Shadow Prowler

I heard the sound of a body hitting the ground and Shnyg wheezing in relief as he tried to force some air back into his lungs.

“You know that your client also serves the Master, and the Master says that the maps of Hrad Spein must be destroyed, otherwise they might fall into the hands of the king and his attendants. Tell that to the fool whom you call your client. He may be rich, but that does not mean he can think he is a link of Borg. Let him remember the deceased Duke Patin.”

“We understand everything now, Your Grace,” Nightingale confirmed. Shnyg was still coughing. “We’ll tell him everything you said.”

“Wonderful, and now set about it! Surely you don’t think I would need your help if I could enter the tower?”

The emissary didn’t bother to wait for an answer to his question. Something even darker moved across the dark gap of the house. There was another glint of gold. The emissary slowly ran his gaze along the dark street and as it slipped over the spot where I was standing, it hesitated for an instant, but moved on before I even had time to feel frightened. With a clap of his black wings, he melted away into the night.

Silence descended on the street, only occasionally interrupted by Shnyg’s desperate coughing.

“Damn . . . kha-kha! Damned bloody beast. Kha-kha! He almost . . . kha-kha! . . . choked me!”

“What did you expect?” Nightingale snarled. “Spouting nonsense like that to him? Be grateful you’re still alive!”

“The Darkness take that damned creature! And the Darkness take you, too! And the Darkness take me, fool that I am, for listening to Markun, who’s bound us hand and foot to this Master of his. The Darkness take this client, and his damned papers!”

Shnyg was overwhelmed by a new fit of coughing. But just at that moment something looking very much like a human figure made its appearance on the stage of this ongoing spectacle. It was approaching slowly from the direction of the Street of the Roofers and its direction made me feel uneasy, because it was moving straight toward us.

Even worse than that, I was almost directly in its path! I had to dash across the street, to the house where the two thieves were: The darkness was thicker there, and so it would be much easier for a scoundrel like me to hide.

But I wasn’t able to skip in through the door, since the thieves were coming out of it at that very moment. I managed to dart to one side and press myself back against a wall. But master thieves are masters because they can hear the very slightest rustle.

“There’s someone here,” Shnyg whispered, and I drew my dagger out of its scabbard with a quiet rustling sound.

Nightingale and Shnyg started listening, but then they noticed the approaching stranger whom I had already seen. “Shhh. Look,” Nightingale whispered.

There was certainly something to look at. The figure approaching us was a man. A perfectly normal one. Except that he was semitransparent—the tower and the stones of the roadway were quite clearly visible through him. He was wearing a magician’s robes and leaning on a magic staff. . . .

“Look at this,” the phantom muttered to itself. Its voice sounded twice or even three times, creating a strange echo. “They’ve all abandoned me. The traitors. Where are they? Where? I wander and wander, searching for them. I’ll find them.”

The phantom repeated this little jingle over and over, turning its head from side to side and examining the area, evidently hoping to find the aforementioned traitors. It had a blurred spot instead of a face, but I didn’t have the slightest doubt that this magician could see everything perfectly well. I was scarcely even breathing. And neither were Shnyg and Nightingale, standing a little farther away.

The phantom halted a few yards away from us and began turning its semitransparent head again.

“I wander and wander. I’ll find them. I’ll find them.” It paused for a moment and then said in a very perplexed voice: “I’ll find them. Aha! That’s where they are! They’re hiding! I know you’re there! I’ll find you. I’ll find you.”

He held out his staff and started waving it from side to side, like a blind man, and slowly moving closer. That was when I realized that if I didn’t do something quick, the crayfish sleigh would be coming for me. In another ten seconds he would reach me, and that would be the end. I had just one chance, an incredibly stupid one, but I decided to take it, especially since it was time to get rid of my unwanted competition in the shape of Shnyg and Nightingale. I stepped forward out of the darkness onto the moonlit street so that the thieves were behind my back, and I heard one of them swear in amazement.

“Fire!” I yelled, and then dropped onto the surface of the road, putting my hands over my head.

Without even pausing to think, the magician fired a spell at the spot where I had just been standing. Something went screeching through the air above me. A intense impact, screams of terror and pain from the unfortunate thieves. The phantom had hit the target—which was not me. I didn’t wait to see what had happened to the servants of the Master, and there was certainly no point in loitering in the street in front of this new danger. I leapt up, darted round the muttering magician, and set off across the square toward the tower, zigzagging and hopping like a hare driven insane by the spring sunshine.

The screaming stopped: I don’t know whether the thieves were dead or they had enough sense to stop making noise, but I personally didn’t feel the slightest pity for them. It was them or me. Or that damned mumbling phantom would have done for all of us.

Oh yes, about him. The mumbling behind my back stopped, the air howled again, I leapt to one side and saw a sphere of mist go flying across the square, leaving a smoking tail in its wake, hit the surface of the street and bounce like a child’s ball, then explode with a boom against a house in the distance, leaving a fair-sized hole in its wall.

I changed tactics: forward, hop, sharp left, forward, hop, sharp right, hop, a sudden stop, sharp right, forward again. Like a flea on a frying pan.

Surprisingly enough, this tactic worked. Another three balls of smoke went hurtling across the square and exploded far away from where I was. Once I had to flop down on my belly again in a most inelegant fashion, when a magical charge struck the Tower of the Order, but didn’t explode, and then bounced back on a changed course directly toward me.

I saw the misty charge growing bigger as it flew straight at my face. There was no time to jump aside, so I dropped, and as soon as the sphere flew over my head, I jumped up again, because the tower was already very close.

The damned phantom, may the gkhols gnaw on his bones, was howling over by the Street of the Magicians, while I feverishly searched for the door. I had to run along the wall illuminated by the moonlight, and expose myself in full view to the raging specter. It was closing rather rapidly, muttering malevolently, intent on finishing Harold off.