The Archon's Assassin

by D. P. Prior

  Shadrak eyed him intensely. “What does that even mean?”

  “We are a race to whom trickery and betrayal are second nature. We work our father’s will beyond the confines of the Abyss. It was the homunculi who brought science to Sektis Gandaw, and we have influenced a thousand others besides. This ship is of our design. Without it, Gandaw would have perished on Earth during the first uprising, long before the time you call the Reckoning.”

  “You saying that’s why I do what I do?” Shadrak said. “Why I’m a thief and an assassin? Because it’s in my blood?”

  “What I’m saying,” Bird said, “is that what we are does not have to determine what we choose to become. Just because we are spawned from the stuff of the Deceiver, does not mean we lack free will.”

  Shadrak flopped back onto the bed and shut his eyes against the pounding in his head. “I ain’t even gonna pretend I know what you’re talking about.”

  Bird hovered over him, and when he spoke, he might just as well have been talking to himself. “Even the Demiurgos was created, Shadrak. Freedom to choose is not contingent upon his wishes.”

  “So, let me get this right.” Shadrak opened his eyes so he could see Bird’s reaction. “You’re some kind of rebel, some kind of naughty child who won’t do your daddy’s bidding?”

  Bird chuckled. “Not just me. There is a group of us.”

  “Who else?”

  “Another time. Perhaps one day, you might—”

  “Join you?” Shadrak rolled over and looked the other way. “Yeah, right. Like I ain’t got enough on my plate without pissing off the Demiurgos.”

  “You may already be pissing him off,” Bird said, sounding decidedly uncomfortable using Shadrak’s term. “What do you think these quests are all about? And what about your involvement in bringing down Sektis Gandaw?”

  “Who’s to say these quests aren’t what he wants?” Shadrak countered. He was staring at the wall, staring at his own distorted reflection in its burnished panels. He felt numb, blank, disinterested almost.

  “Mephesch doesn’t think so.”

  Shadrak turned back over. “Aristodeus’s pet? What if he’s just hoodwinking you? After all, he’s a shogging homunc… Wait a minute, he’s one of your lot, isn’t he?”

  “The Sedition. We are called the Sedition, and Mephesch is our leader, the first to realize there was another way.”

  Shadrak pushed himself up onto one elbow. “Hang on. Nameless said he was there before, when Gandaw was still in charge. You sure you can trust him?”

  “It’s one of the reasons I know I can,” Bird said. “Who do you think delayed the start of the Unweaving? Gremlins in the machines? It was Mephesch, also, who inspired me to seek my own path above ground in Qlippoth.”

  “Aethir’s nightmare realm? That had to be fun.”

  Bird chewed his lip and cocked his head before he answered, “I learned a lot there. Assimilated, you might say. If I had not done so, I might have passed you by when you were taken from Gehenna as a babe and left to the elements.”

  “What?” Shadrak said. He should’ve asked why? Who did it? But it was too much, too soon, and he still didn’t know what to believe; whether he could trust Bird as far as he could throw him. “You mind telling me how you just happened to run into Nameless on the road? Or was it a coincidence, and you were both coming to see me at the same time?”

  Bird eyed him for a moment, then bobbed his head, as if pleased Shadrak had thought to ask the question. “I had wanted to approach you for a long time, Shadrak, since my brother Abednago mentioned an albino of our race leaving Arx Gravis with the Nameless Dwarf. It was never the right time back then. Our eyes and ears were focused on what Nameless might do. With the finding of the black axe, he became the chief threat to our cause, but encased in the helm, it was difficult to say how he would turn out. Aristodeus felt he could still be used against the Demiurgos, if only the black axe could be destroyed. Your friend, you see, is more than he seems; more than any of his kin in the ravine city.”

  “Pity the Archon doesn’t agree,” Shadrak said. “You know he wants me to kill Nameless?”

  Bird nodded. “But you must stay your hand. Give this a chance. Mephesch says these three artifacts we are after were crafted by the Cynocephalus himself. If anyone has reason to hate the Demiurgos, it is him. Just think, freed of the axe’s evil, and in possession of the combined might of the gauntlets, the armor, and the shield, Nameless could wade through the waters of the black river and smite the Demiurgos frozen in his tomb of ice.”

  “If you’re not mistaken,” Shadrak said. “If you’re not deceived. My way, you need to test every step of a plan, know your enemy’s every move, before you overcommit.”

  “Ordinarily, I would agree,” Bird said. “But Aristodeus does not. His reasons are his own, but suffice it to say, he has good reason for haste.”

  “Oh?” This was interesting; just the sort of thing Shadrak liked to know about people—especially those who were starting to get up his nose.

  “He is not the free man he seems, Shadrak. He believes he needs Nameless, but more than that, he needs the knight who prevented the Unweaving.”

  “Shader? I heard he went back to Earth. Can’t say I blame him. This was all supposed to be over once Gandaw was stopped.”

  Bird dipped his head. He looked genuinely sorrowful for a moment, but when he looked up, there was a fierce sparkle to his stony eyes. “Gandaw was just the beginning. Gandaw was always the beginning.”

  “Beginning of what?”

  “My father’s wiles surpass even the knowledge of the homunculi. He strategizes perpetually in his prison of ice. It has ever been thus, since he, the Archon, and Eingana fell through the Void. At first, he had free rein, until he was cast back into the Void by the Archon. That was all a very long time ago, before even the first histories of the Earth. Every age, every generation, has fallen prey to his deceptions, felt his unquenchable urge to destruction.

  Mephesch speculates that his goal is freedom. Freedom for revenge; freedom to visit himself once more upon his sister; perhaps even freedom to return to the Supernal Realm and usurp the All-Father’s throne. But he cannot act directly unless his brother does, and the Archon, fearful of open conflict, is reluctant to break the stalemate. It is a long game, and the players are patient. They both only act through intermediaries. Every now and again, a crisis comes, and always it is brought about through a pawn. When Gandaw attempted the Unweaving the first time, Aristodeus was the only one to oppose him.”

  “What, old baldy stopped him singlehandedly?”

  “He did not. He failed.”

  Shadrak eased himself back to the edge of the bed and let his legs dangle over the side. “So, what happened? Shouldn’t the worlds have ended?”

  “You would have thought,” Bird said. “A chasm opened up in Gandaw’s control room, and the philosopher fell into the Abyss. He tells us his mind was strong enough to resist the perils my father torments the damned with. He says his intellect found ways to survive, to harness the powers of the Abyss, even its fundamental timelessness.”

  “You’re losing me,” Shadrak said. He rolled to his feet and started for the door. “I need to check what’s happening. This trip is taking longer than it should.”

  “Do not be concerned,” Bird said. “Plane ships have a degree of sentience. It is probably navigating the safest path into Verusia, the most discreet. The last thing we want is to alert the Liche Lord.”

  Shadrak narrowed his eyes. “How’s it know to do that? Who told it to? You?”

  “It seemed prudent,” Bird said. “You need not worry. What’s more important is that you hear me out.”

  “Then make it plain. You reckon I’m a homunculus, but I was brought up by a pituri-smoking Dreamer on the mean streets of Sarum. Shit about time and stuff shogs up my brain.”

  “The Demiurgos is trapped in the mouth of the Void,” Bird said.

  “Yeah, I get that.”

 
“And Aristodeus is trapped by him—”

  “In the Abyss.”

  “Yes.” Bird said, obviously pleased he was getting through.

  “So,” Shadrak said, “how come he’s at the Perfect Peak? How come the bitch landed him a good one in the face? Not only that, he keeps showing up all over the place. Shog, I nearly took a pop at him on that walkway over Arx Gravis.”

  “It is perplexing,” Bird said. “He is trapped, and yet he is not. We, too, have troubled over this. We also have speculated over Shader.”

  “Shader? What’s he got to do with it?”

  Bird shrugged. “Perhaps everything. Perhaps nothing. But we go too far. We must not fall into the trap of trying to see all things clearly. That is a strategy the Demiurgos frequently employs, and people like Sektis Gandaw, and even Aristodeus, have often fallen for it.”

  “So, what do we do, then? Stumble around blindly, doing whatever the Archon or Aristodeus tells us, and just hope for the best?”

  “For now,” Bird said, “we keep Nameless alive.” The homunculus whispered the last, as if afraid the Archon might hear. “Be warned, Shadrak, your friend Albert has been contacted.”

  “By the Archon?” He knew it. Knew something was up. He’d had nothing tangible to go on, just feelings, intuitions. Albert was always a shifty bastard, but there had been something different about him, something niggling away at the back of Shadrak’s mind. “Does he want Albert to take over from me, get the job done quicker?”

  Bird shrugged one shoulder, then the other. “I only know that they have been speaking. I see things.” He put one thumb over the other and flapped his hands like a butterfly’s wings. “But they are discreet. There is no talking out loud. What I must ask you is, would Albert do it? Or would he come to you first?”

  The Albert Shadrak knew would kill his own mother if there was profit in it. Word is, he had done just that, although he’d also heard profit wasn’t the motive. Question was, what would he stand to gain if he trumped Shadrak and took Nameless out first? With a sudden realization, he let his eyes rove around the room: the plane ship. That was more Albert’s style: he’d not only kill Nameless, he’d take Shadrak out as well. Well, two could play at that game.

  “Thanks for the warning,” he said. “Think I can handle it from here.”

  “You’re going to kill him?”

  “Not yet. Not unless I have to.” But it never hurt to be prepared. And he already was. Had been even before Bird’s mention of Albert’s meetings with the Archon.

  “Shadrak.” Bird lowered his eyes and hunkered down inside his cloak. “I wish… Will you allow me to show you what is missing? From here.” He reached out and touched two fingers to Shadrak’s forehead. “I learned many things in Qlippoth, and I would use my abilities to help you understand who you are, where you came from.”

  “What makes you think I give a shog?”

  When Bird looked up, a single tear tracked its way down his cheek. “Indulge me. Please.”

  Shadrak knew he was grimacing, knew he was biting his lip. Every muscle in his body felt twisted, taut, ready to snap under the strain. It was as though the black hole that had swallowed up his infancy was rising from the deepest depths of his mind, threatening to spill its contents. Either that, or threatening to consume him utterly this time.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “What if I don’t want to see it?”

  “You should,” Bird said. “To be whole. I would not show you anything you could not handle. For me. Please. For my sake.”

  Shadrak’s eyes locked to those black pebbles set too far back in Bird’s face. He started to say no, that he didn’t care about being whole; didn’t give a damn about Bird’s sake, but he already knew he’d come too far; and somehow, in some forgotten place within, he did give a shog. He cared. He cared a great deal.

  Bird’s fingers slid down Shadrak’s face to his cheek, and he leaned in closer, doleful eyes becoming swirling tunnels. Bile rose in Shadrak’s throat. He tried not to blink, but slowly, like the coming of sleep, he gave in.

  Rain came down in sheets, spattered against leaves as big as shovels, and splashed in dirty puddles. Angry shouts pursued them, and streaks of silvery flame zipped past or sent up sprays of steaming mud. He held the bundle close beneath his cloak of feathers. He felt its warmth against his chest. Not his chest, he realized as the world lurched: he was the one being carried. Being carried, doing the carrying, and watching all at the same time.

  His guts rebelled against the unnaturalness of it all, threatened to spew their contents all over… all over…

  Then the sensation was gone, and he knew he was the child cradled within the cloak of feathers. A baby, but he knew it; had the words to describe everything he felt and heard and saw.

  He was placed beneath a bush. Rain cascaded from the leafy ceiling. The sounds of pursuit: hoarse cries, angry. Leaves rustled. Insects—lots of insects, their collective buzzing rising to a deafening drone. Dark flecks swarmed into one undulating shape. Someone screamed; then someone else. The cloud of insects swooped and dived, climbed and roiled in pursuit of dozens of shrieking voices.

  Leaves rustled again. Hands grabbed him, and he was held tight against drenched, cold clothing. The cloak of feathers settled over him once more, then he was jostled violently as the one carrying him slipped and slid through the mud, dodged in and out of mangroves.

  Rain continued to pelt them with the attrition of a thousand arrows, and thunder rolled across the darkening sky.

  They entered a blanket of mist. He could smell stagnant water and rotting vegetation. The sharp stabs of insects harassed his skin.

  The one who bore him waded out into the swamp, oblivious to the things that rolled and gyred through its waters. There was a rasp and a hiss, then a gleaming silver door appeared in midair. It slid open, and they entered.

  Stark blue lights winked into life along the ceiling of a corridor extending into the distance. Heavy footfalls pounded the metal floor, coming for them. Coming.

  A shadow fell over him. He glimpsed something sinuous and writhing. His carrier held him out, and he looked right into the slitted eyes of a gigantic black snake.

  Then he realized it wasn’t a snake, just the head and neck of one atop a man’s body.

  It reached for him with enormous hands, cradled him to its cold, hard chest with monstrous arms. Its jaws opened, and a forked tongue flicked through fangs like scimitars. It narrowed its crimson eyes and bobbed its head.

  The one who’d carried him here gave a single, somber nod in return, and drew his feathered cloak about him. With a rasp and a hiss, the metal door came between them, and the snake-man bore him away along the corridor.

  Bird’s face came into focus, half warm smile, half empty blackness.

  Shadrak tried to turn away but couldn’t move.

  Bird reached out with a talon-like finger and tapped his forehead.

  Shadrak’s knees buckled, and he would have fallen had not Bird held him. He coughed, sucked down air. Spasms ran through his muscles. He clung to Bird’s cloak, anchored himself in the familiarity of its feathers.

  “It was you,” he croaked, meeting Bird’s eyes, which had resumed their old solidity, round like pebbles, moist and glistening. “You were carrying me.”

  Bird helped him back onto the edge of the bed. He seemed reluctant to speak, to say anymore than he’d already shown.

  “Why?” Why were they fleeing? Why come here, to the plane ship? And the snake-man: like the one he’d seen atop the Homestead. Were they one and the same?

  Bird seemed to have anticipated the unspoken questions. He took Shadrak’s hand in his own, gently stroked it. “You were different, Shadrak. People are afraid of difference, even homunculi. Pink of eye, pale of skin. They saw only weakness, sickness, and despite all their lore, their science, they viewed you as a curse.”

  “A freak, you mean.” He’d gotten the same in Sarum. They’d called him corpse-boy, unclean, demon-child. After a
while, he welcomed it, used it to build his reputation. But he never forgave the initial sting of their taunts.

  “The homunculi are a hard race,” Bird said. “They have no place for illness and deformity. The newly begotten are checked for defects. Those deemed no good are fed to the seethers and the other things that dwell in the deepest chasms of Gehenna. I was tasked with checking you. I was supposed to throw you to the seethers.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  Bird sat beside him on the bed. “Qlippoth changed me. There, amid the nightmares of the Cynocephalus, I glimpsed what that poor creature is afraid of. Together, the denizens of Qlippoth are like a fractured mirror, revealing the face of the Demiurgos. Seeing this for myself, I was repelled. Repelled, and ashamed of what we are; what I was.

  I had seen beyond the shadows on the walls of Gehenna, and upon my return, I no longer fit in. I tried. I tried, because I had nowhere else to go, but when I saw you, rejected for being different, I felt… I felt only kinship and the need to get away.

  I knew there were dissenters among the homunculi. Knew and never approved, until that moment. I took you to them, to Mephesch and Abednago and the others, and they arranged for your escape.”

  “So, you gave up your people for me?” Shadrak said. “I don’t get it.”

  “Where’s the profit, do you mean? Where’s the gain?”

  Shadrak shrugged. That was the world he moved in. No one did nothing for nothing.

  “I glimpsed a truth among the horrors of Qlippoth. When you stare deception in the face like that, it gives perspective; gives form to that which is other than you have known. The Demiurgos lives to disperse, to sow discord, disharmony; yet in having that clearly before me, I glimpsed another way, another power in the cosmos.”

  “The Archon?”

  Bird laughed at that. “No, not him. Not even Eingana, though they both mean well. There is something more, though, something beyond even the Aeonic Triad.”

  Shadrak’s brain raced to connect all the inferences. “You mean Nous?” The god Shader believed in. The god the Templum imposed on most of the Earth outside Sahul.