Read Online Shadowmasque by Michael Cobley - Free Book Online

footing he picked his way to the end of the room where a tall cupboard stood against the outer wall. A second key, smaller and finer than the first, opened its heavy door to reveal an empty interior with only a few wooden hooks still fixed to the back at head height. He reached in and twisted the hook furthest to the right, whereupon the back of the cupboard split down the middle and swung inwards, opening on a dim passage.
    A wave of stone-cold air brushed Vorik’s face as he clambered through, then closed first the cupboard door followed by the secret doors. Turning, he held up the light-gem to illuminate his surroundings — the passage had been hewn through the solid rock in a manner which all the surfaces uneven yet oddly free of roughness or sharp protrusions. The cold rock was so undulantly smooth to the touch that he wonder if the action of running water could have been the cause. Then he noticed something embedded in the rock, irregularities that looked like teeth. But even as he fingered them in the light of the gem, a voice came from further along the passage:
    “Don’t loiter, Vorik! — you know how I hate to be kept waiting!”
    He jerked upright in surprise, uttering an oath under his breath. It was Jumil, sounding close enough to be just past the first curve of the passageway before him. But when he hurried round it there was no-one to be seen, just more tunnel sloping gently downwards into darkness.
    He must have dashed on ahead of me,
Vorik thought.
What fool’s game is this?
    Vorik felt his anger rise as he hastened along the tunnel. Ever since those cursed Watchers snatched Ondene away last night his temper had been on a short leash, and up until recently he would have been unconcerned about expressing his anger before Jumil, or even berating him on occasion. But almost a week ago, after not hearing from him for two days, Vorik received a message ordering him to find four willing men among the city’s dregs and bring them that night to a safe house by the West Wharfs. This he duly did, arriving with the new recruits in a cart. The house was a primitive dwelling, little more than a single, packed-earth floor room with a scullery and pantry in an alcove and a couple of smoky lamps hanging from the two supporting posts. Jumil was waiting within, and he locked the front and only door when they were all inside. Vorik had been in the mood to deliver a stinging rebuke to him but held his tongue when he saw the sheathed broadsword hanging on the man’s hip.
    Jumil had then directed the men to sit in four chairs already arranged in a square in the centre of the room. What happened next seared itself into Vorik’s memories.
    Jumil had regarded them one by one, then announced that he only had need of three of them, pointing them out. The fourth he approached, laid a hand on his shoulder and asked him to say something about his family. A strange light entered the seated man’s eyes as he began to gibber on about parents and cousins, yet Vorik had thought nothing of it. For the next moment or two.
    The clerk Jumil had listened to this prattle, nodding at this point or that, then calmly drew forth his sword and hacked off the man’s leg. Vorik had cursed in shock, as did the other three men, yet their companion still gabbled on and on as if nothing had happened. There was blood, yet only a steady trickle, and the words kept coming even as Jumil lopped off the other leg and both arms until he was standing in a welter of gore with the still-living torso sat on a red-drenched chair, still talking. Silence came with the final blow, after which Jumil promised the other three, pale and quivering with fear as they were, that there would be great rewards for obedience and loyalty.
    Then he told them to await his orders and dismissed them. All three were near rigid with terror as they quickly left: Vorik, on the other hand, had a stronger disposition towards carnage, having served with the Imperial army in eastern