by Will Wight
Or, more likely, they would draw swords and stab her through the ribs. See, that attitude I can understand.
“Thank you for sparing my life,” she said aloud. “If our positions were reversed, you would not have walked away.”
“Then it's a good thing things turned out as they did, isn't it?” He whistled as he walked, even waving to the people rigging steel-jawed traps in the forest floor. “If you feel compelled to repay me—”
“I don't.”
“—then think twice before you next kill someone. You might be glad you did.”
Shera eyed the Shepherds carrying boxes of muskets down toward the dock. “I suspect I'll get that chance very soon.”
And, of course, she had no intention of sparing anyone.
~~~
Syphren was kept in a sealed box, wrapped in familiar bandages; Jorin stood over the box, face lowered so his hat obscured his face. Only the tip of his long-stemmed pipe stuck out, tobacco smoke drifting around his head.
The tips of his fingers were pressed around the cloth-wrapped box as they approached, and he spoke before looking up. “Shera, you little foxhound, what have you done to this thing? My oath to eternity, it feels like it's pushing back against my hand.”
“I've been feeding it well.”
“Too well, I should say. Give it the skinny treatment for the next few days, or you may as well toss your brainpan to Kell'arack.”
That was a piece of advice she had no intention of following. “That's more than I can help. The battle's coming to us. Too late to escape now.”
He squinted at her behind his black-tinted shadeglasses, puffing on his pipe. As he leaned back, taking his fingers from the top of the box, his coat jangled as if he kept a handful of coins in every pocket. The shrunken head on his hip bobbed as though dancing. “You're...a tad out of orbit, there, Shera. Is your house all in order upstairs?”
Icy wind blew through Shera's chest, and she was in no mood to interpret Jorin's rambling. She held out her hand for Syphren without a word.
Darius spoke up for the first time. “Be easy on her for a while. She's had quite a rough time of it, these past few weeks, and I'm given to understand she lost someone important.”
Shera turned a cold look on him. Who had told him about Lucan? But before she could ask, Jorin stumbled back a step. “Light and life, why is there a Creeping Shadow wrapped around your head?”
“Oh, this?” Darius asked, like the Regent might have been referring to something else. “I had a run-in with some Elderspawn a few years back. As I was so handsome, one of them borrowed my face, and he has yet to give it back. You know how Elders can be with time.”
“I do indeed,” Jorin said, and Shera got the impression that he meant something entirely different than Darius did. He leaned closer. “Your Intent is even more fascinating than Shera's. How do you eat?”
“The normal way. My head's still there, it's just also...somewhere else. I have to be quick, or the food cools before it passes my lips.”
“'The void is not here, it is not there, and it is not everywhere. It is nowhere, and nowhere is where it is.'“ Jorin murmured, even as he withdrew a stick from his pocket. It looked like a long, stiff candle-wick, and he poked it under Darius' helmet where the man's mouth should be.
The Knight-Adjunct's head snapped back, but Jorin was too quick. He poked inside the helmet.
“Just because you can't see my face doesn't mean I want you poking around inside my mouth,” Darius protested. Spitting noises came from within his helmet, though of course Shera saw nothing.
Jorin pinched one end and then the other, to compare. “Mesmerizing. At least twelve notches colder on one end than the other. Young man, would you consent to a few examinations? It might be within my power to break this curse.”
“When the current conflict is over, you can poke and prod as much as you like,” Darius said casually. He didn't sound nearly as excited as Shera had imagined he should, faced with the idea that he might be able to find a cure to his Elder-shadowed condition. Maybe he'd been offered a cure too often. “In the meantime, I believe there's a battle on its way.”
Jorin straightened, his face businesslike. He reached to the side, touching his own bandage-wrapped sword as though to convince himself it was still there. “So we do. I hear the Blackwatch girl is coming with her spear, and the latest bearer of Tyrfang. I can account for either one of them, if chance be kind, at least so far as to keep them from slaughtering everyone else. But I certainly can't stand against both in my tender condition, not even for a moment.” He moved his hand up to his shoulder, wincing. His bullet wound.
“I can kill anyone with a neck,” Shera said, picking up Syphren's box from the table in front of Jorin. “So long as they don't see me coming.”
The Regent snapped his fingers. “That's the difference, I can see it now. Clear as the sun. Your Intent...it's almost like there are two people all tangled up inside you. A cold metal puppet, and a lazy girl with a quick wit. Syphren tugged you one way or another, but now...now all I can sense is the puppet.” He met her eyes from behind circles of dark glass. “It's a shame. I liked the girl better.”
Shera opened the box as she walked away. Her weapons belt lay inside, fully stocked, with both her shears in position. Syphren's hilt and sheath were both shrouded by bandages that looked identical to those that had bound the outside of the box.
As soon as she opened the lid, Syphren's Intent washed into her. Darius and Jorin both called to her now, as blood called to a shark.
She had no trouble reining in the instinct this time. The feelings poured over her but left her untouched.
Syphren could find no purchase in the ice.
Kerian wasn't particularly difficult to find. She stood at the top of the stairs leading up to the chapter house, men under her direction carrying furniture and valuable art away for storage. “I'm sure you have higher priorities than carrying paintings, Shera,” the High Councilor said, by way of greeting.
Shera didn't feel like joking in response. “Last time, Calder Marten tore through us with the Emperor's crown. What are your countermeasures?”
Kerian gave her an odd look, but she reached into the leather satchel at her feet. And withdrew the source of Bastion's Veil: a glass box, big enough to hold a small dog, filled with clouds of silvery-blue mist. “The Veil hasn't fully recovered yet, but we'll shroud the island as soon as we catch sight of The Testament. We believe the orders of the High Council should override those of the crown.”
“Why?” As far as she understood it, the Veil only protected against Elders.
“Lucan never told you? He kept our secrets better than we imagined, then. May his soul fly free. Shera, do you remember the last line of your oath to the Guild?”
She'd been forced to memorize the lines as a girl, and they'd never slipped away. “Finally, I bind my will and my loyalty to the mists, never to be revoked.”
“Did you never find it interesting that we don't have our members swear to the Empire, or even to the Guild?” A gray cloud, a segment of the Veil, drifted over and settled around Shera. It wasn't much, still thin enough to see through, and Shera let it envelope her. Kerian was obviously making a point. “Juggle your knives for me, Shera.”
What a stupid thing to say. There was no reason to juggle her knives, and risking injury with hours left before a battle would be the height of idiocy. Kerian should never have asked it of her, and she wasn't going to do it.
That was when she realized that both her shears, including Syphren, were already flipping in front of her face. She snatched them out of the air as soon as she recognized what was happening, returning them to her belt. Syphren's voice whispered frantically in her mind before she got it wrapped again.
Kerian delicately placed the box back in her bag, the mist dissipating. “That's with the Veil at low power, and with a thin mist. For a few seconds, you could do nothing but follow my orders...so long as they didn't violate your loyalty to
the Guild or lead you to harm yourself. There are limits. But with this, we should be protected from both the crown and Guild Head Bliss's Elder powers. Temporarily. It's vital that we eliminate either Calder or one of the Guild Heads before the Veil runs out.”
Shera had every confidence in her ability to eliminate Calder, at least...if she could find him. If the enemies arrived when they were expected. If he walked onto the island, or allowed her to board his ship. And there was always the danger that he would catch her with a surprise order from the crown while she was out of the protection of the Veil, causing her to hesitate.
Kerian saw her face. “Shera, what are the odds that you'll be able to reach a primary threat and eliminate it in the first hour of the battle?”
“What are the odds that Kelarac will rise from the sea and swallow all our enemies, while leaving us untouched?” She was exaggerating a bit; the Imperialist Guilds might make a mistake that would leave her an opportunity. But in the absence of an obvious weakness to exploit, she had to act with complete stealth until the absolute final moment. And as Ayana had always taught her as a girl, 'stealthy' meant 'slow.' “I have a much better chance if the fight drags on until sunset.”
The sun had yet to reach its peak. “I'm not certain we can hold on quite that long,” Kerian replied. The sails of the Navigator fleet were already in view, several of their masts passing underneath the dark crack in the sky. Were her eyes playing tricks, or did that seem wider than it had yesterday? “By sunset, we intend to have driven them off the island, or else retreated to a stronghold in the Capital. We have prepared Bastion's Shadow, and there should be just enough room aboard for all Guild members currently present. It'll be crowded, but we'll make it.”
Shera watched the horizon, staring at a familiar green sail that was just fading into view. The sails of The Testament, Calder Marten's vessel. Who did they have that might resist the crown, even outside the protection of the mist?
“I believe I can improve our odds somewhat,” Shera said.
“That would be an Imperial gift, right now.”
She laid a hand on her shear, starting to turn away. “Let me put it this way. Either this will work, and I'll be able to kill Calder Marten in the first hour of the battle, or our ship won't be quite so crowded.”
~~~
Benji and his fellow Maxwell-trained assassins were held in the underground cells, off of a completely different tunnel than once held Lucan. It took Shera the better part of an hour to find it, and when she arrived, there were two Mason guards standing over the entrance. One of them casually leaned his spear in her direction.
“I'm sorry, Gardener. We have orders to prepare the prisoners for transport.”
His partner gripped the hilt of a sword, looking horrified. “Not again. Why? I traded my shift!”
“Hello, Hansin,” Shera said, voice cold. She was in no mood to joke around, and she certainly didn't feel like pretending otherwise. “I need that door open.”
Hansin slumped, passing a hand over his face, but he did turn to the trunk of a nearby tree. He depressed a knothole, sliding open a secret door.
His partner grabbed him by the shoulder. “Stop right there! We have our orders.”
“We just got new ones,” Hansin said heavily. “Gardener Shera, would you mind telling my friend what's going to happen if we don't open the door for you?”
“I'll step over your bodies and open it myself.”
“Unconscious bodies,” Hansin added. “Usually. Shera?”
Shera didn't say anything, and the guard hurriedly turned a crank, levering the door open. The other man gripped his spear in earnest now, moving onto the balls of his feet and following her movements with the spearhead. “I don't know who you are, but we report directly to the Architects. I can't—”
Hansin shoved him in the back, causing him to stumble, and looked to Shera. “Door's open.”
She passed both guards and walked inside, nodding to Hansin as she did. Descending the steps, she heard the voice of the other man. “I'm reporting this! I'm reporting you both!”
“I hope you do,” came Hansin's voice. “Believe me when I say that I wish you good luck.”
Involuntarily, Shera froze at the bottom of the stairs. The tunnel that had held Lucan's cell collapsed in the wake of the Handmaiden's recent attack, but this one looked so much the same that her memory overwhelmed her. There, to her left, a line of barred cells stretching off into the darkness. It was hard to believe that Lucan wouldn't be waiting for her in the first one.
But it wasn't Lucan, of course. It was a man she remembered mostly as a boy: Benji.
He stopped rolling his blanket around his pillow, bowing to her as she appeared. “Shera. I wondered when we'd hear from you.”
At the sound of his voice, or perhaps the sound of her name, men and women stirred in cells all the way down the hall. Whispered and repeated questions filled the air.
“Benji,” she said. “Let's get this out of the way first: I barely remember you. It's a stroke of luck that I recognized your face at all.”
He chuckled bitterly. “Well, I certainly remember you. You had us all terrified, even as a little girl. You could slit a man's throat, wipe the knife off on your pants, and use that same knife to cut your meat a minute later. Even Maxwell wasn't that cold.”
He sounded admiring, not accusatory, though Shera remembered that somewhat differently. In fact, all she remembered was the taste of the meat. An insane revolutionary Maxwell may have been, but he grilled a nice pork chop.
“Did you see me kill him?” she asked.
He shook his head, unfazed by the question. “Consultants took me before that. I heard all about it from the others, though.” He leaned forward, eyes intent. “Are you here to lead us?”
“One question first,” Shera said. And then, because she couldn't think of a reason not to, she added, “If you answer wrong, I'll kill you all myself.”
Benji nodded as though that was only reasonable, though many of the others shrank back behind their bars.
“Why were you working for the Magister's Guild?”
He shrugged. “None of us here had any family to go back to, or none worth the name. The Luminians treated us right, but they were never...interesting? They never became a family, that was for sure. We just did chores all day, every day. It wasn't long before Maxwell's place started to feel like a dream. At least then we were working to change the Empire, doing something important.
“And then...something killed the Emperor. We were all excited, because it meant the world was really on the brink of the change that Maxwell always talked about. He was right all along. The Empire was weak, and it had collapsed in on itself. Most of us thought this was our shot. When the Luminians let us go, we jumped at the first one to hire us. We worked for the Magisters ever since.”
All as she’d expected, and as the Guild intelligence had indicated. But there was one detail that still didn’t fit, one question that intrigued her beyond all others. “And who taught you to act like Consultants?”
For the first time, he frowned in confusion. “No one. Maxwell taught us, same as you, and we tried to keep his lessons alive. The Magisters had a few tutors in for us, hired killers from all around the Empire, but nobody mentioned the Consultant’s Guild. They just encouraged us to keep our skills sharp so we could make a difference.”
He seemed genuine, but there were too many similarities to ignore. Maybe he and the older children had gotten specific Consultant training from Maxwell somehow, though that seemed impossible. Or perhaps one of the “tutors” was a rogue Gardener. She pushed the matter out of her mind. None of this would help her accomplish her objective.
A grin split Benji’s face as he continued speaking. “And no one has made more of a difference than we have. We killed a Regent, Shera. Maxwell would have loved it. Who can say they've done more to change the Empire than that?”
Shera met his eyes, the butt of her hand casually on Syphren. “The one wh
o killed the Emperor.”
It took the better part of thirty seconds, but his eyes finally widened, and he sat back on his bed. “Are you...” His voice faded, as though he couldn't figure out how to finish the question.
She raised her voice. “I have a target, a Reader and a Navigator captain who managed to get his hands on the Emperor's crown. He can control any loyal citizens of the Empire. Are there any loyal citizens here?”
A few shouts, some scattered laughter.
“Will you help me kill my target, and maybe a Guild Head or two? It will mean working against the Magisters.”
Benji gripped the bars. “We'd do it for the opportunity alone. But there's one more question Maxwell would have us ask. How much are you paying?”
When she walked back up the stairs, she was trailed by thirty killers in red prison jumpsuits. She'd have to find them some spare blacks.
She was anticipating another run-in with the guards on the surface, though she would have an even easier time intimidating them with almost three dozen murderers at her back, but both Masons were missing. The air was filled with thunderous detonations and a thin, silvery mist.
Their guests had arrived early.
She slid apart the bandages wrapping her Vessel, exposing a little more of her mind to Syphren’s influence. There were four blinding presences on the island, each of them as full of Intent and potential as the Handmaiden. If Syphren had a mouth, it would be leaking drool.
“Let me have them,” it whispered.
One was obviously not human; it must be the box, Bastion’s Vessel. One other would be Jorin, she was sure. The other two…Bliss of the Blackwatch and General Jarelys Teach. The two enemy Guild Heads with the greatest power. All four powers were right on top of one another.
Somehow, the enemy had figured out the purpose of Bastion’s Veil, and had infiltrated deep enough to attack the source. Kerian had expected them to stall, but they were risking everything to end this battle early.
Shera unwrapped her left-hand shear, which shone bright green in anticipation. She drew it from its sheath, prowling deeper into the mist. Okay, she thought. Let’s go get them.