The Academy Journals Volume One: A Book of Underrealm (The Underrealm Volumes 3)

by Garrett Robinson

  “Ebon?” he sneered. “You are part of this, are you, boy? Know this, then: you are as good as dead. Your father will doubtless wish to draw the knife across your throat himself, but I fear he will not have the pleasure. I will—”

  But while he spoke, Mako had sauntered around behind him and drawn his blade. He snatched one of Matami’s fingers, and the man’s words cut off abruptly.

  Ebon watched as Mako slipped the point of the knife beneath Matami’s fingernail and twisted.

  Matami screamed, his voice echoing from every surface and rejoining itself in chorus, so it sounded as though an army were screeching in pain. Mako held the knife there for a moment before withdrawing it, and then stood to lean over Matami’s shoulder from behind.

  “Now then. We will hear no more vague, pointless threats from your fat, sniveling lips, will we?”

  Matami only glared at him, pushing breath between gritted teeth. Mako waited a moment and then shrugged. He knelt and plunged the knife under a fingernail on the other hand. Fresh screams rang in Ebon’s ears, and he turned his face away.

  “You will not! You will not! I swear it!” Matami shrieked.

  “Good,” said Mako, withdrawing the blade at once. He stepped out from behind the chair and went to the torch. From his boot he produced another dagger—shorter and less ornate than the one at his belt—and left it leaning on the torch that still sputtered on the ground. Then he stepped just inside one of the passages that led out of the chamber. When he came back into view, he held another chair—this one smaller, and wooden, with thin leather upholstery on the seat. He placed it before Matami, facing the man, and then looked to Ebon. “You can find another chair there, if you wish, little Ebon. You need not remain on your feet.”

  Ebon only stared at him. “This is wrong, Mako. We cannot do this.”

  He expected Mako to sneer. Instead, sympathy filled the bodyguard’s eyes. “Dear little Ebon,” he said quietly. “Halab’s love for you is well-placed. You have a good heart, and she treasures it. But Matami must be put to the question, or truth will never out.”

  “Then let him be put to the question,” said Ebon. “But by the constables. The King’s law. Else we are as guilty in the law’s eyes as he is.”

  Mako cocked his head. “You know that is impossible, do you not? I am a bodyguard, Ebon, and I serve Halab. A bodyguard’s first task is not to keep their master safe from a drawn dagger. Do you know what it is?”

  Ebon shook his head.

  “It is to keep their master from being near a drawn dagger in the first place. Now Halab is in a situation where more than daggers may be drawn against her, and Matami is at least part of the cause. To keep her safe, I must remove the danger before it grows. Do you want Halab to be safe?”

  That made Ebon balk. How could he say no? Mako must have taken his silence for assent, because he turned back to Matami. The man had not stopped scowling, and now he sneered in Mako’s face.

  “What are you prattling about, Mako? I am no danger, and you know it.”

  “What have you been doing in the Academy, Matami? What have you been seeking?”

  Matami’s frown deepened. “You speak nonsense. I have had nothing to do with the Academy.”

  Mako sighed, shaking his head. He stood and circled behind Matami once more.

  “I have done nothing!” Matami screamed. “I swear it! I do not know what you are talking about!”

  As though he had not heard, Mako lifted a hand and plunged his dagger into the skin. He slid it sideways, across the palm just below the surface, so that Ebon could see the lump of it sliding along beneath the palm’s lines. His stomach lurched, and he turned his eyes. Matami’s cries were bestial, animal, horrifying things.

  When Mako was done, he went to the torch, and to the dagger he had left sitting atop it. The blade was glowing red hot. He went back behind Matami, and pressed the blade to the incision where he had slipped the dagger inside. The air filled with the hiss of sizzling flesh, and Matami’s screams turned into screeches and shrieks. Slowly, casually, Mako made his way back to the wooden chair and sat before Matami.

  “If you waste my time, you will regret it,” said Mako. “You sent a child named Lilith into the Academy’s vaults to steal artifacts. Tell me why, and tell me how.”

  Matami had surrendered all pretense of bluster or threat. “I swear to you Mako, I have done nothing of the sort,” he said, voice shaking. “I know nothing of the thefts in the Academy or the murders they say have been committed there.”

  Mako’s hand flicked. The dagger flew from his fingers and plunged into Matami’s ankle. Mako kicked out with a boot, skewing the hilt to the side and prying the flesh open. Matami wailed and tried to move his foot, but the chains held him in place.

  “Claiming ignorance helps no one, Matami,” said Mako, wiggling his foot casually about in a small circle, widening the gap in the man’s flesh. Blood poured from the wound to pool on the ground. “Telling me you know nothing only makes me angry. Telling me you do know something might improve my mood.”

  He finally stopped kicking the dagger about and bent down to withdraw it. Again he fetched the red-hot knife from the torch and pressed it to the gaping hole. Matami screamed again, finally subsiding as Mako replaced the dagger in the fire.

  “I will tell you anything,” said Matami. “Anything, I swear it. But I cannot tell you what I do not know.”

  “Why do you persist, Matami?” Mako sadly drew out the name, the way Halab had done when she trounced him. “Why do you persist? Do you think you will get out of this by speaking your lies? I know you had something to do with the attack on the Seat.”

  Matami’s eyes flashed, and he fell still.

  Mako pointed with his dagger, making the man flinch. “There it is. What did you do?”

  “Nothing,” said Matami, shaking his head. “I would never participate in treason.”

  A moment’s long silence stretched. Then Mako looked sadly over his shoulder. “Ebon, you will want to avert your eyes.”

  “Please!” screamed Matami. “Please, I beg of you, I knew—”

  Ebon turned away quickly as Mako lunged. There was a wet, slurping, grinding noise, and Matami’s throat broke as he screamed himself raw. Then came the hissing sound of cauterized flesh. When Ebon at last turned back, there was a gaping, bloody, charred hole where Matami’s right eye had been.

  “The attack on the Seat,” said Mako. “Say on, or lose what sight you have left.”

  “I did not know it had anything to do with the attack. I promise you. I would never have done it. But I received messages, orders. I was the one who sent the parcel, the one the boy delivered.”

  Mako seized a foot and slashed his blade across the bottom. “Which boy? Say his name, wretch.”

  “Ebon!” screamed Matami, his raw throat breaking further. “Ebon! I sent the parcel for Ebon! The one he brought to our man. Then I gave him his orders in the castle.”

  “And those orders were?”

  “There was someone—a guest of the High King. I did not know it at the time, but it was that man Xain, the one who is now dean of the Academy. The High King had him well guarded. Our man was meant to take the place of one of those guards, to be ready when we made a move on Xain.”

  Mako cocked his head. “On Xain? Why him?”

  Matami shook his head. “Shay’s orders did not say.” Mako shifted in his seat. Matami screamed and thrashed against his chains. “I swear they did not say! I swear it! I was only doing what I was told. Then I received a map, showing landing points on the Seat, though I knew not what they were for, and I sent that to our agent. It was stolen from him, but I did not tell Shay, for I feared his wrath if he knew. I am sorry. I am so sorry, I should have told him. Please, please let me live. I should have told him, I see that now.”

  For a moment all was still. Ebon released a breath he had not known he was holding. Mako reached out and put a hand on Matami’s shoulder. The man burst into racking, sobbing breaths,
his chest and shoulders heaving.

  “Your error was not in keeping the truth from Shay,” said Mako gently. “It was in following his orders in the first place. For they have endangered all our family, and that means they have endangered Halab.”

  Beneath the blood from his ruined eye that covered his face, Matami grew pale. “I thought the orders were from Halab. I never thought Shay would act without her blessing.”

  Mako leaned in to embrace the man, an arm wrapped about his neck. He spoke so softly that Ebon could scarcely hear him. “If Halab knew about your scheming, would I be here now?”

  Then he rose and went behind Matami again. Matami thrashed against the chains. “No! No, please! I have told you everything!”

  “Not everything,” said Mako. “What have you and Shay planned with the artifacts you stole from the Academy?”

  “Nothing!” cried Matami.

  Snik

  Mako sliced off one of Matami’s fingers. The dagger cut through the flesh and tendons like butter, and the finger fell to the floor with a wet splat.

  “Eeaaah!” screamed Matami. “Nothing! Nothing, I swear it!”

  Snik. Splat. Snik. Splat.

  One by one Mako took them, and one by one they fell, until Matami’s screams were no longer of denial, but only of wordless agony. Between each, Mako repeated the question. “What have you planned with the artifacts?” But it seemed he no longer even cared to hear the answer.

  Ebon’s pulse thundered in his ears, and his fists shook at his side. Mako finished with one hand and lifted the next. But then something snapped. Ebon ran forwards, reaching for his power, his eyes blazing with light.

  “No!” he cried. “Mako, stop it! Stop it at—”

  Faster than the eye could see, Mako drove a fist into Ebon’s chest just below the ribs. Ebon’s air left him in a rush, and he crashed to the stone floor, unable to breathe or move.

  As though he had not even noticed Ebon’s presence, Mako stepped behind Matami again. The man’s screams rang out twice as loud. How could the whole Seat not hear him? Ebon felt sure that constables and Mystics and the High King’s guard would all come rushing down at any moment. But no one came, and Mako kept cutting.

  The last finger fell. Matami kept screaming while Mako stepped back around in front of him. But he did not sit in his wooden chair. Instead, he straddled Matami, one hand cupping the man’s cheek affectionately, the other still holding the dagger.

  When at last Matami’s screams subsided, he tried to speak again. At first he almost choked on the spittle and phlegm that had filled his mouth. From his one remaining eye, he gazed up at Mako in pain and terror.

  “I do not know,” he whimpered. “I do not know what you are asking me. Please.”

  “I know you do not,” said Mako softly. “No one lasts through all ten fingers.”

  Then he dragged his blade across Matami’s throat.

  Ebon had only just begun to get back his breath. Now he flipped over and crawled to the edge of the platform. He did not make it before he retched, and his vomit splashed out across his hands. He forced his head over the brim, watching his sick pour forth into the thick, disgusting filth that seeped through the iron grate below. The smell of it made him retch again, twice as hard, and then again, until it seemed there could be nothing left inside him, and he was only a hollow shell.

  Finally he pushed himself back from the edge and rolled onto his back. Flecks of vomit speckled the front of his robes, but he could not force himself to care.

  He refused to look at Mako. But from the corner of his eye he was aware of the bodyguard unchaining Matami’s corpse from the chair, and then dragging it towards one of the other passageways. There he dropped the body over the edge. Ebon heard it splash, and then a wet slithering as it was carried away down the channel, which must not have been covered by an iron grate like the rest. Then Mako came to stand above Ebon. He looked down for a moment, eyes sad, and then finally lowered a hand.

  “Come, little goldbag,” he said quietly. “It is over now. The sewer will carry him to the Great Bay, and he will not suffer any more. But we ourselves are still alive, and must go on.”

  Ebon stared at the hand, wondering if Mako really expected him to take it. But then he took stock of himself, and realized he was far too weak to stand on his own. So he raised his hand, and he and Mako clasped wrists, and the bodyguard lifted him to his feet.

  “Let us go now. I will get you back to your Academy, and safely within the walls. But there is something we must tend to first, for killing requires drinking afterwards.”

  With an arm around Ebon’s shoulder he set off. And Ebon hated to admit, even to himself, how heavily he leaned on the bodyguard, without whom he might have sunk into the filth and the muck to join Matami’s corpse on its way to the Great Bay.

  THEY LEFT THE SEWERS, AND Mako led him to a tavern. Ebon stopped at the door, for he wanted nothing less in the world than to spend time with the bodyguard. But Mako put a hand on his back and pushed him—not unkindly—into the tavern.

  As they entered, Ebon thought of how much he and Mako must stink. But though they walked among tables filled with the tavern’s patrons, no one raised an eyebrow. Ebon wondered if, were he able to smell anything beyond his own stench, he might find the room’s reek even worse. Certainly the tavern seemed suspect; Ebon thought it the sort of room where no one asked questions if they were not ready to die for the answer.

  Mako led him to a back corner, settled him in a chair, and took a seat himself. Ebon noted that his own back was to the door, while Mako faced it. The bodyguard waved down a stout barmaid and ordered some spirit Ebon did not recognize. They waited for the drinks in silence. Mako studied him, seeming to expect something—a question, mayhap, or an accusation. But when none seemed forthcoming, the bodyguard finally spoke.

  “I think that through the years, you have wondered exactly what I do for the family Drayden. Do you know now?”

  Ebon shook his head. He had thought of nothing since the sewer, nothing but Matami’s ruined face, and he did not care to guess just now.

  Silence stretched until the barmaid returned. She did not bring them cups of wood, but two small glasses—something that seemed an uncommon luxury in a place such as this. In the glasses was an amber liquid that curled Ebon’s nose when he took a sniff.

  “Brandy,” said Mako. “Fine stuff. Finer than they usually serve here, but they keep a stock on hand for me. I visit often. Drink.”

  Ebon took a sip and nearly choked. Mako downed his glass in a single gulp and then held it up towards the barmaid. She hastened to fetch another. When she came back it was not only with another glass, but with a bottle. After she had gone, Mako leaned forwards, and though no one was close enough to hear, still he dropped his voice to a whisper.

  “It happens that in the course of ensuring the family’s safety and prosperity, a life must sometimes be taken. When that is the case, I am the one who goes knocking on doors and tickling with my knife.”

  Ebon’s stomach did a flip-flop. “You are an assassin,” he whispered.

  Mako did not flinch. “Just so. Have you never wondered how Drayden reaches such favorable trade agreements and holds such power across Underrealm when we hail from the land of Idris?”

  “What does Idris have to do with it?”

  “It is Idris.” Mako waved a hand in the general direction of the door. “Our home, yes, and a piece of my heart will always dwell there. But it is a dry and barren landscape, and boasts few resources. Yet we have turned what little we are given into the greatest collection of wealth that the nine lands have ever seen.”

  “We have spices.”

  Mako snorted and leaned across the table once more. “Do you think we could sustain our empire on spices? No. There are not goods enough within the King’s law to earn the wealth we have built. Do you think the family Yerrin could rival us, if they only sold those bolts of colored silk they pretend to fill their wagons with?”

 
Ebon almost asked him what they sold instead, but then he remembered what Kalem and Theren had told him: it was Yerrin who commanded the magestone trade. He turned away, and tried another sip of the brandy. It was not so distasteful as the first had been.

  “Through the centuries, when some fool has stood in the way of the family, someone like me has appeared in their home at night and removed the obstacle,” said Mako. “Many suspect it. None may ever prove it. I, and those few who serve me, are especially skilled.”

  “I want nothing to do with this arrangement. I would never ask anyone to kill for me.”

  Mako smiled. “You protest far too late, Ebon. All your life you have lived fat on the riches I have brought you. Your father’s coin made you everything you are; it paid for your tutors, who made you wise; it placed you in noble circles, where you learned compassion and virtue; and even now it pays your way at the Academy, where you have learned your spellcraft.” Mako studied him carefully over the top of his glass. “Unless I am very mistaken, it even pays for the lover who sometimes warms your bed.”

  Ebon slapped his hand on the table. “But I did not ask for it! Who knows of this? Did Matami, and my father?” A horrible thought struck him. “Does Halab?”

  “Halab is the only one whose orders I obey,” Mako said softly.

  It was like a slap in the face. The room seemed to spin around Ebon, though that might have been the brandy. Always Halab had struck him as his family’s rare exception, one bright light in the family Drayden that he might look to, when all his lineage seemed shrouded in darkness. Yet now he learned that she was the source of the shadow itself.

  “Are you hurt?” To Ebon’s surprise, he did not hear sarcasm or malice in the bodyguard’s tone. “I can see that you are. You trusted Halab, for she has always been kind to you. And you may not trust me after tonight, but know this: you were not wrong to believe in her. I serve Halab willingly, and even with love, for I also served her father. He was the dark of a cave’s deepest shadow, and she is the sun. She may be the gentlest master of the family Drayden in decades. Mayhap centuries. The number of us—we assassins—has dwindled since she took power, but we do not complain, for we have never enjoyed our work.”