Lost ambition; all lost. Before that October had become November Sartori had gone, flitted in the night or murdered by his enemies. Gone, and left his servant stranded in a city he barely knew. How Chant had longed then to return to the ether from where he’d been summoned, to shrug off the body which Sartori had congealed around him and be gone out of this Dominion. But the only voice capable of ordering such a release was that which had conjured him, and with Sartori gone he was exiled on earth forever. He hadn’t hated his summoner for that. Sartori had been indulgent for the weeks they’d been together. Were he to appear now, in the moonlit room, Chant would not have accused him of negligence but made proper obeisances and been glad that his inspiration had returned.
“Maestro . . .” he murmured, face to the musty boards.
“Not here,” came a voice from behind him. It was not, he knew, one of the voiders. They could whistle but not speak. “You were Sartori’s creature, were you? I don’t remember that.”
The speaker was precise, cautious and smug. Unable to turn, Chant had to wait until the man walked past his supine body to get a sight of him. He knew better than to judge by appearances: he, whose flesh was not his own but of the Maestro’s sculpting. Though the man in front of him looked human enough, he had the voiders in tow and spoke with knowledge of things few humans had access to. His face was an overripe cheese, drooping with jowls and weary folds around the eyes, his expression that of a funereal comic. The smugness in his voice was here too, in the studied way he licked upper and lower lips with his tongue before he spoke, and tapped the fingertips of each hand together as he judged the broken man at his feet. He wore an immaculately tailored three-piece suit, cut from a cloth of apricot cream. Chant would have given a good deal to break the bastard’s nose so he bled on it.
“I never did meet Sartori,” he said. “Whatever happened to him?”
The man went down on his haunches in front of Chant and suddenly snatched hold of a handful of his hair.
“I asked you what happened to your Maestro,” he said. “I’m Dowd, by the way. You never knew my master, the Lord Godotphin, and I never knew yours. But they’re gone, and you’re scrabbling around for work. Well, you won’t have to do it any longer, if you take my meaning.”
“Did you . . . did you send him to me?”
“It would help my comprehension if you could be more specific.”
“Estabrook.”
“Oh, yes. Him.”
“You did. Why?”
“Wheels within wheels, my dove,” Dowd said. “I’d tell you the whole bitter story, but you don’t have the time to listen and I don’t have the patience to explain. I knew of a man who needed an assassin. I knew of another man who dealt in them. Let’s leave it at that.”
“But how did you know about me?”
“You’re not discreet,” Dowd replied. “You get drunk on the Queen’s birthday, and you gab like an Irishman at a wake. Lovey, it draws attention sooner or later.”
“Once in a while—”
“I know, you get melancholy. We all do, lovey, we all do. But some of us do our weeping in private, and some of us”—he let Chant’s head drop—“make fucking public spectacles of ourselves. There are consequences, lovey, didn’t Sartori tell you that? There are always consequences. You’ve begun something with this Estabrook business, for instance, and I’ll need to watch it closely, or before we know it there’ll be ripples spreading through the Imajica.”
“The Imajica . . .”
“That’s right. From here to the margin of the First Dominion. To the region of the Unbeheld Himself.”
Chant began to gasp, and Dowd—realizing he’d hit a nerve—leaned towards his victim.
“Do 1 detect a little anxiety?” he said. “Are you afraid of going into the glory of our Lord Hapexamendios?”
Chant’s voice was frail now. “Yes . . .” he murmured.
“Why?” Dowd wanted to know. “Because of your crimes?”