Shadow of All Night Falling by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online

fooling those who thought him a fool, then realized he was growing too relaxed. He was revealing his penchant for the accumulation of money. Fear-wolves howled in the back of his mind. He was a professional, yes, but never had learned to banish emotion in tight situations. He did hide it well, though.
    “Do you like having people mock you?” “Hai! Self, am performer, no? Multitudes laugh at fat one, true. No joy. But this one is known to enjoy gold thuswise wrested from unwrestable purses. Crowd and Saltimbanco are even, for fools we have made of one another.”
    Nepanthe turned back to the north window, studied the storm brewing over the Kratchnodians. Then she whirled back, startling Saltimbanco from a moment of drowsiness.
    “Will you take supper with me this evening?” she asked. Then she gasped at the temerity of her action, unsure of what she had done, or why. She only knew she enjoyed the company of this honestly roguish, outwardly jolly, inwardly frightened man. Perhaps there was a feeling of kinship.
    While they stood staring at one another, the first snowy tendrils of the storm began whipping around the Tower. She ran to close her windows.
    Saltimbanco did dine with the woman that evening, and accepted a further invitation to escape the storm by staying the night. He and she spoke at great length the following day, which eventually led to another dinner invitation, and that to another request that he stay the night. The day following that Nepanthe offered herself as his patron. Apparently prideless, Saltimbanco accepted instantly and quickly moved in-donkey and all. The chambers assigned him were next to Nepanthe’s, which caused talk among her servants. Try as they might, however, even the most prying could discover nothing improper resulting from the arrangement.
     
     

FOUR: How Lonely Sits the City
     
    Loves torn from him, Varth grew bitter. He decided to pursue a course that had long been in his mind. Once the harvest was in, he visited his priestly teacher, engaged the man as agent in the sale of the farm. The money, with that left him by Royal, he buried near the river. Then, carrying a few belongings in an old leather bag, he moved into Ilkazar.
    Soon there was another beggar among the city’s many, this one brighter, studying, studying-yet unseen, for no one spared an urchin more than a glance. He grew lean and ragged with time, and wiser.
    Still he remained silent: and strange. Older persons grew uneasy in his presence-though they never knew why. Perhaps it was his cold stare, perhaps the way the corners of his mouth turned upward in a ghost-grin, revealing his canines, when the future was mentioned. There was something in his gaze which made adults look away. He seemed a hungry thing thinking of devouring them.
    However, his strangeness attracted waifs like himself.
    They treated him with respect and awe their elders reserved for the Master Wizards and King-and a king he soon became, of a shadow empire of beggars and thieves who found his mastery profitable. Looking like a small, skinny idol, he held court in a corner of Farmer’s Market, by his directions gifted his followers with unprecedented wealth.
    But those followers, no matter their admiration for his leadership, found Varth’s nighttime undertakings disquieting. He often wandered the Palace District, studying the castle of the King, or the homes of certain powerful wizards. And he never missed a witch-burning, though his attentions were seldom for the condemned. His eyes were always on the black-hoods, and the wizards who came to see “justice” done.
    What justice this? In a city made great by magic, ruled by magic-no matter the King’s disclaimers, his policies, and those of the Empire, were determined by manipulating sorcerers-why should there be witch-burnings? What power had the witch that so terrified the warlock?
    There was an ancient divination-Ilkazar, from King to lowliest beggar, had rock-hard faith in necromancy-which