Black Guild

by J. P. Ashman

  After a moment or two of numbness and another shout from Longoss, Coppin followed, the devastating scene surrounding her melting away until all she could see were a split of two rooms: Mother’s and the Grand Inquisitor’s. With a shudder, she whispered one thing to herself, before reaching the men.

  ‘I need to go back to Mother’s.’

  ***

  ‘What does it say?’ Pangan dared.

  Poi Son looked up from the parchment, peering over his spectacles to do so. Pangan shifted under his master’s attention. After a moment’s pause, Poi Son answered.

  ‘The Eatrian assassins guild we petitioned have confirmed the contract is now in the process of being carried out.’ Poi Son looked back down at the black ink, to its continuous, fluid style, but more importantly, to the detail worked into the surrounding border: an unnerving pattern of dark red symbols.

  Pangan raised up onto his toes from his dark corner.

  ‘You can’t see from there, Pangan,’ Poi Son said, eyes remaining on the intricate message inlaid in the blood-written border. Pangan dropped back to the flats of his leather shod feet.

  ‘I saw red is all, in the candlelight.’ The assassin took a deep breath, appreciating the scent of the beeswax candles around the room.

  ‘Take one, if you like,’ Poi Son said, studying the parchment.

  Eyes wide, Pangan moved to and picked up one of the yellow candles, taking another deep breath in through his nose as he did so. ‘So much nicer than tallow, Master Son.’

  ‘Aren’t they just.’ The reply was absent minded, a distraction to keep Pangan from asking more questions. Pangan knew it and didn’t mind. He’d asked a lot of questions since the strange contract Poi Son was fretting over appeared in his master’s hands. It wasn’t long until the candle’s allure lost out to his curiosity though.

  ‘Have you thought anymore on Longoss and his whore?’

  Poi Son sighed and looked up. ‘Why do you insist on ruining my mood, Pangan?’

  Pangan shrugged. ‘Apologies, Master Son. He’s at large is all, and I can’t help but wonder what he will do next to disrupt us—’

  ‘The guild.’

  Pangan frowned. ‘Master Son?’

  ‘It is the Black Guild he disrupts, not us, Pangan. Remember that. He makes an enemy of the guild as a whole.’ Poi Son looked back to the ink and blood markings before him.

  Another pause before Pangan spoke again. ‘So, the other two masters are aware of his… antics?’

  Poi Son crumpled the edges of the parchment, ever so slightly. Saying nothing, he merely shook his head.

  Pangan folded his arms across his chest and rocked slightly, his gifted candle back on the shelf beside him. ‘How are you keeping it from them, Master Son? Longoss makes such a nuisance, to say the least.’

  ‘To say the very least, Pangan,’ was Poi Son’s only reply.

  Pangan sighed and began to pace the room, eyes flicking from shadow to shadow. ‘I’m not surprised Master Alden-Fenn doesn’t know, being abroad and all, but—’

  Poi Son looked up, stopping Pangan’s words dead. ‘Deal with Longoss yourself then,’ he said, a snarl pulling at his thin lips, ‘If you are so worried about them finding out.’

  Hands held out, palms forward, Pangan shook his head once. ‘I told you I won’t take his mark and I meant it.’ He lowered his hands as Poi Son looked down once more.

  ‘Well, stop talking about him. I’m dealing with it and I’m working hard to keep it from them; from her in particular.’

  Nodding, Pangan moved across to a black harp in the corner.

  ‘Don’t touch.’

  ‘Wouldn’t dare, Master Son.’ Pangan turned full circle and headed back across the room to trace his finger down a river depicted on a map of Altoln.

  The near silence stretched out longer than it had at any other point. Pangan rubbed his face, sighed and spoke once more. ‘What of Terrina and her useless brother?’

  ‘What of them?’

  Pangan shrugged and studied his filthy nails. ‘Why are you keeping them around?’

  ‘They’re useful.’ Poi Son spoke quietly, his face a mix of changing emotions as he turned the bordered letter this way and that.

  A laugh was all Pangan could manage. The laugh lifted Poi Son’s eyes. The laugh was short lived.

  ‘What amuses you about their plight, Pangan?’

  ‘The fact that you think they’re useful to us—’

  ‘To the guild,’ Poi Son corrected.

  ‘Aye, to the guild.’ Pangan sniffed. ‘Blanck can’t see, for starters—’

  ‘Trust me when I say they’re useful, Pangan. Trust me and leave it be for now. Understood?’

  ‘Well no, not really, but I’ll leave it be of course.’ Pangan rolled his eyes as Poi Son looked back down.

  Poi Son took a circular piece of glass from a drawer, thick and bulbous in the middle, thin at the edges and ringed with gold. He held the lens over the blood-ink of the parchment, despite his already magnified spectacles. He squinted in an attempt to make sense of what he saw scrawled within the blood-red border. He cursed, silently, unusually for him, as Pangan spoke once more.

  ‘Do the other Guild Masters know about that?’ Pangan lifted his chin to the agreement from the Eatrian assassins guild that Poi Son was studying, or trying to. Pangan stepped back a pace as narrowed eyes met his own.

  ‘No, they do not,’ Poi Son said slowly, dangerously. ‘If they did, we’d bloody well know about it.’

  Another rare curse from you, Poi Son. What’s got you so rattled, apart from Longoss and his whore? Mistress Bronwen, I’d wager. Aye, Mistress Bronwen finding out you’ve taken a political mark and palmed it off on a foreign guild…

  There was a loud knock at the door.

  Shit, Pangan thought. He was pretty sure Poi Son thought the same.

  Poi Son and Pangan froze, eyes remaining on one another. Both men swallowed hard; both men tensed.

  There were three more solid knocks before the two men readied themselves for the worst. They’d barely prepared when the handle turned and the oak door opened.

  Chapter 32 – Freeze!

  Silence filled the room. None of the usual flourishes and poetic lines from Poi Son. None of the sarcastic comments and playful jibes from Bronwen. The master and mistress of the Black Guild just stood there, staring at one another. Poi Son had stood, but the desk did little to comfort him, that much was clear to Pangan, who stood frozen. Literally. Eyes darting from one superior to the other, waiting for one of them to make a move. Waiting to die.

  ‘Is that necessary?’ Poi Son gestured towards Pangan, whose breath was clouding, skin fading to white with a hint of blue, for visual effect, Pangan was sure, knowing Bronwen as he did.

  Bronwen adjusted her awful robes and stowed away the off-white wand she’d been balancing between forefinger and thumb. She shrugged, shoulders lifting the greying curls atop them.

  ‘You’re giving me the silent treatment?’ Poi Son made to move, but Bronwen shook her head.

  The movement was so slight Pangan nearly missed it. He’d always found Bronwen’s attire strange: flowing robes, salmon-, no, sick-pink today – always horrific colours – and filthy white vambraces on her forearms displaying etched numbers and symbols that made no sense to Pangan.

  ‘How dare you, Poi!’ Bronwen’s tone, and stare, was vehement.

  Pangan cursed in his head, although he was glad she wasn’t looking at him whilst she spoke… and now pointed, her long-nailed finger jabbing the air between her and Poi Son, who scoffed at it all. Pangan felt numb. Realising he’d missed something said, he strained to pay attention, strained to ignore the cold that seeped into his very bones. His toes and fingers had it worse. And his eyeballs, which throbbed rather than numbed.

  ‘How dare I?’ Poi Son rounded the table, a lute string wrapped around each hand, pulled taught. It looked to be cutting into his hands, he was gripping it that tight.

  The fuck you gonna do wit
h that, at that range? Pangan would have groaned if he could.

  ‘Yes, how dare you!’ Bronwen came forward, crooked teeth revealed through her red-lipped sneer.

  ‘You barged into my chamber, Bronwen, not the other way around.’ Poi Son relaxed the grip on his cord. He stood six foot in front of Bronwen, eyes locked on hers. ‘You came to me, unannounced.’

  Fuck a shit! Pangan’s eyes would have widened if his brow wasn’t solid. His eyes moved in their sockets though. He thought that strange since they were the moistest parts of him. His eyes had moved to Poi Son, by the desk. The desk… with the contract of agreement on it, from Eatri. Fuck a shit and more. If she sees that… He sucked in the cloud of breath he’d expelled. She may have come because she already—

  ‘I already know, Poi. There’s no point trying to hide it from me.’

  Poi Son frowned and, to his credit, didn’t mention anything specific. He sat back onto the desk, but not before a slight shuffle which blocked Bronwen’s line of sight to the letter. ‘How did you find out?’ Poi Son asked, resting his cord-holding hands on his thighs. Indeed, one hand had been cut by the string, and blood began to run down the wire, heading towards the other hand before gathering at the lowest point of the dip, to drip, drip, drip.

  Unlike Pangan, there was no frost spell or whatever it was on Bronwen, and the woman’s eyes widened enough with incredulity for her and Pangan combined.

  ‘How do I fucking know?’ she snapped. Poi Son winced at ‘fucking’. ‘There’s been near warfare in Dockside for weeks and all since you set a mark on one of our own, and thought Alden-Fenn and I wouldn’t know. All since you fucked up in gutting that stinking shit Longoss, and all, Poi fucking Son…’ she was enjoying the repeated winces of her fellow guild master, ‘…since that shitting and pissing fat fucking bastard of a retard Longoss started pissing around with my… my… twatting contracts, marks, clients and fucking gods shitting assassins. You utter, fucking…’ Bronwen frowned, eyes narrowed. Pangan imagined grimacing, if he could. She’d clearly, despite her furious anger, enjoyed the twitching show coming from Poi Son’s face as she’d employed all the foul language she could muster, but she hadn’t enjoyed it enough to miss the poorly hidden relief in Poi Son’s eyes when she revealed what her problem with him was: Longoss striking back at the guild and hindering her contracts.

  Poi Son noticed she’d noticed. ‘I owe you an apology, and Fenn.’

  Pangan’s teeth began to chatter uncontrollably. Ironically, I’ll be toast if these two start…

  Bronwen was shaking her head. ‘You owe me your fucking share,’ she said through gritted, smoke-stained teeth.

  Toast it is. Pangan closed his eyes. He wasn’t a fearful man, but nor was he stupid. “Stay out of trouble, lad!” was all his old man had ever told him. Best advice he’d had from his old man. Only advice, mind, but the best. Didn’t stop him gutting people for a living, but it did make him choose his contracts and choose his fights. Alas, right now he had no choice but to stand and freeze to death, unless the spell was lifted or the two egomaniacs before him tore or blasted him to atoms. Least I’ll warm up before the end, if it’s the latter. With the sound of his own heartbeat thumping in his ears, slowing he noticed, through the cold likely, but slowing despite the trouble he was in, Pangan tensed as best he could, gritted – painfully-through-the-cold – teeth as best he could, and waited for the end. And waited some more; a little longer before opening his eyes. It was only then, at the same time as he saw the scene before him, that he felt the tell-tale blood-rush before the pricking and the stabbing and the throbbing and the aching of the thaw. After all, it wasn’t the first time the bitch had frozen him, albeit last time, he’d been in her bed chamber; invited, of course. His lips tingled as he smiled. Oh, what a woman she was… despite her, looks, or lack of. So, adventurous!

  Poi Son glared at Pangan, hissed like a ferret and stormed from the room, through the door Bronwen had already left via.

  Pangan shook his head. He shook his arms and legs too, hopped from one foot to the other and winced as the pricking pins and stabbing needles kicked in. ‘What the shitting fuck just happened?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ came Poi Son’s voice from the corridor. ‘And please, Pangan,’ the master assassin said, ‘don’t use such language in my presence, it’s not becoming of you.’

  You’re not even in the bastard shitting room, you colossal prick!

  ‘And as soon as you thaw completely—’

  ‘Yes?’ Pangan said, his annoyance tainting his tone.

  ‘Go and take Terrina to see her brother. It’s time.’

  Pangan took a deep breath and let it out slowly, clapping hands and stamping feet as he did so. ‘Why now, may I ask?’

  ‘The icicles on your ear lobes should answer that, Pangan.’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of that; the shudder in your voice, Master Son, being the main reason.’ Pangan moved towards the door.

  ‘You shouldn’t,’ Poi Son said, out of eye shot, even when Pangan moved into the corridor and frowned. Poi Son’s voice came from nowhere and everywhere at once.

  ‘Reassuring.’ Pangan shook his head and walked down the corridor, flicking his feet with every step to work out the last of the prickles the returned blood brought.

  Here I come, Terrina. I hope you’re in a better mood than our so-called betters.

  Pangan left the corridor and felt one final shudder as he passed beneath the dark tapestry he hated, which hung over the steps leading down from Poi Son’s chambers. The dark tapestry of a hooded figure holding a lute. The hood twitched as the assassin descended the stairs.

  ‘Do you not want to know how it ended, Pangan?’ came the disembodied voice.

  ‘No, I fucking don’t.’ Pangan was down the stairs before the hidden guild master could respond. Fuck you, Poi Son, Terrina can wait until the morning to spite you and this whole damned situation. I’m for a drink; if Poi Son and Bronwen are at war, it could be my last.

  ***

  The powder Pangan supplied her did little to cover the puckered pink scars criss-crossing her pale skin, framing red-rimmed eyes that had witnessed countless horrors, some of which had since been re-visited upon her.

  Terrina attempted to apply more powder, watching herself in the mahogany set mirror Master Son had gifted her, here in her temporary quarters, within a safe-house.

  Even the dawn gloom isn’t enough to hide my sickening scars and skin.

  Shifting her weight on the stool, Terrina gasped, scabs pulling as her silk dress caught. She gritted teeth and lifted the silk away from the spot that pricked at her nerves. It was far better than the linen and leather she would normally wear, but it pained her to wear such a garment, sure as she was as to how helpless it made her look, and feel.

  ‘But I am, aren’t I?’ Terrina whispered, the scarred woman in the mirror saying the same thing, lips pulling, causing words to sound different, even to her. Especially to her. She hadn’t missed Pangan’s face when she’d first spoken, once the wounds about her face had healed somewhat. Her shoulders bobbed in forced laughter. A bitter mirth. Oh, how long her lips had taken to even partially heal, compared to the rest of her. Every time she’d attempted to bite into anything more than sop-in-wine her lips cracked, weeping and stinging with it. Even when they’d looked much better, in the mirror and to her surgeon’s insistence, had they split time and again, forcing her back to sipping at a soup like so many worn, toothless hags.

  Her breath shuddered from her chest and through her hoarse throat. Her slight breathing caused fluid to gather on her chest, or so the surgeon said. She was only now getting over the illness it caused. The hacking cough and wheezing flared pains she thought she’d got over.

  A burning built in Terrina’s chest as a tear ran from scar to scar, like a carnival water game. She wiped it away and hissed at the weak image staring back at her through sorrow filled eyes.

  ‘You’re an assassin, bitch!’ she said, the curse catchin
g and causing another of the lasting coughs to shudder painfully from her, stubborn and determined to stick around. ‘I need to get out,’ she managed. ‘I need to…’ She stared at her face, at her mask; the ghastly mask marring what had been a thing of beauty, according to many a fellow. She steeled herself, sat straighter. ‘I need to cover this vile visage; it won’t do to be seen so, not amongst my peers.’

  ‘Terrina?’

  She froze and looked to the reverse image of the doorway behind her. ‘In here, Pangan,’ she replied, stowing the pot of powder and brushing the rest from her face. She winced, not at the pain, but at the worsened image staring back. The surgeon had done his best, but oh how she hated him for the ragged, dot-lined scars he’d left behind after…

  ‘Longoss, you fucking shite of a man.’ Nose wrinkled, jaw set, Terrina dug her nails into the wood of the desk, or rather tried to. The aggression, the anger and the hate, and fear, fell away as a silhouette appeared in the doorway of the mirror. She smiled sweetly, or as sweetly as her tight lips and scarred face would allow.

  ‘Pangan! A pleasure, as always.’

  ‘Cut the act, lass,’ Pangan said. ‘You don’t fool me.’

  Her smile was gone before the words left Pangan’s scar-less mouth.

  ‘What do you want?’ Terrina turned on the stool and even that pained her. His hand rested on the knives at his belt. They always did, whenever he came.

  ‘Me, lass? I want for nothing.’

  ‘Master Son?’

  Pangan shook his head. Grinned. ‘Blanck!’

  Terrina sat stock still, stunned. She thought her brother dead. In fact, they’d told her as much. ‘But…’ she started.

  ‘But nothing, lass. Do you want to see your brother or not?’ Pangan’s smile was genuine, Terrina knew that much.

  ‘Does Master Son like to pluck his banjo string?’ she replied, a smile of her own appearing.

  Pangan laughed at the old joke and turned from the room. ‘I’ll wait for you outside,’ he said, walking away. ‘Remember to put your face on!’