Stalking Darkness

2

Alec woke to the sound of sleet lashing across the roof. Ruetha had burrowed under the covers sometime in the night. He stroked the thick white ruff under her chin and the cat broke into a loud purr.

"What are you doing here?" he asked sleepily.

Sitting up, he saw Seregil's battered old pack sitting ready outside the bedroom door.

Seregil's sword belt was draped over it, the newly mended quillon shining in the milky morning light.

Alec eyed the tidy pile with rising suspicion; Seregil had obviously been up for some time, making preparations for a journey. And he hadn't bothered to wake him.

"Seregil?" Poking his head around his friend's door,

Alec found the normally cluttered little room utterly impassable.

"Morning!" Seregil called cheerily from somewhere beyond an overturned chest.

"What's going on? Have you been up all night?"

"Not all night." Seregil waded free of the mess with an armload of heavy sheepskin clothing and dumped it by the pack. "I found this," he said, handing Alec a dusty sack containing half a dozen complex locks. Some were still attached to splintered fragments of wood.

"Thought you might like to have a go at these, since you've mastered most of the others on the workbench. Be careful, though. Some of them bite."

Alec set the bag aside without comment and leaned against the door frame. Seregil was dressed for traveling and still hadn't told him to start packing.

"What's going on?" he asked, watching as Seregil wrestled a pair of long snowshoes out of a wardrobe. "Where are you going to find snow in this weather?"

"Give me a minute, will you?" said Seregil, checking the rawhide webbing. "I've got a few more things to find, then I'll explain what I can."

Alec let out a sigh and went to the window over the workbench. The panes rattled as a fresh gust of wind buffeted the inn. Outside he could see Thryis' son Diomis hurrying across the back court. Curtains of icy rain rippled past, obscuring all but the closest buildings. Behind him, he could hear Seregil still rummaging about.

Fighting down his rising impatience, he pulled on a pair of breeches and set about lighting the fire.

The coals had died in the night. He heaped tinder and kindling on the ashes and shook out a firechip from the jar by the hearth. Flames leapt up and he stared into them, trying to marshal his racing thoughts.

"You know, from the back your head looks like a disheveled hedgehog," Seregil remarked, emerging at last. Ruffling Alec's ragged hair, he dropped into his favorite chair by the fire.

Alec was not amused. "You're going off alone, aren't you?"

"Just for a few days."

There was a guardedness in Seregil's tone that Alec didn't like. "On a job, you mean?"

"I can't say, actually."

Alec studied his friend's face. On closer inspection, he noticed that Seregil looked rather pale. "Is this because of last night? You said—"

"No, of course not. This is something I can't speak of to anyone."

"Why not?" the boy demanded, stubborn curiosity mingling with disappointment.

Seregil spread his hands apologetically. "It's nothing to do with you, believe me. And don't bother pressing."

"This is something for Nysander, isn't it?"

Seregil regarded him impassively. "I need your word you won't track me when I go."

Alec considered further objections, then nodded glumly. "When will you be back?"

"In a few days, I hope. You'll have to do that papers job for Baron Orante, and anything else coming in that looks like a one man job. There's Mourning Night to think about, too, if I'm not back in time."

"Not back in time?" Alec sputtered. "That's only a week away, and you're holding a party at Wheel Street that night!"

"We are holding a party," Seregil corrected.

"Don't worry. Runcer sees to all the arrangements, and Micum and his family will be here by then, too. You'll just have to play host. Remember Lady Kylith, the woman you danced with our first night there?"

"We're sitting with her at the Mourning Night ceremony."

"Right. She'll see to your etiquette."

"People are bound to ask about you, though."

"As far as anyone knows, Lord Seregil is still away recovering from the shock of his arrest. Tell anyone who asks that I was delayed. Cheer up, Alec. Chances are I'll be back in plenty of time."

"This secret job of yours—is it dangerous?"

Seregil shrugged. "What do we do that isn't? The truth is, I won't know much myself until I'm in the middle of it."

"When are you leaving?"

"As soon as I've had something to eat. Get dressed now and we'll have our breakfast downstairs."

Alec smelled freshly baked bread as they crossed the lading room to the kitchen.

The breakfast uproar was over. A scullery boy was scrubbing down the scarred worktables while Cilia bathed Luthas in a pan. Old Thryis sat peeling turnips by the hearth, a shawl draped over her shoulders against the damp.

"Well, there you are at last," the old woman greeted them, though she seldom saw Seregil before noon. "There's tea on the hob and new current buns under that cloth there. Cilia made them fresh this morning."

"And how's this lad today?" Seregil smiled, holding a forefinger out to the baby. Luthas immediately grabbed it and pulled it into his mouth.

"Oh, he's feisty," replied Cilia, looking rather dark under the eyes. "He's got a tooth coming and it wakes us all night."

Alec shook his head. One minute Seregil was speaking of mysterious journeys, the next here he was playing uncle to the baby like he hadn't a care in the world.

Not that his affection for Luthas wasn't genuine.

He'd told Alec how Cilia had offered him the honor of fathering her child when she'd made up her mind to avoid conscription. Seregil had politely declined. While his interest in women seemed marginal at best, Alec suspected the real reason for Seregil's reticence was that it would have cost him his friendship with her grandmother. Thryis had been a sergeant in the Queen's Archers in her youth and despaired that neither her son nor granddaughter had followed a military career before settling down.

Cilia had never revealed who the child's father was, but the man must have been dark. She was fair, while her son's eyes and hair were as brown as a mink's.

Going to the hearth, Alec leaned down next to Thryis and reached for the teapot warming by the fire.

"You're looking down in the mouth today," Thryis observed shrewdly. "Going off without you, is he?"

"He told you?"

The old woman gave a derisive snort "He didn't have to," she scoffed, deftly quartering a turnip and pitching it into a kettle beside her. "There he is in his old rambling boots, chipper as a sparrow. And you here with the long face and still in your shirtsleeves? Don't take no wizard to figure that one."

Alec shrugged. Thryis had run the Cockerel since Seregil secretly bought it twenty years before. She—together with her family and Rhiri, the mute ostler—were among the select few who knew anything of Seregil's double life.

"Now, don't go fretting yourself over it," she whispered. "Master Seregil thinks the world of you, and no mistake. There's none he speaks so well of 'cept Micum Cavish, and those two have been friends for years and years. Besides, it'll give you and me a chance to talk shooting again, eh? There's still a trick or two I haven't shared and that fine black bow of yours shouldn't be gathering dust."

"I guess not." Alec gave her a quick peck on the cheek and went to sit across from Seregil at the breakfast table.

Studying his friend's face as Seregil joked with Cilia over breakfast, Alec felt certain he saw small lines of tension around his eyes. Whatever this secret job was, there was more to it than he was letting on.

There was no use asking further about it, though.

Upstairs in their room again, Seregil finished with his scant collection of gear and clapped a battered hat on his head.

"Well, take care of yourself," he said, "especially on that job for the baron. I don't want to find you in the Red Tower when I return."

"You won't. Want help getting all that down?"

"No need." Shouldering his pack, Seregil clasped hands with him. "Luck in the shadows, Alec."

And with the flash of a crooked grin, he was gone.

Alec listened to his footsteps fading rapidly away. "And to you."

Seregil paused in the kitchen on his way out.

Pulling up a stool beside Thryis, he slipped her a flat, sealed packet.

"I'm leaving this with you. I've got to go off for a few days. If I don't come back, this should take care of Alec and the rest of you."

Frowning, Thryis fingered the wax seals. "A will, is it? No wonder young Alec was looking so dark."

"He doesn't know, and I'd like to keep it that way."

"You've never left a will before."

"It's just in case I meet with an accident or something." Shouldering his pack, he headed for the door.

"Or something!" The old woman's mouth pursed into a skeptical line. "Mind that a 'something' don't jump up and bite you on the arse when you're not looking."

"I'll do my best to avoid it."

Outside, the sleet had turned to rain. Pulling the hood of his patched cloak up over his hat, he dashed across the slick cobbles to the stable where Rhiri had his new mare saddled and ready. Tossing the fellow a gold half sester, Seregil swung up into the saddle and set off at a gallop for the Oreska House.