Assassin's Edge

by Juliet E. McKenna

  I was enraged, repelled, outraged as if I’d seen the poor lad stripped naked for some howling mob’s amusement. The Elietimm woman’s head snapped up and she stared straight at me.

  “Darige, Moin!” The bitch could see us both, no question, eyes boring right through whatever veil of enchantment Guinalle had used to cloak us.

  They abandoned Parrail and moved towards us.

  “Guinalle?” Surely she could see the danger as easily as me?

  “You foul the very aether with your touch.” Guinalle’s contempt lashed out and the Elietimm trio recoiled. “I should sear that corrupt knowledge from your very minds. What tainted lore do you think you can use against me?”

  She raised her hand, an insubstantial wraith but the Elietimm stumbled backwards as if they faced some mythic warrior all tricked out with a blazing sword and shining armour.

  One of the men, the one called Darige tripped over Parrail. Quick as a biting fox, he grabbed the lad’s hair. “If we cannot touch you, he’s in our hands.”

  He kicked Parrail viciously in the groin. The second man, Moin, stamped on Parrail’s broken wrist. The scholar barely reacted and I felt Guinalle’s sick worry echo my own concern.

  This unholy world of illusion flickered around me. The man Moin smiled with feral satisfaction. “Are you strong enough to maintain your magic in the face of his pain?”

  “Yalda!” Darige didn’t take his eyes off Guinalle as he beckoned the woman forward.

  She caught up the pirate’s club and with a venomous smile brought the solid oak down on Parrail’s head. Blood oozed from his nose and ears. She swept it down again and again as Darige kicked him in the gut, Moin taking nailed boots to his unprotected back.

  The innocent lad’s final torment faded like a dream but I knew this was no nightmare even as the Eryngo’s deck grew solid and reassuring around me once more. Guinalle covered her face with shaking hands and fled to the stern cabin, racked by shuddering sobs.

  Allin was wide eyed in consternation. “What happened?”

  “They’ve got Elietimm enchanters,” I told her. “We have to get out of here.” I realised I was soaked with sweat, my shirt stained dark and my breeches clinging to my legs. The wind chilled me but I was already as cold as ice inside.

  “We’re already going.” Allin pointed to the black and yellow chequer flags hoisted to signal a retreat. The Dulse and Fire Minnow were heading towards us, those pirates who’d have cheerfully slaughtered everyone aboard left frustrated on the gravel of the landing. “We haven’t the men to fight without wizardry to help them.”

  The Eryngo’s sailors brought all their efforts to bear to ease us past the smouldering wrecks of the Spurdog and the Thornray. The Maelstrom was turning in the wider strait beyond the burning hulls, plain for all to see now its cloak of magic had been dropped for fear of aetheric attack on Shiv, ’Sar and Larissa. So much for our plan to get them close enough to gather up the prisoners with their newfound confidence in using the element of air. Vithrancel’s flotilla closed up behind us as we fled north up the strait, taking every advantage from wind and tide, our hopes broken behind us.

  “What about Parrail and Naldeth?” Allin asked, her voice shaking.

  “Parrail’s dead,” I told her grimly.

  “What about Naldeth?” she quavered.

  “I don’t know.” Though I could guess his fate if he betrayed himself.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  To Cadan Lench, Prefect,

  From Sul Gavial, Librarian.

  It’s all very well you asking me and my staff to search through boxes of litter our forebears were too idle to throw away but have you any idea what a thankless task this is? What isn’t faded to illegibility is either shredded by mice or noxious with beetles. This pious claptrap is the sole prize from an entire annal compiled by some priest in the first year of Nemith the Last’s reign.

  A Welcome to the Shrine of Ostrin

  I am delighted to learn that you will be joining our family of adepts and bringing a flavour of Col’s celebrated harmonies to our liturgies. You will join acolytes from the great temples of Relshaz and Draximal as well as the myriad lesser shrines of Caladhria and beyond. We are born to all degrees of rank, from the lowliest Names with the honour of but a single hall to shelter Sieur and tenants alike, to the lofty privilege enjoyed by the mightiest Princes of Convocation.

  Distinctions are meaningless in our isolated retreat. In the hospitality enjoined by Ostrin’s favour, we welcome all as equals. Come to this lonely place with humility and a mind relieved of all distractions of precedence and you may learn all we can teach you. Study the lore of Artifice with diligence and piety and you will return with redoubled skill to serve your first allegiance and those loyal to your House by birth or sworn by choice.

  We seek to perfect the arts of healing, to honour Ostrin to whom we are sworn above all. Beneath Drianon’s guiding hand, we watch over those making the hazardous journey from the Otherworld into this by way of a mother’s womb. As the year turns, we learn how to read Larasion’s promises of storm and sun and beseeching Drianon, we may increase the fertility that is her blessing on the earth. Attain the discipline to lift your mind from things seen to the unseen and you may seek Arimelin’s help in speaking to those far distant. Under Halcarion’s tutelage, you may travel the infinite paths marked by the moons.

  As the gods grant rewards of power, they exact solemn duties in return. As those set above you uphold justice within their domains, you will swear to answer to Raeponin for the truth you prompt from a silent tongue or lift from an unwilling mind. Your sincerity will be tested never so sorely as when you comfort those passing into Poldrion’s care. It will be laid upon you to ease the fears of the dying as their lives are come before Saedrin’s scrutiny.

  We are entitled to satisfaction and even a measure of pride in the execution of our Artifice but let us always remember that such skills as we master, are granted only by the grace of the gods whom we honour, as is their due. In their service, we of this shrine are sworn to curtail the arrogance of any who might be tempted to abuse the lore we entrust to them.

  Suthyfer, the Northern Sentry Island,

  1st of For-Summer

  I walked to the far corner of the bay and looked out to sea. White ruffs of foam trimmed mysterious waters shining like black silk beneath the clear silver light of the greater moon. She was gliding serene in the cloudless night sky, perfect circle framed in subtle radiance. Her lesser sister hovered near the horizon, face half hidden as if by a veil drawn aslant, modest handmaiden to that pale beauty, waiting her own turn in the dance of the heavens. The sea breeze perfumed the air with a cleansing freshness, every now and then overlaid momentarily with the sweetness of some unknown blossom unseen in the darkness of the untrodden forest cloaking this hitherto untroubled speck of land. The rhythmic rush of the waves on the sand soothed like the rock of a cradle for a fractious babe while low voices behind me went about some unhurried business. I turned a flat stone over and over between my fingers.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Pered joined me.

  “Hmm.” I managed a non-committal noise.

  “What’s wrong?” He wasn’t being nosy, just offering a friendly ear. I’d noticed his talent for that before.

  I cleared my throat. “Did Shiv ever tell you about Geris?” Gentle, trusting Geris. I’d never had the chance to teach him it was just agreeable flirtation and casual lust landing me in his bed, not the high-flown romance of his imagining.

  “The scholar from Vanam.” Pered nodded soberly. “Elietimm killed him.”

  “Same as Parrail.” At least I was managing not to cry. “Well, worse. They tortured him.” Sudden anger surprised me. All Geris had been doing was sniffing out ancient lore for Planir, with Shiv and Darni along to keep him out of trouble. How did that warrant kidnap by the Elietimm, a death broken and mutilated, all his innocent illusions brutally shattered? “It’s time we stopped these scum bringing murder and misery where
ver it suits them.” I spun the stone out across the water to vent my fury. It struck silver sparks from the blackness once, twice, six skips in all.

  “That’s quite a trick.” Pered looked around his feet. “Do you want another?”

  “No, thanks all the same.” I’d hold on to the rest of my rage. Its heat was better than cold emptiness beneath my breastbone when I thought of all those dead at Elietimm hands. “Did you want something?”

  Turning to Pered meant acknowledging the noise behind me was no comfortable everyday bustle. On this side of the beach the dubious crew Sorgrad had gathered for Shiv were still allocating supplies from the caches in the nearby woods and rocks that Rosarn andVaspret had unearthed. Vithrancel’s mercenaries had long since divided their spoils and were bedded down around their own campfires on the far reach of sand. Spread in desultory knots between them were those ordinary men of Kellarin who remained after the Eryngo, Nenuphar and Asterias had been hastily provisioned from looted stores and sent to battle wind and tide all the way to the southern end of the strait. We had to block that before any pirates could get some ship seaworthy and try to escape.

  “It’s past midnight.” Pered shivered though it wasn’t particularly cold.

  I glanced at him. “Never thought you’d rue the day you weren’t mageborn?”

  “What’s it like?” He struggled for the right word. “To be used for Artifice?”

  The skin down my spine crawled with distaste but I fought to quell the feeling. Having an Elietimm enchanter inside my head had been worse than any rape—and I knew enough of violated women not to say that lightly. How to describe being used for Guinalle’s convenience? More akin to the sale and purchase of a disinterested body for a purse of silver?

  “It’s not so bad,” I said, offhand.

  “I’d still rather not.” Pered’s usually insouciant eyes were shadowed with more than the dark of the night. “But I don’t suppose we have a choice.”

  “Walking away from a bad run of luck only guarantees your losses,” I said lightly. “Staying to play is the only way to come out ahead.”

  “Even when someone doubles the stakes?”

  An ear-splitting whistle saved me from having to find an answer to that. I saw ’Gren waving at me, oblivious to annoyed glares from those he’d startled from sleep.

  “Time to go,” I told Pered bracingly.

  We walked around the scored and soiled sand where a pit had hastily been dug for corpses attracting too many crabs and flies for anyone’s peace of mind. Picking our way past snoring heaps of blankets and upturned boots, we reached the rough-hewn cabin that the raiders had helpfully built for us. I caught Darni looking at us from an efficient shelter rigged from oilskin but ignored him. The last thing I wanted was his abrasive intrusion into this.

  ’Gren was by the door, eyes bright with anticipation, fair hair all but colourless in the half-light. ”She says they should all be asleep by now.”

  “I wouldn’t argue with that.” Usara came up yawning and we all went inside. Guinalle stood by some board salvaged from the wrecked pinnace and set on two hastily lashed trestles. Ryshad and Temar were setting out stools. The cabin smelt damply of green lumber with a musty undertone of stale sweat. Lamps threw shadows over gear discarded by pirates hopefully too dead to intend reclaiming it. The acrid heat of burning oil caught in the back of my throat.

  Guinalle looked up. “Let’s begin.”

  I sat beside Ryshad, Temar and Pered on the other side of the table. Everyone showed varying degrees of reluctance, apart from ’Gren at the end whose enthusiastic eyes were fixed on the noblewoman still standing at the head of the board.

  “We must find out all we can about these Elietimm without alerting them. The best way to do that is to skim their dreams. To do that, I need a strength in the aether that I’m just not finding, not with the ocean all around and lacking the usual resources of the shrines.” Apart from these somewhat unnecessary explanations, Guinalle was as self-possessed as I’d ever seen her, no trace of the hysteria that had seized her earlier. “With you all to help me, we should manage.”

  I sincerely hoped so. Back in Vithrancel, the placid belief of Mistress Cheven, Master Drage and all the rest provided a solid foundation for Guinalle’s enchantments. Out here, she had mostly mercenaries and sailors sailing just close enough to the wind not to be hanged for pirates themselves. I’d noted precious little piety in either contingent.

  “Livak has some knowledge in the lesser uses of Artifice as well as her Forest instincts. Ryshad should share something of your training, Temar, thanks to the Artifice that linked you.” Guinalle favoured D’Alsennin with a smile that evidently surprised the lad.

  I reached for Ryshad’s hand beneath the table. Only I knew the full depths of the horror he’d known when Temar’s trapped mind had broken through the confining enchantment, fighting blindly to take Ryshad’s body for his own.

  Guinalle continued, perhaps setting all this out for Usara’s benefit, more likely to instil some confidence in the rest of us. “I’m still not sure how but it’s undeniable Sorgren has been proof against assault from both Sheltya and Elietimm in the past.”

  “No one comes looking inside my head without a by your leave,” shrugged ’Gren.

  “I’m just here to make up the numbers, am I?” Pered’s quip was a little forced.

  Guinalle looked steadily at him. “You’re an artist; you see beyond the immediate and the physical. That’s much the sensitivity demanded of an adept. Just concentrate on following my lead.”

  She sat and held out her hands to Temar and Ryshad and we joined in a circle. Ryshad’s strong grip held my off hand and ’Gren’s blunt fingers gave my knife hand a gleeful squeeze. I narrowed my eyes at him in mute warning but all I got was a cheery wink. Temar and Pered were fixed on Guinalle who had closed her eyes. Temar did the same and after a moment, so did Ryshad. I considered it but couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  Guinalle caught her breath and opened her eyes. I shut mine guiltily.

  “I’m sorry, Ryshad.” Guinalle shook her head. “Your mistrust of Artifice is too strong.”

  Ryshad’s face betrayed an instant of chagrin. He dropped Guinalle’s hand before giving mine a courtly kiss. “I’m sorry, everyone.”

  “You can keep watch with me for anything going awry.” Usara was by the door, all the while watching Guinalle intently.

  “What do we do if it does?” I heard Ryshad mutter under his breath as he went to join the mage.

  “Let’s continue, shall we?” Temar set his jaw and held out demanding hands.

  ’Gren and I shuffled our stools to draw the circle tighter. Guinalle began a low incantation as soon as her hand touched mine and the crude cabin faded around me much as the Eryngo had done. The others were clear enough but everything outside our linked hands was as indistinct as smoke. This time I didn’t see a new place but rather a face. It hung in the air between us, motionless, expression slack in sleep. It was the woman, Yalda, the silver gorget that marked her as enchanter among the Elietimm bright around her neck.

  Guinalle opened her eyes. “Concentrate on her.” In some distant recess of my mind, I could hear the first incantation still binding us with its rhythms but Guinalle was somehow separating her thoughts into several, separate threads, each with its own focus. Was this the secret to Higher Artifice, I wondered, no more complicated than remembering the roll of the runes at the same time as anticipating an opponent’s next wager and all the while keeping a weather eye out for the Watch?

  I still wasn’t sure I wanted to learn this Higher Artifice though. Emotions swirled around our circle. Pered had framed the girl in the imagined oval of a miniature frame, picking out details to paint like the gathering creases at the corner of her eyes. ’Gren was comparing her, none too flatteringly, to a golden-haired dancing girl of his acquaintance and I did my best to ignore his speculations about what lay beneath Yalda’s nightgown. Temar saw her only as an enemy, determined to sec
ure whatever knowledge might aid our cause.

  All that was to be expected. What unsettled me was Guinalle carefully masking her hatred, lulling the girl’s sleeping mind with an insidious charm that she spread to net first the man Moin and the younger Darige. There was none of the brutality the Elietimm had used on Parrail but I knew beyond doubt that Guinalle’s revenge could more than repay them for his murder, if she so chose. I made a mental note never to play against the demoiselle for money or favours and then wondered if everyone else knew I’d thought that in that instant.

  Guinalle began a new incantation quite different in pitch and pace and new images hung in the empty air. The fluid, distorted shapes were nothing like the vividness of scrying or bespeaking and I wondered what Ryshad and Usara might be seeing.

  The images slowly coalesced to a grey stone keep on a rise above a harbour cutting sharply into a meagre, dune-swept coast. I couldn’t help a sharp intake of breath as I recognised the place where Ryshad, Shiv and I had been held prisoner, caught in our fruitless quest to rescue poor Geris. Me, Ryshad, Shiv and Aiten. Aiten’s was another death we owed these scum.

  “Do not rouse them with your anger,” Guinalle chided me soundlessly. The image drifted to show us the garden within the keep. It was much as I remembered it; no mere pleasaunce but closely planted with vital crops while glasshouses on all sides reared plants too tender for the harsh climate. The chill I felt owed nothing to the cold winds of the far north. Fear, pure and simple, was raising the hairs on the back of my neck but, to my surprise, I realised this wasn’t my dread.

  A white-haired man was tending a climbing plant, clipping undisciplined shoots from the base and training wayward tendrils within the strict confines of a trellis. This was the bastard who’d set all the confusion of these last few years in motion. This was the man who’d sent Elietimm spies to Tormalin and beyond. They had robbed and murdered with the help of his Artifice as they hunted for those artefacts that would enable their master to kill all who might oppose his seizure of Kellarin’s rich lands. I sensed Temar throttling his own rage and tried to contain my own hatred but our detestation was a muted note beneath the resounding apprehension of all three sleeping enchanters. They saw themselves as much subject to him as the mindless vine. They must seek nothing but his bidding, so their skills and knowledge of Artifice might flourish under his guidance. Painful awareness lurked just beneath such thoughts. Any deviation from his will would be cruelly punished, their freedom curtailed with every last person they loved sharing their fate for any dire transgression.