An Assassin's Blade: The Complete Trilogy

by Justin DePaoli

  We were in the land of the dead now. Well, we’d been in the land of the dead for the past week, but that fact had seemed less alarming when were in the perceived safety of Rav’s house. Now we were outside. Exposed.

  I expected a world of gray gloom, with desolation our only company. But as the wagon rolled forward, life burst forth from this departed universe. Blankets of two-foot-tall grass stalks carpeted the landscape, mingling with heaps of shrubs on which pockets of blackberries and raspberries grew, their red-and-black colors interspersed like checkered fruit.

  Cessilo took us into a forest of towering broad leaves, choked at the trunks with spindly weeds. Birds cooed and cawed as we approached, then they trembled the boughs as they flew away in fear.

  We passed a small gathering along one of the cleared paths: a couple women who seemed to be hawking some sort of goods. Jewelry, perhaps.

  They didn’t look very dead. To that point, neither did Cessilo. In fact, over the next few days of our travels, we came across settlements and skirted around towns in which the inhabitants looked peculiarly similar to those on Mizridahl. Flesh, bones, that sort of thing.

  There was one small, but quite noticeable difference: Their demeanor. The smiles on their faces. The seeming lack of fear that all the poor and underprivileged in Mizridahl carried with them like soggy winter coats on a summer day.

  Happiness existed in short bursts on Mizridahl, unless your name was prefaced by Lord or Lady or whatever title your culture granted you. Here, it was as if the people had finally made it into the afterworld they prayed and hoped for.

  “What about eating?” I asked Cessilo as the days in the back of the wagon grew long and boring. “Eating doesn’t seem like something dead people do.”

  “We ain’t dead people,” she crowed.

  “I see. Then what do you call yourselves?”

  “People.”

  “Fair enough. Point still stands.”

  “Like fuckin’,” she said. “Don’t need to do it, but it brings lots of good feelings.”

  This Amortis place didn’t sound so bad. I could see myself enjoying it here. I wondered, though… did everyone come here when they died? There have existed a lot of folks throughout the history of time. If this realm was really just an overlay of the living realm, the dead should have been stacked elbow to elbow.

  I could’ve asked Cessilo for clarification on that. But there are some answers which you take comfort in pondering for a little while.

  “How long have you been here?” Lysa asked.

  “Don’t know,” Cessilo said. “Don’t much care, neither. Long time. Why d’ya need to know?”

  Lysa shrugged. “Just wondering, that’s all. Sorry.”

  Cessilo pinched her wool sweater at the shoulders. “Some three hundred years now.” Her voice lost its accusatory tone.

  A week or so into our journey, I hungered for Rav’s mighty breakfasts. Cessilo stopped regularly enough at inns and hovels along the way, but the innkeeps usually had nothing on hand except enormous cauldrons full of stews and broths. Stew for breakfast, stew for dinner. It gets old. Quickly.

  “’Bout three days now,” Cessilo said one morning. There was something different in her voice, a small, almost imperceptible jitter. A little sigh at the end of her words.

  Maybe fatigue. She didn’t seem to sleep much. Mostly laid her head back in the early mornings, when she’d laid the horses down to rest. Never once saw her eyes close. Never saw her dream. She was forever peering into the horizon, sweeping it like a general looking for the encroaching army.

  Later in the day, when rain pattered the hide canopy overhead, I stretched out in the bed of the wagon and intended on taking a nap. Lysa was stuck in her book, The Sepulchering of Self. She’d been obsessing over the same pages for several days now, bemoaning the lack of clarity in each paragraph.

  Last thing I remembered as my eyes closed was her sneaking a look at me, as if to double-check whether I’d gone to sleep yet. Next recollection was a violent thwacking.

  “Wake up! Wake up!” Cessilo cried. Her hand was smacking my leg.

  Half-dazed from the dead of sleep, I rubbed my eyes. That was when I realized the thwacks weren’t from Cessilo’s hand on my shin. They were from Lysa’s legs slamming into the sidewalls of the wagon.

  She was seizing.

  “Shit,” I spat, rolling onto my knees. My hands were panicky, hovering over Lysa as my mind felt like it’d iced over. Probably because I’m not a bloody savant.

  Cessilo brought the horses to a stop and jumped into the bed. Rather spry for an old lady. “Cut me a cloth.”

  “What?”

  She yanked at my pants. “Cloth! Something to put in her mouth. She’ll bite ’er tongue off.”

  Cutting a chunk of leather out of pants designed to thwart that precise intention wasn’t going to happen. But I did have a linen undershirt under my jerkin. So I hurriedly stripped out of both, because accidentally stabbing myself in the belly wasn’t my idea of fun.

  Cessilo balled up the piece of cloth and stuffed it in Lysa’s mouth.

  Lysa thrashed about like a beached shark, shoulder driving into the wagon frame, shaking the whole thing. Her crazed, uncontrollable kicks splintered the wood, bloodied her toes. Her eyes had rolled back, the whites exposed.

  The horses whinnied.

  “Gimme your boots,” Cessilo said, cradling Lysa as best she could in an attempt to cushion her body from its savage attempts to brutalize itself.

  I untied my boots and gave them to Cessilo, who positioned them behind Lysa’s head as a sort of pillow.

  “Shh, shh,” Cessilo said, now lying on top of Lysa to pacify her. “You’re okay, dearie. You’re okay. Shh.”

  Lysa grunted like an animal, then smashed her feet against wood again.

  Then, as quickly as I could snap my fingers, she opened her eyes. And spat out the balled-up cloth.

  She had a wild, frightened look in her eyes.

  “Easy now,” Cessilo said. “You’ve come back. You’re all right.” She put a wrinkly hand on the sill of the wagon and leered out. “Best get back to it.”

  She clambered back into the seat, and the wheels began rolling again, over dry pine needles.

  I gingerly touched Lysa’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  She swallowed and nodded.

  “She’ll be fine,” Cessilo called back. “Get some good water in her. No wine.”

  Rav had given us a bounty of supplies, including amphorae of water. I opened one and gently placed the spout to Lysa’s lips. She drank until the water spilled out onto her chin and down her chest.

  I blotted the puddling stuff with the hem of my undershirt. Lysa smiled at that.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  I followed her somber eyes down to a book that had lodged itself between her thigh and the edge of the wagon. I picked it up. The words inscribed on the front cover, The Sepulchering of Self, seemed to gleam like snow in the sun.

  “There’s danger in this, isn’t there?” I said.

  Lysa didn’t acknowledge my worries. Didn’t shake her head, didn’t bite her lip. She simply blinked.

  “Fess up,” I said.

  “It’s… possible to lose yourself in your own mind. To… you know. Never come back.”

  The concept sounded like gibberish to me, but I believed it. Nothing good comes without the risk of something bad. “Possible? Or likely?”

  “Somewhere in between,” she admitted. “They warned us never to go inside our own minds, the instructors. They said it can become an addiction. An instant addiction.”

  “How so?”

  Lysa tried sitting up, but struggled. So I lent her my hand and pulled her up.

  “I thought I could bury something small. A worry that I had recently. But when I was inside there — my mind — I… I wanted to fix everything. It distracted me. When I go inside another’s mind, I monitor the afflicted.”

  “The person, you mean?”
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  “Yes, the person. They always termed them the afflicted in lectures. We’re supposed to monitor them for certain maladies. The mind doesn’t like being taken. It rebels in many ways, but there are lots of methods a conjurer has to mitigate such events. So long as you monitor. When you’re inside your own mind… oh goodness, the pleasure — it’s like nothing I’d ever experienced. I lost all sense of control.”

  “Well,” I said, inspecting the book, “you’re done with this.”

  “No!” She grasped my wrist. “Give it back!”

  “Lysa… Lysa! Stop.” I yanked my arm away from her, book in hand. “Look at what just happened to you.”

  She fell silent, and she seemed to be ignoring me.

  “You’re not—” I paused as she lifted a finger and pointed. Then I turned.

  Cessilo’s fist was in the air. Trembling.

  Chapter 12

  The wagon edged along a forest, from which shadows roamed, slinking between fat drops of rain. Beneath a sky the color of burnt steel, silhouettes bounced between the trunks like gnats bobbing from one flame to another.

  Cessilo swung the cart away from the trees, giving the encroaching shadows a wide berth. In the distance, oil clung to the air in a thick haze, the burn-off from torches that marked a small village. A dirt path skirted with stone led into the mouth of the village, where various structures extended deep into the wet forest.

  Silently, I unsheathed my blade. At least, as silently as one can withdraw the sharp spine of ebon from leather.

  Cessilo swung herself around. “Reapers,” she whispered so low I had to watch her mouth and sound out each letter.

  “Taking the villagers?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  Lysa clenched my leg. “We have to help them.”

  Cessilo gave a frantic shake of her head.

  “But—”

  “Lysa,” I said, “she has far more to fear from them than we do.”

  In the face of that truth, her idealism faded and her shoulders slumped.

  “Stupid Cess,” Cessilo whispered to herself, eyes closed. “Stupid! Thought I cut far enough around. Shouldn’t be here right now.”

  “Will they see us?” I asked.

  “I’d bet my everything they will.”

  “Can you outrun them?”

  “Not for long. Horses are tired.”

  I considered the dilemma. If they ran us down, I’d have to defend the cart, the horses, Lysa, and Cessilo. If I caught them by surprise, however, then I’d… well, I didn’t exactly have the advantage, but the situation wasn’t quite so dire.

  “I’ll head them off,” I told Cessilo. “Take the wagon the opposite direction soon as you see me enter the village.”

  “What about me?” Lysa asked. “I’m coming, you know.”

  “You’re staying here.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  I withdrew my second blade and offered the hilt to Lysa. “Yes, you are. I need you here. In case one or two get past me. Don’t let them take her,” I said, gesturing to Cessilo. “Got it?”

  Lysa regarded the oily glint of the sword with interest. “Okay.”

  In truth, if I couldn’t corral all the reapers, I had little hope Lysa could stave off an attack and prevent her and Cessilo’s death and their subsequent resurrection. Not that I didn’t have faith in her, but cutting down an enemy requires panache. Which is a difficult thing to display when you’ve never swung a sword.

  I patted Lysa on the cheek and gave her wink. Then I leaped out of the wagon, landing softly on the balls of my feet.

  I crept through wet grass like a hunched panther after its prey, tracking with vigilance and discrimination. Tiptoeing around the litter of pinecones, sidestepping fallen branches. Silence is the greatest ally of an assassin.

  But in that damp, cool jungle where torches wavered and oil smoke thickened the sky, silence eloped with comfort.

  Something shuddered. Something boomed. Shrill cries erupted from within the village. Shadows sprung like a burning star searing the sky, contours of limbs and heads.

  “The forge!” someone hollered. That same voice effused a gurgling shriek.

  “Mama,” a boy yelled. “Mama!”

  I ran now, desperation shoving me from behind and pulling me ahead. I stopped between two wooden staves upon which fire burbled. Directly ahead, men and women and children scurried amongst an entanglement of buildings and dirt paths.

  “Mirla,” a woman said. “Mirla! No! Mirla!”

  Chaos spun me around in dizzying fashion. A girl tumbled to the ground over there, and a man was pounced upon over here. One by one, the villagers crumbled under a heap of obscure shapes wielding weapons I couldn’t identify. The downpour of both the night and the rain cast a murkiness over the battlefield. Or what was quickly becoming a killing field.

  Indecision seized me. The reapers were numerous, far more than I’d first thought. Ten, fifteen, maybe twenty. They were preoccupied with murder — if killing the dead counts as murder — and hoisting the bodies into what appeared to be carts.

  I might be an arrogant bastard, but I’m not a stupid one. Attacking a score of reapers, or for that matter a score of anything that wasn’t inept at fighting back, would only get me killed.

  The solution was simple, although not pleasant. I’d take cover behind a knotted tree, a great big one whose trunk would conceal me entirely. From there, I’d watch the path out of the village. If a few reapers spotted Cessilo and Lysa and pursued them, I’d surprise the bastards with a gift-wrapped blade and make them shit ebon in the afterlife.

  Otherwise, I’d remain hidden. Listening to the despondent villagers beg for mercy.

  And that was exactly what they did. They pleaded with their attackers, begged in teary voices. Then they wailed like ghostly aberrations. The children were the worst. Their whimpers. Sobbing. Their confusion as they asked why. Why, why, why, they cried, watching their parents and friends stuck with swords and pikes and clubbed over the head with blunt weaponry.

  My nails dug themselves into the moist bark as the little ones were then butchered. I pressed my forehead against the timbered rind and closed my eyes for a moment, trying to stop their high-pitched laments from echoing inside my skull.

  “Move!” a man barked.

  There was a snort, like that of a horse, and a loud crack of a whip. I peered out from behind the tree, shielding my eyes from falling needles and a glut of raindrops pouring from the branches as the wind blew.

  A horse-drawn wagon wobbled over the root-choked forest floor, away from the village and, thankfully, in the opposite direction of Cessilo and Lysa.

  Desolation captured the village, staked its claim with silence and emptiness. Confident the reapers had departed, I intended to reconvene with Lysa and Cessilo. But something twitched near the foot of a shack. Squinting through the waxy fog of oil, fire and mist, I saw a rough outline of a reaching arm.

  Hell, I thought. Not a whole lot I could do to help the poor guy. Or woman. Or kid. Bringing them along to meet Rav’s brother wasn’t much of an option, and we had limited supplies on board the wagon. And I wasn’t about to use them on some stranger, when Lysa and I might still need them. I’m not that auspicious of a person.

  But I could at least put the poor fuck out of his misery, if need be. Er, actually… wouldn’t that technically bring him back? Could people in this realm die? Probably a question for Cessilo.

  There was a meek groan as I drew nearer. A shuffle amongst a litter of detritus.

  “Where’d they get you?” I asked, crouching before him.

  His mouth gaped. His heavy breath sent a dead leaf fluttering across the soil. Another groan, and a rasp. Then he picked his head up.

  And I stumbled back, falling onto my butt before scurrying to my feet. “The fuck are you?” I said, aiming the tip of my sword at his worming body. At its worming body.

  Round pebbles of ebon had replaced his eyes. No whites, no streaking vessels of blood. On
ly the matte finish of dark, sheenless ore. Even the nearby flames failed to reflect off of them; they seemed to sink into the blackness like it was a whirling void sucking everything in.

  Beside his body lay a sword dotted with blood. It all began adding up.

  “You’re a reaper, aren’t you?” I asked.

  “Please,” he said, raising a hand. “Don’t kill me.”

  “Funny. I heard the villagers ask the same of you. Didn’t grant them that wish, though, did you?”

  “They’re already dead,” he said. He clawed at the wet mud, pulling himself up to his knees.

  I flicked the underside of his blade with mine, throwing it into the air and far away from his reach. “They are dead, so why aren’t you letting them stay that way?”

  “I’ll do anything,” he said, showing me his palms, I guess to insinuate he was harmless. But I knew better. “Anything you want. Keep me alive and I’ll—”

  “Got it,” I said. “You’ll do anything. Man like you, or whatever the fuck you are, I’d think you’d be at peace with dying. What with coming into this realm, fetching the dead like they’re cows late for an appointment with the butcher. Seems risky for a guy who doesn’t want to die.”

  He shied away like a frightful child.

  “That’s my long-winded way of asking you what you’re scared of.”

  Not a word. Not a peep. Not even a groan.

  I pricked his throat with my blade. “You’re not doing a very good job of upholding your promise to do anything.”

  “I’ll suffer,” he spat. “For eternity. Forever. For always! If I die now, that’s my fate.”

  “Explain.”

  He took too long to answer, so I drew a bit of blood to make him hurry up.

  “Okay!” he said. “Okay. I’ve… the bad I’ve done outweighs the good.” He paused. “You don’t come here if it works out like that.”

  “Where do you go?”

  The vein in his throat pulsed madly as a hint of life awakened in his raven-colored eyes. It was the kind of life you see in people whose whole being has been consumed by terror.

  “Fine,” I said. “It’s not important. But I’ve got a question that is. Answer it correctly, and I’ll let you live. Do you know of a man with a golden book?”