by A Van Wyck
“You don’t know me?” he asked in surprise.
“You obviously think yourself very important.”
“It’s not that,” he hastened to assure. “It’s just… I thought you recognized me. From that night in the royal apartments. And then the chase across the roo–”
There was a glimpse of movement and then he found himself up against the wall, a hand like a vice in his hair.
“You’re the Heli bodyguard?!” The assassin’s flaming eyes bored into his own. “You pierced my Shroud? You?!” She looked him up and down. “You’re a child!”
She threw him down. Hard.
“How did you do it?” she demanded, a knife suddenly in her fist. “What spells do you hold?” She kicked him in the ribs. “What charms do you bear?!” Another kick. “Tell me!”
“I don’t know!” he managed to gasp between kicks.
“Keep your secrets,” she spat. “I’ll find out for myself…” She moved to the table and snatched up the solitary candle. Dark purpose animated her steps as she returned.
He thought she meant to cut his throat but the gurgle of sheared cloth sounded instead. His panic underwent a delirious deepening: half-formed memories; a night sky, glimpsed from between rising buildings; rough hands, tearing at his clothes...
He struggled. He couldn’t help it. The manhandling paused and cold steel pressed his lips flat as if to shush him.
“Hold still,” the assassin growled.
He tried. Feeling like a felled elk beneath the huntsman’s knife.
She examined him, top to bottom. His skin, his scalp, behind his ears and between his toes. Her cold, impersonal manner as she held the candle this way and that made the indignity worse.
“Stick out your tongue,” she commanded and checked the inside of his cheeks and his palate. She even turned his eyelids inside out to check their underside. “Hold still or I’ll cut them off and hold them to the light.”
Her gloved fingers lingered over the burn scar on his chest. Frustrated, she straightened and took a step back. The buzzing of flies filled his ears and the assassin was swallowed in a swirl of familiar black smoke.
“Can you see me?”
He thought about lying.
“Yes.”
The pall of smoke sped across the room, got lost in a patch of shadow and reappeared, snaking along the rafters. Too late he realized he was following it with his eyes. With a sawing noise the flies scattered and the assassin dropped to the ground in front of him.
“How? How are you doing this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can anyone else do this?”
“My master said it was because we are in service to Helia.”
She swatted the notion away. “I’ve killed Heli before.”
“Initiates? From the Temple?”
She didn’t respond. Her eyes, the only part of her that was visible, looked inward.
“And this master of yours?” she said eventually. “He would be the demon healer everyone is buzzing about? Can he do this?”
“The keeper is no demon…” he defended but found it difficult to sound as staunch as he intended, tied and naked on the floor. “And I don’t know.”
Eliciting sympathy from her had failed. His appeal to camaraderie had failed spectacularly. It was time to try something else…
“Did her sister hire you to kill her?”
She gave him a speculative look but said nothing, turning to walk away.
“Can I hire you?”
She didn’t look at him. “I don’t work for coppers and I don’t take coin to let people live.”
“I have money,” he assured. The keeper had brought a sizeable amount. To buy back the keeper’s life the masha’na would gladly empty those coffers.
The assassin scoffed again, indicating the pile that was his ruined clothing with an upraised palm.
“Not here, obviously,” he confirmed.
“Obviously.”
“And I don’t mean me. I want you to rescue the keeper.”
She laughed. “I’m not in the business of saving people, either.”
“Then why did you save me? You could easily have left me there.”
“I didn’t save you,” she cocked her cowled head at him. “She wanted you dead. I wanted to know why in case I could use it against her. Turns out you’re useless to me.”
She’d avoided talking about the princess, he realized. And now he saw why. The fire he’d glimpsed before blazed in her eyes when she did.
He made an intuitive leap.
“There’s no one paying you to kill her is there?”
The blaze in her eyes banked immediately at this mention, giving truth to his gamble.
“It’s personal? You’ve tried killing a princess of the realm twice for a vendetta?” The realization was staggering. “Why? What could possibly justify such a crusade?”
She regarded him for a very long time, her eyes a perfect blank. Only her hand moved, clenching and unclenching around the hilt of her dagger. He began to fear he’d bought his own death with his guess. At long length, she spoke.
“We are the unseen. The knife in the back, the quarrel from the shadows, the old, trusted vintage that one day burns a hole to your soul.”
The melody of her voice was now weary and bitter.
“Betrayal,” she said. “It is our staple. Without the human penchant for betrayal we’d all be butchers or hunters or farmers. We court betrayal. We feed it and feed on it. But even a master chef sometimes chokes on an innocuous morsel.”
He stared at her, trying to understand.
What could propel a person to this level of grief and anger? What would propel him? He thought of how he’d felt when he’d found out Justin had been taken. And then put it together with her mention of a ‘master chef’.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” He guessed. “She betrayed your master. Killed your master.”
“Mistress,” the assassin corrected.
He saw a way. Perhaps…
“And you’re going to let her do the same thing to me?”
“I owe you nothing!” she spat, coming out of whatever reverie had held her. She turned swiftly back to her table.
“It’s not about what you owe me. It’s about what you owe Dailill!” It hurt to say her name. “She wants this war! For whatever reason – she wants it. Killing my master will give it to her. Saving him will hurt her, hurt her plans. You said you were hoping for something to use against her – here it is! She told me she’d promised my master’s head to another. If we save him, she may lose a supporter. If we expose her, she may lose many! The king is suing for peace with the Heli Empire. She’d be guilty of treason!”
The assassin leaned on her table with her back to him, motionless beneath his desperate barrage.
“What would be better?” he challenged. “Taking her life? Or taking her power? Which one do you think she holds most dear?”
For the longest time she didn’t move. When she finally straightened, his heart clenched, anticipating another throwing star.
“How would we go about saving your demon healer?”
He tried not to let his elation completely overwhelm him.
“So you’ll help?”
Her approach this time was far less menacing. So it came as a surprise when her knife pricked his jugular. Abruptly they were nose to nose.
“My help,” she pronounced each word individually, “does not come cheap.”
“What do you want?”
“For the life of a demon healer? One thousand and one crowns.”
He had no idea how much money that was.
“Done.”
She searched his eyes but gave no indication whether she found what she sought.
“I must be out of my mind,” she muttered. And then his bonds were falling away to the sure pass of her knife. She drew him to his feet and then had to steady him as a rush of pins and needles threatened to dump him back in the dirt.
“Marco,” he introduced through clenched teeth, shaking the arm he held. “Marco dei Toriam.”
She sighed at his expectant silence.
“Nin.”
“Please to meet you,” he straightened. And, realizing he was hanging on a girl while naked – you tend to forget these things when fearing for your life – snatched his hands back for a more important task. “Do you think I could have some pants now?”
She scoffed at this, turning away, but he didn’t hear what she said next.
He hadn’t realized how sensitive his hearing had grown, though apparently it had sharpened to match his sense of smell. He had no idea where this warehouse was located but it was certainly isolated. She hadn’t gagged him, after all, and the only city sounds he’d heard were distant and arrived on gusts of wind. Now his ears picked out the sound of a single pair of boots, moving purposefully in their direction.
A closer sound refocused him on Nin, who was drawing scattered articles of clothing from a barrel. “…most of the male clothes are disguises but I should have something that–”
“There’s someone outside,” he blurted.
She blinked at him, then cocked her head as if listening.
“No,” she said with conviction. “I’ve set wards. No one can come within a hundred paces without trig–” She straightened like a shot bow, her head snapping around to focus beyond the wall of the warehouse. For two long breaths she was a statue. Then she spun to shove him in the chest. He sat down hard in the corner and was almost instantly drowning in an avalanche of dust as she snatched a faded tarpaulin off a shelf and dumped it over top of him.
“Don’t move,” she cautioned urgently.
Stifling a coughing fit, scrabbling at the tarpaulin for air, the room plunged into darkness as the single candle was pinched out. He surfaced with a gasp, the sawing of flies filling his ears. Through tearing eyes he saw the black cloud flit up a support beam and crawl across the ceiling. When it cleared, Nin stood two man heights above the ground, balanced on the lintel above the massive doors, a dagger in either hand.
Hide! she mouthed at him angrily. He pulled the stifling sheet back over his head, realizing as he did so that he’d been able to see her quite clearly even in the sudden dark.
Smell, hearing and now sight.
He gritted his teeth, wondering what other horrors his body would perpetrate on him. If he survived, the inquisitors were going to have some hard questions for him.
In the stillness, he became aware of Nin’s even breathing. A muted thumping slowly resolved from the darkness to lap at his eardrums and he realized he was hearing her heartbeat.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Maybe the inquisitors won’t bother with questions…
But saving Justin came first and if this Nin was willing to help, then he had an interest in protecting her too. He focused his attention outward and found the footfalls fifty paces away. Their movement was erratic. They’d slow, stop, wait, scuff and start again. As if their owner were hunting something. Unerringly and by increments, they were drawing nearer. He listened intently as the last few steps brought them to the warehouse doors. There was a rasp as a sword was drawn. A whistle of air. A snick of metal and then a loud rattle as chain ran through its loops to the ground. The slide and smack of a sword returning to its scabbard sounded.
And then the doors creaked on dusty hinges as they swung open, bringing a change to the air and echo of the warehouse. A strong, unhurried heartbeat said their visitor stood just beyond the threshold. He felt Nin’s heartbeat speeding and became aware of his own heart, trying to tear its way out of his chest with a determined thump-tap! Thump-tap! Thump–!
“Won’t you come down, milady?” a male voice enquired.
Even this soft sound speared his sensitive ears. He couldn’t help a flinch.
“Wouldn’t you rather die quietly and save me the trouble?” Nin invited.
There was silence, as if the intruder were considering her offer.
“That would not go well for you,” the voice assured.
“And you know this for a fact?” she challenged.
“From experience. You would not be the first assassin I’d killed, merely the first I was forewarned of.”
“Not a lot of incentive for me to come down, then.”
There was a rustle of cloth, a metallic susurration. He could hear a faint displacement as something arched through the air… and landed with a fragmented clank. The unmistakable sound of sliding coins filled the warehouse.
“What’s this?” Nin demanded.
“Incentive.”
“For?”
“For starters, you have Master Dei Toriam under that sheet. I would like to see him.”
He was so shocked he didn’t bother to think that it might be a bluff. He ripped the tarpaulin off himself, then clutched the stiff material awkwardly to him as he stood. Framed in the doorway, lit from behind by the dubious light of the stars, was a man he recognized. He’d never seen him without his charge and he’d never heard the man speak. But it was unmistakably the elder princess Villet’s bodyguard.
“Enderam Lelouch?” memory insisted.
The man’s intense blue eyes raked over him once, then dismissed him.
“As you can see–” He hadn’t realized Nin had moved from atop the lintel but she was gone. He heard a faint buzz of flies. “–he is in no fit state to entertain. So if there was nothing else?”
“This coin,” Lelouch continued, “comes as a commission.”
A low throated chuckle sounded from the darkness in the rafters.
“Discreet enquiries said your mistress was not in the market for my… services.”
“She does not seek her sister’s death. Only stability.”
“So–” Nin’s voice kept moving. Even with his newly discovered senses he couldn’t pin her down. “–what has changed?”
Lelouch said nothing but the tilt of this chin seemed to invite speculation.
The dark rafters were silent with furious cogitation.
“Nothing,” Nin guessed. “So,” she mused. “Stability…You want me to save the demon healer too?” Surprise colored her tone.
Hope reared in him like the arm of a siege engine.
“We will need the masha’na…” he blurted and would have continued but another pass of those icy blue eyes silenced him.
“The Royal Guard compound, fourth quarter. Meet our agent outside the east postern gate. Tenth bell. He’ll provide egress. I trust you can manage the rest by yourselves.”
From beneath his cloak Lelouch drew a stiff package. It joined the spilled coins on the ground. Marco immediately recognized the twine and burlap wrapped bundle.
“You?!” he gasped.
Lelouch met his eyes then. The force of that gaze trembled his grip on his makeshift robes.
“Stability and justice,” the man pronounced, “are not the same thing.”
A teardrop of black fell from the ceiling and Nin materialized over the sword and scattered coins, saving him from Lelouch’s regard.
“And what,” she addressed the bodyguard, “is to stop me from taking your gold and leaving you to your instability and war?”
Lelouch didn’t move. Didn’t blink. But the silence in the warehouse was suddenly deafening. Nin halfway hefted her knives, bracing a foot as if preparing to meet a charge. He could hear her heart racing and could smell sweat on her.
The moment passed.
Lelouch turned back toward the night.
“Last question,” Nin called after him. “How did you find me?”
For the first time since his appearance, the bodyguard hesitated.
“It was child’s play.”
Enderam Lelouch made his way back to the city’s main thoroughfares.
His mandate had been simple: Recover the Heli priest, alive, and avert a war. If this proved impossible, ensure that his princess’s involvement remained undiscovered.
Being able to employ the assassin and the sword-
scribe as agents was inspired. If it became necessary for the princess to pick up the pieces after all this went wrong, she’d do so with spotless gloves.
Of course if the assassin and the boy failed in rescuing the Temple warriors and the priest he would have to silence the both of them.
He wondered yet again whether he should not have killed the assassin anyway. She was talented, certainly, but green. If she were allowed to mature, she might come to threaten his princess and that would not do.
Granted, the actual instruction his princess had spoken had been ‘Fix this…’ Not because she lacked the fortitude to spearhead such a scheme herself – far from it. His princess was the only person he’d yet met whose intellect rivaled his own. Oh, people were quick to assume his reticence meant he was simple. As a child, he himself had often wondered whether he was defective, thinking instead of feeling his way through his emotions. Instinctively ostracized by other children, he’d had boundless, solitary time to ponder the ways of the world. He’d come early to the realization that intelligence in a commoner was about as much use as balls on a mule.
He’d been watching the older boys play sword-fighting when the idea he’d built his life around had begun to coalesce. The ways for a common man to uplift himself were limited and difficult. Money was a tried and tested stepping stone. But the required amount was prohibitive. Even his intellect could not guarantee that an economic approach would bear the desired fruit.
But fear, as he’d learned when he’d joined in the stick-fighting, was a ladder that led to windows normal stairs wouldn’t reach.
Now, years later, he recognized his choice as a pre-pubescent attempt to escape the abuse his peers had heaped on the pale, odd boy in their midst.
Feats of arms had always been an honorable way for a common man to elevate himself. He’d found his mental acuity and singular discipline well suited to the sword.
He’d been the youngest swordmaster in over three centuries. There was no Sword Guild – the community of swordmasters was a scattered collection of solitary individuals. They lacked a ruling body and were regulated only by ancient tradition. A bare handful sported schools of their own. It had been an easy matter to convince the aged master, Quaran Chole, to convene a panel of three swordmasters to declare his skills adequate. The only other way to attain the title, according to ancient law, was to kill another swordmaster in single combat. Quaran Chole had needed little convincing, scribbling formal letters of summoning in a shaky hand.