The Mark of Ran

by Paul Kearney

  Rol was silent for a long time. At last he said: “You deserted them.”

  Psellos smiled. “Your grandparents? I had a different life in mind, that’s all. But I am doing my duty by you now, Rol. The thing is”—and here he leaned forward, the firelight saffron-yellow in his eyes—“I do not believe that you are the son of Bar Hethrun, the Lost Heir of Bionar. So you can strip those bright dreams out of your head. No, you were born soon after Amerie came back to Hethrun—too soon for you to be his child.” He sat back in his chair, sniffing at the fragrant brandy. “And your blood is too pure to have any of his within it. It is purer even than my own. No, you are a bastard of a different stock.”

  “This family of mine—of ours. Who were they? My mother’s parents, and yours. Where did all this begin?”

  “In the Goliad, as I said. It is a blighted wilderness now, for wars have carried back and forth across the face of it for centuries, but still a few nomadic clans with the Old Blood in them survive. Golgos itself is a ruin within which squats a Bionese garrison, a mere way station for ships coasting down to Oronthir. One would think that there was nothing left to fight over in the reed-beds and the dried river valleys of that ruined paradise, but myth is a powerful thing. It is said that out of the Goliad will come the mightiest of the kings of men, and so nations bleed to possess it, generation after generation.”

  “If my father was not this Bionese nobleman, then who was he?”

  “I have told you—I do not know. It is a question I am itching to get to the bottom of—a conundrum. Grayven and I have knocked heads together over it with little result. Amerie was strong in the Blood, stronger perhaps than I. Even had she bedded a normal human, their progeny would have been powerful. But by the makeup of your blood your father, Rol, could only have been a Were, a full-blooded Ancient of the Elder Race.” Here Psellos stared into his glass and chuckled like a man pressed to accept an absurdity. “And of course that is impossible—no such creature has walked upon the earth for millennia.”

  Impatiently, Rol said: “What of Rowen? How did she come to be here?”

  Psellos continued to peer into the bottom of his empty glass. “Rowen is a foundling. I chanced across her begging in the street, barely strong enough to stand, and took her in, for I could see the Blood in her.”

  “And took her to your bed.”

  He sighed. “Yes. And why not? Don’t tell me you would not like to sink between those white thighs, Rol.”

  “But you are supposed to know her parentage.”

  “I lied. I know only that I found her on the streets of Ascari one morning, alone in the world.”

  “If you cannot tell her what she wants to know, then she’ll leave you.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I will tell her the truth.”

  “I know you will. But from now on she will not be staying here to discover some absurd family tree—she will remain here because of you.”

  If he had expected to shock, he was disappointed. The triumphant smile wavered on his face as he realized events had evidently moved faster than his calculations. He blinked rapidly.

  “She loves you, don’t ask me why. She has loved nothing on two legs in her entire life, I think. She is a queen amongst women—and she loves you. Think on it.”

  All of Rol’s fine hatred had burned away to ash. He knew that Psellos was not telling all the truth, but he knew also that much of the truth was there.

  “Why have you done such things to her?” he asked tiredly.

  Composed again, Psellos waved a hand. “Why is a sword beaten upon the anvil? I made Rowen into a beautiful, pitiless weapon. She is my creation, and will never forget that.”

  “You enjoyed it.”

  “Yes, I did. Over my long life I have acquired many tastes, some of them beyond the ken of short-lived men. One must always seek diversion somewhere.” Here Psellos rose out of his chair and stood staring into the fire, his hands on the hot mantel.

  “Hate me if you will, Rol, but look beyond this night, beyond your love for Rowen and your outrage at her treatment at my hands. You, too, have a long life ahead of you, if the gods are kind—longer than mine, for your blood is purer. I have found with the passing decades that all that once seemed important—riches, women, the esteem of one’s fellows—falls away. In the end, all appetites can be sated save one. We hunger after knowledge. Where did we come from, what black night are we walking toward? For half a century I have devoted myself to the pursuit of knowledge, and the fruits of that pursuit are housed here, in this ancient tower.”

  “For such an ascetic, you make a good fist at playing the sybarite.”

  Psellos laughed. “I need power, I admit. If I am to defy the Mage-King in my quest, then I cannot do so as a barefoot scholar. I need men to fight my battles for me. One day, I will rule Gascar, and even the Mage-King will hesitate before killing the ruler of one of the Seven Isles. I will have the shield I have been seeking.

  “I want you to rule it with me, Rol, and after me. This thing I am asking you to do tonight is the beginning of it. Rowen is yours now, and from tomorrow onward you are my heir.” He turned back from the fire and produced from his pocket a long, glinting key. “As such, you will receive this, to use as you will.”

  “What is it?”

  “The key to my library and laboratory. The last of the secrets.”

  Rol’s fingers had sunk into the arms of his chair. He could not move, so tangled were his thoughts.

  “I don’t know—”

  “Kill Canoval tonight, and by morning I shall be ruler of Gascar in all but name, with you by my side, and Rowen at yours.”

  “As simple as that?”

  “As simple as that.” Abruptly Psellos returned the key to his pocket, turned away. “You had best get some sleep while you can. It’s been a busy day.”

  Rol rose shakily to his feet. “Why should I believe you? This could all be a lie.”

  Now it was Psellos who sounded tired. “It could be, but it is not. You ought to be able to sense that by now. Go, Rol. Make love to Rowen—you have earned her. Tell her all this if you please, it matters not. But be ready in Candlemas Street tonight.”

  For some reason, he wanted to set his hand on Psellos’s shoulder, so bereft did the Master seem in that moment. But in the end Rol left without another word and stumbled blindly down the endless stair of the Tower to his room.

  “He knows,” Rowen said. “He knows we mean to betray him.”

  She leaned back into Rol’s arms and the sweat dripped from his face down her shoulder. He kissed salt from the nape of her neck and held her closer while about them in the half dark the steam billowed in strange shapes. It was the only place in all the myriad rooms of the Tower where they were sure of secrecy, and there was something comforting in the darkness and the wet heat.

  “You think he meant it—everything else?”

  “I don’t know. I might, if I had been there. He is lying about my family, though—he knows something he would rather not say. As for the rest . . .”

  “It is somewhat fantastic.”

  “With Psellos, even the truth is never very far from falsehood.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  She turned, sliding moistly in his arms so that their faces were close enough to feel one another’s breath. Those startling eyes, cold as the blade of a knife. She kissed him on the mouth and her tongue darted in over his teeth. One strong hand descended and gripped his member tightly, making the air gulp in his throat. It stiffened in her grasp, filling out with blood. He could feel a heartbeat pulsing down there against her fingers.

  “I want to stop thinking and plotting for a while, just a little while.” She pushed him on his back and became a mist-wreathed shadow backlit by candleflame. Her eyes glittered. In one fluid movement she straddled him and he slid up inside her. Hot warmth, a liquid ecstasy. He breathed in deeply and she leaned forward, balancing her palms flat on his chest. She began moving, minutely at fi
rst, and then with gathering momentum. Rol set his hands on her hips and closed his eyes, the sensation rocking him away into some place he had not yet seen.

  Eleven

  A KILLING

  CANDLEMAS STREET WAS A BROAD, TREE-LINED THOROUGHFARE that lay southwest of the harbor. Here the Ellidon Hills flattened out into isolated drumlins and knolls atop which local chieftains had constructed their ring-forts in ancient days. Now it was a graciously apportioned district of gridded streets and houses reared in well-masoned stone. The light of the dying sunset honeyed their square courses and sparked out glints from diamond-leaded windows nestling half-hidden in ivy. No one lived in the Candlemas area who was not well rooted in Ascari society. Courted though Psellos was by the nobility, they would never have countenanced his existence here.

  Another rain-loud night. Rol pulled the oilskin cloak tighter about his shoulders and tugged its hood lower down his face. All to the good. He was just one more shadow among many hurrying home out of the rain.

  Fifty yards to his rear, the shape following him paused when he did, and melted into an ivy-hung wall.

  He stopped. The Canoval manse was set in its own gardens, and these in turn were surrounded by a twelve-foot stuccoed wall, its top arrayed with iron spikes. A massive ironwork gate provided the only means of entrance or egress, and it was slightly ajar.

  Rol cast aside his hood and cloak and bundled them tight, then tied the roll to his belt. He felt with one hand behind his right shoulder and met the reassuring coldness of Fleam in a back-scabbard. Then he moved up close to the gate. The soles of his boots were thin enough for him to feel every gap in the flagstones of the street and a suit of black hose clung to him head to foot like a second skin.

  Just within the gate, Canker waited patiently, his cap feather drooping and soaked, his eyes bright as sea-gleams. Rol moved gently as a stalking cat, thinking his veil of shadow into place about him, but Canker merely nodded.

  “You are on time. That’s good. Stop prowling like a second-rate burglar and follow me. A filthy night, but then it’s a filthy deed.” He grinned brightly in the pouring dark.

  Deflated, Rol followed the King of Thieves into Canoval’s garden. Mature trees shrouded the lawn and well-graveled paths formed bright lines in the grass. The pair halted under a massive beech five fathoms from the back door.

  “There you are, lad. I can’t do much more if I’m not to lead you through it by the hand. I will be here when you return—if there is no alarm. Cause a scare, and I’ll take off.”

  “I have to talk to you, Canker,” Rol said, pitching his voice over the hissing rain. He wiped water out of his eyes irritably.

  “Talk is cheap, time is precious. Get on with the job.”

  “You are to die tonight.”

  Canker paused. He did not seem surprised, but he seemed to grow taller, as if everything in him had tensed.

  “I see. Why this night as opposed to any other?”

  “You and Canoval both. He protects the Feathermen from a crackdown, and takes them over, all in one night.”

  “Either that, or his young protégé has reasons of his own for wasting my time.”

  Rol nodded over Canker’s left shoulder. “Ask her.”

  The King of Thieves spun round in a twinkling, a blade opening in one palm, but he found one black-metaled stiletto light against his jugular and another pricking up under the edge of his tunic. This second moved slowly inward until he sucked breath sharply through his teeth and the heels of his boots left the ground. Rowen smiled, but her eyes were cold with murder.

  “Drop the blade.”

  He did so, face calm again. “The lovely Rowen. It has been a long time. I remember those luscious lips well. Last time I saw them up close they were working hard round my prick.”

  Rowen smiled. “There is something different at your prick now. One move, and I’ll blind that eye for you.”

  Canker’s gaze never left her face. “I have but to raise my voice and half a dozen Feathermen will be on your backs.”

  “You would be dead before they got within ten feet of us, you know that, Canker,” Rol said. He surveyed the dark, rain-swept garden but could see nothing.

  “He’s not lying,” Rowen said. “I count five, and I may have missed one or two. Our friend the King of Thieves came prepared. But he is willing to talk, or we would be dead already, and his manhood would be sliding down his leg.”

  “I am rather attached to it,” Canker admitted. “Put up your weapons, the point is made.”

  Rowen stepped back but kept her stilettos loose in her hands. “He’s telling the truth. I was to assassinate you tonight, at the same time that Rol was to kill Canoval.”

  Canker bent to retrieve his dropped knife. When he had straightened his face was hard and ugly. “That is a pity. I had hoped we might work together, Psellos and I. But you two who are his foundlings, his orphans—why would you choose to tell me this?”

  “We no longer choose to serve him,” Rowen said evenly.

  “Then who will you serve?”

  “No one and nothing. We are done with Ascari.”

  “Ascari without the charms of the beautiful Rowen would be a duller place. If you will not serve, then you must lead, surely.”

  “This is not a debate. We are here in good faith as far as you are concerned. What would you have us do?”

  “What is this? Are you mine to command now?”

  “For tonight. We’re all in the same crock of shit now.”

  Canker stared at Rowen for what seemed a long time, face expressionless. At last he said: “All right, then. To my mind, Canoval must die, if we are not to have a war. And so must Psellos, of course.”

  “That is what we thought,” Rowen said. “Rol will kill Canoval tonight as planned.”

  “But not his wife,” Rol said quickly. “I am not a murderer of crippled women.”

  Rowen and Canker stared at him with the same look on both their faces: a kind of puzzlement. Canker shrugged. “As you wish. And the other?”

  “Psellos is a different pot of fish entirely,” Rowen said. “We shall want your help with him, and it must be done swiftly, tonight. That is the price for Canoval’s killing.”

  “You could not do it alone?”

  Rowen shook her head. “He’s too strong.”

  A flicker of something passed over Canker’s black eyes, and was gone. “I shall have it put about within the hour that I am dead, assassinated. These lads with me are trustworthy, but if Psellos is confident he can lead the Feathermen after me then he must have suborned many of the others, including some of my lieutenants. If word of my death is spread it will cause an upheaval in the city, but that cannot be helped. Psellos and his traitors must be convinced. Then you must get me and these lads with me into the Tower. We’ll do it together, and may the gods be behind us.” He held out a hand.

  Rowen shook it, holding his eyes. “So be it.”

  The thing began as Canker had said it would, and if Rol had not seen it for himself he would not have believed it possible. The little group of Feathermen went about their disseminating work with amazing speed, running from tavern to brothel to gambling den, down the hill toward the stews and slums near the waterfront. The news spread like wildfire. Canker was dead, and his kingship was vacant.

  When a Thief-King died, all contracts were canceled. The common merchants and shopkeepers and tavern-masters were left on their own to face the leaderless predators of the slums, or else they must needs stump up huge amounts of ready coin to win over the Watch and persuade them to do their job. But the Watch were scarcely less rapacious than the gangs they were supposed to suppress—this was a chance to settle old scores, to rob and murder with impunity, and few in Ascari who could would resist that temptation. Rol thought that Canker was grimly amused by the thought of his own putative demise.

  “Let them see what Ascari would come to without me,” he said.

  Canoval’s death was as quick and quiet as Rowen’s tra
ining could make it. A hand on the sleeping mouth, a blade in the heart. Rol watched the eyes spring open white and shocked above his fingers. The arms came up, but there was not the strength in them to do anything about their extinction. A life going out under his hand, lips working against his palm, trying to scream. The arms sinking again.

  His wife stirred, smiled in her sleep, and laid a hand on her husband’s dead shoulder. Rol withdrew the knife—always let the heart stop beating first if you want to avoid a lot of blood, Rowen had told him—and then stood silent in the ornate bedroom a moment. He could still feel Canoval’s dying lips moving against the palm of his hand. Last words.

  A hired bodyguard knocked on the head, Rol was back in the garden minutes later. Rowen looked at his white face, and touched his arm. “Well done.”

  “For killing a man in his sleep?”

  “For making a neat job of it. There’s not a drop of blood about you and there was not a sound to be heard either. Any fool can take a life.”

  “Where is Canker?”

  “Gone to the Tower with the best of his men. Come, we must go too.”

  Rol did not move. The rain was still pouring down but the trees above sheltered them from the worst of it. They stood in a dripping shadow, the rain all about them like a curtain.

  “Rowen, let us not go.”

  “What?”

  “Let Canker and Psellos kill each other if they will. We are free. We could be on a ship tonight, and all this astern of us, the whole wide world before the bow.”

  Her face was white as marble with the rain shining upon it. She set a hand upon his cheek. “I cannot.”

  He had expected that, of course. Perhaps it was true of him also. If there were to be any symmetry about this, any sense of completion, then it would be found in the Tower.

  “I know.” He kissed her cold face.

  They banged on the postern gate together and it was opened by Quare; a nervous, silent Quare who had smelled something in tonight’s wind perhaps. He took their wet cloaks and said diffidently: “The Master awaits you both in his study.”