‘Of course, it would be my pleasure, but why?’ Khaled said.

‘You’re questioning me again, my Kontoi. Is that wise, do you think?’ she said without turning around.

‘I merely wish to understand your grand strategy, milady,’ Khaled said.

Neferata smiled briefly. ‘My strategy, dear Khaled, is to learn all that I can in order to ensure that our new kingdom survives longer than the last.’

The door thumped. Neferata turned. ‘Ah. And here comes another source of information now. Stay here. I will see him alone.’

She left her private rooms and entered the audience chamber. She strode swiftly to the door and threw it open, startling the two guards Ushoran had posted in the corridor. They eyed her cautiously, having been part of her predecessor’s guard. They had seen what she had done to Strezyk, and she could smell their fear.

‘Milady, Thane Silverfoot—’

‘Thane Silverfoot wants a drink. D’you fancy a drink, Neferata of Lahmia?’ Razek said, stepping past her into the room. He looked at the barren chamber and snorted. ‘Do you even have anything to drink?’

Amused, Neferata nodded to the guards and closed the door. One of them would doubtless be reporting to Ushoran. She turned to face the dwarf. ‘I believe there’s something in Strezyk’s cabinets, yes.’ She moved to the cabinets and plucked out a clay jug that sloshed promisingly. It had dust on it. She handed it to Razek, who pulled the cork with his teeth and took a swig. He made a face as he swallowed it.

‘Terrible,’ he said.

‘Yes, I expect so. Strezyk seems to have been deplorably lacking in taste.’

‘I heard he had an accident,’ Razek said gruffly. He looked uncomfortable. Neferata knew that the dwarf was still feeling put out. Messages had been sent to Silver Pinnacle, via methods known only to the dwarf himself, letting King Borri know that his son yet lived. There were a number of dwarf traders and not a few itinerant miners in the city and Neferata suspected that one of them, or even several, had been bullied into taking word to Karaz Bryn.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘And you’ve taken his place.’

‘Also yes,’ she said. Razek looked at her. After a moment, he nodded.

‘Good,’ he said simply.

Neferata smiled. ‘Gold,’ she corrected. ‘That is what this is about, I understand.’

Razek stared at the flames. ‘My people are interested in opening proper trade with Mourkain,’ he said.

‘Is it your people,’ she asked, ‘or your king?’

‘Not just him,’ he said.

‘You don’t approve,’ she said.

‘I have a longer memory, even when it comes to gold. We used to trade with Mourkain many years ago as you manlings judge things. Back when Kadon was running the works,’ Razek said. He shuddered slightly. ‘Brrr, he was a bad one, old Kadon. Sour, like a bad patch of tunnel, and touched in the head.’ He tapped his head for emphasis.

Intrigued, Neferata let him talk. Ushoran had been stubbornly close-mouthed when it came to his coup; at least she assumed that it had been a coup. He had always been a plotter, her Lord of Masks. It was just too bad that his plots always unravelled in the end.

‘They said he found something down deep in the dark, and that it spoke to him and broke him,’ Razek said in a faraway voice, as if reciting a children’s bedtime story. ‘Dwarfs know about that sort of thing. We know better than any man or elf what gnaws at the roots of the mountains and what coils in the dark beneath the world.’ He tipped the jug and the contents dribbled into his beard. ‘He used the dead,’ Razek spat. ‘That’s what did it. He forced the dead to serve him. That’s a power no mortal should have, let alone a creature like mad, bad Kadon.’

Neferata sat silently, digesting this new fact. She thought again of the black sun, and the voice like needles on bone. She suspected that it had spoken to Abhorash, but Ushoran? If he wasn’t the cause, what was? The stones beneath her feet seemed to tremble like the flank of a purring cat. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation. ‘But things are different now,’ she said, prodding gently.

He grunted. ‘King Borri feels that what’s done is done.’

‘Not a very dwarf-like attitude,’ she said.

Razek looked at her. ‘Careful, woman, any other dwarf would have taken that for an insult. No, my father is practical. It’s why he made me his hearth-warden, after all.’

‘A prince and a spymaster,’ Neferata said. ‘Impressive.’

‘I’ve always thought so. Besides, who can a king trust but family?’

‘In my homeland, the answer was “anyone else”,’ Neferata said, smiling. ‘Perhaps dwarfs are different.’

‘We are. We are nothing like you, Neferata of Lahmia,’ Razek said seriously. ‘If your race survives for a million-million years you will never accomplish a third of what my people have forgotten.’

Neferata frowned. ‘Perhaps. Or perhaps we will accomplish more.’

Razek chuckled. ‘That’s the spirit,’ he rumbled. ‘I owe you a debt, woman,’ Razek added, handing the empty jug to her. ‘That’s why I’m here. I’ll be doing all of my business with you.’

Neferata smiled. It was exactly as she had been hoping. ‘You honour me, Thane,’ she said, inclining her head.

‘I’ve already sent messages off to that effect to King Borri, may his fundament warm the throne for centuries yet,’ Razek said. ‘And I’ll be informing Ushoran as well.’ He squinted. ‘He’s a weasel that one, but I trust you to keep accounts settled.’

‘I’ve always had a head for figures,’ Neferata said, upending the jug. It was her turn to raise an eyebrow. Razek grunted. ‘Anything else I can do for you, mighty thane?’

‘Get something better to drink. We’ll need to keep our throats wet if we’re to dicker properly,’ he said, turning towards the door.

Neferata watched him go. She let the jug fall and laughed as it shattered. But it was only a brief noise. Sobriety returned quickly. ‘Did you hear any of that?’ she said.

‘Of course,’ Khaled said, stepping out of her chambers. Anmar followed him. ‘Foul creature,’ he said.

‘But useful,’ Neferata said, kicking aside a broken shard of the jug. She rubbed her chin, thinking.

‘Yes, you are good at finding tools, are you not, my lady?’

Neferata spun, her eyes darting to the door to her private chambers. Khaled’s sword sprang into his hand and he lunged smoothly, followed by Anmar. The siblings leapt for the bulky shape which had entered the audience chamber behind them on noiseless feet. Taloned paws caught the blades of both swords and sent the two vampires crashing to the floor in a heap.

‘You left the window open,’ Ushoran said through a thicket of fangs. He had forsaken his guise from earlier, revealing his true monstrous visage. He was covered in so much muscle that he was forced to stoop over. He balanced on his knuckles and his bat-like face had lost all traces of humanity. His fine clothes had been replaced by a simple loincloth that flapped alarmingly as he sank into a squat. Beady eyes fastened on Neferata and a tongue like a red worm darted out, dabbing at a bit of dried blood that clung to the lipless jaws.

‘I wasn’t aware I would be receiving visitors through any other aperture than the door,’ Neferata said, waving Khaled and Anmar aside. The two looked at Ushoran in horrified fascination. Neferata wondered what they made of the other vampire, inhuman as he was.

‘I find the climb refreshing,’ Ushoran said. His red eyes swivelled. ‘You’ve broken a jug. How clumsy. Did I startle you?’

‘No. I simply didn’t like it.’

‘You still have a propensity for breaking things you don’t like, then?’ Ushoran eyed Khaled and Anmar.

‘Only jugs,’ Neferata said. ‘To what do we owe the pleasure, my lord?’ she said, bowing shallowly.

‘I wished to speak to you, away from prying eyes,’ Ushoran said. He reached out, snagged a bit of the jug and scraped at the floor with it. Neferata looked at the shape he had cut into the floor and grunted.