Chapter 1
The light from the doorway sent Antyr's shadow leaping ahead into the swirling gloom of the dense fog that greeted him as he emerged from the inn.
He paused, an unsteady silhouette, at the top of the short flight of stone steps. Then he grimaced. He had lived in the Serenstad contentedly enough all his life, but these appalling fogs always reminded him of childhood holidays in the country. There, for all their cold dampness, the wintry mists had been grey and soft, but the fogs here were always tainted yellow with grime and smoke from the city's innumerable forges and workshops. They made the roads and footways slimy and treacherous, they clung to clothes, making them damp and sulphurous, and they made every breath a chest-burning ordeal.
His dark reverie was interrupted by mounting cries of abuse from the noisy inn parlour at his back.
'Go, if you're going, man. You're chilling us all,' was their gist.
Without turning, Antyr waved a scornful dismissal to his erstwhile companions, then, seizing the heavy wrought-iron latch, he yanked the door shut. It was a heavy door, notorious for its stiffness, and its frequent noisy closing through the nights was the constant bane of the neighbouring sleepers. Now, however, its window-shaking slam was muffled by the clinging fog, and the image of a closing tomb came into Antyr's mind as an eerie reverberation echoed back at him out of the gloom.
The darkness of this unexpected image was deepened by the sudden ceasing of the clatter from the inn, and the equally sudden vanishing of the warm yellow light that had thrown his long shadow so boldly out into the fog. For a moment he felt disorientated, as if he had only been in someone's dream about the inn and his raucous friends and had wakened suddenly to find he had been sleep-walking.
It was an unsettling thought for a Dream Finder and involuntarily he reached back and briefly touched the familiar rough wooden door for reassurance. Then, more relieved than he cared to admit, he growled into the fog, and wrapped his cloak tight about himself.
'Too much ale,' he muttered. 'I'll have less tomorrow.' It was a ritual nightly utterance that, like most rituals, had long lost its true meaning.
He glanced up and down the street. In both directions the only things visible were the flames of the pitch torches, flickering, despite the stillness, and issuing coils of their own black smoke to add to the murk. The fog's clammy touch might have swept the people from the streets as effectively as any blustering winter storm, but the Guild of Torchlighters knew their duty. Antyr curled his lip unpleasantly.
Sanctimonious lot, he thought, as he tried without success to bring the shimmering corona around one of the wobbling lights into focus. He couldn't stand these pompous Sened-appointed Guild men with their unctuous self satisfaction. If it wasn't for them doing their jobs, you'd be staggering around lost all this night, wouldn't you? said a quieter, kinder, part of his mind.
He declined the offer of a debate and carefully made his way down the slippery steps. The iron handrail was cold and unpleasantly damp and he wiped his hand on his cloak as he reached the street.
Unhooking a torch from a nearby rack he offered it, a little unsteadily, to one of the street torches. It spluttered into life almost immediately and its warmth and light were welcoming. Its hefty weight comforted him too; he had stayed longer at the inn than he had intended and, even without the fog, the streets would be deserted and uncertain at this time of night.
Not that he was likely to be attacked around here, he thought hopefully, but the brief spark of optimism faded as soon as it appeared. He knew that despite the vigilance of the Watch, there was always a risk at night; carousing young bloods from one of the Sened Lords' Houses, conscripts from the barracks, malcontents out of the Moras district. Certainly it would be no great feat for anyone so inclined to avoid the Watch and lie in wait for lone walkers such as himself.
Puffing out his cheeks, Antyr tightened his grip on the torch, loosed his weighted club in his belt, then strode out boldly, if a little erratically.
His footsteps echoed dully behind him in the torchlit gloom.
As various landmarks loomed out of the fog, identified themselves and passed on, Antyr's uneasiness faded a little. For all its unpleasantness, the fog held some comfort. After all, any lone street thief would be as unsighted as his victims.
Besides, he was hardly a defenceless old woman, he concluded as the evening's ale clouded his judgement further.
Dutifully, the street torches continued to light his way, each smoky flame seeming to hover in the air at an unfocusable distance. Occasionally some other late wanderer would hurry past him, head craning forward into the darkness. Sometimes, alarmingly, footsteps came and went nearby without their creator appearing.
The hasty purposefulness of such passers-by increased Antyr's feeling of isolation rather than eased it and his thoughts darkened again.
All of us fleeing, he thought. But from what? He gave himself no answer.
Copyright © 1991, Roger Taylor
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