And then a man was alongside the DCI. Most of his teeth were missing, and his knife by his side was still stained with blood. His black cloak was ripped and torn.
“Sir, can I interest you in a multitude of interesting ways eliminate rivals? Would you want to take an interest in our latest twenty per cent off offer?”
Pouchii was about to answer, but Sethlon was by his side.
“No, he’s not.”
“My lord! How are you?” The man smiled a crooked smile at the duke.
“I haven’t got a knife in my back yet, which is one thing, Crandi. Anyway, I was wondering if you could help us with a little conundrum.”
“Anything, my liege.”
“We’re looking for the assassination group which got the viscount. I was admiring the workmanship, and was wondering if…”
“Say no more, sir, say no more.” The man paused. “I don’t suppose you’d consider using the Gryandance Facility, would you? We’re very exclusive, and…”
“I might if you tell me who got that viscount.” Sethlon bartered.
“Well, I heard on the grapevine that it was something to do with The Establishment, but they’re very costly, if you don’t mind me saying so. On average, we are over fifty per cent cheaper on your standard cattle.”
“Cattle?” Sethlon looked bemused.
“Market rhyming slang. Cattle Herder…”
“…Murder. Of course.” Sethlon smiled. “Anyway, got to dash. Comparing prices, and all that…”
He led them off as the man raised his arms in protest and shouted something about price matching after them. Sethlon rolled his eyes.
They swept out of the market’s striped roofs, and back into the cobbled street. The houses leaned in closer now, and the side streets that led off seemed even darker than any before. Pouchii read a few names. He had no personal wish to go down anywhere with names like “Death Way”, “Dark Alley”, or even “Even Darker Alley.” Perhaps another day.
They passed a hospital, which seemed to have more dead bodies coming out of it than patients sitting in the little shack out the front labelled “A+E”. But then Pouchii presumed you didn’t need to go to A+E if you were dead. It was a bit late, really, by the time it had go to that stage. The next building along was a police station. Or it had been. It looked as if someone had bordered it up, and the silhouettes of police officers in the windows looked worryingly stationary. Almost as if they were dead…
Now, at last, Sethlon motioned, and they turned off down a little side street. In fact, it was little more than a muddy track way, with grass and weeds poking up through the ground. Someone once had tried to cobble it. The result was a load of loose stones stamped into the mud by hundreds of feet.
The sign on the little lane called it “The Row”, and the houses either side of it had their backs to it, with not one door or window overlooking it. And yet, Pouchii could feel the eyes digging into his back. From time to time, he could swear he could hear the squelch of feet following them in the mud. But whenever he turned round, there was no-one there.
Sethlon turned to them in the narrow confines of the lane. He spoke very quietly, so as not to raise any sort of alarm.
“Now it is absolutely imperative you do not say a word. We are entering Erodiums most dangerous district. There are ears everywhere, and knives too. Do as you are told, and trust no-one. And, for Rosium’s sake, don’t draw those swords. I could do without the old fool killing us all.”
“My Lord, the 11th Duke Klagen. Such wise words.” Sethlon turned to face the speaker, a man in black robes slashed with a red velvet lining. “Apart from the last ones. I’m sure the ‘old fool’ will come to appreciate them, though. After he’s had your head sliced off.”
Sethlon stared coolly into the man’s eyes, judging him in an instant. When he spoke, his voice was laced with steel.
“I do apologise if I offended the honour of your master.”
“His honour? Haven’t you met the assassin king before, have you? He’s about as honourable as a weasel.” The assassin scoffed.
“How dare you!” Sethlon snapped at the opportunity. “I demand that you take me to your king to tell him about this terrible slight!”
The man froze, glancing round him at the bare, muddy walls, as if he knew that people were watching from there.
“Quiet. I’ll take you. If he hears…”
“You’ll be as dead as a doornail. In fact, he might even decide to kill you with a doornail. If I remember rightly, he has a wonderful sense of humour.” Sethlon grinned into the eyes of the petrified assassin, and walked straight passed him up the lane, Pouchii and the two knights in hot pursuit. “That is how you deal with assassins.” He explained. “Firmly, and with gusto.”
“That man was an assassin?” Pouchii frowned. “He looked a bit pale to be…”
“All assassins are pale. It’s all that killing and no sunbathing. And I told you not to talk.” Sethlon carried on walking as he talked. “Think of all the murders hiding in the walls all around us, listening to every word you say.”
“Does that mean you knew that man would come out and challenge you if you said that the assassin king was an old goat?” Pouchii was persistent.
“Shut up.” Pouchii got the feeling that Sethlon was enjoying ordering him around perhaps a little too much. “And yes, of course it does. I wanted to let the assassin king know I was coming. I mean, it’s rude not to knock on his door before entering. That was the equivalent.”
This time Pouchii knew better than to respond. Sethlon would only order him round even more, and the DCI didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.
The lane finally opened out of the dark and squalor, into a small opening around the vast blackened walls of a shattered factory. Chimneys loomed, and people scurried around the ruins like ants. And poisonous ants at that.
The air was heavy and oppressive, but the acidic rain had stopped hammering down on their heads. Pouchii found his head tilting upwards, to the yellow tinted sky. It looked as if the planet itself was sick. The DCI didn’t blame it.
Sethlon took a set of steps that were cracked and stained. His feet clacked and seemed to echo – though it sounded suspiciously like someone else was walking up the steps with him. When they reached the top, a partially intact door of blackened steel blocked their way. Sethlon walked straight up to it, and it screeched open, admitting them all into a darkened hall.
The only source of light was situated high up in the roof itself – at first Pouchii thought they were lights, but then he realised that it was only a few holes in the roof, where the corrugated steel had rusted through. The floor was roughly paved, and the clay floor tiles had cracked and split under the weight of time. There were brackets on the walls, and some on the floor, but the machinery they had once held had been removed, doubtless sold as scrap – there was no money in industry on Erodium these days. Except perhaps the obsidite trade. And, judging by the amount of rust the brackets had left behind, there was no way that they could have stood up to the might of obsidite vapour, which always seemed to waft around obsi-factories.
The place stunk of death – its king was clearly a man who did not want to distance himself from his craft, particularly if the bloodstains and spent musket cartridges scattered around the floor were anything to go by. Pouchii’s eyes walked up the gloomy floor, before ascending a small podium, to a throne made entirely of glass, to the man who sat atop it. The king returned his glare with interest.
Atop his glistening bald scalp, a thousand knife points tickled downwards, in a crown of steel. They were welded and set at odd angles, so that the unsuspecting wearer would have scratched his head to pieces. But the king was clearly an experienced man – not a single scar or drop of blood criss-crossed his scalp, and the knives themselves gleamed with polish, rather than blood.
“My lord Sethlon.” He had an imperious, lisped Windian accent, which whipped across the room. “What an honour it is to have you in my courtroom.”
“Your grace.” Sethlon bowed his head respectfully. “It is an honour indeed to be here.”
“And for what purpose do you come here, to sit before the obsidite throne?” The king gestured to his mighty glass seat, which made Pouchii realise something – far from being fashioned from solid glass, it was actually a glass tank, coated on the inside with the obsidite-proof juices of the Cannera tree, and filled with the clear, corrosive liquid. If the crown of knives was a danger to wear, to sit on that was practically suicide – if the glass so much as cracked, it would release litres of obsidite, or topple the king into the tank, and Pouchii wouldn’t fancy dying like that. A single mouthful of the liquid would eat its way through your internal organs, burning your stomach and digestive system out. Then it struck your lungs, and, slowly corroding away, you finally reached death, unable to breathe. The man who sat on that throne was braver than the DCI.
“We come to beg your favour.” Sethlon walked up to the throne, taking each step carefully and collectedly.
“Really?” The king sternly frowned down, looking a little surprised. “I didn’t think begging was your style.”
“Our need is very great.” Sethlon placed one of his hands down heavily on the arm rest of the throne, which made the king visibly flinch, terror flashing momentarily across his eyes. “We seek the killers of Viscount Momor.”
“He’s dead?” The king was a bad liar, and it was clear to Pouchii, who’d interviewed enough suspects in his time to know when they were talking gibberish, that he was feigning ignorance.
“Don’t act stupid with me.” Sethlon’s voice suddenly turned nasty, and his hand made a fist. He raised it slightly, and brought it crashing down onto the glass. The king screamed, but Sethlon’s hand stopped with millimetres to spare, just above the tank. “Talk. Now.”
“Alright.” He was visibly shaken. “Just don’t do anything like that again. You’ll get us both killed.”
Pouchii glanced round, seeing a few palace attendants for the first time, clustered in the shadows. None of them seemed likely to help the king, mind you. They looked as if they didn’t care if the throne broke. But then, assassins are used to death. Presumably these ones had got to the stage where it didn’t matter who’s death it was.
“I heard about Takka’s death.” The king spoke quietly, if a little croakily. “On the grapevine. But I’ll have to do a little bit of digging to find out the assassin’s group involved, and the client. Of course, I’ll need payment.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Otherwise you can forget about any future shipments of swords and knives.” Sethlon glowered at the monarch.
“I can always find another supplier.” The assassin didn’t budge an inch.
“Not as good as Sethlon Steel, though.” The lord grinned. Pouchii got the feeling he was enjoying this. “And if you tell you’re assassin gangs that you’ve had a bit of a falling out with Lord Sethlon, and all further swords will be of inferior quality, they might decide to have a new king who gets on better with me, and arrange for you to slip one day when you’re getting on that throne.”
“Fine. Just keep your voice down.” The assassin king glance furtively to either side. “Don’t want to go giving them any ideas.”
“And what about accommodation?” Pouchii thought Sethlon was going a bit too far with his demands, but the assassin king simply nodded.
“I’ll sort it out. It shouldn’t take much. This palace is so big, and you’d be amazed by the number of empty rooms.” The king raised a hand, and an assistant appeared. “Take these men to a room. They need to sleep.”
There was a great deal of scuffling feet, as the assistant grovelled before his king, but the second he was upright again, he walked with a purpose, Sethlon and the others following at a distance. Pouchii saw that the two knights had their hands on their sword-hilts. Clearly Sethlon was taking no chances.
They turned out of the great hall, taking a side exit, then another, off into smaller and smaller corridors and tunnels, Pouchii’s eyes spinning at the complexity of the warren. There was practically no lighting, with only the odd hole in the ceiling tiles providing even the slightest glimmer of light. But the DCI’s eyes soon got used to the dark. Not that there was much to see. Each corridor looked depressingly similar to the next, and that was the uniform grubby black scheme that had been carried on throughout the building. Clearly the designer had been no fan of colour.
Nobody talked. Their guide had pulled his hood up even further, obscuring his face completely, and walked faster and faster, his cloak a blur against the grimy black walls. Pouchii reckoned he was either mute or extremely antisocial. In fact, he was both. Cutting tongues out is a pretty standard practice amongst the assassin community.
They swept down a particularly black corridor, where even the missing ceiling tiles seemed to be letting in no light, until they reached the end. Then the guide raised a cloaked arm, gesturing at a doorway. Sethlon nodded to him, and spoke in a low and respectful voice.
“May the Lady Rosartras protect your soul.”
The man nodded, his hand lifted itself in blessing in return. And then he turned, and the blackness swallowed him up.
“What was that about?” Pouchii spoke quietly to the lord.
“Rosartras is the warlike aspect of the goddess Rosium.” Sethlon pushed the door open. It squeaked rather ominously. “A rather controversial cult, but one that has a lot of strength in the Universe of Fire, and in Erodium. He was a priest of Rosartras. Hence the black robes, bloodstains, hood, and the fact that his tongue had been cut out.”
“What?” Pouchii was shocked.
“Standard initiation ritual to the church of Our Lady Rosartras.” Sethlon frowned. “Mind you, I seem to remember that the other ceremonies include cutting all their fingers off and then sewing them back on, so that you have all the dried up and dead bits of fingers hanging limp from your black sleeves, so he can’t have been very high up in the church.
“And the Lady Rosium is ok with this?”
“No,” Sethlon stepped into the room. “She’s been trying to stop it for generations, but all the other churches, her main one included, teach all this ‘love your neighbour’ stuff, and the assassins aren’t very keen on that, so they just carry on with their church and ignore their own goddess. The Odo, as head of the mainstream church of Our Lady Rosium, gives the odd speech about it every now and then. I’m surprised you hadn’t heard of it.”
“I had,” Pouchii explained. “But I’d assumed it only existed these days in the Universe of Fire. I mean, they’ll do anything there.”
“Don’t be so anti-Fireian.” Sethlon frowned. “They may be a little uncivilised, but the murder rate is down one hundred and sixty per cent since twenty years ago.”
“When we beat them at the Battle of the Greatest Loss.” Pouchii’s eyes shied away from Sethlon’s, as they contorted with rage. Pure rage.
“Quite.” Sethlon steered the topic away. They’d all done things they’d regretted at Greatest Loss. “Room looks good.”
It was the overstatement of the century. Slime was growing from the black walls, the window had been boarded up, with black boards, and the beds had no mattresses. Pouchii looked at him, and burst out laughing. The sound bounced unfamiliarly around the walls.
“We’ll take turns at staying awake.” Sethlon turned to his two knights. “I don’t trust our friend the king, and if any other minor assassin thinks he can get away with it, he’ll be here trying to cut our heads off in our sleep. And that is something I wouldn’t like to happen.” There were nods all round, and all settled down into a corner of the room, propping themselves up against the slime covered walls, which offered some cushioning at least. Only Sir Cralton waited by the door, his hand clamped around his sword hilt. And his dark eyes fixed on the blackness of the door.
Pouchii’s eyelids fluttered shut, his mind still dwelling on that fateful day, twenty years ago. His lips contorted, and he trembled as his mind
slipped into the caverns of sleep.
He stared out over the lumpy hills, his eyes scanning the horizon. His face creased in sadness as the lone white obelisk came into his field of vision. He focused on it, and began to take long, slow paces towards it. His feet had barely carried him halfway over the dip when his boot sunk into the ground. He glanced down and saw that it was covered in mud and gore. He shuddered, pausing to wipe it on the stunted grass, and then he carried on up the slope.
When he reached the top he was out of breath. He looked out for the second time, over land, which had once been flat as a pancake, with flowers and trees and grass.
What he saw now repulsed him. The land had decayed, as if struck by a disease. The ground was hilly, the dumping ground of war. The bodies that lay under those hills had once had lives of their own. They, nor anyone, deserved to lay under the muck where they had fallen, with only a single, shining pillar marking their graves.
The Viscount Connection Page 6