Shadowmasque by Michael Cobley Page B

good friend,” he said at last. “I wish that I were less of a burden to you and more of a help.”
    “You’ve been more help than you know,” Calabos said. “From the very outset of our journeying.”
    “If only I could be now…” Coireg Mazaret shook his head gingerly. “Everything my shadow half rants about these days is overlaid with a symbolic esoterism that I cannot penetrate.”
    “He was quite unambiguous about our old adversary,” Calabos pointed out.
“He is here…”
    “And he mentioned a place….” Mazaret paused to yawn widely, “somewhere called ‘the Nightrealm, domain of the eternal’. It seems familiar.”
    Calabos frowned. “I’ve heard it too, but it must have been since the war — I cannot recall where or when…” Certainty evaded him, but as he thought on it some possibilities suggested themselves. “It sounds like part of a ritual prayer, or perhaps an invocation…”
    He stopped, realising that Coireg Mazaret was fast asleep.
    Truly, Calabos thought, you are a sailor upon your own restless seas, trawling strange catches from the deep.
    Carefully, he placed the jug and beaker on the floor but within easy reach of the boxbed then rose and quietly left the room. Out in the narrow hall, he took the ironwood carving from his pocket and examined it. The detail was very fine which made the subect matter all the more disturbing — it depicted a flat surface from which the forms of people protruded, faces, head and shoulders, hands and arms. All seemed to be struggling, as if drowning…
    Then the other door opened and the elderly Bishop Daguval emerged, and Calabos unhurriedly slipped the carving away out of sight.
    “Did you find him in a tractable mood?” said the bishop.
    “Intractable,” Calabos said with a wry smile. “Yet oddly informative.”
    “And now?”
    “Sleeping soundly,” Calabos said. “The madness lifted from him but left him exhausted…”
    Daguval nodded sagely. “Yes, my friend, that is a familiar consequence but I shall prepare some broth in case he wake later.”
    “Thank you for all you have done,” Calabos said, moving towards the downleading stairs. “Unfortunately, I must return to Sejeend to meet with several close colleagues. When he next regains his senses, tell him that I shall return in a few days.”
    “I shall,” the bishop said. “May you have a safe journey.”
    Calabos smiled then descended the stairs, thinking about Mazaret’s words and the carving and, for once, quite forgetting to walk like an old man.

Chapter Four
    Tiny bells can ring clear and wide,
In the sacred silence of great temples.
Small stones can disturb the still mirrors,
Of calm and windless lakes.
Thus, the purer and stronger the light,
The deeper and darker the shadow.
    —
Prayers At Midnight
, Keldon Ghant
    Vorik dor-Galyn finally found the cluster of shabby workshops, but they seemed much further back along the steep-sided dale of the Kala than the clerk Jumil had suggested. A steady trickle of cityfolk passed along the walkways still, yet Vorik had doffed his mask, relying for concealment on his cloak and cowl and the foliage-muted light of mid-afternoon.
    The workshops were part of a long, low rough-tooled building divided into small, open sections where the likes of farriers, fletchers and weavers plied their trade. He approached the dank, shaded end of it and leaned against the corner post. The nearest of the workshops was empty and disused and although it was where he had to go he had to wait for a pause in the flow of passers-by. Before long the visible path either direction became deserted so he swiftly made for the rear of the vacant workshop where he used a crude key to open a rickety door. Beyond it was a dark narrow room reeking of mould. From an inner pocket he took a velvet pouch and tipped out a bright, glowing gem hung on a long chain. Wrapping it around one wrist, Vorik could see that a layer of broken detritus covered the floor so with careful