The Twilight herald

With jerking movements the dead mage's head was forced to an upright angle, tongue lolling and eyes dead. 'You have found Lord Styrax as I asked. Good.'

'Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?' Styrax en¬quired.

Larim turned to face Styrax. 'I believe this is your friend, not mine.'

Styrax felt a chill on his skin. Was he being accused of something? Had Larim proof that Styrax had made a pact with a daemon? If so, why confront him here, surrounded by Styrax's troops?

He looked at the dead mage. 'Well, corpse, are you a friend of mine?'

'A friend? No. A loyal subject of course.'

'Loyal subject?' Styrax narrowed his eyes, thinking frantically, then cried, 'Amavoq's rage; Isherin Purn? I'd assumed you were dead – we've heard nothing from you in two years.'

'I am honoured you remember me.' The voice lacked any emotion, but Styrax could imagine it now, the mocking, wheedling lilt, Purn's thin lips over-forming each syllable in almost obscene pedantry. The necromancer was an unpleasant, rat-like figure, alternating wildly between ridiculous scheming and depraved experiments.

'You did your job well. I expected you to return and claim your reward. Lord Bahl would never have left himself vulnerable without your influence. I had hoped to hear just how you accomplished it.'

An artist ca

'And yet you seek me out?'

'Ever willing to be of service to my Lord.'

Styrax snorted. 'When you were in my grip, perhaps. You certainly had enough sense not to challenge me. Now that you are beyond my influence, I'm not so sure.' He cocked his head towards Larim. 'What was it Verliq said? "I hold no allegiance but to my art"?'

The white-eye's lip twitched in irritation. 'I would not know, my Lord. You have not let us read any of his works.'

Styrax gave him a bright little smile. 'Ah, no, of course not. A shame, you would find them most instructive. Well, Purn? I know necromancers care little for their rulers, so tell me why you have gone to all this trouble.'

'I am in Scree. It is a backward little city, typical of the Western states, caught between one powerful neighbour and another and spending all their time looking outwards for the next threat.'

'So they don't worry much about people disappearing off the street from time to time. I'm sure it is paradise for you. I do already have agents however; agents who provide better information that that. Either tell me something new, or 1 will dismiss you in a ma

'If your son is injured, then you had better be more courteous to the walkers in the dark,' the corpse retorted, its jaw snapping shut, an indication of Isherin Purn's anger.

'Why? What do you know about it?' Styrax stepped forward and grabbed the corpse by its slack neck. Without any apparent effort he lifted it up with one hand and brought the dead lolling eyes level with his own. 'Whatever allegiance you profess to hold, never forget my power. There is nowhere you could hide from me. There is no protec¬tor you could find to keep you safe if you made yourself my enemy. Now explain what you meant.'

Returning the corpse to the ground, he stepped back and watched it jerk and spasm as Purn fought to regain control over its muscles. That close, Styrax could smell the emptied bowels, adding to the stink of corrupt magic surrounding the cadaver. Purn had grown in power since being allowed to leave Salen's tutelage at the Hidden Tower and seek out Cordein Malich. Styrax guessed that the necromancer would be unable to repeat this trick with anyone but members of the coterie he had served in, yet even so, it was impressive. And it was an illustrative point of theory – he would have to send someone to read Larim's notes when he had time to investigate it further.

'I understand,' the corpse rasped eventually. 'I am no threat to your son, but he walks with one foot in the dark.'

'One foot in the dark? He is not as close to death as that.'

'Not close to death, but walking in the dark nonetheless. He is open to the creatures of the other place. They can feel the fire raging through him. I do not know the being that fuels his fire, but it is not one that would willingly share its possessions. I do not dare investigate further else I be scorched by its vengeance.'

'Kohrad is no toy to be shared,' Styrax snarled. 'Nor is he a posses¬sion of either God or daemon. If one seeks to claim him, it will have to fight my armies for him.'

'It already has staked its claim.'

Styrax hesitated. 'The armour? That is what gives it power over him?'

'Ah, a suit of armour? If that is true, then you are dealing with an old one, the most ancient and cu

Styrax hesitated. He knew which inhabitant of the dark would want a hold over him: the daemon-prince he had made a bargain with many years ago. It feared his strength and scrabbled for purchase. So be it; he had always known a reckoning had to come one day. Strange that it comes this way though, 1 wouldn't have expected a daemon to choose such an oblique path.

'Was that what you came to tell me? A warning from a loyal servant?'

'No.' The corpse gave a wheeze, a dribble of cloying blood emerg¬ing from the corner of its mouth. Styrax suspected Purn, back in his festering laboratory in Scree, was laughing at the notion. 'To tell you there is a new air in Scree. Figures of power walk the streets, unknown songs drift on the air. It is nothing I have ever felt before, but it is more akin to the currents surging through the Dark Place than the politics of a city. Something calls to me in the night, something of incalculable power.'

'You're asking for help?' Styrax's puzzlement was plain in his voice. He glanced at Larim, but the young white-eye looked just as confused. A necromancer as powerful as Purn was unlikely to ask for assistance, no matter what the task. Sharing, spoils or troubles, was not often part of the mindset.

'Scree becomes the focus of something quite remarkable, I believe. I do not know what dangers lie here, but they shift and feed off each other. Scree sees the convergence of horrors. I fear this home will soon be no home, not even for a man of culture such as I.'

Styrax knew what Purn meant, but when he glanced at Larim, he didn't appear to understand; his contact with necromancers during his fifteen-year apprenticeship would have been limited. Necromancers disliked states descending into chaos. There were too many factions involved, too many mobs roaming the streets and disrupting their work. They liked their shadows still and peaceful, rather than flicker¬ing in the flames of funeral pyres.

'You lack the power to compete for whatever it is that calls to you in the night?'

'If this convergence draws more people to Scree that will certainly be true, but in fact I suspect the artefact would draw me into the games of lords and Gods, and in these troubled times that would not prove healthy. Instead, I offer to help you secure it.'

'You're offering me this artefact? In exchange for what? A manor back home with your pick of the gaols? A guarantee that your activi¬ties will be unrestrained?'

'No. The pickings will be richer this side of the waste. Every denizen of the dark knows that a storm has scattered the strands of the future far and wide. Fate lies in her chamber and weeps for what she has lost. I do not wish to be absent from such delicious chaos. The freedom you offered me is my price – as well as men to assist me here – but in Thotel, where I am not answerable to anyone but you. That – and one of the Chetse's Bloodroses for my personal use.'