The God of Assassins (Wine of the Gods Book 11)

by Pam Uphoff

  Rip World was green and verdant, grasslands rolling away to the horizon, neat little farms dotted about, with a cluster near the gate.

  Easterly gazed around the low hills. "So, yet another world. Who do we start with?"

  Xen listened, mentally. No sign of Ricardo.

  His half-sister and half great aunt Ask was home. And told him where Ricardo lived.

  A messy little house, a weedy garden about half dug over. Empty.

  Ask hadn't seen Heso or Zap for months, and had never seen any of the other people Dusty and Indigo had met. The nearest neighbor, Ras, didn't know them either. He was from a mage family but had missed inheriting the power gene. At the age of twenty-three, he and several others had persuaded Rustle to engineer their genes to add both the wizard and the mage genes to their chromosomes. He was powerful, but a bit erratic. The leader of the local semi-trained mages. Xen had gotten a lot of training in the mage type magic from him. And some odd advice, tall tales, memories of growing up powerless.

  Ras had seen Ricardo just after dawn, which, due to the slip in time between worlds, not to mention the effect of the gate location, would have been just before dawn in Rip Crossing and the Edge of the World.

  "Probably within an hour of the murder." Easterly growled.

  "He must have known it was blowing wide open, with Staven surviving." Deena looked steamed.

  "You were up early." Xen looked at the mage.

  "No I wasn't." Ras sighed. "Ricardo had a problem with a horse, cussed it out loudly. I glared out the window, and he waved and said he was off to hunt bison, and popped out the gate."

  "As if he was going out of his way to be visible this morning. A thousand miles north of the assassination. He ought to have known that wouldn't work. Not now. Not with anyone who knows witches and wizards and has used corridors." Xen shook his head, and remounted.

  Xen hunted down his Uncle Havi. The Governor of Rip world was working with Richie, the God of Eternal Youth, to build a house.

  "I refuse to admit that your little sister can do this better than I can." Richie was tall, lanky and, at the moment, a bit middle aged looking.

  "Hey, Richie." Xen swung down from Pyrite. "You look awful. Still dodging the Collective Subconscious?"

  "Yep. Now stop grinning and tell us how to get a lid on this thing before it falls down." He shook hands with Easterly and Deena without a single youthful outburst.

  "If it's in danger of falling down, you've done something seriously wrong."

  Havi walked around the corner. "Hey Xen. How come you can make it look so damned easy?"

  "You and Mom have built half the houses in Rip." Xen pointed out.

  Richie snorted. "The point of today's exercise was for me, the god, to do it. All by myself. Like you or Quicksilver."

  Xen grinned. "Hey, you have a Witch X so you should be able to source from Earth and work with rock easily."

  "I never did believe in that Earth, Water, Wind and Fire stuff."

  "Ooo, an Atheist god." Xen snickered

  Havi snorted. And eyed Easterly and Deena. "However, I suspect I need to see for what fell purpose my nephew has come. What's up, kid?"

  "Have you heard that Prince Rebo died last night? Prince Staven was seriously injured, a second fellow also killed."

  "Both Crown and Spear heirs? That leads one to some nasty suspicions."

  "Indeed. Rebo was murdered and fed to the lizards down in a place called The End of the World."

  "Alligators. Honestly, no more related to lizards than turtles are." Richie told them.

  "Yeah, that's what all the gods say. But they sure do look like big water lizards to me." Xen said.

  Havi scratched his jaw. "No use playing spy, or policeman, Xen. 'Where was Ricardo' is the first thing that leaps to mind. And the answer is, who knows? Despite our reputation, we do not party all night, every night. Everyone was asleep in bed."

  "Well, at least he wasn't at this orgy, this time." Xen said. "Or at least not with his own face."

  "And could someone swear he was here all night? And which woman would we need to speak to for that particular night? Or man." Deena asked.

  Richie snorted. "Oh, you know our Ricardo don't you? And I probably am not his father. Havi, Cor or Brad take the blame, despite the name."

  "His mother is Free, one of the witch girls that never grasped power. Much wine was had at that spring fertility rite, and he got both Wizard X and Mage Y from whichever of us won the toss." Havi shrugged. "He wasn't raised any different than the rest of the kid pack out here."

  "Teri has pretty much moved into his place. He's grazing a bit low on the age scale these days. The older ones have better sense." Richie sounded displeased.

  "He lives less than a mile from the gate, so no problem coming and going. He wouldn't need a horse, for instance."

  "No, and his horses are out to pasture further away, on the plains on the far side of the gate." Havi shook his head. "You might check with the Farmer Girls. Because Ricardo does rather leap to mind."

  "Well, actually that's good." Xen said. "I'd rather not have Rip involved." He glanced at Richie's notebook. "What other horrible things are you doing?"

  "They are not horrible." Richie said, with dignity. "And how is Flare doing?"

  "She appears to have become a permanent fixture at Harry's, and has no boyfriends beyond the hordes of soldiers who come daily for her cooking."

  Richie chuckled. "That I believe. We didn't realize how much she did until she was gone. Then suddenly dinner wasn't getting started, there was nothing to cook in the house, the older kids weren't accounted for, and there was no one to mind the littlest ones. No wonder she wanted to get away."

  Xen snickered. "I've got to go investigate and so forth. So go find a book on house design or something before you build too many more."

  ***

  Teri had been adopted by one of the "Farmer Girls," as the former mage girls called themselves. She was weaving when Xen tracked her down. He sat quietly as they tossed the shuttle back and forth and the cloth grew perceptively.

  Teri was Zenith's third daughter, Zeolite and Indigo's sister. Half sister. Rejected by her mother after a terrifying rape, she'd always been insecure. Now she was ignoring him, and continued to do so until her adopted mother lost patience and took the shuttle. "Go talk and get it over with, dear."

  The gawky sixteen year old stalked over and glared at him. "Ricardo didn't do it. Why do you always pick on him?"

  "Do what?" Easterly had his best stupid farm boy look on.

  "Whatever bad thing happened. Everyone always blames everything bad on Ricardo."

  "May I look . . . " Xen shut up at her vicious glare.

  "No. You. May. Not." Her mental shield was strong and solid. "He got up early to go hunting."

  "Were you there all night? Was he?"

  "Yes and yes." Nothing but anger leaked through her shield.

  "Right. Sorry to have interrupted." Xen walked away wondering why they hadn't kept her poisonous mother away from her. Couldn't, no doubt. And some of what he'd heard, about the long term contagious spell web the Arbolian God had wrapped Zenith in, was scary enough from the outside.

  "She abandoned her baby and ran off, last fall." Xen frowned. "I don't know when she came back. My aunt Obsidian adopted the baby."

  He stopped by another of the Farmer Girls' multitude of houses, and solicited for gossip while being climbed on by four cheerful crawlers.

  Gavi shook her head. "I saw him this morning. Early. Bari was teething and had me up before dawn. Ricardo walked out to the big pasture and caught all three of his horses and led them off. He waved to me. Teri said later that he was going bison hunting. Haven't seen him since."

  "When did Teri come back? It sounds like she's moved in with Ricardo?"

  Nile snickered. "Ricardo stayed away until his sex change spell was done. He showed up about a week after the Solstice. He had Teri in tow, then."

  Deena was eyeing the four kids. Li
ke their mothers, they covered a range of shades from reddish blonde to very red. No doubt Deena was recognizing their mother's names from Rebo's previous orgy. "Can you describe his horses?"

  Lava shrugged "They were pretty ordinary, all geldings, a chestnut with no markings, two bays with stars, and, umm, one had a single sock on a front leg, the other had two hind socks. He rode the chestnut, the bays were pack horses. Kinda stocky and ordinary."

  "Hopefully he doesn't have anything to do with this mess, and he'll come back loaded with bison." Xen divested himself of kids and they headed back to the gate.

  "How about we ask at the Twin Inn in Ash?'

  "That works."

  Easterly looked back toward the big farm house. "Those four and two other women were at the Rip Crossing orgy? Which means that those could be Rebo's kids."

  "Yep, at least in part, the wine tends to mix and match. Ricardo, Eternal, Heso, Zap and a couple of other guys were there, too. I tossed a spell that, well, reduces fertility, on all the women there, plus there was another orgy a week or so later, so they may not have anything to do with Rebo."

  Easterly sighed. "Are they sisters?"

  "Nile and Kile are half sisters. Gavi and Lava are just good friends." Xen grinned at their expressions. "Look, I've known them all my life. Went to school with them. And I knew the two Ash witches at that orgy too. Rebo crashed a local-party-just-us-friends type orgy and ought to have been tossed out on his rear end. The kind of orgy-for-hire they were creating and marketing for The End of the World just doesn't happen here. No whores. Okay?"

  Deena muttered something about defining whores, but he ignored it.

  ***

  No one in Ash—witch or otherwise—had seen the women. Pixie rather thought the men had been to the Tavern before. "Not recently. I think they're wizards."

  Prairie Coast got them names for the last of the men. Ronnie, from Gemstone. They corridored there, and asked about Ronnie and Eldon. Both grandsons of the goat wizards whose Auralian mothers had stayed with Captain Jin's band.

  Neither of them were in Gemstone. "They left six months ago, prospecting. Their mothers turn up hopefully at every mail delivery, but haven't heard a thing." Captain, now Governor, Jin Genero confirmed that Jeri was working at the Edge of the World. "Jeri puts much more energy into the pursuit of women than into a job. I was hoping he was settling down, but then the rumors about that place got here. I can't say I'm surprised at a murder. The sort of lawlessness that sort of place attracts practically guarantees it. A political assassination is a surprise. I suppose the assassin just took advantage of the availability of a place where a prince could be tempted to ditch his guards."

  "Most likely. I'll let you know what's up with Jeri, I don't know if he was part of the plot, or just window dressing. Either way, I suspect he's going to be a guest of the kingdom for some time."

  Jin nodded. "His mother . . . old gods! I think I'll just play dumb for awhile."

  Gemstone had a corridor to Havwee, and from there, there was a corridor to Two Tree.

  Out of curiosity Xen warped light around himself and Pyrite and they hopped through the final corridor. The Imperial Guards on the far side didn't notice a thing. He sighed and released the warp, startling them considerably.

  "Drat, I was hoping the corridor would mess it up or show some signs that something had come through." Xen shook his head. "Short of putting a net across, I don't think we can stop people from coming or going invisibly."

  Lily Parsons rode out of the barn beside the corridor exit. "That's not good news. I'm not getting anywhere, here. Any luck on your end of the investigation?" She turned her horse east and they all followed.

  Deena pushed her horse up beside Lily's. "No. The main suspect is missing, and has an alibi, sleeping all night with an insecure teenager. Slightly confirmed by no one hearing anyone coming or going, probably until after the murder, definitely after the orgy started." She shrugged. "There's no place to get a grip. Said suspect left to go hunting and was last seen riding in the correct direction to do so. We've picked up a few more names, but they haven't gone home, so it doesn't get us much further."

  "And he's a trained wizard." Xen added. "We could run all over the best bison hunting areas, and still not see him. However much I doubt he's there."

  ***

  Garit slid into the conference room, late.

  "At first glance," Colonel Janic looked like he was starting to feel the results of forty-eight hours without sleep. "It appears that Prince Rebo and Prince Staven were deliberately lured to this 'Edge of the World' resort. Lord Keith was probably part of the setup, and was killed to prevent his talking later. Apparently Staven was drawn there by a taunting note from Rebo, but the bits of the tale we've managed to get out of him indicates that whoever set this up planned on him being there and planned to kill him as well. Garit, you just saw him? How is he?"

  Garit nodded. "Distraught over not being able to save his little brother. I don't think the loss of the arm has quite set in yet. He said Rebo and Keith were snickering and obviously up to something, the lady doing the dancing and singing had already been paid off to do her part, that she was trained and planning on killing him. Lady Gisele is still there with him, getting the drugs out of his system and the healing started."

  "Right."

  Garit followed Janic's glance toward a man across the room. Big dumb farmer written all over his plain face. Captain Easterly had been a guard for as long as Garit could remember, and the blankly stupid part of his appearance was a flat out lie. He did a lot of undercover work. And just standing around on guard. Being ignored because he was so obviously stupid. What people said recorded indelibly on a perfect memory. Most of the people who didn't underestimate him were right here.

  "Captain Easterly, due to the strong possibility of magic being involved, I'll want you and your people on this, as well as the more conventional investigation, which Major Wacolm will be heading."

  Easterly nodded.

  Garit felt a moment's relief. Xen will be in on it. He won't treat me like a nosy royal relative, to be given the official version. He scanned the room. Where is Xen?

  The king stirred. "Garit, Mirk . . . you'd best brace yourselves. Because half the people around are going to consider one or both of you as suspects. Half will think you the most likely new Spear and Crown heirs. And half of them will be planning on riding your coattails unless betraying you looks like a better prospect."

  Garit gulped and got his mouth shut. "Oh. Of course . . . and Mirk's a much better prospect than me, anyway. Err, for the crown. Oh . . . " He swallowed a curse and forced himself to stop babbling.

  The king nodded. "The question of the succession is going to complicate everything, whether or not it has anything to do with the assassination. Old Gods know the boy has done enough to make plenty of people wish him dead. I think, Colonel, that we'd best stop right here with the . . . dissemination of information. Mirk, Garit, Rolo . . . Fossi, too. You'll be getting extra guards. Please cooperate. I lost a grandchild yesterday. Nearly two. Let's stop it there." He rose, and stepped out. The effort to not sag was visible.

  The meeting broke up, with Janic stepping over to Easterly and Colonel Decke, currently in charge of imperial body guard duty.

  Garit stepped back and found himself next to his next oldest brother. They stared at each other for a long moment. Mirk was eighteen years his senior, with five sisters in between. Garit sighed. "Maybe the Council will do something intelligent, like reverse the age requirements for Sword and Crown princes."

  Mirk smiled wryly. "I'm a bit old to be rejoining the army, and you do seem to like the life. Well, Rolo can always divorce and marry a younger woman . . . " He broke off at Garit's hasty head shake, and looked over his shoulder.

  Rolo was the eldest of the king's legitimate sons. Four years older than Mirk. He glared. "I will not divorce Amilie."

  Fossi Fitzroy was right behind him. The king's bastard son was the oldest of them all. The s
word prince reached and squeezed Rolo's shoulder. "Enough, the town's full of the descendants of various kings. We can fill up the list without trouble. Let's go check on the boy."

  Rolo let himself be led away.

  Mirk growled a bit under his breath. Opened his mouth, then snapped it shut.

  Garit nodded. "We all need to . . . watch our tongues, and not speak in anger."

  Mirk's faint smile surfaced briefly. "Or relief."

  Garit winced. Yes, Rebo was a disaster waiting to happen. If only he hadn't taken Staven down with him. A one armed man is probably not going to become the leader of the army. And that was all Staven has ever been trained for, all he ever wanted.

  He eased over closer to the small knot of officers. Janic shook his head. "No Garit, you can't help. Sorry."

  Garit huffed out an angry breath. "Right. Well. No point in going back to my command. You'll want to question me, and then there's the funeral. Old Gods! It's going to be hell."

  He eased out of the room and went in search of Xen. Found him in the barracks, sound asleep.

  One of the other men looked over. "I guess we can't laugh at his magic anymore. He was pulling those lizards out of the water just by waving his hands. And a bunch of the water came with 'em. Water sloshing everywhere, pissed off lizards . . . I've seen 'em before, but never anything so big." His face fell and his voice went suddenly quiet. "We kept at it until we had all the body parts."

  Garit winced. "Guess I'd better let him sleep."

  He walked out, trying hard to not think of body parts. Trying to not remember the silent tears of his childhood friend. Technically his nephew, seven months older than he was. Staven's lost his brother, his arm, and his career. Garit made it outside to the bushes, before he lost his dinner.

  Chapter Three

  Winter 1393, day 3