Dark the Night Descending (The Paderborn Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  “You know how disappointed I am in you, Cederick,” he said when he felt the man had waited in silence long enough. “Very disappointed.”

  “Yes, sir,” Cederick said, trying to use his bandaged hand to scratch underneath the plaster over his eye, which was courtesy of Bartolo’s anger.

  How stupid did he have to be to try to tamper with something he had been sent for? It was infuriating, Bartolo thought as he watched the coin spin over his knuckles, never letting anything interfere with the comfortingly repetitious motion.

  “But I am willing to give you another try – if you tell me something I want to hear,” Bartolo added.

  “Yes, sir. Everything is going well. Everything. Except one thing, but everything else is fine.”

  “One thing?”

  Cederick cringed. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  “Why don’t you let me make that decision, yes?”

  “There’s a Guild woman,” Cederick said eventually. “But she’s half a dozen steps behind. I don’t think it will matter.”

  Bartolo sat up very straight, snatching the coin out of the air as it fell from his fingers. “An inspector?”

  “It’s Megrithe Prinsthorpe.”

  Bartolo relaxed a little at the name. “Well, then. That’s good. She is not so much of a bother. Very keen, I’m told, but perhaps not as bright as she thinks she is. Has she gotten far?”

  “She spoke to Godefroy at some length, sir, and she has been combing the dockyards.”

  “I see. I think we may need to offer her an incentive to maintain her distance for the time being.”

  “Oh, no,” Cederick said, a pained look coming across his face. “Must I?”

  “Yes, I do believe so. Something unmistakable. Make a show for our friends at the Guild.”

  Cederick didn’t reply, but looked unhappy as he made his obedience and shuffled out of the room, leaving Bartolo frowning.

  The man made a complete cock up of everything he put his mind to, sighing and moaning like a calving cow over anything that didn’t capture his fancy. Bartolo had been entrusted with one simple task – one task that would define his lifetime and many generations after. One task that would rewrite the very fundamental principles of the world, and he couldn’t even get his own brother to help him without listening to his tedious nattering on.

  He threw the coin on the table, where it spun on its edge for a moment, making a scraping, ringing sound before it wobbled down and came to a halt.

  The stern visage of King Malveisin stared up at him in profile, and he smiled as he walked away. There was nothing special about the coin. There was nothing special about Malveisin, either, and in a few weeks’ time, everyone from Paderborn to Talvatch City would know it.

  He only needed a few more things. The first Siheldi gem had been easy enough to procure. Its keeper had not put up too much of a fight. Getting it to Paderborn in its little brass tube was supposed to have been just as simple, but Elargwyd’s fumbling of the task had left him furious with her incompetence.

  The gods alone knew what she had tried to say to that half-witted man on that ship of his. She had refused to tell Bartolo any of it. She was probably embarrassed at her mishandling of the situation – she had certainly been embarrassed by her appearance, and rightly so.

  Even a neneckt could not completely hide a wound as big as the healing gash in her skull, and the attempt to cover it over with an approximation of flesh had looked horrible.

  Still, strange luck was always on his side, he thought as he unlocked the door to his vault. Swinn had sent the item to the perfect place. He had imagined that it would be safe in the eallawif’s hands, but even the un-living were foresighted enough to know that they owed Bartolo their friendship.

  As he paced down the row of displays that held his collection, he frowned at a small clump of dust clinging to the edge of one of the boards. He picked up a pair of tweezers from the conservation desk and carefully removed the offending speck. It would not do to leave anything imperfect.

  He reached around behind the display and drew out the case that held the gem. It was small enough to sit on his lap, but it was very heavy due to the quantity of water inside and its thick lining of pure red iron. He had done everything possible to protect it from detection. It simply would not do to leave anything to chance.

  “Pack my things, will you, Johan?” he said to his manservant, who was always hovering nearby in case he was needed. “It’s time we were on our way.”

  ***

  Arran’s mother had not been very pleased at her unexpected guest, and even less pleased that her son had entered the house through the kitchen door in the middle of the night, scaring her half to death as she ran down the stairs with a very heavy book in her hands, waving it at the intruders like a weapon until Arran was able to make her understand that there was nothing to fear.

  He had thought that she would be relieved that she would be hosting a neneckt instead of a burglar intending to murder her in her bed, but her lucky escape from crime did nothing to soften her mood when she learned just who would be sharing her roof that night.

  She had relented a little after rain started spattering against the window, followed by a gust of wind strong enough to slam one of the shutters closed, making them all jump.

  “You can have a guest room, then,” she had said grudgingly, leading Faidal down the hall. “But I’ll have none of your unholy rites or black magic,” she cautioned, making Arran cringe.

  “I will try to keep the rites to a minimum, ma’am, unholy or otherwise,” Faidal had told her, fighting to keep a smile in check. “Your hospitality is so very much appreciated.”

  He had closed the door to his room and not made another sound all night, but was awake bright and early, the same as Arran, the next day.

  “Maybe you want to come down and see if the Tortoise is what you need,” Arran told him over breakfast. The meal was much more enjoyable this time. Despite her misgivings, Elspeth had made an effort to show courtesy to her guest, and had turned the morning repast into something a little more palatable with some honey and chopped dried fruit mixed in with the oats. She had taken her bowl into the other room at Arran’s none-too-subtle urging, giving the two men their privacy.

  “I’m sure it’s a very fine vessel. I just need to get somewhere tricky,” Faidal said.

  “Too tricky to handle without a ship? I didn’t think that was possible for your kind. I thought you prefer to be unencumbered.”

  “Well, it’s a rather delicate matter, in point of fact. There is an island I would like to get to. It’s quite a nice place. But the waters that surround it – below the surface, that is – are held by Tiaraku. Does that name mean anything to you?”

  “You want to go to Niheba?” Arran asked incredulously as he realized what Faidal meant. “Are you quite mad?”

  “I assure you that the legends are untrue. Tiaraku does not disturb men who sail above his kingdom.”

  “I think he might have a thing or two to say about one of his people trying to circumvent his authority by taking advantage of that,” Arran countered. “I am not getting involved with the neneckt king. Absolutely not. I’m in enough trouble already.”

  “I am not asking you to get involved. I’m only asking you to get me to Niheba.”

  “Why?”

  “There has been a great deal of false iron flooding the market in the past year or so. It’s incredibly convincing, and no one seems to know quite where it comes from. It’s fetching a very high price, but the money disappears when it’s sent to Port Ravenaught. I think it continues on to Niheba.”

  “The neneckt are forging false iron?”

  “Who else could work at such a rate and yet remain completely unseen? Who else could transport tons of metal without enlisting ships? The Guild has no authority on Niheba, but if I could determine where it’s coming from, it will be a lot easier to stop.”

  “I think it would be a lot more suspicious to come sailing up on
a trade ship than it would to visit the old homeland on your own, wouldn’t it?”

  “There are plenty of humans moving back and forth with plenty of goods. There’s a good chance this came from there,” Faidal said, pointing to the pot of honey on the table. “And you are entirely protected from any harm by the Treaty of Libourg. I think I could benefit from that, too.”

  Arran nodded uncertainly and stirred the last bits of his breakfast around the bottom of the bowl as he thought. The Libourg Treaty was a good point.

  The neneckt did not produce much that interested the men of the continent, but the things that they did offer had become increasingly valuable as the population of Paderborn continued to grow.

  Niheba was a large island that sat at the meeting of two warm ocean currents, which gifted the land with a balmy climate and allowed the cultivation of pecans, honey flowers, peaches, and tobacco leaves. The island was owned by Tiaraku and his clan, who also claimed the vast system of underwater dwellings that housed the majority of the neneckt people.

  But the workers on land were mostly human, which had necessitated a long and contentious negotiation to protect the safety and business interests of all involved. The treaty allowed peaceful traders to sail over Tiaraku’s territory without disruption – as long as they had a license to carry his goods to the mainland.

  “I don’t have a permit,” Arran said.

  “You don’t need one just to get there.”

  “Yes, you do. You can’t even chart a course to Niheba without a slip from the customs officer here in Paderborn. And they’re nearly impossible to obtain.”

  “How will they know?”

  “Because any King’s ship that we encounter has a right to stop me and ask for it, and your people will demand to see it as soon as I try to tie up,” Arran told him. “That’s part of the Treaty, too. I can apply for one, but it takes a long time for the documents to go through. I don’t think they’ll approve me when I’m under suspicion for smuggling.

  “You might be better off finding a ship that’s already set up for it,” he suggested. “I can help you pay for a ticket if that’s the issue, because you did keep your part of the bargain. I’m grateful for that.”

  Faidal was quiet for a moment. “What did the eallawif want from you?”

  “I have to find something I lost,” Arran said, taken aback by the question.

  “Where did you lose it?”

  “In the Bay. Somewhere. I think.”

  He looked at Arran very closely. “What was it?”

  “Just a trinket. A necklace that was stolen. I think it’s at the bottom of the sea.”

  “You must have asked her for something very big if she set you a task like that.”

  “Yes.”

  “Come with me to Niheba,” Faidal coaxed. “I can help speed up the application through the Guild. Imagine how much money you’ll be able to make when it’s approved. It doesn’t expire for ten years. That’s a lot of trading expeditions. Help give me some credence on the island, and I’ll help you find your necklace. You were going to ask a neneckt to look for it anyway, weren’t you? I can do it.”

  “I only have a month to get it back.”

  “Then you better tell your shipwrights to speed things up.”

  Arran shook his head and stood up to put his empty dish into the wash basin when something odd out the window caught his eye. There was a man in the garden of the house that backed onto his mother’s property, and he was peering over the tall wooden fence directly into the kitchen window.

  As soon as the stranger made eye contact, he shot down below the barrier and disappeared. Arran might not have thought much of it – it wasn’t a particularly well-heeled neighborhood, and there were all sorts of curious folk about – but the unusual crunching of carriage wheels on the street made him think twice.

  No one who lived on Archer Lane could afford to look at a carriage, let alone ride in one. And seeing how the street bulged into a dead-end courtyard of tenement flats not a hundred yards away, anyone who decided to bring such a vehicle into the area must be looking for something specific.

  Arran dropped his bowl and ran to the front of the house, where he could see the street from the window beside the main door. The carriage was a rich, glossy black, and it was followed by an open wagon stacked high with a very familiar pile of crates. There was no insignia on the door, but there didn’t need to be. It was the Guild.

  “Faidal? Do you want to explain this?” Arran called, trying to keep his voice from squeaking as a woman descended from the vehicle. She was young and pretty, with dark hair done up in meticulous curls under a feathered hat. The accessory matched her deep green dress, quite fetching despite its muddied hem: a victim of the nasty weather that still threatened the city with continuing rain.

  The Guild loved to employ beautiful women to do their dirty deeds. There was always something humiliating about a smug and belligerent counterfeiter getting hauled away in public by a prim lady in a bonnet, and the Guild was all about humiliation. And pain. But only after the humiliation.

  “Not really,” Faidal said, peering over Arran’s shoulder to look through the window as the woman started up the front walk. “I think maybe I’ll just go now –”

  “Stop right there,” Arran snapped, grabbing his arm. “Did you bring them here? Am I still in trouble?”

  “Well...”

  “Am I?” he demanded.

  “There may have been a slight miscommunication.”

  “Bloody hell. You lied to me.”

  “I didn’t,” Faidal countered. “Not really. I got you out like I said I would. I just really don’t want to talk to Megrithe right now.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “Then I think we should make haste.”

  “Mum?” Arran yelled. “Where are you?”

  “Stop shouting, boy,” she called from the drawing room. “I’m right here. What do you want?”

  Arran stuck his head in the doorway to see her sitting in her easy chair and doing some mending. “We need to go. Please, please don’t tell the woman who is about to knock on the door that we were here.”

  “What woman?”

  “Mum, swear to me,” Arran pleaded as the inspector rang the bell. “She’ll have my head. I mean it. I have to – we have to go. I love you. I’ll come back when I can, but it won’t be for a while.”

  “What the devil has gotten into you?” Elspeth said, alarmed at his tone.

  “I have to go,” he repeated as the inspector rang again. He darted into the sitting room and kissed his mother on the cheek, then sprinted out again and beckoned for Faidal to follow him as Elspeth went to answer the door.

  “They’re watching the back,” Faidal said as he trailed Arran.

  “I know. There’s another way.”

  Arran took the stairs two at a time as he sped towards one of the guest rooms. There was a window there that overlooked the neighboring house, which was only one storey. A jutting brick and a handy drainpipe had been his key to mischief since his adolescence, and his mother had never caught on.

  Running just seemed like the right thing to do. The last thing he wanted was to be detained again, especially by the Guild itself. From what he could tell from Faidal’s expression, he may have seriously overreached his authority by letting Arran go free. If he even has any authority, he said to himself. He would have to beat the truth out of Faidal when they found somewhere safe to lie low. But for now, they would need to work together.

  “Let me go first,” Arran said aloud, sticking his leg out the window. “I’ll show you.”

  He carefully reached for the pipe as he felt for the protruding brickwork with his toes, but Faidal pushed past him and grabbed the metal himself, using it to swing around, push off the windowsill with his feet, and launch himself with terrifying force towards the rooftop below. Arran’s jaw fell open as the neneckt landed as softly as a dancer on the opposite building, using little more than a slight step forward
to correct his balance before turning back towards Arran and beckoning him on with a little smirk.

  “Show off,” Arran muttered, reaching out again, but a shout from the alley below him made him stop and look down. “Bad. Bad, bad,” he said to himself, sweeping his foot to feel for the ledge as three men entered the narrow space and pointed up at him.

  “Get down from there right now,” one of them shouted.

  “No, thank you. I’d rather not,” Arran replied, finally finding his footing. The brick was much higher up than he remembered, but then again, he was a lot taller than he used to be at twelve years old.

  He also had a lot more experience with climbing things, thanks to his years at sea, and it was with only slightly less grace that he followed Faidal across the gap and felt his boots thud hard on the flat clay surface, making the Guild’s men shout again as the pair of them set off across the rooftops.

  “Where are you going?” Arran asked as Faidal started moving in one direction while he headed in the other.

  “Old Town. I have friends there. We can hide.”

  “No. We need to get to the docks.”

  “Where they’ll be looking for us?”

  “They must have already been there,” Arran said. “Durville is the only one who knows where my mother lives. They won’t expect me to go back. Besides, my ship is useless right now, but there’s got to be someone else getting ready to cast off. There always is.”

  “You want to stow away on some random boat, just trusting to hope that it’s going in the right direction under the command of someone who won’t kill us on the spot?”

  “Why not? You can jump overboard if things get rough, and I know how to make myself useful,” Arran replied. “Besides, there’s a bulletin at every quay that shows where everyone’s headed. Ravenaught is a common enough destination.”

  Faidal thought for a moment, and then nodded. “You got money?”

  “I will. Let’s just get to the harbor.”

  Part of him really just couldn’t believe what he was doing, Arran thought as he dropped down to street level a few blocks away. The Guild did not forgive, and it didn’t forget. His only chance at redemption was having Faidal explain himself to the inspector, and that meant he needed the neneckt a lot more than the neneckt needed him. Faidal would not want to do Arran the favor of telling the truth if it meant implicating himself in the theft of the Guild cards. He had to make sure he didn’t give the neneckt an opportunity to slip away.