The Prince of Lies (Night's Masque, #3)(122)

“Amayi,” his uncle whispered. “Go to sleep, it’s too soon…”

The room went dark, and Kit found himself standing somewhere cold and silent.



The boy let them into a long hall that appeared to be the school’s refectory. It was empty at this hour, though bowls and plates were stacked on a trestle table ready for supper.

“Where are your new pupils?” Mal asked. “Catlyn and Sidney?”

“I-I don’t know about Sidney, b-b-but Catlyn is in there with Master Shawe.” He indicated a door at the top of a short flight of steps.

Mal drew his rapier and went up to the door to press his ear against the timbers. After a few moments he turned back to Coby.

“I can smell qoheetsakhan,” he said in a low voice. “What in God’s name are they doing in there?”

The boy smiled slyly. “Making him one of us.”

Mal unfastened his spirit-guard and crossed the refectory to spread his free hand along the boy’s temple and jaw and stare into his eyes. Focusing all his thoughts he tried to slip into the boy’s mind but it parted under his mental fingers like fog, sucking him into darkness–

He withdrew, gasping. “What are you?”

The boy just smiled again.

“We don’t have time for this,” Coby muttered. “Hold him at sword’s point whilst I tie him up.”

Mal obeyed, unable to tear his gaze away. Despite the spectacles the boy’s eyes seemed unfocused, the pupils huge as a cat’s at night. Coby swiftly bound the boy’s wrists with the bit of rope that had been around her own, tightening the loops that had been so loose before.

“Come on, we have to get to Kit,” she said, shaking Mal out of his stupor.

Rubbing his forehead, Mal stumbled after her. Whatever Shawe was doing here, he had a feeling it wasn’t going to have the same effect on Kit as the other boys.



“Where am I?” Kit shouted. The word his uncle had used came to his lips: “Amayi!”

Things stirred in the darkness, black shapes he was afraid to look at. Something burned in his chest and spread upwards, along his arms and into his head, blinding him as it poured out of his eyes and mouth and fingernails, a white light brighter than anything he’d ever seen. The dark shapes ran.

“I am Kiiren,” he yelled after them, “Outspeaker of the Shajiilrekhurrnasheth, and I am not afraid of you.”

He didn’t know where the words came from, but they felt right. He opened his eyes, shaking off the lethargy of the qoheetsakhan, and saw the two humans staring at him, wide-eyed and angry. The older one held a night-blade, its obsidian edge sharper than any steel.

“Who are you?” Kiiren said. He felt small, smaller than he remembered. “The hrrith…”

He clutched at his belly, expecting his guts to leak out between his fingers. No. Stupid. He had died that night; this was a new body, a… oh amayi no, a human body.

“What have I done?” he whispered.

“Tjirzadhen,” the man with the qoheetsakhan spat. It was the name for Kiiren’s own kind in Vinlandic, meaning one who had been reborn more than once. He made it sound like an insult. “We should kill him.”

“No,” the other replied. “No, he is more valuable to us alive. But we need him subdued–”

Kiiren didn’t wait to hear any more. He dodged around the man with the knife, his new body lithe and swift, and ran for the nearest door.



Something thudded against the inside of the far door, and the latch rattled. Coby drew her other pistol. A voice, masculine and somewhat nasal. Though she could not make out the words, the tone sent shivers down her back. She lifted the latch with the barrel of her unloaded pistol and kicked the door open. A man stared back at her, his hands around Kit’s throat. Shawe, presumably.

“Take your filthy paws off my son, demon!” She waved the unloaded pistol at Shawe for emphasis. “Steel bullets, if you’re wondering, so don’t try any enchantments either.”

Shawe raised his hands, and the chain he had been holding slithered to the floor. Kit dashed past her, into the refectory. Coby backed away, still pointing the gun at the alchemist. Another man appeared behind Shawe, younger and with a more contemptuous expression on his face than on Shawe’s, if that were possible.

“Run,” he said. “I enjoy a game of hide and seek.”

Coby raised her other pistol and squeezed the trigger, tipping the barrel upwards at the last moment so that the shot went over both their heads. Both men ducked reflexively.

“Get Kit out of here,” Mal said, stepping between her and the guisers. “I’ll deal with these two.”

Coby shoved the unloaded pistol into her belt, grabbed Kit’s hand and dragged him, protesting, out of the house.

“I want my amayi!” he wailed.

“That’s where we’re going, lambkin,” she replied, “but we have to run very fast, back to the horses.”

Kit halted in the middle of the path and stared up at her. “I’m not your lambkin, I’m Kiiren.”

She looked into his dark eyes and the truth hit her like a blow to the stomach. This was not her son any more. They were too late.





CHAPTER XXXIII



Mal blocked the doorway, steel in each hand. Shawe to the left of him, a nasty-looking obsidian dagger in his hand, a younger man to his right with naught but a thurible. The bitter smell of dream-herb filled the air. Another ritual like Suffolk’s, no doubt, attempting to manipulate souls. How predictable these villains were!