by Ian Irvine
Then something very strange happened. The assassin’s right hand whipped down but she did not release the knife—no, she could not. The full length of the blade slammed down into her upper thigh and right kneecap, crack.
Blood poured down her thigh; her knee gave and she slowly toppled outwards and fell head first into the water. She went under, there was an explosion of bubbles a long way down, and after a minute she bobbed to the surface halfway between Karan and the blazing barrel, face down.
The man holding the torch let out an anguished cry: “Saley, Saley?” He leaped into the water and thrashed towards her.
Karan pulled Sulien away and they swam towards the moored boats. Sulien was making little whimpering sounds. The man lifted Saley’s head out of the water and held her up, then let out an awful moan.
“The stupid slukk failed,” bellowed one of the men at the next window, using a foul swear word. “Get after them, fool!
The man in the water looked around dazedly. Karan drew Sulien deeper into the shadows.
“That way!” roared the man at the window, pointing. “Go, go!”
He turned away, and Karan swam quietly off, using only one arm, Sulien by her side. The shoulder wound would continue to bleed while they remained in the water, and she was already faint from shock or blood loss. Sulien’s teeth were chattering, and Karan could feel the cold creeping into her own core. The River Garr flowed out of the high mountains west of Sith and the water was icy; they could not endure it much longer. But the moment they tried to climb out, the assassins would find them. They were running this way along the side of the dock.
“There they are!” someone bellowed.
It was a struggle to stay afloat now, she felt so very weak. There was a furious clash of blades, a lot of yelling and screaming and grunting, then silence and a listless peace stole over her. It didn’t matter any more.
“Mummy!” Sulien said in her ear. She slapped Karan across the face, hard. “Wake up!”
Cold water rushed up Karan’s nose and she roused herself, gasping, her nose burning.
Someone pounded along the dock, holding a lightglass. “Karan?”
“Here,” said Sulien. “Mummy’s hurt.”
Yggur crouched down and extended his long arms.
“Mummy first,” said Sulien.
He heaved Karan out and laid her on the rough ironwood of the dock. He lifted Sulien with one hand then knelt beside Karan.
“They got her in the left shoulder,” said Sulien.
Yggur checked the wound, put his hand across it and subvocalised a charm. Karan’s shoulder steamed and the blood flow stopped.
“Who … were … they?” she said dully.
He turned to study the burning rooming house. Flames had spread along the roof from one end to the other. “We don’t know yet.”
“I’ll bet the triplets sent them,” said Sulien, shivering violently.
Yggur pulled off his coat and wrapped it around her. “Why do you say that?”
“I dreamed them just before I woke up. I’d know Jaguly’s laugh anywhere.”
“How d-did they know we were h-here?” said Karan.
“That’s the question,” he said grimly. He picked her up. “Back to the sky ship.”
There were lights around it, and guards. Yggur lifted Karan into the cabin, bared her shoulder and studied the wound, frowning.
“You know how to clean wounds?” he said to Sulien.
“Yes,” she said softly.
“Get … wet clothes off … first,” said Karan.
Yggur opened a compartment and handed Sulien the healer’s bag. “I’ll be gone some time. We leave at sunrise.”
Sulien stripped off her wet clothes and replaced them with new ones, then dressed Karan’s shoulder and helped her into her own new clothes. Karan lay on the floor, enduring the throbbing.
“What did you do back there?” she said. “You saved my life.”
“And killed the assassin,” said Sulien wanly.
“You didn’t kill her; she drowned. How did you make the knife stick to her hand?”
“Once, when you were telling me about the principles of the Secret Art, you said Like calls to like.”
“Didn’t think you were paying attention,” Karan muttered.
“Oh Mummy!” Sulien sighed.
“So your physical gift isn’t completely gone, then.”
“I couldn’t have done it to save myself. Only you.”
“How?”
“I took the assassin’s knife from your shoulder, commanded it to stick to my hand, then pointed it at her knife and spoke the command again.”
“And because the two knives were identical,” said Karan, “she couldn’t let go.” She hugged Sulien. “You bother me sometimes.”
“Not as much as you bother me,” Sulien said sternly. “I’ve never known anyone to get in as much trouble as you.”
“Except Llian,” Karan said absently, but regretted it the moment she spoke the words.
Sulien’s face crumpled. “Can’t you sense Daddy at all?” She had asked that question a dozen times on the way back from Shazabba. “I know you linked to him years ago.”
“Before you were born. I’ve hardly ever been able to do it again. I’ve tried and tried, Sulien, but I can’t sense him at all.”
“Me neither,” Sulien whispered. “Not even with my empathy gift.” She went very quiet and curled up in a corner and did not move, though whenever Karan looked her way she saw the faint light reflected in Sulien’s eyes.
Yggur returned not long before dawn. “What did you discover?” Karan said sleepily.
“A well organised attack, ten of them. At three in the morning they slew the guards on the gate and headed straight for the rooming house, killing everyone they met and setting fires to create as much chaos as they could.”
Sulien sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Do you think they’ll come back?”
“Not in this world, child,” said Yggur. “I’ve led armies. I know what to do in an emergency. I had the gate blocked within a minute and the shipyard guards on the hunt. We got them all.”
“Did they reveal anything?” said Karan.
“Only the fellow in the water. All the others fought to the death. Unfortunately he was the least of them and could not tell us who sent them.”
“Sulien thought the triplets.”
“But they can’t be powerful enough to control a squad directly from so far away. They’ve got to be working through a traitor, someone clever enough to know where to find skilled assassins and employ them …” His jaw muscles knotted.
“Not Shand,” said Karan.
“I wouldn’t have thought it possible either a few weeks ago. But he’s bitter and resentful, he can turn himself invisible, and no one has seen him in a fortnight.” Yggur looked up. “Who’s that?”
“Hello?” called Ussarine from the bottom of the ladder.
“I said she could come with us,” said Karan, remembering.
“Does Hingis know?” Yggur said quietly.
“I haven’t seen him since we got to Sith.”
Yggur called to the guards to let Ussarine through. She tossed up her pack, sword and scabbard and crutches, then he helped to heave her in. She worked her way up to the back, put her gear in one of the racks and sat in the corner.
“Five minutes to dawn,” said Yggur a few minutes later. Then, quietly to Karan, “Where the hell is he?”
Ten minutes later she heard footsteps on the paving stones, then the craft shook as Hingis made his slow way up the ladder. He nodded to Yggur, then Karan, then saw Ussarine’s glowing face up the back. His twisted features froze and he began to go back down.
Yggur was out of his seat in an instant. He leaped to the doorway and caught the little man by the shoulder. “In!” he growled.
Hingis tried to jump off the ladder. Yggur held him and after a short struggle Hingis evidently decided it was a battle that could not be won. He climbed in and heade
d for the closest seat.
“Down there!” said Yggur coldly, pointing to the seat next to Ussarine’s. “Sort it out!”
Hingis sat next to Ussarine, glowering the other way. Yggur had the stay ropes released, worked his levers, and the sky ship lifted sharply, turned and headed towards the high mountains.
“What’s the matter with Ussarine?” said Sulien, looking from her to Hingis.
Karan poked Sulien in the ribs with an elbow. “Don’t stare. It’s rude.”
“But what’s the matter?”
Karan lowered her voice and attempted to explain. “Ussarine loves Hingis, and he loves—used to love her. But his twin sister, Esea, who was very beautiful, felt threatened. They were very close and she was afraid that Hingis would choose Ussarine and abandon her. Eventually she forced him to choose between them, and he chose Ussarine. Esea, perhaps affected by the drumming from the summon stone, went mad with grief and brought down a stone pavilion on them, breaking both Ussarine’s legs, then fled thinking she’d killed them both. Later she transformed the Command device, causing it to explode, and it killed her. And Snoat and his evil mancer, Scorbic Vyl.”
Yggur chose that moment to throttle back. The roar of the rotors died away to a distant ticking, and Sulien’s high voice soared into the silence.
“Does Hingis know his sister is dead?”
38
IT ACHES TO POSSESS
How could gentle, clever Earnis be gone from the world, just like that?
Lumillal looked fuller now, more solid and real. He stroked an elongated hand in Aviel’s direction and chills trailed down her front. She sank into the cauldron until she was calf deep in icy water again—freezing, helpless and shattered. First she had lost Wilm—she dared not hope he was still alive for fear her bad luck would jinx him. Now Earnis, and soon Hublees, Osseion, Nimil, and even Shand would be killed. Invisibility was no protection against a ghost vampire who could see a person’s life force and smell their blood.
And then her.
After feeding on so many gifted people, Lumillal would come back to life as a sorcerer vampire, no longer bound to Rogues Render. He would stalk the land, drinking blood and bringing death—or undeath—to hundreds, all because of her stupidity in coming here. How could she have thought to take on a ghost vampire when everyone else had failed?
Lumillal followed her down. Afraid? he hissed. You will be before I’m done.
Hublees had told her how it worked. Lumillal wanted to draw her terror out, both for his sadistic satisfaction and because he could extract more of her life force that way. That was why he had murdered Earnis in front of her.
He swirled his right hand at her, as he had done to Earnis. I won’t let you, she thought, but within seconds the inside of the rusty cauldron was lit by a faint yellow radiance, a streamer of her own life force.
Lumillal swept a claw-like hand through it, scattering it, and the top of her head stung. He held his fingers up to his face; they were covered in little yellow speckles.
A seventh sister, he said as if reading her life in the pattern. A twist-foot who dreams of being a perfumer. He laughed mockingly. A crippled little bastard who doesn’t even know her own father. How sad, how pathetic your dreams are. He turned his hideous hand over and read the back. You accidentally made a scent potion, he sneered, and now you think you have the gift, yet you’re terrified of the dark side. I’ve got news for you, twist-foot—this is the dark side, and it’s going to get darker than you can ever imagine.
She whimpered and he laughed mockingly. Pathetic little fool!
Aviel took a whisper of comfort from this. It was good to be underestimated.
He made the swirling gesture again; the yellow light brightened and he gathered in the threads and tendrils of her life force as he had done with Earnis, though far more slowly now—only one thread at a time and showing his pointed yellow-green teeth as he drew each thread towards her, luxuriating in her terror.
But Aviel had gone beyond terror to a white-hot, vengeful rage. He was not going to beat her; he was not going to win; she would not let him kill her allies. She pretended to cower away from him and, while he wound the silken threads from hand to elbow, she slipped her hands inside her waistband, untied the cord around the hilt of the black sword and slid it out.
He saw it and laughed again, high and cold, and continued his winding. Do your worst! No blade can harm me.
Aviel was sure he was right, but, acting on instinct, she pulled off the wrappings and thrust the black sword up between his ribs, into the space where his heart had been—assuming he’d ever had one—when he was alive. Llian had told Wilm that the sword was enchanted, and though she had seen no sign of any enchantment she prayed that he was right. She rotated the sword between Lumillal’s ribs for good measure, then wrenched it out.
He reached out, flicked the tip of the sword, ting, and smiled. Like I said.
She had nothing left. She was lowering the black sword, her arm shaking, when she felt a faint exhalation and a breathy little sigh.
What was that? said a dry, scratchy voice. Mendark, what’s going on? Where am I?
Lumillal’s great luminous eyes blinked three times and he took a small step back through the air.
Hudigarde? said the scratchy voice.
It was coming from the sword! “No,” said Aviel. “That’s Lumillal, a ghost vampire.”
Who the hell are you? the sword said querulously. Put me down at once. Mendark?
It felt different now—alive. “I’m Aviel. Mendark was killed by a lorrsk in Shazmak ten years ago.”
Mendark lived for eleven hundred years. He renewed his life thirteen times. He can’t be dead.
“It’s in the Histories,” said Aviel. “Why did you call Lumillal Hudigarde?”
What right have you got to question me, you little twerp?
Lumillal reached out with those awful elongated fingers, grey bone and sinew tinged with green, as if to draw another thread of life force from Aviel, but the sword rose of its own accord and he drew back, ravenous but frustrated.
“We’re continuing Mendark’s work,” said Aviel. “We’re trying to find the summon stone and destroy it.”
Who’s we?
“Malien, Nadiril, Shand, Tallia, Yggur—”
Never liked Yggur, it muttered. Cold, arrogant, damaged, unreliable—
“Mendark didn’t like him either,” she said boldly, “but he worked with all kinds of people when the need arose.”
Presumptuous little chit! said the sword. What are you doing here?
She told it. The sword’s tip circled the air before Lumillal’s chest.
Ah, I remember now, it said. The former queen, Tissany, being both clever and likeable, soon gained her freedom in the land where the women of Tindule were enslaved. She began plotting retribution on Hudigarde and on her sister, Lablag.
Tissany allowed herself to be bitten by a vampire so she would become one, then hunted Lablag and Hudigarde down. She brought them in chains to Rogues Render, turned them into vampires and killed them so their ghost vampires would for ever be bound to this terrible place. The sword described another tight circle. Where’s Lablag?
Lumillal swallowed. She went mad and starved herself into a wisp.
The sword prodded his breastbone, releasing a faint acid-green aura. And then you consumed her—your own wife!
“So that’s how he became a sorcerer,” said Aviel.
Not as stupid as you look, said the sword. And you linger on, Hudigarde, it said to Lumillal, tormented by guilt yet unable to accept responsibility for either your crimes or your ruin. Your living death, poetic justice though it is, must be agonising.
And you’re a pissy little persona, snapped Lumillal, trapped in a worthless old sword that I’m about to destroy—and you with it! He swirled his hand a third time. Aviel felt an agonising pain in the top of her head, and the cauldron glowed like a yellow searchlight. I’m taking my freedom now!
He l
unged at Aviel with open hands, ripped bundles of her life force from her and wound them furiously. Instantly the strength drained out of her; she staggered and nearly fell. The tip of the sword grounded on the bottom of the cauldron then jerked back in her hand so hard that she was forced upright. Her back struck the side of the cauldron and her sword hand rose of its own volition.
You can’t touch me. Lumillal grinned.
But I can. The sword lunged up towards Lumillal’s right eye.
“No!” she cried.
The sword froze in her hand. You dare command me?
“You might have destroyed the Archeus.”
You should not have stopped it, twist-foot. Too late now. Lumillal began winding her threads again.
But the sword lunged again, this time lower, passing through Lumillal’s ghostly neck, striking his equally ethereal backbone and, with a bright blue flash, neatly severing it. The ghost vampire froze, hanging in the air, glaring at her but unable to move anything below the neck.
Best gather your life force and pop it back in, girlie, said the sword gruffly. Just in case.
“How?” said Aviel. “I can’t touch it.”
The sword’s black tip prised the yellow threads away from Lumillal and held them under Aviel’s nose. Deep breath!
She sucked in a breath. The threads shot up her nose with a stinging tingle; her head spun and the last of her strength drained away. The sword fell from her hand, clang, into the icy muck at the bottom of the cauldron.
Watch my edges, girlie! Yuk! And when you’re done I’ll need a thorough cleaning.
Aviel felt so ill that she did not even find it strange to be abused by an inanimate object. She was on her knees, groping in the freezing sludge for the hilt when a pair of big dark hands, one with a missing middle finger, caught the rim of the cauldron and Osseion’s dark face appeared. He grunted, heaved himself up, then reached down and hauled dumpy little Hublees up beside him, gasping. Judging by the expression on their faces they had been expecting the worst.
He looked from Aviel to the paralysed ghost vampire and back again. “How?” he said quietly.
Aviel was too weak and ill and cold to speak; she simply held up the sword.