Decimus Fate and the Talisman of Dreams Read online

  ‘Safe home,’ he said, and with that he opened the door and passed into the reassuring warmth of the inn.

  There was the familiar odour of wood smoke and beer, and the Tutor’s mouth watered at the lingering smell of roasted meat. He wondered if there was still a chance of getting some food from the kitchens.

  The few remaining patrons looked up as he passed a series of wooden pillars on his way to the bar. He stepped over the outstretched legs of an enormous man who was sleeping in a winged chair beside the dying embers of an open fire. It was Victor, Madam Carletta’s doorman. He did not wake up, but he gave a low snarl and briefly raised an arm as if to ward off some annoyance in his dreams. Victor was a permanent fixture of the Fool’s Hope Inn and the Tutor smiled with amusement as he continued to the bar where a woman was leaning on the polished wooden counter. With her high cheek bones and strong jaw line, she was a handsome woman with grey hair and a distinct spark of intelligence in her deep brown eyes. Known as Madam Carletta, she was the owner and landlady of the Fool’s Hope Inn. She gave the Tutor a quick appraising look, and although nothing was said, it was clear that she was relieved to see him back safe.

  As the Tutor reached the bar, she stood up straight, took the cork from a bottle and poured a golden liqueur into a short glass before sliding it towards him.

  ‘You have visitors.’

  ‘Oh?’ said the Tutor as he lifted the glass and turned to look around the inn.

  ‘One Abbess Shimitsu and a Master Ando,’ Madam Carletta went on. ‘Shīku monks by the look of them.’

  The Tutor frowned as he recognised the names. What on earth was Abbess Shimitsu doing in Guile?

  ‘I put them in the snug,’ said Madam Carletta and the Tutor gave a distracted nod.

  With a distinct sense of unease, he downed his drink and set the glass on the counter.

  ‘I assume the merchant got home safely?’ asked Madam Carletta as he began to turn away.

  ‘He did.’

  ‘No trouble?’

  ‘A little,’ said the Tutor, and Madam Carletta arched an eyebrow at what was clearly an understatement.

  ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Your visitors are waiting.’

  With nothing else to be said, the Tutor set off towards the cosy room at the far end of the inn. The Shīku monastery was perched on the edge of the Great Plateau and the Tutor wondered what could have happened for Abbess Shimitsu to make the long journey to visit him in the middle of the night. Filled with concern he pushed open the door and, sure enough, there was Master Ando and Abbess Shimitsu sitting in the upholstered seats of the snug. Their golden yellow robes looked bright and cheerful, but this did nothing to alleviate the Tutor’s fears. Catching sight of him, the two monks got to their feet.

  As the Tutor approached, Master Ando gave a shallow bow of greeting. His smile was warm if a little subdued, whereas Abbess Shimitsu’s smile was an open expression of joy.

  ‘Alexander,’ she said as she reached out to take the Tutor’s hands.

  Her dark brown eyes shone as she held him at arm’s length. Abbess Shimitsu was the leader of the Shīku monastery and the most kind-hearted person the Tutor had ever met. He could see the joy in her eyes, but he could also see that she was not well. Her deep bronze skin was paler than normal and the slender woman had lost weight since he last saw her some eighteen months ago.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Abbess Shimitsu did not answer at first. Instead she reached out to touch a jade pendant that hung around the Tutor’s neck.

  ‘You still wear it.’

  ‘Of course,’ said the Tutor.

  Abbess Shimitsu’s smile took on a note of sadness and both their minds were cast back to a night almost three years ago when he had first arrived at the monastery. The Tutor remembered little of that night while the abbess recalled it with painful clarity.

  She remembered how the Tutor had appeared at the monastery gate, wounded, grieving and close to death, but even in his weakened state the monks had been reluctant to let him in. The Tutor’s clothes were torn and they could all see the complex tattoo on his chest. They recognised it as the mark of a demon hunter and were fearful of the dangers that might follow such a man, but Abbess Shimitsu refused to turn him away.

  ‘She told me to come,’ the Tutor had muttered, his voice cracked and choked with grief.

  ‘Who told you to come?’ asked Abbess Shimitsu.

  The Tutor had not answered, only held out his hand to reveal a circular pendant with a small sapphire set in a circle of silver, which in turn was set in a vibrant disk of jade.

  ‘Worlds within worlds,’ breathed one of the monks.

  Abbess Shimitsu stared down at the pendant and her heart clenched with sorrow. The pendant symbolised a person with Faerie blood who had chosen to live in the human realm. She remembered giving this pendant to a childhood friend and now she looked with great sadness upon the man who had won her friend’s heart.

  ‘Bring him inside,’ she had breathed, and from that moment the monks had cared for the Tutor and nurtured him back to health.

  The Tutor had remained at the monastery for over a year, slowly recovering his strength and learning to live with the grief that had threatened to crush him. Now he stood in the Fool’s Hope Inn, strong and hale but with a hole in his heart that the monks had been unable to fill.

  For a moment, Abbess Shimitsu’s fingers lingered on the pendant then she withdrew her hand and the Tutor tucked the jade disk beneath the neck of his shirt.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’

  For the first time Abbess Shimitsu’s smile faltered as the three of them took a seat. She placed her slender hands on the table and took a breath.

  ‘It’s the monastery,’ she said at last. ‘There is a sickness there. I fear our brothers and sisters are dying.’

  The Tutor frowned and glanced towards Master Ando whose dour expression confirmed Abbess Shimitsu’s words.

  ‘Tell me everything,’ said the Tutor and she did.

  She told him how it had begun almost two months ago with a general feeling of malaise. How the monks had begun to suffer from headaches, tiredness, upset stomachs and aching limbs.

  ‘At first we thought it was the water,’ said Abbess Shimitsu. ‘The monastery wells are deep and we wondered if the aquifers had become contaminated.’

  The Tutor nodded. The water would certainly have been his first thought.

  ‘But the water’s fine,’ Abbess Shimitsu went on. ‘We tried isolating patients for fear of contagion. We even wondered if the grain stores had been affected by some kind of poisonous mould, but we found nothing.’

  The Tutor could hear the desperation in Abbess Shimitsu’s voice. She was an incredibly capable woman and it was clear that the sense of helplessness was tearing her apart. She gave a wan smile as Master Ando placed a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘All we know is that our brothers and sisters keep getting ill,’ she continued. ‘They retire to their beds and seem to improve, but no sooner are they feeling better than they start to decline once more. And with each bout they grow weaker. We are all growing weaker.’

  The abbess paused as Madam Carletta appeared with a tray of hot drinks and a plate of food for the Tutor.

  ‘I thought camomile tea might suit the lateness of the hour,’ said the inn’s landlady and Abbess Shimitsu gave her a smile of thanks. She was about to leave when the Tutor drew her back with a question.

  ‘Have you heard of any strange diseases or illness in the area?’

  Madam Carletta shook her head. ‘There was an outbreak of morbilli in the spring, and the reservoir above Faerbattle was tainted with swine soil, but apart from that, no, nothing out of the ordinary.’

  The Tutor put a hand to his mouth as he considered the problem.

  ‘And Sister Hīra hasn’t been able to help?’ he asked, for Sister Hīra was the monastery’s most experienced healer.

  ‘She’s helped with the symptoms,’ said Abbess Shimitsu. ‘But she has no idea as to the cause. No one does. We’ve consulted physicians, apothecaries and even a sorcerer familiar with curses, and all to no avail.’

  The Tutor’s gaze took on a darker edge. The Shīku’s entire existence revolved around helping people. He could not imagine why anyone would want to hurt them with a curse.

  ‘I’ve tried everyone I can think of,’ said Abbess Shimitsu. ‘But it seems that no one can help us.’ She paused and the desperation in her voice was painful to hear. ‘Finally, I wondered if you might know someone…’

  The Tutor had never seen the abbess so despondent and he would do anything he could to help. He began to run through the healers and physicians he knew in the city, but they were more familiar with the more mundane infections and the injuries that normal people might sustain. He was beginning to get a sense of Abbess Shimitsu’s helplessness when Madam Carletta spoke.

  ‘There is someone who might be able to help,’ she said. ‘He’s a bit mysterious, and there are some dark rumours about his past, but people say that he can help when no one else can.’

  The Tutor and the two monks looked up at the landlady of the Fool’s Hope.

  ‘I don’t know his name,’ said Madam Carletta, ‘but people refer to him as the Sage of Blackfell House.’

  4

  Fate

  Fate woke to the resonant croak of a raven. Perched outside the first floor window, the bird flew away as Fate’s housekeeper opened the curtains of his bed chamber.

  ‘One of the finest mattresses in the city and still he sleeps in a chair.’ The disapproving voice came from a small hunchbacked woman. ‘Not that I care if your clothes are crumpled and your supper is ruined.’

  With her wrinkled
skin, wild dark hair and piercing black eyes, she was like the caricature of a witch from a children’s story, although the creases at the corners of her eyes spoke of humour rather than cruelty. Hobbling over to another window she drew open a second set of curtains.

  Fate squinted against the daylight as the woman turned to look at him.

  ‘Good morning, Motina,’ he said as he sat up straighter in the chair and rolled his head to ease the stiffness in his neck and shoulders.

  ‘Barely,’ replied the woman. Her full name was Varna Motina, an exile from the eastern province of Karuthia. ‘Another minute and you’d‘ve been woken by the midday bell.’ Even as she spoke there came the chimes of a bell tolling over the city. The woman raised a finger and arched her eyebrows as if to say, ‘See!’

  Moving away from the window she picked up a tray containing bread, cheese and grapes, with a white porcelain cup and a small silver teapot. Motina’s gait was uneven and the tray tilted ominously, but somehow she managed to convey it safely to a small table beside Fate’s chair.

  ‘I take it you saved the girl,’ she said as she set the tray down.

  ‘How did you know?’ asked Fate as he helped himself to a grape.

  ‘Because you slept,’ said Motina. With one gnarled finger, she held the lid of the teapot in place as she poured him a cup of tea. ‘You’d still be wide awake and pacing if she’d died.’

  Fate glanced at the woman who had kept his house in order for the last nine years. She might be diminutive in stature, but she was as shrewd as a pin.

  ‘Bergamot tea, hot,’ said Motina. ‘Just as you like it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Fate. He reached for the cup and winced at the lingering pain in his hands.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Motina.

  ‘It’s nothing serious. Just some spasms from the curse last night.’

  The housekeeper frowned and started towards him, but Fate waved her away. Flexing his hands he took hold of the cup and breathed in the herbal aroma as he raised the cup to his lips.

  With a lingering air of concern, Motina moved away and turned down his bed despite the fact that it had not been slept in. ‘Veleno’s men called again last night.’ The housekeeper’s tone made it clear that this was not good news.

  Fate narrowed his eyes.

  ‘I told them you were indisposed and they were not happy.’

  Fate stared through the steam rising from his cup as Motina crossed to the fireplace. With a groan of effort she knelt down before the hearth, pulled over a basket of firewood and arranged a few pieces of kindling in the grate.

  ‘I think the ‘Lord of the City’ has finally run out of patience.’ She spoke the title with a heavy dose of sarcasm. Choosing a larger log, she broke off a piece of dry bark and crushed it between the palms of her hands. ‘You can’t avoid him forever,’ she said. ‘And he won’t be happy when you turn him down.’

  Motina stole a sideways glance at Fate, but the master of the house said nothing. With a sigh, the housekeeper reached out her hand and began to sprinkle the crushed bark onto the kindling. At the same time she spoke a few whispered words in a foreign language and the crushed pieces of bark burst into flame.

  Stereotypes notwithstanding, Varna Motina was, in fact, a witch.

  The magic embers ignited the kindling and Motina added two larger logs before standing up from the fire. She was about to speak again when they heard the jangling sound of a bell coming from somewhere outside. Fate raised an eyebrow as his housekeeper turned to look at him.

  ‘That’s the gate bell,’ said Motina. ‘It’s not like Veleno’s men to be so polite. Normally they just throw stones at the main door until they get an answer.’

  Moving to the window, she could see three people standing at the gate in the perimeter fence. One was a tall black man with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. He was clearly of the fighting type. The other two figures were dressed in golden yellow robes, and one of them was a woman.

  ‘They look like monks,’ said the housekeeper. ‘At least, two of them do.’

  Fate gave a weary sigh. He might have slept through the morning, but sleeping in a chair was not ideal and he still felt drained from the previous day’s exertions.

  ‘Shall I send them away?’ asked Motina.

  ‘No,’ said Fate. ‘Give me a few minutes and I’ll see them in my study.’

  Getting to his feet he moved to a washstand in the corner of the room and removed the charcoal grey longcoat that he had fallen asleep in. In daylight, one could see the faint shimmer of arcane symbols woven into the fabric.

  As Motina moved to the door, she glanced at the man she had served for almost ten years. She watched as he unbuckled his black belt with its two dragon-handled daggers and its collection of small leather pouches. She opened the door as he removed his silver-trimmed tunic and white undershirt to reveal a pale torso decorated with a series of magical symbols and a litany of scars. She herself had given him one of those scars; a burn on his chest, like a many-pointed star. Lowering her eyes, she smiled at the memory of her foolishness and how he had saved her in spite of herself. Shaking her head, she stepped out of the room, closed the door and went down to see who had come to request the help of her master today.

  *

  ‘I don’t like this,’ said the Tutor as Master Ando stepped back from the bell hanging beside the main gate of Blackfell House. The tattoo on the Tutor’s chest was designed to protect him from magical harm and right now he felt it humming like a swarm of angry bees.

  ‘Are we in danger?’ asked Master Ando but the Tutor shook his head.

  ‘No…’ he said. ‘I think we’re fine, so long as we don’t try to force our way in.’

  Master Ando turned to Abbess Shimitsu. ‘Do you sense anything?’

  Abbess Shimitsu paused as she stared through the wrought iron railings.

  ‘I sense many things beyond this gate,’ she said. ‘But nothing to suggest we are in imminent danger.’ Her own powers of magical perception were more subtle than the tattoo on the Tutor’s chest, but she knew better than to ignore his concerns.

  ‘We should go,’ said the Tutor. ‘Find someone else who can help us.’

  Abbess Shimitsu considered his reaction for a few moments before asking him a question.

  ‘Do you trust the landlady of the Fool’s Hope?’

  The Tutor looked at her as if the question was absurd. ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Then we shall proceed,’ said Abbess Shimitsu and the matter was effectively settled.

  A few minutes passed before a small hunchbacked woman emerged from the main door of the house. Upon reaching the gate, she introduced herself as the master’s housekeeper and took their names as she opened the gate to let them in.

  The Tutor trusted Madam Carletta, but he could not suppress a growing sense of unease as the hunchbacked woman led them towards the house. The housekeeper made no attempt to make them feel welcome until Abbess Shimitsu remarked on her accent.

  ‘It sounds like you’re a long way from home.’ The housekeeper gave her a sideways glance as Abbess Shimitsu continued. ‘I’ve heard the pine forests of Karuthia are filled with the most wondrous scent.’

  ‘You’ve a good ear,’ said the housekeeper and Abbess Shimitsu gave a modest smile.

  ‘A pilgrim once brought me a bottle of spirit distilled from the resin of Karuthian pine trees,’ she said. ‘We drank it as we discussed the philosophy of Vinkas Kurdika.’

  The hunchbacked woman suddenly stopped. ‘And what was your conclusion?’

  ‘That things would have been better if the leaders of Karuthia had followed his teachings instead of hunting down those who practised magic.’

  For a moment the housekeeper held the abbess with her piercing black eyes, then the croaking call of a raven sounded over the garden and she smiled.

  ‘It would appear that the wisdom of the Shīku people matches their reputation.’

  Abbess Shimitsu inclined her head and any tension between the two women seemed to evaporate like an early morning mist.

  The Tutor shook his head in amazement. It seemed there was not a person alive that Abbess Shimitsu could not relate to in one way or another. The housekeeper noticed his reaction and, with an amused smile, she turned away and continued towards the house.

  Built from some kind of dark granite, Blackfell House lived up to its name. Set in a square plot of land, the house was surrounded by a waist high wall of stone, topped with wrought iron railings. The gardens were not lavish, but the lawns were trimmed and the flower beds were not overgrown. A herb garden to one side of the house seemed to be the only area that benefitted from any real enthusiasm, while the trees that lined the main driveway all appeared to be dead.