The Alchemist of Souls (Night's Masque, #1)(79)

"Where are your guards, sir?" Mal asked, suddenly wary.

Kiiren smiled. "They go to play dice with captain's men."

"Monkton invited them?"

That seemed highly unlikely. The captain had not openly expressed an opinion of the visitors, but if the attitude of his men was anything to go by, he did not discourage prejudice against the skraylings either.

"I ask him to ask them," Kiiren said. "English and Vinlanders should not be apart so much. Bad for friendship."

"I suppose so," Mal muttered. Kiiren was being hopelessly optimistic. Most likely the experiment would end in broken heads and another retreat to the camp. Why Leland was allowing such a foolish venture so soon after the last incident, he could not fathom.

"If we cannot trust our friends, what is purpose to come here?"

Mal had no answer to that. Either Kiiren was far too naive for the role assigned to him, or – no, there was no "or". He shook his head in despair.

Kiiren paused, looking nervous once more.

"I wish to share ceremony with you this night," he said, his voice loud in the empty room. "If it be your will."

"Will it be… like the meeting?"

"Somewhat like. But we two only." He smiled shyly. "No one to spy on us here."

Mal swallowed. More magic. But he had to find out the secret of the skraylings' power, for his own satisfaction as well as the safety of the realm.

"Very well, I accept."

Kiiren produced an armful of cream wool that had lain folded on one of the benches.

"It is also our custom," Kiiren began, "to wash body and wear robe–"

"No more robes, I beg you!" Mal backed away, hands raised. "I will do this as I am, or not at all."

Kiiren wrinkled his nose, but did not press Mal further. He crossed the dining room and opened a small door in the corner.

The western tower chamber was the twin of the chapel at the other end of the ambassador's apartments, a small circular space with whitewashed stone walls, though the floor was of plain terracotta tiles and the windows unglazed. The window openings had been blocked with rush matting and covered with patterned silk, and carpets laid on the floor, so it looked more like the interior of a skrayling tent than a castle tower. Lamps hung from four iron stands positioned at what Mal guessed were the four cardinal points, and a low brazier stood in the centre of the room.

"Please to sit," Kiiren said. "Take off shirt and uncover tattoo."

Mal removed his doublet and shirt and threw them aside. It was almost a relief to strip off in the humid confines of the little chamber, and with his torso swathed in bandages he scarcely felt undressed. Sitting down cross-legged on the matting, he unwound the dressing over his tattoo. The skin around the inking was still red and tender, but with no sign of festering.

Kiiren unfastened his necklace, and gestured for Mal to remove his earring. He did so, and stared down at the pendant.

"Is there magic in this?" he asked the skrayling, examining the pearl.

"Power is in touch of metal." Kiiren held up his necklace, rolling the beads between his fingers. "In English I think it is called 'lodestone'. Powerful protection against evil spirits."

Mal remembered the nightmare presences lurking amongst the rocks, and shuddered. He knew without being told that these were the creatures the lodestone protected him from.

"If it is such a powerful protection, why put it aside?"

"Because it is anchor also, to hold spirit in body. Tonight we must be free."

Kiiren sat down opposite, then opened a small wooden box and threw a pinch of fine powder onto the coals. Mal sneezed repeatedly as a cloud of pungent smoke filled the small room, and wiped his streaming eyes with the back of his hand.

"Please to breathe slowly," Kiiren murmured. "Empty thoughts."

Mal drew a deep breath. The smoke smelt somewhat like tobacco but with an acrid edge. His throat burned and his toes and fingertips tingled, as if he had taken a draught of raw brandy. Kiiren's features blurred, and the lamps within his line of sight dissolved into a rainbow aura.

"Again," Kiiren said, his voice barely audible. "All is quiet. All is forgetting. All is remembering."

Mal breathed in again. He should be afraid, a small detached part of his mind observed, but he felt more content than he had done in months, perhaps years. The feeling combined the bliss of lying spent in a woman's arms with the heightened awareness of combat. He breathed out and closed his eyes, allowing his other senses to fill that awareness.

Linen and wool against his skin, a faint draught from the window. Kiiren's musky scent, the clinging odour of neatsfoot oil, a faint trace of wine and spices drifting in under the door, the stink of the river outside. The crackle of the charcoal brazier, the sentries on the wall walk, and an owl setting out on its evening hunt. His own heartbeat pounding in his ears, becoming one with the voice of the sea, the hiss and rattle of pebbles as each wave sighed its last upon the land.

He opened his eyes. The four walls of the tower room were gone; only the brazier remained, the shimmer of its coals echoing the molten gold of the sun, just rising above the ocean. Mal looked about him in panic.

"Where are we?"

Kiiren smiled and ran his fingers through the gravel. Mal stared down at the beach. Every pebble demanded his attention, begging to be touched, examined, chosen. He scooped up a double handful and let them go again, watching in fascination as they fell through his fingers. Tiny shards of stone clung to his damp skin: flecks of amber, grey and white.