The Bound Folio

by Rob J. Hayes

  “I have a job for him.”

  Alfer sipped at his mug of ale and watched the man over the lip.

  “I apologize. I have been rude, haven't I?”

  “Aye.”

  “My name is Vellin Artho. Most folk who know me call me Brown Fingers.”

  “Wilds name?”

  Vellin Artho nodded, a smug grin plastered to his face.

  Alfer had been out of touch with the wilds for a while and he didn't remember a Brown Fingers. If the man had earned himself a name in the wilds, though, he was far from a nobody.

  “Well met there, Vellin Artho, and thanks for the drink. My name is Alfer Boharn, not Alfyn Tether. Reckon you've come a long way for a wasted journey.”

  “You're telling me you are not Alfyn Tether, the Night Blade?”

  “Told ya that a few times already. The way I hear it, that fellow is dead, lad. Chasing ghosts ain't no way to live a life.”

  “If he's dead then I'm surely wasting my time by trying to save his life.”

  Alfer hesitated and Vellin Artho saw it. The man leaned back in his chair and smiled, his mug of ale still sitting untouched. Alfer looked down at his own mug in suspicion. He was definitely slipping in his old age and retirement. Poisoning a man's drink was a devious way to go about a murder, but it was far from above the Night Blade's repertoire.

  Vellin Artho laughed and shook his head. “Don't look like that, Night Blade. The drink is fine. Do you really think I'd poison a whole tavern of folk just to get to you?”

  “Way I hear it, the Night Blade did just that thing,” Alfer said. He raised the mug to his mouth and took a deep swallow. Like or not if the beer was poisoned then he was already good and dying, might as well go out with the taste of fine ale on his lips.

  “I'm no assassin,” Vellin Artho assured him. “But there is an assassin after the Night Blade.”

  Alfer sighed and shook his head. There was no sense in bluffing anymore. The man was convinced he was actually Alfyn Tether and no amount of denial was likely to dissuade him. Whatever game Vellin Artho was playing, Alfer was clearly well and truly in the middle of it.

  “Why would an assassin be after me?” Alfer asked.

  “Because I paid him to kill you,” Vellin Artho said with a smile. “Or at least I paid him half, the rest to be provided upon completion. Your death, that is.”

  No doubt Vellin expected Alfer to look shocked. Unfortunately for him, there was little that shocked Alfer these days. He was too long in the tooth and had seen far too much. “Got a reason I shouldn't just kill you and disappear?”

  “Well, it wouldn't stop the assassin. He has already accepted the contract, and he is not the sort of man to stop before completion.”

  “Still looking for that reason.”

  Vellin Artho smiled wide and genuine. “Because then you wouldn't get paid.”

  Alfer sighed and scratched at his chin. “I'm too old for games, lad.”

  “That is a shame, because you're already hip-deep in this one.” Vellin reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small strip of parchment, laying it on the table. “This is a credit note. Redeemable within the next three days at any Guild safe house. I assume you know how to find one of those?”

  Alfer sipped at his beer.

  “It is for two hundred gold pieces, half the full payment for the assassination of one Nate Veritean.”

  Alfer let out an involuntary groan. Of all the assassins in all the world, and Alfer knew first-hand there were a bloody lot of them, this Vellin Artho had somehow managed to hire the best. Nate Veritean was young, accomplished, so deadly he'd never failed a contract, and he also happened to be a crown prince of the Five Kingdoms.

  “I see you've heard of him,” Vellin continued. “Well, should you manage to best Nate Veritean, that credit note will be redeemable for the second half of the payment. He, of course, is subject to the same deal, so I'm afraid only one of you will be paid. In the event of my death, no payment will be rendered.”

  “You've paid two assassins to kill each other?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any chance I'll get an indication to the why?” Alfer was fairly certain what the answer would be.

  Vellin Artho smiled and pushed his chair back, standing and giving Alfer a respectful nod of the head. “Enjoy your ale, Night Blade. Watch your back.” The man laughed, turned, and strode towards the tavern door.

  Alfer drained his mug and called over the maid for another. He listened to the end of the tale the bard was spinning, and then gave the man a generous tip for his performance. He suddenly found himself a rich man again, only this time he had very little time to spend it.

  #

  “I'd like to...” Alfer started.

  “Come in,” said the Guild bouncer at the door.

  Alfer hesitated. He was starting to get the feeling there was a lot more going on than he knew about. Rarely, if ever, were folk admitted to Guild safe houses without first inspection and interrogation. Even Guild members were treated with suspicion.

  With a worried sigh, Alfer stepped through the doorway and out of the cold. Already he felt his bones begin to warm. He made a promise to himself that should he get out of his current predicament, he would make for warmer climes. He'd heard the Pirate Isles were balmy year round, and he had some small experience in sailing.

  The safe house was not at all like Alfer expected; on the outside, it looked on the verge of derelict, with dim light spilling through grime-covered windows; on the inside, it was well-lit and in excellent condition, with clean floors, walls free of mold, and the nearby counter completely dustless.

  The door closed behind him, and Alfer found himself standing in a hall way. A set of stairs led up to the first floor and, to his right, a pleasant-looking woman with a kind face sat behind a counter. The hallway led further into the house where Alfer spotted a doorway and a slim man who had that undefinable guard air about him.

  “Uhh...” Alfer started.

  “Down the hall on your left,” the woman behind the counter said with a smile.

  Alfer nodded and started on his way, giving the slim guard a wide berth. The man looked like he had a wiry strength to him and wore a look on his face that was all sorts of menacing. Clandestine meetings with folk surrounded by armed maniacs was one part of the job that Alfer really did not miss; in fact, there was very little about the job he did miss, other than the excessive number of bits he had once earned.

  Alfer followed the woman's directions and found himself in a room with a crackling fireplace, two chairs, a darkened window, and little else. Standing behind one of the chairs was a man Alfer wished he didn't recognize.

  “What are the chances you'd be here at the very same time some fool from the wilds hires an assassin to kill me?” Alfer asked.

  “Very low,” Thom said with friendly smile. “If you believe in coincidences. Otherwise, I'd say quite high.”

  “Did you have a hand in this?” Alfer sauntered over to one of the chairs and collapsed into it.

  Thom shrugged. “Only as a happy medium. I'm holding all the bits until one of the contracts is completed.” He was a man of small stature with a friendly face framed by dark hair. His clothes were old and little better than rags, and a small hollowed-out gourd hung from his belt. Thom hadn't changed a bit.

  “I don't know if you've noticed, Thom, but I'm bordering on old.”

  “You do seem to have a few years on you these days, Tether. Or is it Boharn?”

  “I prefer Alfer Boharn. My point is, we haven't met for... a long time.”

  “Thirty-three years,” Thom agreed. “Give or take.”

  “You haven't aged a day,” said Alfer.

  “There's a reason folk call me immortal.”

  Alfer opened his mouth to question further, but decided he was far from likely to receive a satisfactory answer to any of his questions.

  “Did you know it was Nate Veritean?” Alf
er said eventually.

  “Aye. He popped by a few days ago to let me know of the situation. I have to admit, I'm a little surprised you're still alive.”

  “Nice of Vellin to give the other guy a head start. I'm really not sure he needs it. Have you heard the stories?”

  Thom nodded. “Methodical, ruthless, and determined. I do hope you still remember how to stab people.”

  “Murdering folk is like sex. You never forget how it's done, but as you get older it takes longer to work ya way up to it.”

  Thom laughed.

  “I didn't think the King's Assassin took on jobs no more,” Alfer continued. “On account of his employer being a King.”

  Thom shrugged. “Maybe he wants to cut his teeth on the Night Blade.”

  “Really wish that name had stayed dead.” Alfer sighed.

  “So, are you here for the first payment?”

  Alfer shook his head slowly. “What am I gonna do carrying around a couple of hundred bits when I'm trying to stop the world's greatest assassin from proving it? No. I'm here as a courtesy to you and the Guild. Didn't want to go around at my old job without first getting your blessings.”

  “That's right honorable of you, Alfer Boharn.” Thom’s smile seemed genuine. “I wish you all the best of luck. Blessings be with you. Just... try not to disrupt any of my business, eh?”

  Alfer pushed up off the chair and to his feet. “Aye. Try my best. If I end up dying on your streets, use those bits to give me a burial or something. Nice gravestone wouldn't go amiss and put me deep enough that the Shamblers don't get me back up.”

  “As you wish. Nice to meet you again, Night Blade.”

  Alfer turned and had one last look at the young thief. Then he set off to buy himself some new tools of the trade.

  #

  Breath misted on the air, seeping out from between Alfer's lips, like smoke underneath the door of a couple so fast asleep they don’t realize their house is aflame. He pushed the unwelcome memory away. Alfer had good reason to quit the job and leave the wilds behind.

  He shivered and pulled his cloak tighter. Scanning the streets below, it was easy to see why the thieves of the Guild used the rooftops. Alfer was no pickpocket or cutpurse, but he had already seen a number of juicy targets traversing the roadways.

  Truridge was a large place, even larger than the Acanthian capital, and its populace was varied. With no idea what Nate Veritean looked like, it was nearly impossible for Alfer to find the man. Nate was a westerner from the Five Kingdoms, Alfer knew that much; as such, he would have the olive skin and the dark hair customary to those desert-dwelling folk. He would likely be tall and slim with piercing blue eyes and a natural grace. Alfer had already seen three men fitting the right description, and that was assuming the King's Assassin wasn't wearing some sort of disguise.

  No. Alfer had already come to the conclusion that he would never find Nate Veritean to catch the assassin unawares; instead, he had opted for the easier and, ultimately, far more dangerous approach. He had decided to wait for the assassin to find him.

  One thing an assassin should have in spades was patience. Alfer remembered he’d once waited in a pitch black room for two days while Allisar D'roan, who was known to sleep in a different bed every night, moved from room to room seemingly at random. Of course, it wasn't at random at all, and Alfer had deduced the man's routine and secreted himself away to await his target.

  Only his constant scanning of the street below and reminiscing about old times kept Alfer steady. He couldn't shake the feeling that he would find a crossbow bolt in his chest any moment. The horrible anticipation might not have been so bad, but it was so damnably cold. Alfer rubbed his hands together and blew on them, wishing he had decided to wait for the King's Assassin to find him in a nice warm tavern.

  “Ah hem.”

  Alfer let out a cold sigh and craned his neck around. Standing at the far end of the rooftop was tall figure dressed in black, a heavy cloak and hood pulled tight against the chill. Alfer couldn't see the man's face, but then he didn't think he needed to. It took a particularly silent person to sneak up on an assassin, even an aged one.

  “You him?” Alfer asked, turning back to the street below him.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, go on then. You got the drop on me, fair as you like. Get it over with so I can go about resting in peace and all that. Don't reckon any of the Gods will take me. Maybe I'll end up ghosting, find myself a nice tavern to haunt.”

  “Wouldn't be very fair,” said the King's Assassin in an accent that clearly marked him as a desert dweller.

  Alfer chuckled. “An assassin quibbling about a fair kill? You must be a rare sort.”

  “Call it professional integrity. A mark of respect for a man who was once great.”

  “Hah!” Alfer turned to look at the man and squatted on his haunches. “I think it's more likely you spotted a few of the traps I've hidden on the rooftop. You don't want to misstep and become notorious as the Night Blade’s final kill.”

  It was impossible to see into the shadow of the man's hood, but Alfer hoped he was searching the rooftop with his eyes. There were no traps, of course, but it didn't hurt for the man to think he was in some peril at least.

  The King's Assassin also went down onto his haunches, opposite Alfer, mimicking the older assassin. They waited for some time in silence, facing one another.

  Neither man wanted to make the first move. They were not warriors. Truth told, Alfer had some skill in combat; he could swing a sword as well as the next man, and he was quite skilled with any of the fifteen daggers he’d hidden around his person, but they were assassins. There was a particular mindset folk in his profession were accustomed to — kill from the shadows, leave no trace. In his lifetime, Alfer had been in a grand total of eight fights, and two of those he had quite comfortably lost.

  “I killed a man who wanted it once,” said Nate Veritean, his breath misting the air in front of him. “He actually contracted me to kill him.”

  Alfer was no longer certain what sort of game they were playing. If the King's Assassin was insinuating that Alfer was behind his own contract, he was dead wrong. He had done a great many things in his life that made him deserve death, but he certainly didn't want it; in fact, he very much wanted to live.

  “His name was Palyus To'ten, a noble from Acanthia living in the Five Kingdoms.” Nate Veritean's hood tilted upwards towards the star-less sky and Alfer caught sight of a stubble-covered chin. “I am not in the habit of asking my contractors why they want a person killed, but Palyus was keen to tell me all the same.

  “He had fled Acanthia for a good reason. The death of his brother and his wife had been no accident. Palyus had believed he wanted his brother's inheritance and had organized a natural death. Two months later, Palyus' conscience caught up with him. He believed he could flee the guilt, run from it. He soon found that wherever he went, the guilt arrived first.

  “Palyus paid me to kill him in a painless fashion that would harm no others. He wanted it to be a surprise. He said he did not wish to commit suicide, for fear that the wraith ship would come for his spirit and force him to wander the world as a cold ghost.

  “I waited until the man was sat at a dinner hosted by a local lord, and I dripped Nether Serpent venom onto his plate.”

  Alfer was familiar with that particular poison. Nether Serpents were rare and hard to milk, seeing as they had no physical body, but their venom worked in minutes and let the victim drift off calmly into death’s embrace.

  “Why did you wait until the local lord's dinner?”

  The hood tilted to the left slightly. “It served my King's purpose to have the lord disgraced.”

  Alfer laughed. “How very efficient of you.”

  Silence fell between the two once again. Alfer could hear the footsteps of the people in the street below, the sounds of a stringed instrument played somewhere far away, the hissing of a cat. Still, the King'
s Assassin waited, and Alfer started to get the impression that it was his turn to tell a story.

  “Fat Bera,” Alfer said with a smile. “One of the largest lasses you've ever seen, hence the name. Folk in the wilds ain't exactly subtle when it comes to naming things and folk. Bera was about as fat as her name might suggest, but she was still considered somewhat of a beauty. She had this way of looking at folk, I reckon, tended to make some men a bit rapt for her extensive curves.

  “Now, Bera only bedded folk she wanted to, and the woman could stop any she didn't. Quicker than her name might suggest, powerful as a bison in full charge…in fact, I once heard she wrestled a bison from the great herd, snapped its neck or somesuch, or so the story went. Anyway, one fellow, a rich old mercenary whose name escapes me, got hot for Bera. She didn't feel the same way, so when he got insistent, she broke the man's arm, a couple of ribs, and his nose.” Alfer paused to think. “She might have broken his cock, too. So, this old merc he feels a bit spurned and contracts me to kill poor Fat Bera.”

  “You take on contracts to kill women?”

  “Used to. When I was younger; probably before you were born, lad. Back then, I'd take anyone's money, no matter the job. Gotta earn a name in the wilds if you want to be taken seriously.

  “I snuck into her tavern room one night and introduced a Bitter Beetle to her sheets. Nasty little buggers. They burrow into a person and slowly poison them. After a couple of weeks, Bera couldn't even stand. Died a few days later.

  “Not much of a consolation, but I used some of the money from that contract to buy her slaves. Had their iron collars struck off and set them free. Not much, I know, but it made me feel a drop better.”

  “An assassin with a conscience?” Nate Veritean chuckled.

  “Killing is a job. Pretty well-paying one. Don't mean we can't feel a bit bad about it from time to time. Happens to be why I quit.”

  Nate Veritean raised gloved hands to his hood and warm breath puffed out. King's Assassin the man may be, but even he felt the cold, or so it seemed.