"Cover me."
"Huh?"
Arlen was already over the bar by the time Usk looked up from his drink. The underside was grimy and damp. Looking at the state of it, Arlen made a mental note to buy his next drink in a bottle.
"What are you doing?" Usk muttered, barely more than a murmur.
"The brat," Arlen hissed. "Get rid of him."
As if on cue, Silas's voice piped up from the other side of the bar at that moment.
"Where's Arlen?"
"Probably off doing something more important than whatever you have to say," Usk grunted. "Can I take a message?"
"I can tell you know where he is."
Usk snorted. "Got some balls on you tonight, kid. Better keep that tone in check before they go missing."
The bar stool creaked. Silas's voice was several degrees quieter and less imperious when he next spoke.
"Please," he said, "I really need to talk to him about something and he's avoiding me."
Usk barked a laugh, his tankard going down on the bar with a thump. "Sorry, kid. Don't know where he is. He doesn't routinely avoid people so maybe consider if you're being an insufferable pain in the arse before trying again, alright?"
"Yeah," Silas said, sullen. "Sure. Thanks anyway."
Arlen waited, crouched under the bar, for a full minute before he heard Usk's all-clear. He straightened and hopped back onto his stool, sighing.
"He didn't even notice your drink," Usk muttered, chuckling quietly.
"He's a waste of time," Arlen said. "He's useless. He's got so little potential it's almost funny."
"Don't mince your words," Usk said.
Arlen just grunted, draining the last of his beer and wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He had been dodging the boy all day. At first he had appeared at the beer hall while Marick was absent, and that afternoon Arlen had avoided going back to his rooms because he'd sighted Silas heading in that direction. He had thought that one of the last taverns open in the dead quarter – the seediest one he could find – might at least deter the boy from looking, but he'd tracked Arlen there as well. He knew at some point he would have to set the kid straight on several things, but he couldn't bear the whining.
The dregs of the beer from his tankard tasted like dust. He grimaced and beckoned over the barman to ask for a bottle of something stronger.
"What was it Marick asked you to do again?" Usk said. He seemed unperturbed by his dirty drinking glass, but accepted a swig from Arlen's whisky.
"Find the dumb bugger who killed that Unspoken," Arlen said. The injustice of it still rankled. He had been nothing but loyal to Marick and the Devils' cause, and yet he was getting lumped with burdens like a whining fugitive acolyte and the most confounding murder case in a century, like he was being punished for something he hadn't been made aware of. "Like I'm supposed to know where to start with that. I make the crimes, I don't solve them, night take me."
"Maybe your old pal Yddris would help if you asked nicely."
"Bring him up again and I'll fucking cut you."
Usk held up his hands, chuckling quietly, and said nothing more.
Arlen scowled, still wound up and ready to pick a fight. Just the mention of the Unspoken had him fuming, and that made his anger even worse, that that freak of nature even had that much hold over him. No one had that much hold over him. Marick had his loyalties, but Arlen's emotions were his own.
"He knew me," Arlen muttered, taking a long draught of whisky and savouring the burn as it went down. "He knew me."
"Sounds like you've been going back and forth a while," Usk said, confusion evident. Arlen sensed rather than saw the barbarian give him a wary look.
"No." His fingers squeaked on the glass bottle as he gripped it, hard. "He knew my name. My last name."
Usk was silent. Arlen only felt a limited satisfaction at getting his point across, but the issue remained; surnames were Devil property. No one knew true names outside of the guild on pain of death, and the Unspoken had known his. Had he told others? Was Arlen jeopardising everything by not having mentioned this to Marick sooner? In the bitter stir of their heated discussion over Arlen's tasks, Arlen hadn't shared the revelation, but Usk's quietness made him think again. The barbarian wasn't known for shutting up, which meant it was serious enough to pierce that thick skull of his.
"You don't think he used to be a Devil?"
Arlen laughed, but it was bitter. He took another sip of whisky. "What, him? I'd never believe it in a million years."
"How else would he know your name?"
"I don't know." The brief flash of mirth vanished. "But Lord Harkenn would never hire a Devil, not even for information. He's a paranoid bastard."
"Knowingly." Usk shrugged.
"No way." Arlen pushed the bottle towards Usk and stood up, tired of the conversation. "I'm going. If I'm supposed to be solving an impossible murder I suppose I should get a head start."
Usk solemnly touched two fingers to his chin and then to the sky as a prayer to Nict. Arlen sneered and swept from the tavern, into the brisk chill of evening. The air hung heavy with a crawling mist, sharp in his nostrils after the smoky fug of the taproom. He pulled up his scarf around his face and turned off left, using the fuzzy glow of lanterns and candles in windows to navigate.
He wasn't entirely sure where he was headed or what he planned to do; Shadow's Reach was vast, full of hidden places, narrow streets and dark corners. Perfect for getting away; not so much for finding people who didn't want to be found. Arlen wasn't usually grasping that end of the stick, and he was certain already that he didn't enjoy it.
"Just find them," Arlen muttered, mimicking Marick's voice. "I trust that you're capable. Capable, my arse."
It wasn't long before he heard the river. He didn't usually travel at ground level, and the shadows whispered and withdrew as he passed alleys and dark recesses rendered even more invisible by mist. He struggled to admit it to himself, but he was half-hoping someone would pick a fight with him, give him something to do with his hands, something he could be certain of. Information and rumours had uses, but they weren't Arlen's favoured medium. He had grown up getting by hands-on, fighting, intimidating, tricking his way through; all this sneaking and prying – non-invasive, intangible – wasn't Arlen's usual style at all. He was used to breaking into the castle for information by now; it was a payoff for his place in Marick's closest circle. But it felt oddly craven, never looking his targets in the eyes or letting them know he was there; more so, that his target this time was unknown, and had introduced him to the first stirrings of fear he had felt in years.
He blinked, shook his head to clear his thoughts. "Nict preserve me."
When he judged himself to be a few streets over from the Aven, he felt along the wall of a nearby building for a leg-up and hoisted himself to the roof, using the guttering as a hand-hold. The mist was low-lying; from his vantage point on the roof Shadow's Reach was a mass of points and roof ledges, like the skeleton of some vast beast. The Orthanian temple was as visible as ever, tinging the evening golden, a halo of flickering braziers burning away the fog around it. The river had vanished entirely. Somewhere not too far from him, a demon howled. The dimness was bringing them out early.
Arlen pivoted on the spine of the roof. This close to nightfall, it would be a bad idea to stray too far from shelter, and the dead quarter was as good a place to start as any when he had no leads. He quickly found himself wishing he had worn lighter shoes, feeling his way across the roofs in his boots, the tiles slick with moisture. He was far from in danger of falling – he was far too adept at it for that – but he moved much more slowly than he might have liked, and covered less ground.
He had no clear route for where he was going, and the bitter air didn't clear his mind like he'd hoped it would. Events that he would have thought very little of individually kept coming back and chasing each other in circles, nipping like shadelings at the corners of his mind. Something was off about the whole situation, and it frustrated him that he didn't know what it was. It was a valuable quality in an assassin to take in information and move swiftly on, do the job that needed doing with focus and to barely think on it again once completed. And here he was, one of the highest-ranking assassins in the guild, creeping along rooftops in the fog and agonising over things like some kind of heartsick yellow belly.
He shimmied down a drain pipe, scowling, and entered a large courtyard. In the centre, just visible, was the outline of a vast stone cadaver. Mist coalesced in hollows of the carven bones, lending it an apparition-like quality. Arlen paused and laid his hand on the black stone skull, and then touched two fingers to his chin and skirted around the statue to the temple.
Unlike other Houses, Nict chose not to make their places of worship ostentatious; a display of wealth and taste in matters of faith was treated as churlishness. The temple was a squat, low building built of the same dark stone the cadaver had been carved from; uniform, tidy, unassuming. Its only outward concession to its holy status was a thickset steeple, a single bell hanging in the tower which was barely rung. Nict's followers were a more stay-at-home, as-and-when kind of assembly, just like the god themselves. Aside from the flagellants, that was; but most sane followers treated them as a division of their own, which they might as well have been.
Arlen had met many types of people in his illustrious career, but even he steered clear of Nict's fanatical sect.
A lone figure stood under the temple porch with a taper, lighting the lanterns on each side of the entrance. As Arlen stepped into the tiny space, the man clipped the glass case of the last lantern shut and shook out the flame before nodding shortly and leading the way inside. His cassock was dark grey and covered every inch of him except his face.
"I'm here to see Callan."
"Are you?" The priest sounded supremely uninterested. "Do you have an appointment?"
"No." Arlen took down his hood and the scarf around his mouth when the priest turned, no doubt in preparation to tell him where to stick it. The words visibly froze in the man's throat, gaze darting immediately to Arlen's blinded eye. Arlen smiled. "I'm here to see Callan, please. I won't ask again."
"This way."
The priest led him to the back of the temple. A door stood behind the altar, leading into a long corridor of living cells for the priests. In the small square windows candle-light flickered.
Callan resided in a cell at the far end of the corridor. It was no bigger than the cells of any of his subordinates, a fact about the man that Arlen had never had anything but respect for. The walls of his room were cluttered with books and paraphernalia, looking outwardly to be a careless mess. In reality, it was more likely to a very calculated disorganisation in which Callan knew the location of every item he owned, whereas a thief or a searching guard would have very little hope of making sense of it.
The Head himself was strewn over his chair in much the same careless fashion as his belongings. As the priest escorting Arlen rapped on the door with his knuckles, the man looked up, his reading lenses magnifying his eyes to an almost comical size.
"Arlen," the man said, offering a tight smile and benevolent nod that as much welcomed Arlen as dismissed the priest. "Visits like these are rare indeed. What can I do for you?"
Callan had a face like someone had scrunched up a piece of parchment and then tried to straighten it back out again. When Arlen didn't speak immediately, the creases deepened into the nearest semblance of concern a Nict priest could ever muster.
"I need a favour," Arlen began.
Callan sat up, the businessman coming forward. He removed his lenses and placed them on a teetering stack of books. When he spoke, the ex-Devil and information broker Arlen had really come to see was present in his voice. Callan had been a feature of the Devils' operations ever since Arlen had joined, though he hadn't been the Head of the house back then.
"I'm suspecting that whatever favour you've taken the trouble to come and see me for will be expensive," Callan said, gesturing for Arlen to close the door and producing a stool from somewhere under the mess. "Considering that I usually do business with you via street urchin."
Arlen took the proffered seat, smiling lightly. "There's a lot in it if you can pull it off."
Callan's eyes narrowed. "Go on. Consider me interested."
"I've been assigned to find the killer of the Unspoken that was murdered not long ago," Arlen said. "I just need you to keep an ear to the ground. Give me something to start with. Report on your confessionals if needs must."
"And if I find information you can use?"
"Name your price."
-
Arlen was in a hurry by the time he left the temple; it was almost fully dark, and though the mist had cleared while he was inside, the visibility wasn't good. In the dead quarter, unlike the rest of the city, there weren't enough occupied buildings to rely on candle-light to get around, at least until they were into the dark season and even the dead quarter was spared the material to light the street lamps. He was taking a risk by trying to get all the way back to his rooms before full dark, but he couldn't stomach the prospect of a night at the beer hall, where Silas or Marick could find him. It meant a journey of several blocks further, but he was going to risk it.
He left the temple courtyard and immediately scaled the nearest building to travel over the roofline. It was still slippery underfoot, but with the mist gone he could at least go a little faster. He savoured the cold wind on his face, in his hair, the faint smell of smoke and fresh moisture in the air. He had another bottle of nettle wine in his stores; when he got back he would crack it out and do his best not to think about anything for the rest of the night.
A noise drew his gaze downwards. Normally the noises from the street below meant nothing and he paid them no mind, but the combination of his stilted speed and his strange mood that evening made him look down this time.
"Night fucking take me," he growled. He was staring at a mugging in an alley three storeys below him. He didn't know the two men; common robbers, or members of one of the smaller gangs in the quarter which nominally ran themselves but were all under Marick's thumb.
Their victim was Silas, putting up a characteristic show of astonishing cowardice.
Arlen contemplated leaving him there to learn a lesson, but then considered that everything the boy owned now had been donated by Marick; he had been forced to leave all his personal belongings behind in his imprisonment. These men were robbing the Devils, and Silas was – though no one had said so directly – Arlen's responsibility.
He sighed, thinking wistfully of the wine, before shimmying down to a second floor window and swinging himself onto a stack of crates in the corner of the alley. Silas shrieked and threw himself to the ground at the noise. The brutes whipped out weapons, one a length of lead piping and the other a short, blunt cutlass. Arlen laughed as he pulled the scarf down from his face.
"What do you think you're going to do with those?"
"Arlen!" Silas scrambled off the cobbles, reddening.
"Get behind me."
Silas clambered up the crates to stand behind Arlen. The two thugs on the ground had lowered their weapons when Arlen revealed his face.
"This boy is under Devil protection," he said, already bored, and resentful that the boy had found a way to get his attention despite his best efforts. "You don't lay a finger on him, you understand?"
"Prove it," one man grunted. "Show 'is tattoo."
"Is mine not sufficient proof?" Arlen said, turning his head. "Get lost, will you?"
The two men slunk off without further argument, taking with them a faint, pervading air of disappointment. As soon as Arlen could no long hear them, he turned and grabbed Silas's collar, hoisting him up close to his face. For a moment Silas hung there, stunned, before gathering the sense to struggle. His hands were soft and ineffectual against Arlen's grip.
"Can you do anything right?" Arlen hissed, shaking him until his head snapped back. "At this point it's not even a rhetorical question, you stupid little brat."
"Get off me." Silas reached round and pinched Arlen's arm. Pins and needles shot to his fingers, weakening his grip enough for the boy to wriggle out. An expression of triumph slowly drained from the boy's face, giving way to horror as he realised what he'd just done. Arlen grunted, flexing his tingling fingers.
"Not bad," he muttered, "Maybe you have something going for you."
He pinned the boy with a glare. Silas stiffened but set his jaw.
"Marick's given me another job."
The wind left Arlen's sails. "What?"
Silas spoke quickly, his words blurring together, as if he wanted to get it all out before Arlen even had a breath to interrupt with. "He wants me to kill someone else. He wanted you to help me this time."
"Who?"
Silas looked away. Just when Arlen was on the verge of beating it out of him, he leaned in and whispered the name into his ear.
Arlen straightened. Blinked. Looked for some sign of a joke in the boy's face.
He looked up at the sky and laughed once, picturing his god staring back down at him with their middle finger up.
"Right back at you," he muttered. "A hundred times over."