by Colin McComb
“What’s your job?”
Arul stood. “I’m a carter, sir. Means I cart goods back’n’forth, and—”
“I know what a carter is, dolt. What made you pick this spot?”
“Well, there’s a bend in the stream, and I thought stuff’d wash up here in the bend.”
“Have you heard of panning? You dig in the hills; you pan in the streams. Surely you knew that.”
Arul scratched his head thoughtfully, keeping his face shadowed. “I guess I’d heard that, but I couldn’t just take one of my ma’s pans and leave, so I thought I’d try digging.”
The knight looked at him carefully. “Keep away from that bow. I’m coming down.” With that the knight leapt the entire thirty feet to the ravine floor, landing gracefully and nearly soundlessly.
Arul stumbled backward in mock surprise, and he let fear paint his face at the knight’s superhuman ability The knight advanced slowly, looking at the dig and casting his gaze about the ravine. His eye fastened on a boot that protruded from behind a boulder, and he raised his eyebrow at Arul. He stepped to the side and saw the five dead men, and he started laughing.
“Come to hide your crime, have you? Where are your accomplices? Or were these your victims?”
“It was all a misunderstanding, sir, and if you’ll give me a chance to explain—”
“Silence, wretch. The king will have his justice.” He considered Arul. “As befits a murderer five times over.” His eyes began to burn as he advanced on the other man, his fingers flexing and curling as if of their own accord. “In the name of King Athedon the First, and in accordance with his laws, I, Sir Tirnir Ransa, declare your life to be forfeit. And now that we’ve dispensed with the formalities, let’s see how long it takes me to choke the life from you.”
He feinted a lunge, and his quarry stood stock still. He sneered, “So you’re a killer? Not much in the way of reflexes.”
“Why would I flinch? I’m not afraid of you.”
Sir Tirnir looked at him sharply, and Arul let his bland mask slip. Pelagir’s true face shone again, and he swung the shovel at the knight’s head. The man slipped backward as the shovel whistled through the space occupied by his neck a moment before, and he caught his balance and rolled backward as Pelagir came relentlessly at him.
“Pelagir! You!” The knight’s face was full of surprise.
“Me,” agreed Pelagir, the shovel’s handle and head blurring as he spun it. His foe deflected the shovel’s killing strikes with expertly placed hands, shoving the blade aside again and again. The two kept their eyes locked on each other as they splashed in the shallow stream, each seeking advantage, and Tirnir began to recover from his surprise, regaining his composure. As Pelagir struck down with an overhead strike, Tirnir thrust his hands upward, crossed at the wrists in an X, and caught the haft.
“You know that if you kill me, they will follow the trail here? They’ll scour the nearby cities. They’ll quarantine the towns until they find you and then you’ll face the Imperial executioner.”
“I know.”
“But if I kill you…” and he thrust upward on the handle, dove under the whistling shovel, and rolled across the sand. When he rose, he held Pelagir’s steel bar. “… I will be a hero.”
And with that, he pressed the attack, wielding the five-foot bar like a staff. Pelagir was forced to retreat, turning aside the blows with the shovel instead of absorbing them directly—the wooden shaft would surely have splintered otherwise. Tirnir pushed him back into the stream, striking and thrusting, and Pelagir deflected one hit poorly. The strike angled off to his right but stung his fingers as it went, and Tirnir dropped and delivered a side-sweeping strike to his right thigh.
Pelagir dropped to his knee, and Tirnir struck down at his head from above. This time Pelagir angled his defense properly, swept the iron bar to Tirnir’s left, and thrust forward with the blade of the shovel.
The bar splashed into the stream. A moment later, Tirnir’s arm followed.
The knight’s face slipped into shock, and as he fell to his knees, he said with strained formality, “I… you’ve killed me.”
“Not yet,” said Pelagir. With the flat of the blade, he struck the knight on the side of the head, and his foe dropped into the stream.
Toren had been driving about twenty sheep since that morning, and he was heartily sick of it. Catya had been helping the dogs (the spotted Duchess and the pure white Spot—both named by her) keep the sheep in line, running after them and waving at them with her miniature shepherd’s crook. Toren noted with some pride that she was handling the staff precisely as she had been taught by Arul. He was leading a pony for the inevitable moment when she declared that she was tired and didn’t want to walk anymore. Once she had made up her mind, she was intransigent—from what Toren had seen, even more so than other children her age.
At this moment, however, she was having too much fun. That is, until she struck one of the ewes on the flank by accident. Normally placid, it turned and butted her. She fell to her rear and howled. But even as Toren hurried back to her, even as the dogs streaked to contain her at his whistle, she climbed to her feet and smacked the ewe smartly across the face with her stick. It bleated and stumbled backward into the flock, and Catya shook her crook at it victoriously.
Toren spent the next twenty minutes getting the sheep back to the trail, and he had to put Catya on the pony because she kept chasing after the ewe who had wronged her. Then he leashed the dominant member of the herd to the saddle, and they set off again, the rest of the herd following along, the dogs at their heels. Just as they reached Lindor’s boundary, they saw the distinctive form of a gleaming metal courser, with a roan saddled behind it, bearing a lumpy bundle. The man who sat atop the horse was Arul. No. It was Pelagir, but when he saw the face of his adopted daughter, he struggled visibly to regain the mask of his new life.
He dismounted as the two approached. His clothes were muddy, dusty, and bloodstained. Catya cried out, “Papa, did you get hurt again?”
“No, my precious. But a friend of mine did. Give me a hug, and let me talk to Da.”
After this was done, he drew Toren ahead. The old man’s face was darkening steadily toward an explosion as Arul led him to the horses. Arul lifted the canvas to reveal his burden: Sir Tirnir. Pelagir had draped him backward across the horse, his spine arching at a near-impossible angle. His left wrist was strapped tight to his ankles, with knots impossible for a one-handed man to undo. His legs had been broken. The stump of his right arm had been cauterized, and that arm had been tied tight to his torso.
Toren hissed, “You killed him? You fool! You’ll bring the Empire straight to our doorstep!”
Tirnir opened his eyes. His mouth had been gagged, and he sought help in Toren’s face. Despite the pain, despite the mud, he suddenly looked very young to the old man, and very vulnerable. Seeing no help there, he groaned and closed his eyes.
Arul said, “This is the story I am making. He came here, to Lindor’s farm. Someone fired crossbows at him. They missed; the bolts are there and there and there.” He pointed. “The would-be attackers ran, and Sir Tirnir pursued. He rode one down near the glen where we fought, and the courser’s hoofs churned the soil. He continued his pursuit to the east, following our missing friend Lindor into the city of Avollan. Nearly there, his courser will overload, scattering our unfortunate knight and his limbs across the countryside. The resulting shockwave will also kill Lindor.
“The explosion should take care of the evidence that Lindor had already been dead. I used Tirnir’s own sword to remove and cauterize his extremities, and I have kept his arm with us because I do not know where the tracking devices are. I intend to keep him relatively whole and alive until the explosion. The dirigibles will come, and the flyers, and it will not be safe to be a brigand here for months. I will take a cart to the western mines to retrieve some ore so that I will not be in town when they come calling, and you must grow your beard and keep your head down.”
“Gods, Arul. That’s a bloody-minded plan.”
The younger man’s eyes were hard, and his voice was clipped and measured. “This is a bloody business. Had I my way, none of this would be an issue. All of us would have gone our separate ways, none the wiser. The brigands who started this thought to rob a defenseless man and steal his money and his life. This boy thought to bully a helpless peasant.” He leaned in to Toren and put his finger on the old man’s chest. “I am no longer an agent of the king’s justice, but this is justice, too.” He hissed, “I am proud of what I’ve done.”
He pulled back and looked at Catya. His frown turned to a smile. She was waving her hands at the dogs and laughing as they ran around the feet of the patient pony. His voice became conversational, but still intense. “I don’t intend for her to ride back to Terona as an adult to be a part of the old corruption. We must build a better world for her. What better way than to bring this justice, a few souls at a time?”
Toren sighed and leaned on his staff. “That may be the first time you’ve defied me. But you’re right. You’re right. Your plan is the best chance we have now. Get moving on the horses, and we’ll follow behind to obscure your trail most of the way to Avollan. Do try not to explode that courser too close to us, will you?”
Arul nodded. He and Toren returned to Catya, and he gave her a quick kiss. “Cat, I need to send a message, so I’m going to ride ahead. You be good for Da, all right?”
“I will, Papa. Where did you get the shiny horse?”
“It’s a magic horse, child. But it can’t stay with us, all right? Let’s pretend it was never here, and maybe it will come back someday.”
“All right, Papa. Make Spot jump!”
Arul laughed and whistled three times quick. Spot leapt into the air and snapped, and Catya squealed with laughter.
Arul returned to his grisly burden and galloped to the east, toward Avollan. The old man and the young princess followed after, obscuring his trail.
In the Tower: Assassin
She was not a part of the night—she was the night, encompassing it, shifting like darkness through the shadows of the spreading branches. She danced around the patches of moonlight that filtered through the canopy, and her steps were so light and effortless that none could have said that something truly passed them in these tenebrous woods.
She had trained in the science of stealth in mysterious desert retreats, studied ancient fighting styles with monks and wizened lamas in the snow-swept Aralset Mountains, studied poisons with the Maga Toruqin in the heart of the Ma’ Ting swamps, and undergone a particular and personalized excruciation in the Tower of the Archmagus to get new eyes and a chameleon’s skin. She was one of the deadliest—and most anonymous—assassins in the Empire.
She was one of the ten nieces of King Athedon. She was his invention and wholly his creature, a project fifteen years in the making, begun well before his ascent to the throne.
She had been a bright and lively child, full of joy and passion, one of the daughters of Count-General Jason Beremany. As she grew older and learned more about the Empire’s history, she felt called to serve. The history of House Cronen, the house of Beremany and Athedon, was known for its diplomats and spies. This history led her to explore the path of intrigue and shadow. Her father apprenticed her to her uncle, the ambitious Athedon, thinking that he might find her a sinecure as an ambassador, far from harm’s way. But Athedon, questioning her, found that she wanted adventure and a sense that she could make a difference with her own hands.
He introduced her to his spymasters and told them to begin teaching her of intrigues. She displayed little aptitude for these niceties, and they reported this to their lord. She was built, they said, for more direct action. And so he led her to his assassins, plain-faced men and women of deadly minds and fatal hands who were never so alive as when they were bringing death. Athedon vocally suggested that she consider other lines of work, but he insisted that she be allowed to make her own choices. She would hold a high place if she wished to pursue this work, he said, but he claimed to hope that she would not. And then he gave her time to think about his proposal.
She did not rush her decision. Her father, a careful plotter, had taught his children well. This too stood her in good stead, though her father would have been aghast had he known what she considered. By the time he learned the truth of the matter, she had been training in the deadly arts for over a year, and Athedon urged him to consider her dead. Beremany was furious, but Athedon assuaged him as follows: she was the youngest girl and stood to inherit nothing; she would bring great advantage to the House with her natural talents; and Athedon would move to emplace Beremany high in the War Council. Thus did a father’s love for his children lose to his love for power. Beremany had almost forgotten her name by now. If she ever thought of the family she had left behind, she never let it show.
At first Athedon had thought to use her against the other High Houses, for the game of assassins had a long history in the Empire. But when he realized he could set his sights higher, he spared no expense in her training. He had rarely used her inside the Empire, although she had deflected attention away from certain of his business dealings and had caused the head of a rival House to be framed for the murder of a shared enemy. She had traveled extensively outside Imperial lands, but if one were to track her by the trail of her dead, they would find it a difficult spoor indeed.
Tonight she carried a leaf of metal. She was paying a visit to Underhill Tower.
She had used a transport device once before, but she had forgotten it as one forgets intense pain. Those memories came flooding back to her as the tower’s device tore her apart and rebuilt her whole, but they began to vanish even as she stepped from the steel disk. The room into which she had appeared was dim, its only illumination a soft yellow glow from an enclosure hidden in the ceiling. These were lights of the sort they had in the Imperial Palace. She had a rudimentary understanding of their workings—power collected from the sunlight, the wind, the heat of the earth, stored in great batteries—but since she had no architectural plan for the tower, this knowledge did her little good. At any rate, her target would not be expecting her, thinking himself secure in his fortress, and any disruption to the tower’s workings would alert him. She did not think highly of her chances of success in that case. On the other hand, if he had turned the security of the tower over to his disgruntled apprentice, as she suspected, and if the boy had not had a sudden attack of remorse, she could be well on her way to Terona by morning.
She took careful stock of the room, just as she took care in observing all her surroundings. The disk, large enough for four people, stood on a raised pedestal, and its residual energies scattered like lightning as she waited for it to finish powering down. Had she hurried from the disk, she might have suffered a mighty shock; it took time, as she understood, for her body’s natural state to acclimate to its new surroundings. Even now, her skin shifted to match her environment, rippling through darker colors. Three segmented antennae pointing to the disk protruded from the ceiling, mounted on a cylinder that was spinning to a stop. Only when the metallic whine had stopped and the smell of thunder had cleared the air did she take the three steps to the floor.
Directly ahead of her stood a stout wooden door, the only obvious exit from the room. A large L-shaped panel, set at an angle to the ground and adorned with switches, levers, and dials, stood in one corner of the room, with one leg of the L fastened to the wall. Over twenty small glass windows were set into the panel’s wall-facing surface. Someone standing at this panel could observe the room or study the small windows, and the assassin did just this, careful not to touch the panel in any way as she leaned close.
Most of the windows showed static scenes: a room filled with rows of tables, vials, glass tubes, and clear hoses; a room lined with cages and dull steel tables; a large kitchen with spotlessly clean dishes draining in a rack next to the sink; a moving landscape, a vista seen as if from the top of t
he tower; and more.
In two rooms she saw people. One, a room kept gleaming white, had copper wires and delicate tools laid neatly upon torso-high tables. On one of those tables was a human corpse, its limbs akimbo and the body grossly mutilated. In many places its skin had been peeled back to reveal the muscle beneath, and some of those muscles had been dissected and rebuilt with thin steel wire. The organs had been removed from the abdomen and placed on a table nearby in an order relative to their position in the body. Its eyes were gone.
At a nearby table worked the young apprentice, a magnifying apparatus strapped to his forehead and his hand enmeshed in a strange glove attached to a device that controlled a small stylus that scratched and carved small symbols with precision. The eyes of the corpse, dissected and spread across a small tray in precise order, sat under a convex lens. The boy withdrew his hand from the device, picked up a small square tool festooned with blinking lights, and glanced at it for a moment. Apparently satisfied, he stuck his hand back into the glove and focused his attention intently through the magnifier upon the small board under his gaze. Two shiny steel hemispheres, two halves of an orb, sat within a few inches of his left hand, wires nestled snugly inside. The assassin was convinced that the boy was focused on his work and would not prove to be a problem.
In the second room, up the hall and down the stairs, the old man sat comfortably in a stuffed chair in a library. He held a book in his hand, and a bottle rested on the table to his right. His staff leaned against the wall, close to hand. The wall nearby displayed a number of small windows, and she studied those with great interest, checking to see if those pictures corresponded to the ones in front of her. She scanned them all carefully and, satisfied, constructed a picture of the tower, plotting out how to enter and leave the blank spots. Once she was done, she moved immediately, wasting not a single moment.