The journey was not a difficult or arduous one. Gilead retrieved his palfrey, and a few hours of tracking brought the elves to the Vampire Count’s war steed, which was broad of back and comfortably seated both Fithvael and the boy. They removed its armour, sigils and other adornments and threw a blanket over its back in place of the heavy saddle that it was accustomed to. The horse was big and bulky, but looked as much like a carthorse as anything else by the time it was stripped of its finery, and it drew few glances on the roads they travelled, mostly in darkness.

  ‘Why think you to ride to Nuln?’ Laban dared to ask when Gilead advised the elves of his plan.

  ‘To save my legs,’ said Gilead, clucking at his horse to move a little more quickly as the sun crawled idly over the horizon.

  ‘I don’t–’ began Laban.

  ‘In all things, we use our heads to save our legs,’ said Fithvael. ‘Thinking costs less than physical labour. Have you learnt nothing, boy?’

  ‘Perhaps my education should begin here,’ said Laban, finding his confidence. ‘Perhaps it should begin with an explanation of what we are doing, and why.’

  Gilead, who was a length or two ahead of the war steed, turned his horse and stopped so that it filled the path in front of Fithvael and Laban’s shared mount.

  ‘We are doing what we always do, what we were sworn to do, what we strive to do. When we need not serve ourselves we serve others. Now, we do both, and we do it with a good grace, and with fewer questions, if we know what is good for us,’ said Gilead, glaring at the youth.

  ‘And by “we”, you mean me?’ asked Laban, making eye contact with Gilead over the Fithvael’s shoulder.

  Gilead said no more, but turned his horse back in the direction they were heading. At the first opportunity, he made his way off the road and into a sparse stand of trees.

  Once fed and sitting before a small, but comfortable, fire, Gilead explained his purpose in heading for Nuln after spending so much time in the north.

  ‘The vampire sent me south. He did so for a reason.’

  ‘I was there,’ said Laban. ‘I heard what the creature said, yet I could make neither head nor tail of it.’

  ‘You speak like a human,’ said Gilead, an edge of contempt creeping into his voice.

  ‘Tell the boy,’ said Fithvael, ‘and tell me. I would follow you anywhere, te tuin, and you know it, but I, at least, deserve your confidence.’

  ‘I have never had anything but confidence in you, old man,’ said Gilead. ‘You have ever been a valued teacher and a faithful friend, and I will not soon forget the great services you have performed for me, or for others besides.’

  ‘Then tell us,’ said Laban.

  Gilead glanced at his young cousin, then turned back to direct his words at Fithvael.

  ‘There is a scholar in Nuln,’ said Gilead. ‘You must remember him, I’m sure?’

  ‘Is that wise?’ asked Fithvael. ‘He is a knowledge thief, a scoundrel and a liar… if he is the man I remember.’

  ‘But he was refined,’ said Gilead, ‘and “genteel”.’

  ‘By human standards, perhaps,’ said Fithvael. ‘But I fear you are attempting a jest, my lord, and your demeanour confounds me.’

  ‘Confounded,’ said Gilead. ‘I’m sure that’s the very word, Fithvael. I am confounded, too. I must know where the threat comes from if I am to do battle with it. The land is dying. The creatures of the air, earth and water, the men, women and children of other, lesser, races are perishing, and now the plague has struck our own kind. Our own Baneth has been taken from us. I would he had been longer in our lives and taken a slower route into our memories.

  ‘Aye,’ said Laban, bowing his head.

  ‘Aye,’ said Fithvael.

  ‘The scholar is an imperfect man, more so than many, but if he can help us, if he can direct us and fill the gaps in our knowledge, his debt to me, his debt to all our kind, will be paid.’

  ‘My fear precisely,’ said Fithvael. ‘Can we gain the knowledge by no other means?’

  ‘By many means,’ said Gilead. ‘By many means that will eat up time and miles, and lead us on a quest that could take a score of years or more to unweave the clues and mysteries that will no doubt be laid before us. I seek a shorter, surer route.’

  ‘You seek a dangerous route.’

  ‘So be it,’ said Gilead. ‘I will not trouble you to enter the city at my side.’

  ‘It troubles me little,’ said Fithvael, ‘but the boy might be kept from the worst of the dangers.’

  ‘I’m not a boy,’ said Laban. ‘I was sent to learn. I was given into your care to squire my cousin Gilead and to learn what he might teach me. Spare me nothing.’

  ‘Fine words,’ said Fithvael, feeding and banking up the small fire so that they might rest beside its warmth during the daylight hours before taking to the road once more.

  ‘I’ve had no need of a squire these many years,’ said Gilead.

  ‘You had need of me,’ said Fithvael.

  ‘Of you, my friend, yes, but I would hardly call your services “squiring”.’

  ‘It matters little,’ said Fithvael. ‘The boy is right. Baneth was a younger soul than I, and has left us already–’

  ‘He left us prematurely,’ said Gilead. ‘I will not hear you speak of your death.’

  ‘Time is short,’ began Fithvael.

  ‘Not for us,’ said Gilead. ‘Not once this malaise is thwarted.’

  ‘Then let it be so,’ said Fithvael, ‘but do not deny the boy. He is right. He came to us from the High Council, and it is our duty… it is your duty to further his education, to make of him a strong, noble-minded cousin for our future.’

  The roads into Nuln were much travelled. People came from far and wide to benefit from city-life. Artisans came to work, labourers and domestics to serve, and gentlemen to trade or teach in the universities. It was the university that Gilead planned to visit.

  It was almost dusk when the three elves travelled the last mile of the Nuln Road to the north gate of the city. It saw more traffic on an hourly basis than any other single gate into the city, and the road was thronging with people exiting and entering Nuln as lights and lanterns began to be lit all over the city. The guard lit the brazier that stood at the gate, partly to keep the soldiers warm, and partly so that light was easily cast on the men and women scurrying back and forth from their places of work or learning, to their homes outside the city, or from their occupations on the surrounding land and beyond to their homes within its walls.

  Gilead had chosen the route, because, as busy as it was, there was a good chance that their passing would go unnoticed. On the other hand, if they were stopped, the volume of traffic through the gate would make it easy enough for Gilead to hand the guard a little coin by way of payment for ease of entrance into the town, without it being remarked upon by the hordes of people around them.

  On this occasion, no move was made against the two steeds with their three riders, and the elves entered the city unmolested.

  They travelled through the industrial district of the city, still busy and noisy despite the plague that had decimated the countryside. The Malaise seemed not to have struck the towns so severely, although it soon became clear that locals were growing food on every available plot of land, and were utilising all outside spaces. Balconies which once held flowering plants now supplemented the household kitchens with small quantities of leafy vegetables and soft fruits. The plants were a little grey and threadbare, but the buildings around them seemed, somehow, to protect them.

  The elves kept their hoods up and their sleeves down, covering as much as they could of their heads and hands, and they slumped down onto their mounts, bringing their knees up and curving their backs so as to seem of more human proportions. The postures they adopted were not comfortable and Laban began to suffer quite quickly, but it was imperative that they not be seen or recognised.

  In times of strife, prejudices are closer to the surface and more brutal, and anyone could fall under suspicion, any foreigner or non-human.

  The elves were singular among the crowds, but went unnoticed.

  The safest places in the cities were often also the most dangerous. The slums, the hovels, the out of the way, hole-in-the-wall places could effectively conceal the presence of a thief or murderer or even an elf, while,at the same time, in the same places, the most innocent woman or child might be brutalised physically or mentally for very little reward.

  Gilead preferred these places where people chose not to look too closely at anything but coin. A relatively small amount of money could prevent prying eyes from noticing how tall the elves were, how slender, how upright, how pale… how other. Gilead preferred to go to the places in the city where everyone’s eyes were cast down or away, where no one looked for the truth in the eyes of another. His elf eyes could speak true and still his otherness would cause anything from a feint or swoon to an unprovoked attack.

  The elves found their route along Commercial Way and around the university into the Maze and the old slum districts of Neuestadt. The streets were narrow and crooked with overhanging roofs and odd junctions, and the three elves soon had to dismount and walk in single file. Gilead led them and Fithvael brought up the rear. Laban walked between them, leading the old war steed.

  ‘Why has he brought us here?’ Laban asked over his shoulder. ‘This place is full of filth and degradation. Thieves and assassins too, no doubt.’

  ‘Speak up,’ said Gilead. ‘I’m sure your insults didn’t reach the ears of our hosts.’

  Laban turned to Fithvael, colouring slightly.

  ‘There is much to learn,’ he muttered.

  ‘You’ll learn it all, in due course. Give it time,’ said Fithvael.

  ‘“Give it time” will only waste my time and put us all in danger,’ said Gilead. ‘Better teach him to shut his mouth. Make that your first lesson, and learn it quickly.’

  Laban scowled, but did not speak again.

  Gilead suddenly disappeared through an arched gap in the wall to their left, over an earth step and into a narrow yard with a ramshackle lean-to roof against the wall of the adjacent building.

  ‘What is this?’ asked Laban.

  A human head appeared through a hole in the wall above the makeshift roof. Backlit, it was impossible to determine the human’s sex.

  ‘Business?’ it asked in a voice which offered no further indication as to the owner’s gender.

  ‘A room. One bed. Three meals,’ said Gilead, raising neither his head nor his voice.

  The little door that covered the hole in the wall closed abruptly.

  ‘So we all eat, but only one of us sleeps?’ asked Laban.

  ‘You can sleep,’ said Gilead. ‘But if the horses are taken, you’ll have to find more, and you won’t find them here.’

  ‘Where’s the ostler?’ asked Laban. ‘The stable boy? The stable for that matter?’

  ‘What do you suppose that to be?’ asked Gilead, gesturing towards the lean-to roof on the opposite wall. Laban walked over to the wall, stepping under the roof that protruded from it like some semi-permanent awning. He toyed with a wrought-iron tether-ring driven into the wall at waist height and pulled at a sagging bag of old, damp straw. Having disturbed it, he stepped back, away from the unpleasant mouldy smell that emanated from it.

  ‘You’ll find something more wholesome for them to eat, too,’ said Gilead, handing Laban the reins to his palfrey. ‘You can use the straw for a mattress if you so desire but, from that odour, I suspect an infestation, so I wouldn’t recommend it.’

  ‘What of the bed?’ asked Laban.

  ‘For my cousin and faithful companion,’ said Gilead. ‘Have you no respect for your elders and betters?’

  ‘I only wondered why we should not all benefit from rest,’ said Laban.

  ‘Rest does not benefit the restless,’ said Gilead. ‘There will be time to sleep when I must and an eternity of rest when I’m dead. For now, there is work to be done, and it is better done by night.’

  ‘Food first,’ said Fithvael, giving the broad war steed a reassuring slap on the rump to encourage it into the makeshift stable.

  Laban strode over to the old elf’s side, throwing his cloak over his shoulder.

  ‘Not you,’ said Gilead. ‘I’ll have yours sent out.’ He turned back through the arch, followed by Fithvael, and ducked through a low door three or four yards further along the wall.

  Laban was left in the small, grubby yard with no one for company but the horses and no light or heat to speak of. He decided that deprivation was something he must be bound to get used to if Gilead was to be his master, but he would not thank him for it.

  Gilead stepped into the darkened room. Some light bled in between the badly-drawn drapes; not moonlight, but the light of a hundred lamps and candles lit in the various chambers of the university to enable the most serious of scholars, or the least able, to study long into the night. The university buildings were never truly dark and light escaped from windows and doorways, around ill-fitting doors, or those left ajar, and between partially-drawn curtains or from windows that were left naked. Gilead did not need the light to know how the furniture was arranged in the two small rooms, for nothing had moved, but he was grateful for the chance to see the piles of books and papers that had sprung up all around the little study and adjoining bed-chamber in time to step over or around them. The room had been free of obstacles the last time he had been in it, but that was fifty years ago and men are wont to accumulate things, as if ownership of objects made their lives somehow richer.

  There was so much about humankind that Gilead did not understand, nor did he wish to.

  The elf was familiar with the university buildings, and with these rooms in particular. He had been stealthy in his approach and had entered the quadrangle without being noticed. He had kept to the shadows and moved silently, close to the high stone walls, standing under one or other of the oriel windows on those occasions when someone appeared from a doorway to cross the quad or duck into a stairwell.

  Gilead had taken the narrow, spiral staircase in the north corner of the quad, and walked the length of the corridor on the third floor of the building. It was a more circuitous route than taking the imposing, carved-wooden staircase in the East Hall, erected long ago to commemorate the death of the last grand master of the scholars’ guild. The East Hall was kept very well-lit because it was the main thoroughfare through the building. It was always full of people moving around the university or simply gathering to talk and exchange ideas. On Gilead’s last visit, which had also been his first, Mondelblatt, the newly invested Professor of Ethnological and Corporeal Physick, had taken him to his rooms by the more private route, not wanting to be caught red-handed with one of the elder race and, as a consequence, be found out for the liar and cheat that the elf knew him to be.

  Gilead had not forgotten the building, the layout of which was as clear in his mind as if he had visited yesterday, but he had forgotten how it, and the man he had undertaken to visit once more, had made him feel. The whole place made his flesh crawl.

  He hadn’t originally sought to frighten Mondelblatt, for he needed something from the man, but once at the university, Gilead felt no compunction, breaking silently into the professor’s rooms by night so that he should be the first thing the so-called scholar saw when he awoke with a start.

  Mondelblatt’s eyes widened as he twitched awake, and Gilead thrust his hand over the man’s mouth.

  Mondelblatt blinked hard, and stared at Gilead. His mouth relaxed under the elf’s hand and Gilead was confident that the professor would not cry out.

  Mondelblatt shook as he sat up, then turned and placed his feet on the floor. Gilead looked down to see gnarled, purplish flesh, the second toe on the left hooked over its neighbour. He saw how thin the man’s skin was, and how frail his hands as he reached for a walking stick that was propped against the nightstand.

  The hair that stuck out in tufts from under a yellowing linen nightcap was sparse and white and the professor’s eyes were red-rimmed and rheumy.

  ‘Is it you?’ asked Mondelblatt. ‘Have you come for me?’

  ‘I’ve come to talk to you, old man,’ said Gilead.

  ‘It talks,’ said Mondelblatt. ‘Just as I knew it would.’

  He turned to Gilead, standing in front of him barefoot, one hand on his cane and the other resting lightly on the elf’s torso, close to his waist.

  ‘I knew when my time came, it would be you,’ said Mondelblatt. ‘I am ready.’

  Mondelblatt took his hand from Gilead’s torso and looked at it.

  ‘Your flesh is solid… and warm. What are you?’

  ‘You know what I am, old man. Who I am,’ said Gilead.

  ‘You are death,’ said Mondelblatt, ‘come to rescue me from this hellhole. I knew how you’d come to me. I knew I’d never be forgiven for the elf. I have waited a long time. Decades of fear and loathing, and now it is as nothing to me.’

  ‘What?’ asked Gilead. ‘Of what do you speak, old man?’

  ‘I am not afraid. I am ready. It is right,’ said Mondelblatt.

  Gilead looked down at the shrivelled human, and then around them. He took the old man by his slender, wrinkled wrists and urged him, gently, to sit on the edge of the bed. Then he took a taper and lit the lamp on the nightstand. Next to a pile of books stood a pitcher of water, a tall beaker and a pair of round, wire-rimmed eye-glasses.

  Gilead picked up the glasses and put them gently in Mondelblatt’s hands, folded, inert in his lap. Mondelblatt did not move for a minute or two. He simply sat on the edge of the bed, spectacles in his hands.

  Gilead stood in front of the old man, next to the nightstand so that the lamp shed a good deal of its yellow light on him.

  ‘Put them on,’ said Gilead. ‘Take a proper look at me.’

  ‘What need I of spectacles?’ asked Mondelblatt. ‘I know what you look like, and if you were a being of my imagination or a spectre sent by Morr himself, you would still look the same to me.’