Slatter The Crimson Road

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-80336-457-5
Verlag: Titan Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 368 Seiten

A captivating dark gothic fantasy set in the same universe as the award-winning author's All The Murmuring Bones, The Path of Thorns and The Briar Book of the Dead. A tale of vampires, assassins, ancient witches and broken promises, perfect for readers of Alix E. Harrow, Hannah Whitten and Alexis Henderson. Violet Zennor has had a peculiar upbringing. Training as a fighter in underground arenas, honing her skills against the worst scum, murderers and thieves her father could pit her against, she has learned to be ruthless. To kill. Until the day Hedrek Zennor dies. Violet thinks she's free - a rich young heiress with a world of possibilities in front of her. Then, to her horror, Violet learns that her father planned to send her into the Darklands, where the Leech Lords reign. Where Violet's still-born brother was taken years ago after Hedrek sold him to a man bearing the mark of the mysterious Anchorhold. Her father's solicitor and the city's bishop are insistent she fulfil her duty, but Violet steadfastly refuses. Until one night two assassins attempt to slaughter her - and it becomes clear: if she wants to enjoy a future free of the interference of either solicitors, bishops or assassins, she's going to have to clean up the mess her father made. On her journey, Violet seeks the help of Miren O'Malley in the hidden estate of Blackwater, whose family once produced the purest, strangest silver; Ellie Briar of Silverton, the Briar Witch who guards the gateway to the realm of the Leech Lords; and Asher Todd of Whitebarrow, who did terrible things and found The Three Who Went Beneath. Ultimately, Violet must go alone. Into the Darklands. To the Anchorhold where it all began. Where it will all end. To do what must be done. By turns gripping and bewitching, sharp and audacious, this mesmerising story takes you on a journey into the dark heart of Slatter's sinister and compelling fantasy world, where blood is currency and magic is a weapon.

A.G. Slatter Angela has won a Shirley Jackson Award, a World Fantasy Award, a British Fantasy Award, a Ditmar, three Australian Shadows Awards and eight Aurealis Awards. Most recently, All the Murmuring Bones was shortlisted for the 2021 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards Book of the Year and the 2021 Shirley Jackson Award; The Path of Thorns won the 2022 Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel and the 2022 Australian Shadows Award for Best Novel. She has an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing, is a graduate of Clarion South 2009 and the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop 2006. Angela's short stories have appeared in many Best Of anthologies, and her work has been translated into many languages. She lives in Brisbane, Australia.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Slatter, A. G.

Leseproben

2

St Sinwin’s is a sloping sort of town; built on a hillside that feeds down to the harbour, the entire place has a vague air of sliding into the sea. Locations like the port-city of Breakwater are flatter, the surrounding hills gentler. But we cling here nevertheless, a determined mix of fisherfolk, sailors, merchants, sea captains and the occasional ‘retired’ pirate (once they were all gone, hunted to near-extinction, but some hardy types are taking back to the old ways), families rich and poor, the god-hounds, thieves and bankers, doctors and lawyers, craftsfolk. It’s pretty: buildings painted white and blue, the occasional pink, although those closer to the docks are faded, often in disrepair. Higher up, are the mansions of stone and imported exotic wood, a curve of them almost like a battlement in case of attack. Most of the cobbled streets wind back and forth to combat the worst effects of gravity – no one wants a goods cart or fine carriage careening off and collecting who-knows-how-many lives on its way.

The inhabitants are a canny lot, figuring out the shortest, smoothest ways to get wherever they’re going – not lazy, no, but practical – and there’s a brigade of muscular lads and lasses who carry palanquins up and down for those with coin to spare. There are five main ‘spokes’ that lead from the city gates above, all the way down to the maritime heart of our town; wooden benches are set at convenient rest points for visitors and the elderly. Lots along these major arteries are highly sought after for businesses wanting visibility. Running between the spokes is a network of thoroughfares of varying width, popularity and usage; mostly residential. I suspect it was all meant to form a tidy grid system, but urban planning seldom survives encounters with people’s desires for bigger houses or smaller, combining structures to create warehouses, splitting others up for tenements, inserting gardens for contemplation and seduction, sinking wells and ornamental ponds.

Pendergast & Associates is roughly halfway up or halfway down, depending on your perspective, and has a clear view to the waters of the harbour, the ships moored there and all the busy little ants rushing hither and yon loading and unloading, clattering across the docks, swaying along gangways, swarming up rigging. It’s a well-respected establishment, three solicitors, one of whom is Mr Pendergast’s daughter, the other his son-in-law. The rooms are surprisingly light and airy, quite ruining the expectation that a legal office should be gloomy and dust-ridden. None of that means it’s a pleasure to visit, and I’ve spent many hours of my life here learning about contracts and crime as part of my very specific educational curriculum as defined by Father. When Father came into his fortune some thirteen years ago and found himself in need of legal guidance, none of the fancier firms would take his business. Walter (a mere deacon then) referred him to Titus, who tends to any finances the now-bishop doesn’t want known to the Church.

I’ve known Titus Pendergast, Esq., more than half my life and he and Walter were always kinder than my father, insistent but not cruel, or not excessively, so you’d think he might have had some inkling about my feelings, might have expected my reaction to his reading of the will. Yet Titus, who is now staring across his desk at me and saying, ‘But, Violet, you must,’ apparently did not.

‘But I shan’t. My father controlled me in life, he will not continue to do so in death.’ It’s all I can do not to grind my teeth.

‘You really must, Violet.’ He leans forward, elbows on the desktop, fingers clasping each other in a desperate steeple. ‘This was the mission he set for you, for which he ensured you were trained. There’s so much at stake. Your father was very determined.’

‘My father was very determined, certainly. He was also manic and obsessive, driven by demons and haunted by phantoms. We’re both aware, Titus, he was not well in his mind.’ I lean forward in the uncomfortable leather seat, tap on the blotter pad with a sharp pink nail. ‘There are Leech Lords, yes. But they are confined in the Darklands. They cannot get out. There is a border and it is held.’

He makes a gesture which says he concedes the point. ‘But he intended—’

‘Wasn’t it enough? What he did to me? Haven’t I suffered enough pain and anguish? Do you really think I am going to undertake a journey to the north, find the Anchorhold, find my brother – his corpse! – and then what?’

The sunlight from the window shines down on his silver fluff of hair and highlights the beads of sweat on his brow. I slump back into my chair.

‘Violet, there is more than you—’

‘I wish to know nothing more! I repeat, Titus: my father controlled my life. He’s not going to continue to do so in death.’

‘Violet, it is critical. There’s too much at stake for you to be childish about—’

My voice thins to a stiletto blade: ‘It’s preposterous, what he wants. All his mad fancies trying to bind me from beyond the grave. And you should be ashamed to be helping!’

And he does hang his head.

‘Then I believe we are done, Mr Pendergast.’

‘But—’

I raise a finger.

‘We. Are. Done.’ I rise, rearrange my long black mourning skirts (embellished with jet beads), straighten the ladylike gloves, hang the beaded velvet reticule and silk fan at my wrist, adjust my ridiculously tiny silk hat, and give the solicitor a brief brittle smile. ‘Please arrange for the transfer of the house title, of all his properties and all funds from his bank accounts into my own. I have let all the staff go except for Mrs Medway’ – I want to choose my own household – ‘so please ensure that Father’s bequests to them are made as soon as possible. Do you wish to continue as my solicitor? If not, tell me now so I can make other arrangements.’ Perhaps one of those fancy ones that rejected Hedrek all those years ago. A bluff, really, I don’t want the trouble of it; thankfully, Titus nods. ‘And thank you for your consideration, Mr Pendergast. I do appreciate your efficiency and kindness in these matters.’

I’m at the door when he says, ‘It is a condition of your inheritance, Violet. If you do not travel north and fulfil your father’s instructions…’

My fingers convulse on the brass doorknob, seeming to swallow the shine of it, as if all of the hope I felt last night now rests in the belly of a wolf.

‘If you do not do this, Violet, everything will go to the Church.’

The moment feels endless, but I know it’s no more than a second before I say, ‘I’ll not be held hostage to a dead man’s demands.’

*   *   *

Out in the fresh air, I take a deep breath and lean against the stone wall. Titus’s last words, that I have three days to decide, ring in my ears. The barely legible lines from Hedrek’s journal (given to his solicitor for safekeeping a few days before his demise, I was told) appear across my vision, a palimpsest laid over the sight of the harbour and the blue, blue sky.

But the place that concerns you, Violet?

Here. It’s barely marked – just that tiny x – faded now, this is an old map stuck in these pages. This is the spot.

Anchor-hold.

The Anchorhold.

Where, it’s whispered, it all began.

Where it will all end.

And the yellowed piece of paper, ancient and thin as onion skin, the contour lines on it the muted blue of deep veins.

You will go north, Violet.

You will find the place where your brother resides.

You will destroy the Anchorhold and whatever moves within it.

And you will save your brother.

Save Tiberius.

Neither journal nor map did I take, nor were they offered. Perhaps Titus knows me well enough after all – given a chance I’d have touched them to a candleflame, sent them into the ether. I have no need of money, I tell myself, then amend, I have no need of riches.

I don’t need the house or the real estate portfolio or the myriad business interests, nor all the gold and silver stacked in bank vaults. I don’t need servants to dress me or clean or cook, to open doors and do my washing, and tell visitors that I’m not at home. I don’t need the carriages or the horses. I do need some money to survive. To flee. To feed myself until I can get settled elsewhere. Quickly, I calculate how much is in my own accounts, how much jewellery I have that might be sold before the Church tries to claim it as well, arguing it was no gift from my father, merely a ‘loan’.

To my left, the harbour and all its ships. The Harbour Mistress would put me on one, no doubt, a decent one with a captain who could be trusted to deliver me across the sea, to some foreign land where I could proceed to get lost. To my right, the route up the hill to Zennor House where Mrs Medway waits; I don’t think I could live with myself if I left her in the lurch. And there’s Freddie too. Who’d look out for her? It’s not lost on me that I dreamed my father dead, but can’t bear to leave these two behind.

I turn and head upwards, the heels of my boots clacking on the cobbles, my skirts hissing behind me as if some Medusa follows. At home there will be a warm bath, a comfortable dressing gown and the scandalous joy of bare feet. Mrs Medway to bring me hot buttered port and biscuits even though it’s...