Mage Assassin

by Logan Jacobs

  They all gasped and scowled at the news, but I calmly continued.

  “We don’t know what this means yet, and the timing of the warlock’s arrival is still too unclear to be directly linked to his death,” I cautioned. “I have someone keeping eyes on the kingdom who may be able to help clarify the situation. In the meantime, pursue any trails with regards to the warlocks. Apparently, this was a male with a gray robe, so he’d be more advanced in his skillset. We are still searching for suspects, though. Everyone is to begin going back through their most recent jobs for any holes or hints that might be of use to us. Even if you think an instance might not be important, I still need to know about any backlash we may have missed.”

  “Yes, Master,” the group agreed with stern faces.

  “Let’s get to it,” I replied.

  The group of assassins all nodded in response and promptly filed out the door again.

  Mazne offered another small bow before she followed, but a proud little smile escaped her as she met my eyes right before she shut the door.

  Then I was alone in my new office, and I took a deep breath before I got to work on gathering my own intel about the bastard who’d killed our Master.

  Chapter 14

  Only the Master of our house had access to the ledgers and dockets of the estate, and I’d always known Master Abbot had some means of enchanting his desk so no snooping hands could get at them.

  Now that I was alone in the office, I eyed the drawers of the great, oaken desk.

  I needed to look through the estate records in order to figure out if there was some rogue warlock victim in the mix, and I could only hope whatever magic was at work here knew I had taken the Master’s place.

  I reached for the largest drawer to my left, and I jimmied the intricate, silver handle, but the drawer didn’t budge. My teeth immediately clenched as I tried the other four drawers, and I wrenched harder at each one as my concern mounted.

  “This is a problem,” I muttered to myself.

  Then I reached for the drawers on my right side next, and the first silver handle felt oddly warm in my fingertips. I furrowed my brow and looked down, and that’s when I realized the symbol on my palm was gleaming ever so slightly.

  A smile spread across my lips as the drawer smoothly slid open.

  “Clever trick,” I murmured.

  I tested my theory on the other drawers now, and I confirmed that the branding on this hand’s palm allowed me access to every locked space within the oaken desk. Then I chuckled a bit as I pulled out a thick binding from the largest drawer, and I sat back down and opened the yellowing pages.

  I spent the next hour skimming through the ledgers for the last month for any clients with connections to the Warlocks’ Estate. The Master kept track of most of our clients’ associations around the city, but unfortunately, not even a distant cousin of a warlock came up.

  Then I pulled out the binding of our most recent docket, but I wasn’t too surprised to find no warlock or warlock relations listed among our targets. I was disappointed to find no leads in the documents, but it was interesting to see how thorough the master had been with his side of the business. In the rest of the drawers were the individual mission dockets of each assassin in the estate, and I smirked when I saw Pamphrus sitting at the top of the stack.

  His docket was quite a bit thicker than the others beneath it, and I pulled out his file and started to look at it more in depth. To my surprise, I found that the tattooed assassin had killed three professional troll boxers in just one evening two weeks ago. Troll boxers were notoriously violent drinkers, and it looked like the work had been done after they’d left a tavern, so I was doubly impressed.

  Elis’ docket was paper thin and placed beneath Pamphrus’, and the Master had jotted down several notes on his training over the last six months. Most of them referenced his need for intensive magical training, but overall, he appeared to be incredibly dedicated to his regimen.

  Spodium was even less documented, but she was noted as being “flighty” and “highly intelligent,” and the more I learned about the assassins I worked with, the stronger my sense of pride in my new position became.

  Then I noticed a much thicker volume at the bottom of this stack, and it was labeled “Commendable Deaths.”

  I pulled it out and opened it up as my eyes widened, and I found my report of the dragonkin assassination on the top page. I smirked when I saw Master Abbot had written, “Undeniably brilliant. Needs almost no prep time to perform his missions. What else can I say?” at the top of the report, but then I flipped through a few pages and noticed Incrassatum’s name filled up quite a lot of the volume.

  I stopped on a page that detailed Incrassatum’s assassination of a human man who’d been stealing nymphs from the streets to sell them. The job was supposed to be a clean and quick one, but Incrassatum had taken the liberty of skinning the man alive until he finally bled out instead. The Master left a note in red ink at the bottom of the report calling it a disturbing and putrid act, but one that he admired quite a lot given the nature of the crime. I grinned and shook my head as I rifled through the rest of the coarse woman’s dealings, but then there was a knock on the door.

  Timere announced himself, and when I hollered for him to enter, he came in looking quite nervous. He was always so confident around me, and I gathered that my new title had made him see me as someone other than Dex Morgan.

  “D-Dex… I mean, Master,” he stuttered from the doorway, and he scruffed his sandy-blond hair. “Sorry.”

  “It’s no problem,” I returned and put the volume of Commendable Deaths away. “I think it will take time for all of us to readjust. Come in and take a seat.”

  “Just had an update for you, is all,” he started on his way over. “I killed a troll last week, pretty easy job, not too messy, but I’ve found out the victim actually had a pretty hot-tempered brother.”

  “And do you think this brother is a threat?” I asked Timere.

  “Well, apparently he’s sworn vengeance for the crime,” the assassin continued. “But after checking around at the taverns where he’s been running his mouth, he doesn’t seem to have a fucking clue who actually killed the troll.”

  “Right, I see.” I nodded.

  “I think it might be something to keep an eye on, though,” Timere said.

  “I agree,” I replied. “It’s not a promising lead, but it’s definitely a good start.”

  The assassin slowly rose from his chair and gave me a thin-lipped smile. He was still slightly shaky around me, and he offered me an awkward half-wave, half-bow before he shuffled to the door.

  “Timere,” I called him.

  He turned around and looked at me, though not in the eyes, and he nervously scruffed his sandy hair again.

  “I’m still Dex, you know?” I chuckled. “You don’t have to be so damn nervous just because I’m the Master now. I’m still me.”

  “Oh,” he laughed. “Yeah, I need to remember that.”

  I smiled in his direction, and he quickly vanished out the door. Only seconds later, another sharp rap echoed through the wood, and when I called my next assassin in, Incrassatum strolled into the office.

  She was the polar opposite of Timere, and she walked in like it was any other day and slammed her hands on the desk before taking a seat. Spodium walked more slowly behind her and stood next to Incrassatum with flushed cheeks and an eager smile on her face.

  “Find out anything?” I asked the peasant-looking women.

  “That we have,” Incrassatum announced with confidence.

  “Excellent, what is it?” I asked and looked between the two women.

  “Well, we started scouting previous jobs from the past week to a month or so, just like you asked,” Spodium piped up, and Incrassatum slowly turned to glower up at her. “Been at it for over an hour, too, hoofed it all over at least a third of the northwest quarter.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” I replied.

  “And,”
Incrassatum firmly took over, “we’ve ruled out the tengu, who were my main concern.”

  I leaned forward on the desk and furrowed my eyebrows. “What made you concerned about them?”

  “Oh! Just because--” Spodium went to say, but Incrassatum cut her off.

  “I’ll do the rest of the talking, girl,” Incrassatum snarled. “I killed a tengu the other week and saw them circling the estate just the other day.”

  “I didn’t see this,” I uttered back.

  “You were killing a dragonkin, that’s why,” she said with a half-grin.

  “I see,” I muttered.

  “I thought we should pay them a visit,” she started again, “because they’re fuckin’ wicked-minded anyway, and I had it in my head that they had something to do with the Master’s murder.”

  “Right,” I hummed. “Well, just because they are inherently violent and flock above the kingdom a lot, doesn’t mean they have a role to play in all of this.”

  “It could,” she defied. “They are literal humanoid monster-things.”

  “Carry on,” I said as I humored the woman.

  “We went to talk to them,” she said. “Well, the Elder Tengu, at least. I told him that the Master had passed on.”

  “That was a risk,” I returned with a frown. “Although, word will certainly spread eventually. Did he seem to suspect you of murdering this other tengu recently?”

  “No, he didn’t seem to clock it at all,” Incrassatum snickered. “I told him we were going around the kingdom and telling everyone who was close to Master Abbot, just to get a sense of the elder’s stance on the matter.”

  “And what did he say?” I interrogated her.

  “That he was deeply sorry,” Spodium chimed in. “And he looked like he really was, too. Seemed really genuine, and he even began to cry a bit.”

  “A tengu cried for the Master?” I asked with some surprise.

  “It’s true.” Spodium nodded. “He actually seemed distraught.”

  “So, then we said that we heard about one of his own passing,” Incrassatum added. “Offered my apologies and what not, and he told us not to worry about his own grief at a time like this. They suspected it to be of old age.”

  “Were there no wounds?” I asked.

  “Nah, no wounds if you don’t puncture their skin.” The assassin smirked. “Poison’s much cleaner on a beast that big.”

  “Ah, I see.” I nodded.

  “Anyway, he said they had moved on from the death,” Spodium chimed in. “And with everything going on at the moment, they had to put their best foot forward with helping the kingdom if they wanted to survive.”

  “And you’re sure they were shocked with the news about the Master?” I confirmed. “And that they genuinely believe the tengu died from old age?”

  “That’s what the Elder Tengu told us,” Spodium announced.

  “I believe him.” Incrassatum nodded. “I can smell shit a mile away.”

  “Well, then that’s all I need to hear to be satisfied,” I sighed. “We’ll take the tengu off our list, but keep it up out there.”

  “Of course,” Spodium smiled and bustled to the doorway.

  “Hey, Inc,” I called just as the seasoned assassin went to leave.

  “Hmm?” she said and turned around.

  “Any lead on the warlocks?” I checked.

  “None, it’s a mess out there,” Incrassatum answered. “I talked to the arcane solderer down the road, though, before we headed north. He’s got his eyes trained to the Warlocks’ Estate just south of him, and he’s picking through what the locals say.”

  “Thank you.” I smiled.

  Incrassatum returned the gesture with her own straight-lipped smile, but for her, that was as much as any thank you she would ever give. Then she turned her back and left the office just as Cursor crossed over the threshold.

  The large man looked disheveled as he walked through the door, and I instantly turned my head up to meet him.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “It’s the blacksmith,” Cursor started.

  “Our blacksmith?”

  “Yes, Myokos.” He nodded.

  “I tried to look for him earlier, but he wasn’t in the shop,” I said.

  “Well, now he’s looking for you,” Cursor snorted. “Ran into him near the market, told him about the Master. He’s real upset about it, but he said he’s gotta talk to you.”

  “Why didn’t he come himself?” I inquired.

  “He was making his way back to his family.” The large man shrugged. “I think that’s his priority right now considering everyone in the kingdom has convinced themselves it’s the end of the world.”

  The large man shook his head, and I smirked as I got up from the desk.

  “Where did you last see Myokos?” I asked.

  “He said he was only heading to his house for a moment,” Cursor told me. “Should be back to the shop by now, I’d reckon, I’ve been out talking to the half-elves for a bit.”

  “Thanks,” I replied. “Let everyone know I’ll be back shortly.”

  “Yes, sir,” the large man agreed.

  Then he left the office ahead of me, and I locked up before I headed off to the estate entrance. I nodded to Vulnus, Elis, and Mazne on my way to the door, and as soon as I got outside, I was greeted with smoke and demonic screams.

  I sort of felt desensitized to the chaos in the kingdom by now, though. We’d had storms break out for months straight that were somewhat louder than this, but the orange color looming in the sky did make it all feel like another world outside.

  I started to jog toward the blacksmith’s shop just down the road, and when I reached the wooden building, the windows looked dark. I banged my fist on the door, and when no one answered, I hollered out.

  “Myokos!” I shouted through the slats of the wooden door. “Are you there? Myokos, it’s Dex.”

  I flickered between beating on the door and peering through the window until I saw firelight on the back of the wall of the shop, and a silhouette emerged.

  The blacksmith hurried over and opened the door, and then he popped his head out from the doorway. His floppy cap almost slipped right off as he looked around the surrounding area, and then he hastily gestured for me to join him.

  “I think it’s best if we talked inside,” Myokos said in a hushed whisper.

  “Okay,” I agreed and quickly stepped through the threshold.

  The shop was dark, and the space was relatively small, but it had enough room for all of his forging equipment, as well as a large worktable, a few anvils, and a smattering of supplies.

  “In here,” Myokos said as he headed to the door at the back of the shop.

  “Why aren’t the lanterns lit?” I asked, and I followed him into the next room.

  “Don’t want people knowing I’m here,” he chuckled. “I’m not working during all this mess.”

  I had never been in the back of his shop before, so I was surprised to discover the smith had three times as much workspace attached to his building than I’d ever realized.

  Then Myokos struck a match and lit a few lanterns on the walls to reveal an extensive collection of tools and weapons stored all around the room.

  Hanging in front of me were bolts, swords, axes, chains, and even some wrought-iron furniture with strange, spiraling designs I had never seen before. There were arrows to the left of me that were green in color and had small spikes sticking out of the tips like thorns, and completely sleek and shiny silver arrows hung next to them. Then there were the regular steel ones that most of us in the estate used for elementary targets, and there must have been over fifty of them scattered across the table. They were all uniformly made, with pointed tips, and thin, yet strong, shafts.

  Just past the arrows were a collection of chisels, and some had rusted while others were so pristine that they reflected the light. Next to a chair were two more anvils fixed to the ground, and near them were more tools, including some hammer
s, punches, peens, tongs, and jaws, all of different shapes and sizes.

  “I had no idea this part even existed,” I murmured. “I thought you only have one piece of floor space.”

  “I tend to hide it,” Myokos admitted. “It’s better that people don’t see my best work lying around when I lock up each night. Here, take a seat.”

  I took a seat at the central table as I eyed the many tongs strewn in front of me. They looked vicious and some were large enough to clamp on a grown man’s skull, but Myokos swept the heft tools and bolts to the side with one burly arm before he took a seat opposite me.

  “So, I came to see you earlier,” I started, but the blacksmith held up a hand to stop me.

  “Hold on,” Myokos said and looked me square in the eyes. “I got something to tell you, first. It’s important.”

  “Oh,” I said with a nod. “Yeah, go ahead.”

  “Cursor says the Master’s gone,” Myokos said uneasily. “Said they found him murdered this morning. Is it true?”

  “Unfortunately,” I sighed, and the man removed his floppy cap and rubbed his forehead.

  “Right, well, I saw someone leaving the estate last night in a hurry,” he said in a wide-eyed whisper, and I narrowed my eyes as I leaned one elbow on the table.

  “Leaving through the estate door?” I clarified. “Or out of the grounds?”

  “Can’t be sure, he was coming out the gate entrance, but I thought it was pretty strange seeing as he was a warlock,” Myokos continued.

  My pulse quickened at the news.

  “What time was this?” I asked.

  “Right around nine o’clock, I’d say,” the blacksmith reported.

  “Shit,” I sighed. “The master was alive until about an hour after I left this morning. It was two hours before sunup, but apparently, a warlock was watching him through the window much earlier. We just haven’t been sure how that could connect.”

  “I don’t know, either,” Myokos admitted. “But I saw him high-tailing it to the north and looking pretty eager to get out of here.”

  “The north?” I asked and furrowed my brow. “But the warlocks live in the far south near the Necromancers’ Estate.”