A Lady in Crystal Read online

  A Lady in Crystal

  By Toby Bennett

  The veil, the steps, the darkness,

  The shadow heart and glittering deeps

  From dreamy haze to wakeful sharpness,

  The shrewd man hunts and the mad man sleeps;

  In shadow’s stillness and her fastness,

  What the hunter finds, he keeps.

  Chapter 1:

  “In eternal night, dream and dreamer play

  Free from the bright tyranny of day”

  The sun is a dream in the city of Niskar, the only dream that cannot be touched. It is a thing rarely glimpsed by the city’s inhabitants and only by those few who bother to venture beyond its decaying walls. Most of those dazzled travellers would say that it holds no majesty compared to the wonders, the fantasies and the nightmares, that inhabit the long shadows of the City of Night. There was a time, when those great walls had served to repel the ambitions of the kings and warlords, whose avaricious kind still rise and fall in the sunlit realms beyond Niskar’s eternally clouded skies. That was before the daemon Nishkaan’s blessing on the city. Before, as some still claim, the Lord of Shadows chose this place to die. Now no one dares approach the shrouded city without invitation, the walls slowly rot beneath the coils of black-leaf creepers and the pale, sharp smelling moonhorn flowers that help so many sleepers find their peace.

  It is not just the pall of unnatural darkness that hangs like impenetrable smoke curling over the tallest towers of the great city, which discourages those who might have ambitions towards the heart of Niskar’s ancient empire but the darker arts of its inhabitants. In Niskar they have refined the art of stealing dreams, distilling them and giving them life in the permanent darkness, which is the natural place to find phantasms that cannot survive the touch of sunlight. Many rich merchants and lords have paid a lifetime’s ransom for the living fantasies that are the city’s main export. Anything can be made solid here and only the touch of the sun can undo what is made. The people of Niskar are rich and powerful. Though the far flung empire they had once sustained is all but forgotten, the city’s power still stretches insidiously across the vast continent of Seg, palpable but unnoticed by all but a few, even in the city herself. Niskar’s inhabitants have other delights to distract and enslave them.

  The city is old and vast; its structures have fallen from neglect, only to rise again on the rotted bones of their predecessors. The damp from the river and waters of great lake of Nishgul, has eroded both stone and mortar. Forgotten corners of the city have been swallowed up, lost when the dark water overruns the canals bringing forth the nightmare creatures that writhe and spawn beyond the torch light of the sunless city. There is one light that is never extinguished, a light at the heart of all shadows in the dead god’s domain. Three hills preside over the centre of the city. On one stands the ruin of the royal palace, ragged and haunted; untouched since the fall of the old kings. On the other stand the old courts and universities, rich in heresy and rotting papyrus. Sprawled over the slopes of the largest rise is the Asylum, the great temple that has become the epicentre of the city. Initially built in homage to the fallen god Nishkaan, it looms over the networks of crumbling stone and channels of dark water, its many lights drawing madmen like moths. Its true size is inestimable in the shadows cast by thousands of beckoning, well tended flames. Whole communities inhabit the dim corridors that would have long fallen into complete neglect without their uncounted inhabitants. Priests tend these inmates with as much devotion as they tend the lights that draw them. All dreamers are welcome here, the mad and the hopelessly sane. This is Niskar, City of Night, city of dreams and ghosts, where dream and dreamer become one in the darkness and neither knows their place. In Niskar they have perfected the art of stealing dreams, which, in the end, is the art of stealing souls.

  *

  The priests, who prowled the halls of the great Asylum, were masters of their craft and few were deeper workers than Gilash Asemutt. As a youth he had been a noted practitioner of the assassin’s art, as well as having a reputation as one of Niskaan’s most devoted and talented followers. Now he was middle aged and his days of wielding the knife himself were passed; his capacity for inflicting pain had grown beyond the limits of his single mortal body. As he strode down the debris strewn halls of the outer Asylum, even the most far gone of the gibbering inhabitants drew back. His black robes guaranteed safe passage, even in the wilder and less well maintained parts of Niskaan’s great temple to madness, but none dared beg for bread or the removal of a haunting dream, as they might have done with one of the younger brothers. It was not that they knew him by any reputation, it was Gilash’s business not to be known but there was something in his steely eyes that warned the mad men and dreamers to stay back. It was an instinct that, in some ways, marked them as clearer thinkers than those who still had pretentions to being sane. Gilash was a spectre, moving among the haunted wretches who lived on the temple’s false charity and willingly gave their fantasies and terrors for a quiet sleep. The inmates saw him but only took enough note of him to know to steer clear. Indeed, if you had asked them whether the priest had passed, most would not have been able to confirm it for you.

  Blurring the perceptions of the inmates of the Asylum was a minor feat for a priest of Nishkaan. Most of the minds of the inhabitants of the outer corridor had been harvested so often that it was child’s play for one initiated into the mysteries to simply manipulate their minds. It was a basic trick but one necessary for survival in the intrigue-ridden ranks of the church. Gilash hid his passing without even thinking about it, it was second nature after all these years, although he no longer wielded the knife, it did not do for his passing to be marked, after all he wielded those who did.

  The master’s mind briefly turned to one of those who would be holding one of his knives that night. Gilash deliberately only gave the boy a passing thought. It did not do to think about anything for too long, idle musings might be sensed by another practitioner of the art or worse somehow contrive to take on a life of their own. Gilash’s own teachers had often used the tale of Levas Ki, once patriarch of the Ki order. Legend had it that the patriarch had become obsessed with a concubine after her death. Levas spent many idle moments thinking of his lover, recalling every detail of her body but the image that he could not shake from his mind was her pale flesh, curling and blackening on her funeral pyre.

  As an adept, it was inevitable that Levas’s yearning should summon something from Niskar’s shadows. His unguarded thoughts had given birth to a flayed ghoul, whose appetite for her former lover had been such that, when they found Levas, they had had to identify him from the ring on his half eaten finger. The ghoul had escaped, as many did, to the ruined stretch of the city known as the Ghosts, the old royal quarter, which had been left uninhabited after the bloody slaughter that had seen the church take secular power from the aristocracy. Legend said that the nightmares of the apprentices who found the patriarch, ensured that some version of the patriarch’s well gnawed body eventually joined her in the abandoned ruins.

  An adept should never think too long on any one thing in Niskar for all sorts of reasons, but Gilash couldn’t help thinking of Akna just for a second. The boy could have been him twenty years ago; strong and quick, Akna held more promise to Gilash than ten of his fellows. Like many of the house’s children, there was no telling who had fathered Akna on his gibbering wreck of a mother; for all Gilash knew it was his own son he was sending into danger. Not that it mattered, it only mattered that the blood of Asemutt ran true in the boy. The brothers shared women often enough, the important thing was to ensure that the gift was not lost over generations. Whoever had been Akna’s father had passed on formidable talents; indeed as an infant there had b
een some concern that his level of sensitivity to the minds around him was a threat to his sanity. It was not uncommon for those over blessed with the adept’s gifts to be swept up in the madness of the asylum and become inmates rather than keepers. Those unfortunates were prized above all other inmates, for, although they had failed the most basic test of survival as a servant of Niskaan, the visions that could be dragged from them over the course of years were rich indeed.

  Akna had passed his first test of survival and had graduated to Gilash’s care. Many of the lessons that Gilash had taught were harsh but Akna had learned and now his boyhood was almost gone. All it would take was one death to bring brother Akna into the ranks. Gilash’s pleasure at the thought of his lithe student vanished at the thought of that fat pig Lothar. Lothar Nephod was the master of revels for the year. It had been bad enough that Cardinal Nephod had supplanted Asemutt’s man as the host of the great celebrations in honour of Niskaan but when the bloated Cardinal Lothar had taken it upon himself to proclaim that his cousin’s vineyards would be providing all wine for the feast, something had to be done. It wasn’t just the money, it was a matter of pride. Besides if Asemutt let the balance of power shift without responding, even for something as trivial as a wine contract, then the other houses might see them as weak and that would be the end.

  Gilash caught himself. He hadn’t meant to think too much about Akna let alone bring the full details of the assassination into the forefront of his mind. He looked around for another black robe in the corridor but his gaze was met only by the fearful stares of the inmates. Good enough, then, it wasn’t like him to allow any crack in his rigid mental discipline but he couldn’t sense any interference from another priest in his thoughts. It must simply be a measure of his affection for the boy and his hopes for his success. Gilash swept down the wide halls, like some bird bearing bad omens. His mind was closed now and he no longer thought of Akna, the boy would return or he would not. It meant nothing to the master of Asemutt’s assassins.

  *

  Laughter echoed in the slime covered darkness and Akna recoiled at the sound as much as he did the stench in the pipes. He had hoped to catch the cardinal alone; instead it seemed that Lothar was not indulging in any kind of private meditation that night. Akna slid forward, something that was horribly easy to do in the slick lead-lined pipe. A glimmer of light fell on the shallow water in front of him, leaking in through the narrower pipe that lead up to the chamber above. The cardinal had called for more torches so he was obviously keen on seeing his companions better. Akna cursed, too many people and too much light, he knew he should retreat but he had not spent the last three hours in a drainage pipe just to give up and go back. Gilash had said the cardinal must die tonight and so it must be.

  Akna calmed himself. He still had the advantage of surprise. That was his one consolation but the good news ended there. It looked as though he was going to have to climb the thin pipe ahead of him to make sure that he got the right mark. The long, thin blade that he had chosen as his only weapon would not offer him much comfort outside the confines of the pipes and Akna knew he didn’t dare reach into the veil to find another weapon. The veil was the first layer in the still uncharted realm of dreams. The barrier between Niskar and the veil was so thin that any practitioner of the art could quickly pluck simple things from it with a relatively small amount of effort. Akna yearned for a more substantial weapon, but he knew that someone as accomplished as the cardinal could not miss the disturbance such a gross summoning would cause.

  A chill went through Akna’s near naked body, without the protection of the pipes, armour might be more useful than a heavier blade. Wishing changed nothing, though, he had his instructions and it was time to prove himself. If he was quick and quiet the other people in the room would make no difference and if not then he was not worthy. Not worthy. The thought was more chilling than the water flowing around him; for the last decade he had fought to be worthy, taking whatever punishments his master saw fit, honing his body and his mind, he had to be ready. Akna flexed the well trained muscles in his shoulders.

  “So much for just waiting for the fat kochka to sit down,” Akna muttered to himself. No matter the smell or risk he was going to have to climb up and leave the relative security of the waste water pipes.

  Akna blessed Niskaan and the Horned Hound that he managed to emerge into the cardinal’s private bathing chambers without being observed. Laughter echoed through the steamy chamber from the adjoining room and it seemed that providence had at least contrived to keep his victim distracted, even if it hadn’t had the decency to ensure that he was alone. Akna’s body still ached from having been forced up the pipe. He waited for another laugh from the cardinal’s main apartments, before allowing himself the luxury of forcing his shoulder back into its socket. He managed to do it with only a small click and the slightest hiss of indrawn breath. He looked longingly at the deep pool of warm water beyond the curtain that had hidden his entrance into the bathing chambers but no matter how filthy he felt, there was no point in giving himself away by disturbing the pool.

  A quick glance around the half closed curtain confirmed that he was alone in the bathing chamber. A wealth of torches and candles had been arranged in the room and the lights were reflected in long rhythmic ripples that played across the ceiling in undulating patterns of pale light.

  The laughter stopped for a moment and the stone room became brooding and ominous. Akna could hear the water dripping from the great brass pipes set above the pool and the vapour curling off the surface of the water seemed to thicken and slow, as Akna’s senses strained for some hint as to what might have disturbed the revels in the apartments. He spread his toes on the small slippery tiles and looked into the fiery eyes of a Grothmana demon that had been painstakingly rendered in chips of glass and stone as one of the many mosaics that decorating the pool.

  ‘They are very quiet aren’t they?” the glaring creature seemed to say, his red and yellow eyes flickering in the torchlight, ‘I wonder what they might have heard?’

  Akna’s fingers tightened on the long stiletto’s hilt. He became absolutely still, straining to hear what was happening in the apartments. It could have been centuries that the mosaic and the statue stared at each other, debating what might have sobered the inhabitants of the adjoining room. Abruptly, a huge chuckle drowned out the slow dripping of water and the assassin’s sigh of relief.

  ‘Up whatever orifice you hold most sacred.’ Akna mentally told the demon that squatted in the steam across the room from him. The fiend kept smiling, showing off rows of glass teeth. Satisfied that there was no one else in the room, Akna emerged from behind the curtain and loped across the room as fast as he dared. With so many torches, speed was more important than trying to find shadows. The laughter was loud when he reached the exit to the bathroom and Akna could now detect giggling beneath the bass chuckles. Despite being used to the excesses of the priests who inhabited the Asylum, Akna felt that there was something cruel in that laugh. There were various tales about the cardinal’s habits and his tastes, the laughter confirmed the worst of them in Akna’s mind.

  Again, he felt a chill of foreboding, Gilash must have great confidence in him to trust him with such an assignment but could there be something else at work? He had not yet taken his vows. Akna was House Asemutt in all but name but perhaps that was the distinction that his master wanted. Perhaps he had been chosen because, if he did fail, he could at least be denied. Akna thrust the thought aside, what did it matter in any case? The killing would bring him the status he craved. All he had to do was kill one fat naked man while he wasn’t looking. Silent as death a shadow slipped from the bath chamber and out into the cardinal’s apartments.

  It was easy to pick out the cardinal from the writhing mass of flesh on the great bed. Though the cardinal’s tastes were not limited as anything as trivial as gender or form, he was most insistent that his companions were young. The sallow skin and gross folds of fat were obvious amid the th
in limbs of his bedfellows, boys and girls little younger than Akna. No doubt they had been taken from the great orphanage that the cardinal was good enough to maintain, along with his work for the troubled inmates of the Asylum. Akna thought back to his own youth, only a quick knife had kept him from a similar fate. It was the way of things, the strong used the weak, only the smallest part of him protested against that and he forced it down as he reminded himself that, once the killing was done, he would never be seen as weak again. He would soon take revenge for any sin the cardinal had committed but it must not be personal. Gilash said that the most important thing anyone could learn, when becoming an assassin, was not to feel. Emotions were dangerous, they put you off balance and with a practitioner as sensitive as the cardinal, they would give him away every time. Akna calmed himself, falling into the mechanical near trancelike state that he had been taught to assume before the kill.

  The laughter swelled, too late, Akna heard movement behind him and the door into the cardinal’s chamber shammed shut.

  “By all means come in, boy, there’s certainly room for one more, although perhaps you should use the bath first. Even if I hadn’t been pre-warned I’d have smelt you coming.” Akna stepped from the shadows and cast a fearful eye at the closed door. He was dead, everyone there knew it. If the cardinal had somehow been warned, something infinitely less pleasant than the customary guards would probably be waiting beyond the doors. He would have had time to summon up nightmares that would drive Akna mad at a glance, before they tore him apart. In a moment the trained assassin turned into a boy of sixteen, standing exposed under the amused eye of a very old and pitiless monster.

  “I must thank Gilash for sending you, I think my current companions were beginning to tire.”

  Akna still had enough presence of mind to remember his training. The sexual overture was nothing but a ruse, trying to bait him into confessing that his master had sent him.