Four and Twenty Blackbirds

by Mercedes Lackey

  The Bird's beak bobbed as Rand nodded agreement. "You're right. And we can do that. There's just going to be a slight difficulty for you, though."

  Orm's shoulders tensed. A slight difficulty. Now it comes! Now he tells me something outrageous. "What would that be?" he asked.

  "I'm going to want you to hide the bodies for a while," Rand told him. "Not forever! Not even for more than a few weeks. I want them found, but I don't want them found immediately—I want them found in a time and place of my choosing."

  Oho! There's a complicated plan going on here, and he has no intention of telling me what it is until it's too late for me to do anything about it. Should I be pleased or alarmed?

  Pleased, he decided. At least the kills would be easier, safer— "In certain cases, you might not want to use a tool," he said cautiously. "I could take care of the situation myself."

  "Oh?" If the Bird had possessed a brow, Rand would have arched it. "I thought you didn't do that sort of thing."

  "I can make an exception in the case of expediency, if it's too difficult to find a tool," Orm replied. And I'll be wearing silk gloves so you can't take me over, he added silently. I have no intention of following in the footsteps of the tools.

  But Rand only gave a strange, gurgling sound that was his equivalent of a chuckle. "That won't be necessary. I've picked out the women already. The first one is going to be another of that crowd that lives in the bookstore—in fact, I'd like to dispose of all three of the women living there now. We could take all of them in a single night if we planned it right. The women always come back to the shop long before the men do."

  "Oh, really?" Orm laughed. Ordinarily, he wouldn't have wanted the exposure that came from repeating a pattern, but if the bodies were going to be hidden, it wouldn't matter. "Fine. Let me find a place to put them. I'll go looking now; when I have a place, I'll come back and tell you."

  He wanted to go out immediately, because the idea that immediately occurred to him was to use one of the boathouses or small warehouses out on the riverbank. Pleasure-boats were all in drydock at repair houses for the winter and wouldn't go into the boathouses until spring; if he could find a sufficiently dilapidated place, he might be able to rent it for a bit of next to nothing.

  And if Rand doesn't care how and where the bodies are found, only when, we could dump them all into the river unseen from the boathouse, and let the current carry them away. If nothing else, the bodies could be left amid chunks of ice to preserve them as long as winter lasted. There was no reason for customs officials or constables to search boathouses in the winter; there was no smuggling in winter worth mentioning.

  Failing a boathouse, a warehouse would certainly do, if it was small enough—but there would not be the option of a quick and "invisible" means of disposal of the bodies.

  Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad thing to take some initiative before he delivers orders. "I'll go out and find a—storage facility," he said, standing up. "Unless you have something else in mind?"

  Rand was still in a fine mood, and perfectly ready to allow Orm to make his own choice, apparently. "Good. Get something today, if you can. I'd like to begin immediately with this little project; we don't have any time to spare."

  We don't have any time to spare? Suddenly, it seems, we have a schedule to meet.

  But Orm was not loathe to take the hint, and by nightfall, Orm the spice-merchant had acquired a strongly built but shabby little boathouse, and a small warehouse a mere block away from it, convenient to the districts in which Orm proposed to find most of their kills.

  After all, it didn't hurt to be really prepared.

  Five kills in one night, and Rand was human again.

  In fact, he'd been human after the first kill, a standard scenario for them. One girl was alone in the shop; the young man who'd taken their blade entered the bookshop, knifed the lone girl, dropped the knife beside the body, then threw himself into the river. That left the shop empty as they waited for the arrival of the other two girls. But it was Rand who took up the blade and ambushed the other two as they came in, first rendering them unconscious, then disposing of them at his leisure. He had not personally made a kill since the last woman he'd taken as the Black Bird, several months ago.

  Orm watched with utter fascination as Rand made the second two kills; the fierce, cold pleasure the man took in the act, the surgical precision with which he first disabled them, then vivisected them.

  Very enlightening. He hadn't known Rand was capable of that much concentration. But then again, Rand had a great deal to gain from these exercises, and the women themselves were limited in use and power unless he drew out their experience as long as he could.

  In the end, they were interrupted by the unexpected arrival of one of the men. The fellow entered the shop without either of them hearing him, and blundered right into what must have seemed like a scene out of the Church's tales of Hellfire.

  He didn't have long to appreciate it, however. As he stood there, mouth stupidly agape, Rand leapt for him, both blood-smeared hands outstretched and reaching for his throat.

  A moment later, the man was on his knees at Rand's feet, making gurgling noises as Rand throttled the life out of him. The mage's hands were locked about the fellow's throat so tightly that although his victim clawed frantically at the fingers, there wasn't a chance of budging him.

  Orm watched in detached fascination. Rand didn't let up until the man's face was black, his tongue protruding from his mouth, and his eyes bulging, froglike, out of their sockets. Then the mage released his grip, knuckles crackling, and the body dropped to the floor with an audible thud.

  Orm coughed, and Rand turned; he hardly recognized the mage, his face was so distorted with a rage and hunger far beyond anything Orm could even imagine. For one moment, Orm was actually shocked. He had never dreamed that there was this kind of emotion locked within the mage.

  He is far more dangerous than I thought.

  Then Rand's expression changed, all in a moment, and it was so bland and smooth that Orm wondered if what he had seen had been a trick of the light.

  No. I don't think so. I saw it, and that's my warning. But I'd better pretend I didn't see it.

  "Why didn't you use the knife on him?" Orm asked, mildly.

  Rand sneered. "He wasn't worth it," the mage said. "Now, let's get these husks into hiding, before any of the rest come back unexpectedly."

  Orm had already made provision for this night's work; in the alley behind the shop was a handcart, the kind the rag-and-bone men used to hold their gleanings. He and Rand wrapped the bodies in sheets of rags, then carried the bodies out to the cart, which easily held four with room for a pile of rags atop them. The alley might have been in a city of the dead; there was no sound other than their heavy breathing, their grunts of effort, the thuds as they heaved the bodies into the cart, and the squeaking and rattling of the cart itself. When they finished loading the cart, they went back into the shop and spent a few moments throwing all the books, paper, and printing supplies to the floor, then dumping out the cans of ink on top of it all. When the rest of the group returned, it would look as if some enemy had come in and ransacked the shop. They might assume it was Duke Arden's people, or the constables. If they did, they would probably flee without ever reporting anything to anyone. No one would ever know what had gone on here, which made Orm perfectly happy.

  By the time they were done, the place not only looked as if it had been ransacked, it looked as if several people had worked with great malice to destroy everything here. They glanced around for a moment, and Rand nodded with satisfaction at the extent of the damage. Then, throwing shabby, patched cloaks over their own clothing, they each took a handle of the cart and trundled it openly out into the street. There, they were completely ignored even by a passing constable, for who would ever look at a refuse-collector? The cart was well balanced and light, but it was still dreadfully difficult to pull when fully loaded. As it rumbled and squeaked, Orm laid aside his conce
rn with being stopped, and just concentrated on getting the cart back to the boathouse.

  Orm was thoroughly fatigued by the time they reached the haven of the boathouse, though Rand seemed perfectly capable of hauling the cart halfway to Birnam if need be. Orm wondered about that; wondered if the last kill didn't have something to do with this unusual energy.

  Or perhaps it was simply because Rand got so much exercise in the form of the Black Bird that he was far stronger than Orm would have supposed.

  With the cart inside the boathouse doors and the doors themselves closed, Orm took up the second stage of the night's work. Not too surprisingly, Rand now abdicated in the further work to be done, leaving it all to Orm. Orm suspected that the only reason he had helped in loading and pulling the cart was to get the bodies cleared out before anyone else came back—he was able to handle one intruder, but a pack of them would have been too much even for a mage. But now that they were safely in hiding—well, it would all be on Orm's shoulders.

  And if Orm didn't take certain precautions, he could be tied to the kills as easily as Rand. The bodies needed to be immersed in running water for at least an hour to cleanse them of all of the magical traces of Rand's power—and, incidentally, of Orm's touch. That was the easy part; Orm tied ropes around them and lowered them into a hole he'd chopped in the ice. There they would remain for the requisite time, and in the meantime, he and Rand changed their clothing, cleaned up, and threw the clothing, weighted by an old stone anchor, into the hole.

  When the hour was up, they both hauled the bodies out of the water and stacked the now-rigid corpses in a corner, throwing an aged tarpaulin over them, just in case. They'd be frozen stiff by morning, and easier to handle. By then, false-dawn lightened the eastern horizon, and Orm was so weary he would have been perfectly prepared to share the boathouse with their four "guests." He and Rand made their way back home together, like a pair of late-night carousers; Orm was too tired to even think and too numbly cold to care. He fell straight into bed and slept around the clock.

  They made a kill every two nights for two weeks. Rand remained in human form the entire time, and their kills were mostly by simple ambush out on the street. There were two more that were under roofs, but Orm didn't see those; instead of using a tool, Rand handled the kill personally. Rand was alone with the women, and Orm stood lookout for several hours. Afterwards, the condition of the bodies suggested that Rand had found leisure to be even more inventive than he had been with the bookshop girls, and much more like the jeweler-kill in grisly details.

  Other than those two, however, the kills were quick; the longest part of the proceedings was bringing the bodies back to the boathouse and cleansing them. Rand picked out the kills, Rand made the kills, usually with a tool, and Orm cleaned up afterwards. With only one body to pick up in the handcart and take to the boathouse, cleanup wasn't all that difficult and it didn't take a great deal of time. Orm became quite confident as he casually wheeled his rag-cart past constables, though the constabulary appeared more tense day by day. During the days, he continued to pursue his safeguards, as Rand spent most of the rest of the days and part of each night engaged in something in the room of his apartment that Orm associated with magic. Orm could hear him walking about up there, and wondered what he was doing. It was more than idle curiosity; after seeing the mage's "other face"—and one that Orm was more and more convinced was the true one—Orm was very concerned about his own safety. When Rand went down, he wouldn't go without taking Orm with him if he could. And if Rand thought he could arrange for Orm to take the whole blame, he certainly would.

  The street-kills were, in some ways, riskier than the ones Rand performed through a tool, and the power-payoffs were nowhere near as high. Orm figured that Rand must need the extra power to stay human, in order to work on something special. He was certainly keeping at his work with amazing diligence, the like of which he had not demonstrated before.

  Finally, after three days without a kill, Rand emerged from his apartment and came down the stairs to enter Orm's sanctum, wearing that peculiar nervousness that warned Orm he was about to change back into the Black Bird. He had a small package wrapped in old silk (probably cut from a secondhand garment) in his hand, and gave it to Orm.

  Orm unwrapped it; he expected another knife, but it was one of the pens, lying on the yellowed silk in his hand like a sleek, slim black fish.

  "I want you to find a way to substitute this for the same object Tal Rufen carries," Rand said, clasping his hands behind him, a gesture that Orm already knew was to hide the fact that they were trembling uncontrollably. "When you've done that, it will be time to move the bodies. Pile them up in the dead-end alley behind the bookshop—no one ever comes there at night. Try to do it artistically if you can."

  Orm nodded. "What then?" he asked, taking care not to show the slightest trace of dismay. But he knew—he knew. There was only one reason why Rand would want him to plant an object on High Bishop Ardis's personal bodyguard and assistant.

  I can't believe it. He's going to do what I was most afraid of. He's going after the High Bishop. He's beyond insane.

  Rand smiled, the corner of his left eye twitching. "Tal Rufen and Ardis will certainly go inspect the site, and that is when—" He broke off. "Never mind. Just go out now; take care of it."

  With that, he turned on his heel and left, moving very quickly, though not at all steadily. He was about to turn back into the Black Bird, and he wasn't going to do it in front of Orm.

  Meanwhile, Orm was holding himself to this room only by force of will. He wanted to bolt, now, before he got caught up any further in this madness. Steady on, Orm told himself. I saw this coming; I'm prepared for it. The only question is, when do I jump? I have to pick the time and place when Rand won't expect me to abandon him, and when he'll be the most vulnerable.

  After due consideration, he decided to wait until the last possible moment at this "special Kill" itself.

  I'll get the pen into Rufen's pocket, dump the bodies the way Rand wants me to, and wait around for Rand to make his move. When he does, I'll get out of here. I won't wait around to watch and see what he does. Maybe all he plans is to get Rufen to give the High Bishop the pen and then take over her, but I'm not counting on it. Even if he kills her, he's never going to get away with it; every Church mage in the Human Kingdoms is going to descend on Kingsford to catch the murderer. And when they do, I am not going to be here to see it.

  The first order of business was to find Tal Rufen, who could well have been anywhere, and many of the places he might be were those where Orm could not go. The simplest course of action—sending him the pen as if he'd left it somewhere—would just not do. It was likeliest that he would check, discover that he still had his pen, then try to send it back or find its rightful owner. The knives had all had magic on them intended to make the person who touched them want the knife, and feel uncomfortable when it wasn't on their person, but Orm doubted that the same was true for the pen. A spell of that nature wouldn't do for an object that was to enter a place that was the home to dozens of mages, who would likely sense something wrong. The magic on this pen would have to be invisible, undetectable, right up to the point when Rand invoked it.

  Find Rufen. That was his first order of business. So, with a hearty sigh, he donned his fisherman-gear, and plodded out into the freezing cold to wait on the bridge. Sooner or later, Tal Rufen would have to pass him here, no matter where he went in the city.

  But as the day dragged on, Orm thought for certain that his luck had deserted him; he had gone out onto the bridge before noon, and never saw the least sight of Tal Rufen all day. Even his fishing-luck left him: his bait was stolen a dozen times without ever getting a solid bite; Orm suspected that there was a single, clever fish down there that kept taking the bait and passing it out to his friends. He could picture the miserable thing now, thumbing its nose at him—if fish had noses—and telling an admiring crowd just how poor a fisherman Orm really was.

 
He was just about frozen all the way through, his feet numb, his fingers aching, as the sun hovered redly just above the western horizon. Rand is just going to have to wait a day, he told himself, wanting to shout aloud with frustration. Maybe two. Maybe more! After all, it's not as if I could somehow call Rufen out into Kingsford—it's not my fault that he hasn't been stupid enough to leave a perfectly comfortable, warm building and traipse across a bridge in a frigid wind.

  He looked up to gauge the amount of time left until dark, and for a change looked back at the city instead of the Abbey.

  That was the moment that he saw Tal Rufen being carried along in a knot of congestion towards the bridge, heading for the Abbey.

  He didn't stop to think, but he didn't move quickly, either. He already knew what he had to do, but he had to make it look genuine.

  I'm a discouraged fisherman after a day of catching nothing, and when I go home, I can look forward to no supper. I'm numb with cold, and I'm too wrapped up in my own troubles to pay attention to where I'm going.

  He bent in a weary, stiff stoop to pick up his bait-bucket, draped his pole over his hunched shoulders, and began to make his way towards the Kingsford side of the bridge, nearing that tangled clot of pedestrians, small carts, and riders with every step. Rufen was afoot rather than on horseback, and there would never be a better time than this to make the substitution.

  I can't feel my fingers; what if they won't work right? What if he realizes I've gotten into his document-pouch? What if—

  As his mind ran over all the worst prognostications, his body was acting as he had told it to act. He limped towards Rufen with the gait and posture of a man twice his age. At just the right moment, he stumbled and fell against the constable.

  And even as Rufen was apologizing, asking if he was all right, and handing him back his fishing rod, Orm was continuing to "stumble" against him, accepting his support and using it to cover his real actions. Rufen had dropped his document-pouch; Orm picked it up, dropped it, picked it up again, and dropped it a second time, then allowing Rufen to pick it up himself. In the blink of an eye, as Orm picked the pouch up the first time, the pen was gone, lifted neatly out of the document-pouch. In another blink, as Orm picked it up the second time, Rand's pen was in the pouch with the rest of Tal Rufen's papers—and Rufen never knew his "pocket" had been picked twice, once to extract the first pen and once to replace the pen.