At last Azeem lifted the missive and read in a clear, well-accented voice, ‘Word from traders who have passed through Fryth is beginning to filter into Nooria. The news is strange: reports of men reduced to flesh and broken bone, of a silent valley where no bird sings … and the rulers and generals who were there short months ago are nowhere to be found in the empty cities and farms. And everywhere, pennants fly the red and white emblem of Yrkmir.’
5
Govnan
Govnan made his way down the narrow street, his rock-sworn acolyte Moreth right behind. A butcher’s-alley stench grew stronger with every step, and the dingy, windowless buildings rising high on either side blocked the moonlight and trapped the air at nose level. The guards had removed all citizens except for the witnesses, who waited in a coffee house nearby, so he and Moreth met nobody as they walked, heard nothing except the click of Govnan’s staff against the stone. The houses at the end of the street tilted in so much their roofs met at odd angles, making the passage so narrow Govnan was forced to turn sideways in places.
‘There’s a step – be careful,’ murmured Moreth. The rock-sworn occasionally helped him down the stairs, and had developed a protective air.
‘My eyes are not so old they cannot see.’
On the other side of the gap houses receded, leaving a rough open circle, a well in the centre, wide enough to set up three stalls and some barrels. Lantern-light revealed nothing tipped over or broken. The marketplace looked in order, except for the lumps of flesh on the ground and a dizzying odour of death.
Herran had provided them with cloths soaked in camphor and Govnan pressed one to his nose and mouth. A guardsman waited at attention beside a cart covered with dripping red paste.
As he approached the guardsman said, ‘This was pomegranate, High Mage.’
‘I see.’ Govnan turned to look at what lay on the ground – human, he thought, as shreds of clothing could be seen among the gore. Bones had snapped and turned out towards the sky, and the skin had either melted or turned inwards. Intestines slithered out onto the stone, glistening in the firelight. He choked back bile. He did not know whether a physician or a butcher would be better able to tell man from woman. And there were five more such deposits – two by the well, three scattered around the carts.
Sarmin had separated him from his flame-spirit Ashanagur and it sometimes felt as if he had lost half his intellect. Ashanagur might have identified the cause of death, though in Govnan’s experience, the efreet did not always share information. Now he had Moreth. That would have to do. Govnan knelt, wincing at the pain in his knees and hips as he settled against the ground.
He looked down at a stretch of pink flesh, smooth as a mirror. ‘Your robes, High Mage!’ cried Moreth. Indeed, blood had already soaked into the white cotton. ‘I have many,’ he said, and it was true, though there were few to wash them. The Tower had never kept slaves. When he was a young man the Tower had been teeming with mages and their apprentices, all sharing the work, but even that had been a decline from the days of Satreth the Reclaimer. In recent years they had been fewer yet. Now Mura had been lost to the Fryth war, to his unending sorrow, and only Moreth, Hashi the wind mage and the Megra remained. Of those not of the Tower, only Sarmin knew its emptiness, the cobwebs in every corner. Its potency had long kept Cerana safe from all enemies – that was, when High Mage Kobar had held the seat. There had not been a day Govnan had served as high mage when there was not some magical threat haunting the empire. And now this.
The destroyed flesh yielded little more information close up than it had at a distance. He was sure now the bones had not been cut with any weapon; the breaks were not smooth and he saw no scoring that would indicate a blade. He smelled nothing like poison or the sulphur used in casting certain illegal spells. Before replacing his camphor-soaked cloth he said a quick prayer to Mirra; though he had never been a believer, he hoped this poor soul had been lifted. He gripped his staff and stood. ‘I need samples from the flesh of each of these and’ – he looked around at the positions of the dead – ‘I want a drawing, with distances. Get a draftsman from the Builders’ Tower to do it.’
‘You think there might be a pattern here, High Mage?’
Govnan disliked revealing the path of his thoughts, so he ignored the question. ‘Find what the spirit Rorswan has to tell you.’
Moreth knelt, pressed a hand to the ground and closed his eyes, becoming so still one might have thought him a statue.
The guardsman shifted nervously, looking at the stones beneath his feet. Most without talent did not realise the danger, but this one was clever.