The Archon's Assassin

by D. P. Prior

  The assassin turned one of his weapons on Albert, kept the other covering Plaguewind.

  “Shadrak…” Albert said, holding up his hands.

  One of the men clutched his throat and keeled over, his bottle smashing as it hit the floor.

  Plaguewind gasped. “What’s happening? What—?”

  Another man collapsed, and another, until all ten Dybbuks fell amid the shower of breaking glass.

  Shadrak dropped his aim on Albert. “Good boy,” he said.

  Albert let out a huff and made a show of mopping his brow with his handkerchief. “Anyone would think you didn’t trust me.”

  “You…” Plaguewind said, trying to locate him by the sound of his voice. “You betrayed me.”

  Albert shrugged and set about folding his handkerchief with great precision.

  “Ilesa?” Plaguewind turned his mask, trying to find her. The slump of his shoulders told her he knew it was over. “Change,” he said. “Change!”

  Into what? A rat, like the last time she’d shifted? A snake? That was all she’d achieved under his instruction. In Portis, she’d managed a mermaid to please Davy, and there was that one time that wasn’t under her control. A wolf-man like she’d become then could have ripped out Shadrak’s throat, but—she eyed the weapons that were once more both pointing at Plaguewind—even then, she’d have to get close enough.

  First, one weapon fired, then the other. Plaguewind slammed back against the floor, bright blood blossoming from his shoulder and guts. He tried to stem the flow with his fingers, even as Shadrak advanced to stand over him.

  “Change, you shogging bitch!” Plaguewind croaked, looking around blindly. “Help me!”

  “I can’t,” Ilesa mouthed, no sound coming out. She wanted to tell him she would if she could.

  Shadrak turned his pink eyes her way and put a booted foot on Plaguewind’s throat. “Mustn’t forget the bint now, must we?” he said. “Shame for you, darling, is that you saw me. Imagine the shogging inconvenience if I had to change my moniker. Can’t go round being called Shadrak the Seen, now, can I?”

  A shiver ran through Ilesa’s body, and she swayed as if she were aboard a ship on a stormy sea. She heard the boom of Shadrak’s weapon, winced against the pain, but felt nothing.

  “Shog!” Shadrak yelled. Suddenly, he seemed a giant, looming over her. “Where’d she go?”

  She’d scuttled halfway across the floor before she realized she’d changed without knowing it.

  Not a rat. Not a snake. Something even more appropriate, she thought as she found a crack in the wall and crawled through it.

  A cockroach.

  Plaguewind cried out once more, a plea that turned into a wail and was cut off by a final resonant boom.

  BENEATH THE BASILICA

  City of Aeterna, Latia, Earth

  The fat orderly’s eyes glinted above his gray face-mask. He curled his gloved fingers around the ratchet handle and gave it another turn.

  Shader stiffened and winced. Every nerve in his body screamed. Tendons and ligaments were stretched to breaking point. His left knee popped, and then he screamed, too.

  “Finally,” the thin one said, like he’d just won a wager.

  The chains holding Shader’s wrists to the top of the rack pinched so tight his fingers were numb. The loops of rope cinching his ankles cut to the bone, but he could no longer feel the trickling ooze of blood from the lesions. He was naked, his clothes dumped somewhere on the floor along with his Liber.

  The Templum’s reverence for its holy scriptures apparently didn’t extend to the dungeons of the Holy Judiciary—at least not since the death of Ipsissimus Theodore. Exemptus Silvanus had succeeded him shortly after the Battle of the Homestead, and the Ancient World catacombs beneath Luminary Tajen’s Basilica had been converted into cells and torture chambers.

  The mere thought that such a place existed in Nousia was a contradiction as unpalatable as the one that used to define Shader, when he’d been unable to choose between the Monas and the sword.

  But he had chosen, eventually; and for the Templum, the timing couldn’t have been worse. The Sahulian armies of Emperor Hagalle were at the door, and Nousia needed knights, not pacifists.

  “I’ll tell the investigator,” the thin one said—it was the only way to distinguish between them, what with their uniform gray overalls, linen coifs, and gauze masks. Their appearance was designed to unnerve the impenitent. Shader knew that from the seminary, where they’d touched upon heresy and how to deal with it. Render the torturers inhuman, and beyond appeal. Hope gave a man strength, and so everything down to the last detail was engineered to evoke despair.

  As the thin one slid back the bolts on the iron door and went running for his master, the fat one stepped away from the ratchet handle, eased up his mask, and took a long pull on a waterskin.

  Shader’s lips were cracked, his throat parched. How long since they’d dragged him from his bed?

  “Ready to see sense, then?” the orderly said, pulling his mask back down and re-stoppering his waterskin. “Glad I could be of service.”

  Shader rolled his head away. It was the only movement he could make; maybe the only one he’d ever be able to make. Even if they slackened off the tension, even if they let him go—and who had they ever let go?—he had no idea if his overstretched muscles would work again. There was only so much give in the fibers, and then they’d never contract; and the tendons, the ligaments…

  Pain radiated from his left knee in pulsing waves. Only the progressive agony of the last hours made it bearable. A man could grow tolerant of a lot of things, not least of all suffering.

  “See,” the orderly went on, as if he were a teacher imparting wisdom to a favorite pupil, “it’s an easy enough thing extracting a confession. Most heretics are weak-willed turncoats, and they’ll turn again with enough of the right incentive. But try to get a man to go against his conscience…” He gave a low whistle. Shader heard him amble across the room and plonk himself onto the bench they used for rest breaks. “A man like you.”

  It sounded like respect in his tone. Awe, even. “Had quite a name for yourself back in the day. Mate of mine in the Elect used to harp on about Verusia, what the Seventh Horse did at Trajinot. Only wish I’d been there.”

  You don’t, Shader, thought. Even now, even compared with the torments of the dungeon, the war against the Liche Lord was the darkest of the horrors sealed away in his memory; something he never wanted to revisit. Darker even than what he’d seen beneath Sektis Gandaw’s mountain; things that would have made the Unweaving of all things seem a blessed relief.

  “Then, that business in Sahul.” The orderly hawked and swilled the phlegm around. He must have remembered he had a mask covering his mouth, because he swallowed thickly and cursed. “They say the old Ipsissimus used to speak highly of you, what you done. Said they owed you. Said we all did; that we was lucky to still be alive.” He chuckled to himself. “So, cheers, mate. Just want you to know you had my respect. Shame you had to go and shog things up.”

  The door creaked open, then clanged shut. Shader craned his neck to see who came in.

  First was the thin orderly, who flopped down on the bench beside his colleague. They exchanged a few whispers, until the other man to enter speared them with a sharp look. There were a few moments of tense silence, then he turned his eyes on Shader.

  And what eyes they were: bloodshot, to the point the sclerae were almost pink. Pink, like Shadrak’s. Ain, how he could use the assassin’s help right now. The only difference was the yellow corona around each iris—irises so dark, you couldn’t see the pupils. The man wore a white chasuble fronted with a red Nousian Monas over an ankle-length black coat. Thin, oily hair hung in unkempt strands down to his shoulders from beneath a tall hat with a broad brim. It was almost a uniform among the Judiciary’s investigators, but Shader hadn’t seen the added chasuble before. They must have saved that for special occasions.

  “I do hope you haven�
�t maimed him too badly,” the investigator said. “What would be the point of bringing him round to our way of thinking if he can no longer wield a sword, no longer ride a horse?”

  The orderlies exchanged glances, eyes glittering above their masks.

  The investigator stepped up to the rack and peered down at Shader, lingering on his ankles, taking in his knee. Ain only knew what it must have looked like, but the pain was excruciating. The man’s smile was forced; a snaggletoothed smile that revealed the tip of an overly long canine. He arched an eyebrow and stared long and hard into Shader’s eyes, as if he were trying to assess whether he’d suffered enough; whether he was ready to give them what they wanted.

  Shader blinked to break the hold that gaze had over him, then shifted his focus to the face. There was something familiar about it; but whatever it was, it refused to come to the surface.

  “So, progress, I am told,” the investigator said. “I was beginning to think you’d die on the rack.”

  “Maybe I still will,” Shader croaked. The effort made him cough, and blood came out with a spray of spittle.

  The investigator stepped back, fanning his pallid hand in front of his face.

  “Maybe you will. I had hoped, however, you would have used this time to reflect upon the selfishness of the path you have chosen.”

  The voice. The way he inflected certain words.

  “His Divinity has been patient with you. Patient on account of your past services to the Theocracy. But even His Divinity is human. Even His patience is finite.” The investigator cocked his head, like a bird spotting its prey. “What is it? Why do you look at me that way? Do you think, perhaps, you know me?”

  “The…” Razors scratched the lining of Shader’s throat. He tried to go on; swallowed, but he had no spit.

  The investigator snapped his fingers, and the fat orderly came over with his waterskin, unstoppered it, and lifted it to Shader’s lips. Shader coughed and spluttered as half the liquid went down his throat, the rest splashing over his chin. Not water: wine; vinegary, and no doubt mixed with the orderly’s phlegm.

  “All you’re getting,” the orderly said, backing away to the bench, clutching the waterskin to his chest. “That’s good stuff, that.”

  “The way you speak,” Shader said. “Your face…” But not the eyes. Definitely not the eyes.

  “Yes?” The investigator leaned back in. “Glad he left some impression on you.”

  “He?” Shader frowned, trying to dredge up the memory. Where had he seen that face, heard that voice?

  “My father.”

  Shader stared blankly for a moment, and then he had it.

  “Bardol Shin. The man the Templum sent after me in Sahul.”

  The investigator drew in a sharp breath, and there it was again—both of them this time: canines like a dog’s, or perhaps even a wolf’s. Maybe he filed them; or maybe it was something else. Last time Shader had seen teeth like that was in the ranks of the Liche Lord’s armies.

  “I am Bartholomew Shin. People say I rose from my father’s ashes. People say far too much, in my opinion. He was an investigator, I am the Grand Investigator. It was not blood that got me where I am today; it was merit. The same sort of merit that could yet restore you to the Ipsissimus’s good graces, should you work at it.”

  “I didn’t seek discord with His Divinity,” Shader said. “But what he wants is impossible.”

  “Impossible?”

  “I can’t do it.”

  “So they say,” Shin said. “Far be it from me to criticize His Divinity’s predecessor, but a special dispensation? For an Elect knight to train for the priesthood?”

  “It was a mercy,” Shader said. “Ipsissimus Theodore knew I couldn’t go on.” How many times had he killed in the name of Nous? How many times had he violated the very principle the Templum’s religion stood upon? It had been there from the start, this war between peace and the sword. And it had taken him more time than it would a fool to work it out. Aristodeus had planted the conflict in him as a child; orchestrated everything about his upbringing to keep him in perfect tension, all so he could wield the Archon’s sword. All so he could succeed where the philosopher had failed, in taking down the Technocrat Sektis Gandaw.

  “The vows of an Elect knight are for life,” Shin said. “Granted, an Ipsissimus freed you from them; but now the new Ipsissimus requires your particular set of skills. Yours, and those of every other consecrated knight the Theocracy has brought to term from the womb of its benevolence.” He pressed his lips to Shader’s ear, whispering so that the orderlies wouldn’t overhear. “We cannot hold out, Shader. It is no secret the Sahulian fleet controls the Narala Passage. They have taken Numosia, and Aeterna is next. Nousia is too vast. We are too thinly spread. There simply isn’t time to marshal an effective defense.”

  “So, you don’t need me,” Shader said. “If it’s all over.”

  “Not all over. We will withdraw north, marshall our forces and strike back.”

  With what? Shader wanted to ask. The Templum’s losses had been staggering, and Hagalle’s forces grew stronger with each country he conquered. Not only that, Quilonia had entered the war on Sahul’s side, opening a bleeding wound right at the heart of Nousia. Quilonia’s independence had long been a thorn in the Theocracy’s side, but now the yoke of oppression had encouraged ambitions to fester, old scores to be settled. And with Quilonia’s betrayal, others had grown bold. Suddenly, no one wanted Nousian protection or enlightenment. The whole world was turning back to barbarism, as if it were somehow new and liberating.

  “The Elect will be our rearguard,” Shin said. “Even the retired are being recalled, such is the peril. And yet you…” He drew back and raised his voice once more. “You seek to hide behind the pretense of pacifism, and you place self-will above duty.”

  “How many times?” Shader said. “How many times will people like you, people like Silvanus, force me to be what I am not?”

  “You are a killer,” Shin said. “One of the best, so I am told. You are a name, someone the men will rally to.”

  Shader tugged against his bonds, regretted it, and let his head drop back in resignation.

  “He was fast, you know.”

  “What?” Shin said.

  “Your father.”

  There was a long pause. Silence hung like a threat before Shin said, “Evidently not fast enough.”

  That hadn’t been the problem. He’d been dazzling, Bardol Shin; maybe even the best swordsman Shader had ever faced. There had only been one deciding difference. Shin was a measured man, cultured and bound by rules. Shader, on the other hand, when it came to combat… He stopped the thought there; tried to tell himself it wasn’t true. He’d stayed his hand many a time, hadn’t he? Turned the other cheek, and all the other things a Nousian was supposed to do. Maybe as a child, like the time Brent Carvin had killed his dog; but as a man… well, he certainly couldn’t fault himself for trying; but when it came down to it, when it was him or the other person, or him against a horde of mawgs, he knew just how ruthless he could be.

  Shin turned his back on Shader, went to the shelves by the door that harbored all manner of cruel-looking implements. He took his time selecting something, and when he did, he cast a look back at Shader over his shoulder.

  “Don’t worry. This isn’t personal. My father was the finest swordsman I ever saw, but he was not a natural-born killer, like you. You faced him fair and square, of that I have no doubt. He knew the risks. No, this is not about him, or me. This is for Nous.”

  He spun round, a heavy-headed hammer in one hand, iron spike in the other.

  “And I will give my life for Nous,” Shader said. “Even on this rack. Even at your hands.”

  If priestly training had taught him one thing, it was that Nous was all that mattered. Yes, the scriptures and doctrines had been altered by Otto Blightey—even the name “Nous” was the Liche Lord’s invention, borrowed from the most ancient Graecian writings, so Adeptus Ludo sa
id. But all Blightey had done was mask a truth. Stick with it long enough, Ludo never failed of telling the seminarians, and every now and again, you got to peek behind the veil. Not everyone was graced enough to find it, but it was there, buried beneath Blightey’s obfuscations: the Golden Thread. It was a mystery worth dying for.

  “Dying, I would have to explain to the Ipsissimus,” Shin said. “But His Divinity understands, no, condones, the use of the stick to bring a disobedient dog to heel.”

  Shader gritted his teeth as Shin stalked toward him. The two orderlies rose from the bench. One grabbed a wad of bandages and took up his place behind the investigator. The other stood at the head of the rack. He forced Shader’s mouth open and crammed a strip of leather between his teeth.

  It was futile, but Shader still thrashed on instinct. All it achieved was to heighten the pain.

  Shin waved the iron spike through the air, deliberating, until he settled on Shader’s injured knee. He glanced up at the orderly at the head of the rack. “Bit over-zealous with the ratchet, I see. Looks like I’ll be the bearer of bad news to His Divinity, after all. Even if he recants his position, he’ll be no good to the Elect lame. You’ll undoubtedly burn for it,” he told the orderly. “Unless we make it look like an accident, you know, thwarted escape; something like that. Still, if you’re going to get on the Ipsissimus’s bad side, might as well do it properly.” He positioned the spike over Shader’s kneecap and raised the hammer.

  Shader shut his eyes, muttered a swift prayer—

  —and the door clanged open.

  “That’s enough, Investigator Shin. I’ll take it from here.”

  Shader let out the breath he’d been holding.

  Ludo!

  Ludo had come for him.

  Shin almost roared as he whirled round. “This is Judiciary business, Adeptus. You’d do well to—”

  “Say that again,” Ludo said.

  “This is Judiciary busi—”

  “No, the bit about ‘Adeptus’. We are both men of the hierarchy, Brother. In my dotage, did I miss the relegation of my office and the ascension of yours?”