notice,’ said Eric. ‘Who gets to be the god?’
Kiown shifted uncomfortably.
‘I bet I know,’ said Case. ‘Vous does.’
Kiown looked around wildly. ‘You aren’t fit to speak his name,’ he spat with great venom. ‘Not in any tone, let alone that grim foreboding one, you filthy pathetic old shit.’
‘A custom in our world,’ said Eric, ‘is to speak a little more politely when someone’s standing nearby with a gun pointed at you.’
Kiown calmed down and rolled his eyes. ‘This is fine theatre and all, but can I have that sword back when you two have had your moment? I paid a lot for it.’
‘Sorry, no,’ said Eric. ‘I’ll keep it. Now you can tell us more about … what was the name, Case?’
‘Vous. And I could tell you things about him would make you shudder.’ Kiown sensed he was being baited now, and shrugged passively. ‘What kind of idiot wants to be a god anyway?’ said Case. ‘And tell me this, what kind of crackpot gets all steamed up following such a person? You sounded like that Inferno girl a minute ago.’
‘You are quite, quite right,’ said Kiown mockingly. ‘What was I thinking?’
‘So, the castle’s interested in us. How do Case and I figure into these grand plans? If it’s true they want Case and me back with Anfen, what comes after that?’
Kiown shrugged. ‘Talk to me, Kiown,’ said Eric, but Kiown just stared into the distance.
Here’s the problem, Eric thought, pacing. If our roles were reversed, if it was me holding back info on him, it’d be easy enough: he’d start breaking bones till I talked. For him it would be the logical action. I can’t do it, and he knows it. That’s why the bad guys win.
Eric could not invoke the required sadism, but he could mimic it. He said, ‘You’d better tell us the rest, so we can decide what to do with you. We could fire into your knees and leave you here. Won’t be fun getting down those steps. It’d hurt a lot more than that arrow’s scratch did. I don’t want to do it but I will.’ I hope he believes it. ‘You say we can still be companions. Make your pitch.’
Kiown rubbed the bridge of his nose, eyes to the ground, as though it hurt to speak: ‘My mission is to get you two back to Anfen. Alive and well. I know no more. I get the minimum I need to know, in case I end up in this very predicament. And that’s all.’
‘What are you, exactly?’ said Case. ‘Spy? You one of them greyrobes I saw?’ From the direction his voice came, it sounded like he’d sat down. ‘And hurry this up, make it honest. I’ll shoot you the second Eric asks me to. We’re out of food and I like an early lunch. We aren’t going to be up here all day.’
‘I’m what they call a Hunter,’ said Kiown irritably. ‘We’re the elites. We know more than the soldiers, the First Captains, probably more than the Generals. We speak directly to the Strategists, sometimes even higher. Some of us in every city, no more than a couple hundred of us, all told. They train us harder, tell us more. We’re not necessarily the best swordsmen in the military, though we have to be good.’
‘Then what makes you special?’
‘We can be trusted, they know it. We have to be good at many things.’
‘Like acting.’
Kiown smiled. ‘Yes, O inn-finder. But believe it or not, I’ve been my real self the whole way through. Even around Anfen’s band, and the other enemy bands I ran with. I was their ally as much as I could be.’
‘But you never told anyone you worship Vous,’ said Case.
Anger flickered across Kiown’s face, and he fought visibly to bury it. ‘It’s not your fault. You just don’t understand it. It’s not merely the man I swear to. It’s the Project. He’s already halfway to being a Great Spirit. If he can, we all can, any one of us. They’re going to watch the process, see how it’s done, then repeat it. He’s just the first, the experiment. It may happen in our lifetime or in our grandchildren’s. Or tomorrow! They’ll learn a lot when it does and perfect the process.
‘And ah, what then? What happens if we find the step up from being a Great Spirit? The next rung on the ladder of greatness, of evolution? Sooner or later, we become so great we surpass the Dragon! One day, we make our own worlds. Perfect worlds. Imagine it. Don’t dwell on what things must happen today — imagine that perfect future. That is what the Free Cities obstruct! Just what is the point in human lives scuttling about like the same old insects, asking and answering the same old pointless questions, living and dying, repeating it all, never reaching beyond?’ His laugh sounded tired. ‘You’re new here, you old twit, you don’t know our history. Since time began, since men began to play with magic, some of us wondered if it could be done, the grand elevation. But the magicians were too cowardly even to ponder it. Then after the War their stupid system didn’t allow us to try, not properly. Vous was the one who outsmarted them. He was the one who dared get his hands red, risk his own life and others. He is a hero. You hear me? A hero.’ Kiown turned his head Case’s way, lip curled. ‘You didn’t know what you saw, when you looked on him. Yes, he’s mad. Such visionaries have to be.’
Kiown began to stand. ‘Stay there or you’re dead,’ said Eric quietly. Kiown sat back down, surprised, as though he felt his impassioned speech should have changed the situation. Eric said, ‘You were to take us to Anfen. Now what do you propose?’
‘To take you to Anfen. If you kill me or leave me here, do you think you’ll find him? Especially with angry magpies on your tail, armies all over the roads? Grunt troops wouldn’t know what to do with you. You talk strange, you look strange, you know nothing. They’d put you through the usual, beat confessions out of you or kill you. Grandpa here would not survive long as prisoner, believe me. And you don’t look that sturdy yourself. Listen. Here’s our plan. We stop off in Hane. We get fed, new clothes. See this?’ Kiown thumbed down his shirt, showing his collarbone tattoo, which only appeared when he flexed the muscle there. It was a little tower, simply drawn of thinly inked red lines. ‘I show this to my contacts, I get the resources of any Aligned city thrown open to me. Anything we want, take it. Women, food, rooms at the best inns. With me you are above the law. Your pick of the stores, the smiths. Fine clothes, swords better than that one. Can get us a horse-drawn wagon on loan, even drakes to ride, if you’re game and if they have any. No more walking. We’ll rest up a few days, live like princes, enjoy every second, then ride the rest of the way at our leisure. What say you?’
Despite what he knew, after all this rough travelling, the offer was more than a little tempting. ‘Is lying one of the skills you hunters need to be good at?’ said Eric.
Kiown waved this away angrily. ‘Of course it is! But so is knowing when to tell the truth.’
‘Then maybe you can admit what you did to the band you were meant to lead.’
Kiown spread his hands. ‘Must you do this to me? Do you think all my orders fill me with joy? Fine, I did it. I helped kill the giant. Led the others to the patrol, who knew we came. Thanks to me they knew, all right? There. I betrayed them because my mission was compromised and I had to. It was not my idea of fun. Had Anfen not separated us it wouldn’t have happened.’
A thread of magic like a crimson ribbon twisted languidly across the platform, passing through Kiown and parting around his body the way smoke would, some thin tendrils hanging for a moment around his neck and shoulders. Glimmering strands could be seen more thickly in the distant skies, but over towards the city, there were none at all. ‘What about when we catch up with Anfen?’ said Eric. ‘What will you tell them?’
‘Nothing,’ Kiown snapped. ‘Think I’ll run with that group again? I’ll get you close, point you to him then flee. You can tell him who and what I am, for all I care. I’ll have done my mission, I’ll be paid. I’ll retire in the new cities, since I’ll be known as a Hunter and never be able to go undercover again.’
‘Something I don’t understand,’ said Case. ‘It helps us out, sure, if you get us back with Anfen. Helps you out too. Even helps out your bosses. So everybody’s happy. There are no mutually beneficial moves in chess. Who’s worse off? You say the high-ups don’t tell you everything, I bet you’re right. But you know them better than us. So you can probably make a good guess.’
Kiown frowned, thinking. ‘The Tormentors,’ he said at last. ‘The castle’s trying to use Anfen. And you, I assume. How I’ve no idea. That’s how two sides can be happy in war: when there’s a third entering the fray.’
‘Tormentors?’ said Eric.
‘You told me of monsters in the woods,’ said Kiown. ‘That’s what they’re called. Yes, I knew of them, but not what they look like, nor that they’d come so far north. I don’t know how many there are. Maybe a few dozen. Or hundreds, maybe thousands. The castle bosses are scared to death of them. So should everyone be. But guess what? The Free Cities are in more immediate peril.’
‘What are they? Where are they from?’
‘I’ve never seen them,’ said Kiown, shifting uncomfortably. ‘They come from beyond the Wall at World’s End. The castle fears the Free Cities will find a way to use them, maybe tame them as pets or soldiers. Both sides have lost men and resources to them.’
‘Beyond the Wall,’ Eric said, thinking aloud. ‘So they come from the other half of Levaal even though the Wall stops everything else from getting through. So how do they get through?’
Kiown shrugged. ‘Grandpa here told me to guess, so I’m guessing.’
‘Keep guessing.’
‘Fine. Underground. Far underground. There must be a point down there where things can pass beneath the Wall. In the groundmen tunnels, when Sharfy was oh-so-baffled at all the pit devils? I knew why.’ He laughed. ‘Something’s entered the southern tunnels, something bigger and meaner than them. It’s driving the devils north. And I tell you this, there must be a lot of those fuckers down there, to drive that many devils that far north. Now can we please end this chitchat and come to a decision? I’ve told you all I know. Whether you bring me along or not, time matters. Do you want a guide and protector or am I more useful to you as a corpse?’