Fifty Two: Close Encounter

It wasn't the first time Arlen had severely questioned his own judgement. It probably wouldn't be the last, either. Still he didn't move from his place.

All around him was the aftermath of chaos. In some places in the city, he knew the riots still raged. Subdued as it was by the circumstances that had let to the revolt in the first place, it was enough to have the rest of the city cowering in their houses. Yet in the quarters around the castle it had gone suddenly, inexplicably quiet overnight. There was no one on the streets, except those moving debris or broken furniture from the roads, and the usual supply wagons rattling back and forth. It would have been unsettling if it hadn't provided him with such a perfect opportunity.

While he had still had his leg, he would have thought nothing of grabbing this chance with both hands. Now familiar, hated doubts rose as he stepped out into the road and began to walk towards the house at the end of the row. The windows were dark, as they had been for the last hour, but he still ran through all the ways this could go wrong and what he would do if it did. Most of those solutions boiled down to 'not a lot'.

Because scaling the fence at the back had been out of the question, he had to risk the front door. He looked up and down the row and into every window, quick and appraising. He had worn the biggest hood he owned in the hopes that it would confuse any onlookers in the dark, but he would still rather have no witnesses. If anyone looked too closely they'd remember that the resident of this house didn't need a walking stick.

The lock gave easily to his tools; he supposed if you had magic, intruders weren't as much of a worry as they might have been to others. Arlen smiled wryly at that as he stepped inside. He had never been into the witch man's house and probably never would again, so he took his own vindictive pleasure in inspecting the place.

There wasn't anything to see in the entrance hall, but the front room had been made over as a kind of study. Arlen guessed this was the work of the current lodger. He had heard convincing rumours that Yddris himself was illiterate, and that didn't tally with the sheer number of books lying around. There wasn't much furniture save for a chair and a fireplace, so the books lay in piles on the floor, some open still and others bristling with markers. As he passed, he caught glimpses of titles about demons and the Isolation, and piles of books on magic theory that made him wrinkle his nose. Others were compendiums of herb lore, annotated over every inch in a meticulous hand. Plants lay in bunches on the hearth stones. He might have lingered to find out more about the other witch man, but he was conscious that he had already lost a lot of time waiting outside. He hurried into the hall beyond.

Jordan's room was the only one with a door. It was the only room in the hall, both of the other exits leading to stairs. Arlen wasn't desperate enough to brave the stairs that led down; they were treacherously steep even for someone without a fake leg. Inside he found a desk and a stripped bed. The desk was spattered in ink and the wall above it plastered with drawings of strange symbols. Despite himself, he shuddered. He was well used to the idea that his apprentice had magic, but the symbols were a step too far for him, a primal kind of uneasiness around the unknown. A slightly open drawer caught his eye. He gratefully tore his gaze from the strange patterns and tugged it open.

"Of course," Arlen muttered, when he found the thing stuffed with journals, ink and pens. There were also some sticks and lengths of string, which he presumed were for that mangy little animal Jordan kept. With a sigh, he grabbed a journal off the top of the pile and stuffed it into an inside pocket of his cloak. It would have to do. A scan of the room showed him nothing else of interest.

He froze when he heard the front door open. Soft footsteps followed. A female voice hummed as they entered, and Arlen frowned. The Unspoken living here wasn't female, and if it wasn't the Unspoken he still had a chance of getting away without incident.

His own judgement was starting to look very poor indeed. He caught himself in wishing he'd brought Usk; the Varthian would never have let him do this. Sometimes the brute seemed convinced he was Arlen's mother. Normally he hated it, but when faced with this dilemma he half-wished someone had talked him out of it. Not because he was a coward, that wasn't it – but he did have some pride left, and he was not going to be brought down by this dark-damned leg.

"Hello? Is someone there?" someone called. There was something about the voice that pricked Arlen's memory. The accent, he realised, the same unfamiliar otherworld cadence as Jordan's. This was the sister.

He crept back towards the window, cursing his leg as it scraped lightly against the boards. Even as he went, he questioned whether he made the right choice. Grace was potentially the solution to his problem with Jordan; if Marick was forced to find Jordan another teacher, not even the new leg would break that fall. Jordan was his key to keeping his rank, and Grace might be his key to keeping Jordan.

Desperation, he knew, was making him irrational. There were better ways to do this – the girl would never reveal anything if she found him creeping around in her brother's bedroom without permission. If he wanted any chance of gaining her confidence, through Ashe or whoever, he couldn't raise her suspicions like this.

He knew this had been a bad idea.

He made it through the window with the leg still miraculously attached. His stick lifted him clear enough of the sill when used as a lever to avoid making too much racket. From there, he ducked below the sill and pressed himself against the back wall of the house. The wall was far too high for him to attempt, and he was not going to be found by anyone writhing on the ground after a fall with his false leg lying several feet away. He would pick his own ditch and die in it before he allowed word of that to get back to Marick. He had no choice but to wait it out and pray the cover of darkness would be enough, for now. When he was sure he had another reasonable gap of time, he would try and loosen the fence on the street side and make his escape that way.

No sooner had he settled against the wall than he heard Grace enter the bedroom. She came to the open window and peered out, leaning out until he could have touched her if he tried. She ducked back in, muttering to herself. He didn't hear her footsteps recede. A moment later the desk chair creaked.

"Why won't you tell me anything?" she mumbled. A drawer slid open and closed again, and then another. Arlen tensed. Would she notice that one of the journals was gone?

If she did, there was no audible sign. His relief, however, was short-lived.

"You're early," another voice said, a male one this time. Arlen knew without seeing him that this was the Unspoken. He had heard the man's voice before, on another occasion where Arlen had been speaking to Jordan. There was something about it that bothered him. He drew deeper into the shadows, inching towards the fence, though he knew the only thing that would save him would be the Unspoken's inattention. Not that he was scared of the magic; the repercussions of using that would be too high for the man. But if he was even half as good as Yddris at combat Arlen would rather not go against him. The thugs who had cornered him before were just that, but another trained fighter was a different matter entirely. He had heard rumours about the rigours of Unspoken combat training.

"I got off early," Grace replied. "Nova's been closeted in the study all day and I just feel really restless. Like something's going to happen."

Nova? Arlen paused in his retreat, a smirk spreading over his face. Oh, this was good. The girl was friendly with the slave, was she? He wondered whether Harkenn knew.

"I would be very surprised if it isn't," the Unspoken said heavily. "A Caelumese envoy is currently closeted in the study with her. They claim they are here to help with the food crisis and the floods, but the lord is sceptical. He hasn't told them about either issue."

A stunned silence followed from Grace. "Caelumese? You mean Angels?"

"Two dozen of them, half soldiers," the Unspoken replied gravely. Arlen's insides lurched unpleasantly, and his scar began to tingle. Those feathered scumbags had no business anywhere near the city limits. He clenched his fist around his walking stick and forced himself to keep moving backwards. The Unspoken was talking still, but he didn't want to hear any more.

"What are you doing in there?" a voice hissed above him. Arlen looked up. Silas perched on the fence like a slightly gawky cat, looking down at him over his own face covering.

"Could ask you the same thing," Arlen growled. "He's not even here."

Silas took a breath to retort, but paused when the words came clearly through the open window: "Did you hear that? Nika, I think someone's been in the house. The door was unlocked."

That would put the witch man on alert. Arlen didn't have time to be pissed with Silas. For once the boy's timing might actually prove invaluable. He unbuckled the straps on his leg and pulled it loose, for once grateful for how much practice he had had at it. Every second of this counted.

"Take that over with you. And this," Arlen handed both his walking stick and his leg up to Silas, whose eyes had gone wide in the darkness. He took it without comment and dropped out of sight.

Arlen took a breath and heaved to his one foot. He braced his hands on the fence and began to haul himself over. No time for dignity now, not when he knew the witch man was about to...

"Stop where you are," a deceptively soft voice said behind him. Arlen did not stop where he was. He hauled himself up, arms shaking with the effort, and straddled the fence to look down on the Unspoken below him. He expected the man to rush him, but he only stood there, watching. It was somehow more disturbing than anything else he could have done. Behind him Grace hovered in the doorway clutching a cooking pan in one hand.

A scraping below him drew his attention from the impasse. Silas was pushing an old barrel up against the fence below where Arlen's stump dangled. Arlen almost felt sorry that the boy was so insufferable most of the time; he'd expected to have to fall over the other side of the fence after all and go searching for him in the dark. He offered the witch man a narrow smile, and wondered if he saw it.

"Good evening," he said, nodding, and hooked his foot over the fence to turn himself towards the barrel. He froze when a cooking knife thudded into the wood beside his fingers. He plucked it out and twirled it absently around in one hand, waiting. He didn't think the man would have it in him to carry out the implied threat, but if he waited, kept Nika's attention away from his legs, he could manoeuvre himself to drop out of range without warning. "Do you always throw knives at your visitors?"

"Hardly a visitor," Nika replied coldly. "Grace, stay inside."

Jordan's sister only made a token movement back towards the doorway. Arlen grinned at her, and she visibly shuddered as if she felt it. Despite her eye colour and softer features, she looked very similar to Jordan when Arlen had first met him.

"I'm not going to tolerate your presence here, Devil," the witch man said, "no matter how much right you think you have to it. I don't know what link you have to him, but it earns you nothing under this roof."

"You know, that nosy derelict you're shacking up with said something very similar once," Arlen said. He inched his leg further over and paused again. "If I thought I had a right to be under this roof I wouldn't have broken into it when there was no one home, would I? Sometimes you witch men seem surprised when criminals do criminal shit. Nict below." He eased his leg further over; he was almost far enough to drop down. Silas waited beside the barrel with his leg, watching anxiously. Did he not think Arlen could get out of this? He would have scoffed if he had been certain of it himself. This wasn't Yddris, but there was something about the man that he really didn't like. "So, witch man, are we sitting here all evening?"

Nika cocked his head. "I could easily drag you off that fence if I wanted to." He said it with so little inflection or emotion that Arlen felt an involuntary shiver run up his spine. He sneered.

"You're not the only one who can throw a knife, whisperer," he said. "Come close enough and I'll stick one of those freaky eyes out."

Grace shrieked as Arlen threw the kitchen knife back, aiming for the witch man's shoulder – he wasn't superstitious, particularly, but Unspoken had something about them that lent the whole 'retribution of the gods' thing a ring of truth. He didn't want to know what would happen if he hit something important. He should have known better; the Unspoken dodged as easily as if a breeze had blown past him, hand going to his belt. Before he had the chance to retaliate, Arlen hauled his leg the rest of the way over the fence and dropped to the barrel, grimacing. He bent his knee as he landed, but if it hadn't been for Silas he would have pitched sideways off it.

"No time," he hissed, when the boy tried to give him his leg back. "Cover, look for cover."

The walking stick he took, and propped it under his armpit. He pulled another knife out with his free hand, glancing back over his shoulder. It didn't look as though the Unspoken was pursuing, but that didn't necessarily mean he wasn't. It might just have meant he was sneakier than Arlen had anticipated.

He struggled for a moment to get into the rhythm of walking with his stick as a substitute leg. Despite the prosthetic being the bane of his daily schedule, he had become accustomed to it. He felt horribly unbalanced without it, his whole left side light and insubstantial. As he hobbled away, he felt sick. It was hard to see how he was ever going to get out of the mess his life had become; one split-second too slow, and everything he'd spent his life working towards had come crashing down around him.

Silas darted past him and threw something over the fence. The faint sound of breaking glass followed, and then the slam of a door. Arlen paused, looking down at the boy in disbelief as he trotted up alongside.

"Did you just try and smoke out an Unspoken?"

"No," Silas retorted. He handed Arlen the leg back, eyes fixed on the fence behind them. "I tried to give an Unspoken hallucinations." He looked back at Arlen as he fixed the buckle around his waist. "Why didn't he come after you?"

"Because he doesn't know enough," Arlen said, with more confidence than he felt. It was all he was going to give Silas, who hated Haverford enough, but in silence his thoughts were racing. Had the Unspoken been fishing for information? Perhaps to determine how much, or how willingly, Jordan was involved with the Devils? He almost laughed aloud at the next thought – had Nika held off because he was concerned Haverford liked him? If that was the case, Arlen wished Marick had been around to see it. If Yddris kept Nika out of the loop – because Arlen had no doubts that sour old bastard knew – that might be useful in future. "But I don't want to hang around just in case."

He finished strapping on the leg and limped away down the road without another glance back, before any of the belladonna smoke crept over the fence on the breeze. Silas easily kept pace with him, and Arlen tolerated it for once. After all, the boy's quick thinking had probably just saved him a rather dicey encounter.

"So what were you doing there?" Arlen asked, faux-casually.

"Just checking things out," the boy replied, somewhat evasively. With a start, Arlen noticed that the boy was rivalling him in height. His limbs were still gawky and thin with youth, but it still unnerved him. Jordan was slightly taller than Arlen was, but he wasn't nearly as unpredictable as Silas. The Haverford boy wasn't physically threatening, at least; his magic did that for him. Arlen wasn't sure he wanted to find out what would happen if Silas gained a physical advantage on him and the know-how to use it. "That witch man gives me the creeps. More than the others do."

Arlen glanced at him. "Something's off with that one, aye."

"How often do you think Haverford's sister visits? They seemed friendly." Silas sounded a little too interested. Arlen kept his eyes straight ahead but put a warning note in his tone.

"You have no business with her."

"Didn't say I did," Silas replied, a mite defensively. "She seemed comfortable with him, is all." A conspiratorial look came into his eye. "Do you think they're..."

Arlen barked a laugh. "Nict, no. I'd bet he's almost double her age, and a witch man to boot. I'd be prepared to put more money on him sharing a bed with Yddris."

Silas wrinkled his nose. "Yddris is old."

Arlen grunted. "I don't think he's as old as he'd have us all believing. Anyway, he just seems more likely than the girl. It's probably still got dust on it."

Silas snorted.

The downward slope towards the city was beginning to tax his leg, but he kept his pace up anyway. He was almost certain the witch man wasn't pursuing, but he was too confused by it to feel completely comfortable. The Unspoken had seemed to have every intention of a confrontation, and yet at the last minute had given up. Perhaps he just wasn't willing to put Grace at any risk. Arlen's nose wrinkled. How noble that would be. Jordan's journal was a weight in his inside pocket – the ordeal hadn't been a total failure. He'd caught a glimpse of Grace and taken the measure of the other Unspoken, at least.

He still wouldn't be rushing back, at least not before he had a more certain method of getting away afterwards.

He had Silas hail a city carriage for them both. It wasn't easy to find one – the service usually halted in the dark season, and they were only just out of it – and Arlen paid far more for it than he felt he should have, but he had exhausted his caution for the evening. At least a city carriage was unlikely to be an assassination attempt, as no one would expect a Devil to take one; Silas also came in handy there, with his acolyte's manners and frighteningly convincing impression of harmlessness. At the glint of three silver Certs the driver hadn't bothered to give Arlen more than a cursory glance.

"Your turn," Silas said, as the carriage began moving. "What were you doing there?"

"I suspect for similar reasons to you," Arlen growled, "with much more legitimate motives."

"See, he doesn't even want to..."

"Boy, you're doing unusually well this evening. Don't ruin it." Arlen kept his eyes on the window, but sensed more than saw Silas readying a protest. "If I give you an Auriel for your work tonight, will you shut up?"

Silas thought for a moment. He had certainly picked up a few habits from the Devils, Arlen thought wryly, as by way of an answer the ex-acolyte closed his mouth and held out a commanding hand.

"I'll give it to you when we get back," Arlen said.

He watched the streets rolling away from them through a gap in the carriage window drapes. It really was very quiet, considering the uproar of the previous few days. Something about it unnerved him. He doubted the castle guard had intervened with such effect. He didn't think Usk's reports on how the rest of the city fared were so old as to be irrelevant, either. Something had perhaps...scared people back into their houses? But he was hard-pressed to think of what, if even the threat of demons didn't keep everyone inside.

The carriage slowed before they left the streets known as the Fingers. Arlen had paid for the ride to take him to the bridge that led across the river from the base of the castle hill by the most roundabout route possible. It wasn't one he'd risked yet due to its proximity to the castle, but he was exhausted enough to take the chance. It didn't bode well that they were slowing before they were even halfway around the route.

He twitched the curtain a touch wider. They hadn't come to a stop, so it wasn't the watch and there was no obstruction in the road. For a while, all he could see was the building fronts as they rolled past. Silas slid up on his bench to peer through.

"Night take me," the kid whispered, spotting it first as the window was on Arlen's blind side.

"What is it?" Arlen growled, pulling Silas back so that whoever was out there wouldn't see his nose pressed against the pane. He peered through again himself as they grew closer to the source of muffled sounds in the road outside.

Three figures stood in the shadow of a building, one on his knees and two others looming over him. The two standing turned at the carriage's passage, at which the driver seemed to realise he was gawking and the horses picked up speed once more – but not before Arlen spotted that both of them had wings.

A cold fist of wrongness punched into his gut and twisted. He sat back in the seat, his scars prickling from temple to hip. His blinded eye ached with memory.

"What are Angels doing in Shadow's Reach?" Silas said, oblivious.

"Nothing good, kid," Arlen said hoarsely. "And if you want that Auriel, we're not going to discuss it."

He rubbed his hand over the jagged line of knotted tissue running from cheek to chin, and when he closed his eyes he felt once more the freezing sting of a Caelumese blade.