The door opened and he leaned forward eagerly. It wasn’t her, though, it was what looked to be two women based on the size and contours of the silhouettes briefly visible before the door slammed shut. One of them was talking but cut off suddenly. Both of them were peering at him, he realized. They moved away, and he didn’t think he was imagining their urgency. So, that was great: even standing out here in the shadows was drawing the attention of the locals. Maybe the guards hadn’t been terribly attentive at the gates, but he didn’t think they would ignore it if people came to them complaining about strangers lurking in shadows.
Before anything could come of it, Qanath returned. She seemed to be burdened by a heartening amount of stuff, but he couldn’t really get a glimpse of the haul out here. When he tried to take something off her hands, she hissed at him and pulled away. With a shrug, he took up her pack instead and led them north.
She said nothing for the first few blocks, but when they came around a corner and he set off into a street that was completely dark, she stopped. “Where are we going?”
“To find somewhere to spend the night.”
“But—”
He didn’t wait for her to start. “If you want to spend the night in an inn, fine, go back to the last place and ask if they have beds. I’m not risking it. Not after six years of waiting, not only a few days’ walk from home.”
She never responded, but when he took off into the dark again, she stuck to his heels. He kept on for a couple more blocks, to put a buffer between them and the parts of town where people lived. Other than desertion, he had no idea what he was looking for. There must be people other than themselves squatting amid all this emptiness, and he would like to avoid them. Having never laid eyes on this place during the day, though, he couldn’t guess what areas he ought to shun. They would just have to hope those people had as little desire as they did for company.
The buildings remained sound, everywhere open doors and open windows letting into vacant rooms that gave one a sense of patient waiting. Every echo carried an expectation that there be more, the silence breathless as one anticipated the noise that had once been there. All those missing doors and shutters must have been taken away long since to be used as firewood, but some of the larger buildings still had metalwork on their domed roofs, glinting dully through the tarnish in the light of the moon. In the distance, he could hear the tinkling of water in fountains still running despite the years.
Although it probably increased the odds they would encounter someone, he followed the sound. They came around a corner into the largest square they had seen. There was indeed a fountain at its center, a sculpture almost twice as tall as him. He approached it slowly, squinting in the meager natural light. It looked to be a porpoise standing on its tail, an odd choice of icon so far from the sea. The basin held only maybe an inch of water; the fountain must be clogged or partially broken, because the water trickled down the sides of the statue instead of spraying in the air.
A trickle was plenty good enough for tired, thirsty people who just wanted a drink. Slinging both bags to the pavement, he cupped his hands against the stone. It took Qanath another minute to set her burden down gingerly, then she followed suit.
Once they’d slaked their thirst, Havec led the way to the largest building fronting the square. Like all of Dareh’s architecture, it was blockish, imposing in an unlovely way, but some attempt had been made to embellish. Finials thrust from the roof at every peak and there appeared to be a relief carved into the wall over the yawning doors.
They set up camp in a corner away from the door, and this time, expecting it, Havec had his eyes on the girl from the first. Unfortunately, his attentiveness didn’t get him very far; he heard her whisper something soft and liquid, and then there was light. Either she had done her sorcery too fast for him to perceive or she was doing something he wasn’t capable of seeing. It was very disappointing. The light she conjured came from several of those crystal-like rocks, which she piled in a heap between them in the place of a campfire.
Qanath had bought a bit of everything that could be carried away, dumplings steamed in cornhusks, skewers of smoky pig meat, a heaping stack of flatbread, even a hearty dollop of vegetable paste in a bowl of woven straw. The latter had so much sweet garlic in it that Havec decided they ought not to talk to one another for a while, not unless they were standing at least five feet apart.
There were no attempts at conversation for the first few minutes while they crammed their faces with everything in reach. It was the first chance they’d had since they fled Xar’s house to eat anything but raw vegetables and crackers and cheese. It was amazing what a difference a bit of cooking made, and Havec made a mental note to go in search of a market before they left. See if they could buy something to take along.
The pace of the meal had just begun to slow into something less frantic when the stranger appeared. Havec hadn’t heard the man draw near; he caught movement from the corner of his eyes, and when he looked up, there the fellow was. Well into the room and approaching, eyes fixed purposefully on him. His mouth opened, but it was still full of food and anyway he had no idea what to say.
The man wore a curious garment, a draped smock that left his lower legs bare. It looked like something one might wear to lounge beside a pool, but his sturdy, workmanlike boots suggested otherwise. His hairstyle was even more odd, shaved bald save a circular patch on the precise top of his skull. His only accouterment was a medallion dangling from his neck on a long chain. He was classically Tabbi, brown as soil with the geometric features that distinguished the original people of Tabbaqera from the broader brows and rounder cheeks of the west. Although he wore no armor and wasn’t armed, Havec had the impression of a soldier. Something about his bearing or maybe the way he moved. The moment he stood at his side, he went to one knee, held his hands out demandingly, and started to speak.
But Havec couldn’t hear a word.
He glanced at the girl, wondering if she could hear him, if this was some sorcerous business only another sorcerer could grasp. Maybe a second type of siren, this one with a subtler song. When he saw the way she gnawed on a rind of bread unconcernedly, eyes on her knees, he was briefly too nonplussed to understand. Then she tipped her chin up slightly, gaze roving absently across the darkened recesses of the room. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end.
He looked back at the man. He had perceived Havec’s inattention and it upset him: leaning forward, he thumped an angry fist against the floor. It made no noise, and Havec felt no percussion through the stone beneath his rear. It struck him how clearly he could see the man; he wasn’t casting off moonbeams like a sprite in a tale, but every line and detail of him was as crisply illuminated as if he stood in the light of the noonday sun. He ought to be splashed with deep shadows thanks to the crystals’ muted glow, but he was not.
Havec swallowed, and it was hard to force the mouthful of food down a throat gone stiff with shock. Before he could find the breath to carry his voice, he saw the woman. She too approached on noiseless feet, and she made the man still shouting at him silently seem unthreatening: her visage was haggard, long hair hanging limp across her face, and her eyes let onto madness. An old man dressed in the rags and tags of a beggar appeared on her heels.
“Girl?”
“My name,” she said shortly, “is Qanath.”
Two more people had entered the room in the time it took to have that exchange. Now he almost thought he could hear them after all, but the murmur of voices was faint, as if emerging from another room. He couldn’t really see where the people were coming from; the few lumps of crystal cast a circle of light only maybe six feet across, but the visitors were visible beyond the edge of that faint white glow. Some of them were brightly lit, while some remained cloaked in shadow even when they drew close. Swallowing again, he reached out to the first man, who was still shouting.
“Do you feel—” the girl began, sounding uneasy.
It was at this point that the angry man latched onto his wrist. He couldn’t feel the contact on his flesh, but the oddity hardly registered. Before, the visitors’ voices had been distant, only half-heard, but he was plunged into an auditorium full of people all of whom were talking simultaneously, urgent voices raised. He let out an involuntary shout and shied back, clapping his hands over his ears. Only the icy knowledge that there would be more of them behind him prevented him from scuttling away like a startled crab.
“What is wrong with you?”
He didn’t want to say it; it seemed like such a stupid thing to say. “Can you not see them?”
The blank look on her face made the answer obvious. Casting her eyes uneasily over both shoulders, she asked, “What?”
“The people. There are like a hundred of them in this room with us, all of them trying to tell us something.”
Qanath only stared at him, although she did at least have the decency to look afraid.
“Look, either I went completely mad in the space of seconds or I’m seeing something you can’t.” A word had already formed in his mind; of course it had, it was a word every child knew. He wasn’t going to voice it, though, not unless she said it first.
She stared at him for another minute while he kept his shoulders stiff and tried not to wince beneath the ongoing deluge of noise. Then she licked her lips. “What do they look like?”
“I don’t know if I can answer that.” He spoke very slowly to make certain his voice didn’t shake. The horrible weeping woman slid deliberately between them, and he turned his face aside to hide a flinch. He couldn’t pick her voice out of the maelstrom, and he was glad; now she stood so close, he could see the murky water dripping from her hair. Each black droplet hit the dusty floor with a splash and disappeared.
“They’re hard to see?” the girl asked, equally, exquisitely matter-of-fact.
“I meant there’s too much variety. There are old people and young people—” Something struck him even through the shock. “But no children.”
“Huh.”
“Some of them are very easy to see, but some of them are dingy, like they’re standing in the dark. It doesn’t seem to have any bearing on how close to the light they are.”
“Are they cheerful?”
If she didn’t say it soon, he was going to kill her. “No. No, they are not.”
She let out a gusty sigh he couldn’t hear over the cacophony. “The restless dead. There must have been looting. That, or the governor is shirking his duty to their tombs.”
