A Lady in Crystal

by Toby Bennett

  “I shall not try to kill you, thief, you have no need to fear,” Ilsar said, her statement eerily echoing Anka’s own resolution.

  “Which, is what you would say, even if you were planning to put a bolt through my throat the moment I stepped out into the open,” Akna countered

  “I could simply call the guards, if I wanted you dead, why would I need to trick you?”

  “It might be a matter of honour for you to do this personally, after all you failed once already. Am I to believe that you have changed your mind?”

  “I could have taken you when you were at the window, or simply let you go out there, believe me you would not have got very far.”

  Akna glanced back at the window with regret, he had been idly wondering if he might cause enough distraction to leave by the window but he did not doubt Ilsar, there would be no escape to the outside of the tower. It seemed his only chance was to talk, if his opponent was willing. There was every chance that he was under some kind of glamour but if he couldn’t fight and there was nowhere to run, what did he have to lose?

  “I like to think I might have surprised you,” Akna replied, his voice giving no indication that he had already resigned himself to his fate. His hand slipped to one of the daggers beneath his robes, suicide would not be an option, unless she tried to take him back to Lothar, in which case death would be an escape.

  “You already have surprised me,” Ilsar said, “I’ve tried to kill you once and you survived, no one has ever done that before.”

  “I’m pleased to be your first,” Akna risked a quick glance from behind the bookshelf, the woman was still relaxed, her crossbow loaded and primed but not actually pointing in his direction. “I must confess my own surprise is that we are even having this conversation, why didn’t you just finish what you started, if you had the chance?”

  Ilsar frowned and Akna did not need the empathy he felt with her, to read the confusion that flashed across her face. After a pause she answered.

  “I wanted to know how you made me miss.”

  “You didn’t completely miss, actually.”

  “A scratch, enough to satisfy Takiaza that you were dealt with, but I could have put that bolt through your heart, yet at the last moment...”

  Again Akna felt her confusion, or perhaps he only thought he did. If he were under some kind of glamour as a result of the venom on her bolt, he could take nothing for granted.

  “I’m not saying I don’t believe you but if you could have killed me, why didn’t you? You showed no compunction for the Ash-man.”

  “It was no act of mercy, thief, my duty was clear and I shot to kill but at the last moment I flinched, as if some force had moved me against my will.”

  “And you think I might have had something to do with that?”

  “That or some sorcery of that place; I have always known my duty but since the moment we met I feel something I cannot explain.”

  Akna pondered her words from the safety of the bookshelf, if Ilsar felt the same irrational impulses that he did, it could not be some side effect of the poison. It was always possible that she knew the effects of her venom and was simply trying to lure him from cover by making it sound as if they did genuinely share a bond, such disorientation might be the point, to give the assassin another shot at her target, but he didn’t really believe that. He had been framed in the window, easy prey if she had wanted to strike and it would be so easy for her to raise the alarm, the only explanation was that she felt something too. It was inexplicable that two hardened killers should display this sort of weakness and it was no wonder that she sought to speak rather than attack, like Akna, Ilsar was totally unprepared to deal with the emotions that whatever had linked them had evoked.

  “It might have been some property of the tomb,” Akna guessed, “a manifestation of the veil in our own world might have any number of untold effects.”

  “I knew not to spill blood there, but not why” Ilsar muttered. “It is possible, is it not, that we forged some sort of bond there?”

  “I don’t know how to explain it, I thought it was the poison you used on your bolts.”

  “It wasn’t, though the fact that you were able to survive that is also surprising.”

  Akna did not bother to consider how close he might actually have come to death. Instead he focused on the strange phenomenon that had effected him so profoundly since he first met this woman. For someone who had lived so long with barely any emotion to speak of, the experience was close to overwhelming, but one he could not think of losing, even with death pressed so close.

  “Can you sense me as I can you?” Akna asked simply. Ilsar’s brow wrinkled with concentration, it told Akna much that she did not simply ask what in shades he was taking about.

  “Yes, if I think about it something brought me here to find you.”

  Akna stood up and slipped from behind the bookcase.

  “There’s more to it than that isn’t there?” he asked.

  “Of course, or are you going to tell me that the only reason you are here is to find me?”

  It might be one of the reasons that I was stupid enough to come back here, Akna admitted to himself, and though he wouldn’t say it, he suspected that Ilsar had read his thought on some level.

  “No, I came for something that Lothar took from me a long time ago,” Akna said, turning his thought from his other reasons for coming.

  “And because you knew that he couldn’t be allowed to continue his plan with Takiaza?”

  Akna felt something of Ilsar’s nervousness at whatever Lothar had planned but he found no echo of that concern in himself.

  “To be honest I couldn’t care less, I want what was taken from me.”

  “He has taken from many souls,” Ilsar said quietly, “I am included in that number. You seek crystals do you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “And have you discovered some way to heal those who have been torn?”

  “I had hoped to find Takiaza’s stone too, if I cannot take him or he has no means to reunite me with my lost dreams, at least there will be comfort on holding them again.”

  “I know what you mean, thief.”

  “My name is Akna.”

  Ilsar nodded her acknowledgement.

  “I know what you feel, Akna, not just because of whatever bond we made in the shrine but because I have been a victim of Lothar’s power too. I know not whether you will find your own stones in his collection but my own, I know, is there.”

  A sharp pang of sadness reached Akna through their strange bond, which made all the more sense now that he realised that they were both psychically wounded.

  “You have never tried to get it back?”

  “I have never dared, he has left enough of me to do his bidding, I cannot bare the thought of what he might take from me, if he thought that I was treacherous.” Ilsar confessed.

  “Yet you are no doubt being treacherous by talking to me now, unless you have some more elaborate trick in mind?”

  “But you know I haven’t.”

  “Presuming that this connection between us is not just one sided and you aren’t just using it to manipulate me.”

  Ilsar scowled for a second but then a grin spread over her face.

  “You don’t actually mean that.”

  “No, but you couldn’t know that, unless you did, indeed, share some connection with me.” Akna held up a hand to forestall Ilsar’s response. “I know that it is possible either of us could have enchanted the other, so that no proof would be enough that we can trust each other. We could debate the truth fruitlessly for hours, consider that, if we have both been victims of Lothar’s art, it is small wonder we find ourselves connected. The veil was so thin where we met, that the emptiness in either of us would have drawn like a lode stone, add to that even the smallest shedding of blood and there is small wonder that we are drawn together, such magic is old and forbidden but not unheard of.”

  “The only question now,” Ilsar said, as if finish
ing his thought for him, “is whether we go forward together or find the strength to break the bond.”

  Ilsar’s bow rose as she made her statement, even as Akna’s hand closed over his dagger’s hilt. Their lives wavered on the fine steel edge of bolt and blade and then they heard the knock upon the door.

  Chapter 15

  “Where but from darkness is the howling infant born?

  Where but from blood is new life torn?”

  Tera struggled to keep up with the two big men, who led her up the stairs, Father Yimil pulled her along by the shoulder, to ensure that she didn’t lag too far behind and the viciousness with which he pulled her along, spoke of punishments to come. They had not believed her when she told them that it was not Father Danith who entered the tower. She had followed the imposter as best she could, until he came to the fierce looking statues and here she found that she did not have the courage to go on. As a good girl she knew that she had to tell the guards and she hoped it would not be too late to save Father Danith from whatever the imposter had done to him.

  She hadn’t expected that Father Yimil would be summoned. Had she realised that, she might have thought twice about telling. At first Yimil’s only thought had been for the disruption to his care of his charges and anger for Tera’s having left the group but it had quickly become apparent that his brother was indeed missing and though he would be loath to disrupt the Cardinal’s festivities, it might be worth testing the validity of the girl's story. Not that it would necessarily prove an excuse for her own bad behaviour, Father Danith might simply be attending to some other business with a brother or sister from another order. If that were the case, Tera knew she would suffer terribly. As yet, Father Yimil had kept the alarm to a minimum, clandestine meetings between clergy were not unheard of and if the child had simply got the wrong end of the stick, he wanted to limit any embarrassment, not that he wouldn’t have a few choice words for Father Danith, if he had slunk off to pursue his own interests.

  “Left me holding the pan, whatever this is all about,” Yimil muttered to himself as he began the long climb into the tower. He tore at the girl's shoulder as a way of releasing his growing frustration, the underfed orphan found herself all but carried up the steps by one arm. This one knew better than to make an noise in front of him, the order taught them early that true brothers of Hetkul were always in more pain than they dispensed. Yimil could feel his own bandages rubbing against his raw flesh with every step. The girl's lack of protest did not make him any easier though, he was sure that, with no one to watch them, his other charges would be the polar opposites of the meek little baggage next to him.

  At last they reached the landing and the two guards at the end of the hall hastened to join their fellows, a whispered discussion revealed that, yes a bandaged monk had entered the small library and that he had not yet emerged. The guards had not thought much of it, since the contents of the room were hardly precious, those members of the staff who were literate often went there to borrow the old romances and tales of ancient adventure that made up the bulk of the collection. Another monk had left only minutes before the monk of Hetkul arrived and the guards had long ago learned that it was not in their interest to question the comings and goings of the clergy. The guard, who had led them here, admonished the two guards for their lack of caution on such an important day but the guards reasonably pointed out that the monk couldn’t be doing any harm and they had not wished to leave their posts, precisely because of the importance of the day. The other guard’s eyes narrowed at this poor excuse for basic laziness but he did not argue the point further, instead he reached up and rapped on the chamber door.

  Inside the room Akna and Ilsar froze, if either of them could have ever found the strength to break the bond between them, the interruption was enough to ensure they never would.

  “Brother Danith?” A voice called from outside, “we know you are in there, please come out before we cause any more trouble. The guard captain has been very understanding and not made a fuss, I’m sure we can work this all out very quickly.”

  “But that’s not Brother…” Akna heard the child’s voice abruptly cut off, as the priest jerked her in anger.

  “For Nishkaan’s sake, Danith, don’t cause any more trouble if you are embarrassed now imagine how much worse it will be if they have to break down a door in the Cardinal's own apartments.”

  Inside Akna and Ilsar exchanged a look in the gloom of the library, knowing that each of them had come to the same conclusion. Akna did not doubt that there was another, less conventional way out of the library but it would not do to leave by whichever secret passage Ilsar had used, right now the party outside was not alarmed and the brother had even said that they were avoiding fuss, if Akna simply left and they had to break down the door to find an empty room then that would ensure that the alarm was raised. Ilsar, in tune with Akna’s thinking, had already slipped across the room and quietly slid the bolt before melting into the shadows near the door. Akna took a seat at the reading table and scooped up the nearest scroll, a quick examination told him that whoever had been reading here before he had entered the room, was partial to bawdy tales. Jeska, the bard, was a character more well known in the brothels and bars of the Downs or Pleasure districts than the libraries and cloisters of Nishkaan’s faithful.

  The knock came again, except this time the door creaked open under the guard’s knuckles. The guards exchanged looks, “stuck?” one of them asked

  “Still doesn’t explain why he didn’t answer.” Anther guard pointed out warily.

  “The meerbus can leave them a bit deaf, no offence, Father,” the guard added quickly

  “To the shades with offence man, open the door.”

  Tara was the last into the room, in actuality it was a big room but the shelves and the shadows made it seem small and cramped, too cramped for the guards to properly use their halberds or escape the room before the monster that had been pretending to be Brother Danith fell upon them. A dagger seemed to sprout from the throat of the first guard and before anyone could really register what had happened, the man who had seemed to be quietly reading at the table in the centre of the room, had produced a sword from beneath his robes. Quick as a thunder clap he was under the guard of the next man, before he could bring his weapon to bear, before he could even draw a breath if truth be told. The other two guards had a second or two extra to prepare but the viciousness and speed of the assault had thrown even the wary captain off balance. Only Brother Yimil had the peace of mind to do anything and his response was to fling Tara behind him and sprint for the stairs.

  Tara was picking herself up from her painful fall, when she saw a pale figure materialise from the shadows and Father Yimil jerk, as a crossbow bolt punched through the back of his throat. The captain had managed to survive his companions and finally put his halberd between himself and the bandaged assassin. Akna was having some problems making his way past the longer weapon that threatened to cleave his skull at any moment. The captain began to back from the room, he filled his lungs to bellow for aid but all that escaped his throat was a whisper and then the dark, frothy flow of the blood from his punctured lungs.

  It was all over, so fast that Tara wasn’t sure exactly what she had seen; dark stains leaked from the pools of shadow under the table and a torn scroll floated to the floor. Tara couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea that some of those dark shapes were not shadows but bodies, still warm yet unbreathing, lying silent on the floor. Tara opened her mouth to scream but the blond woman was on her and clamping her mouth shut before she could get a sound out. The woman lifted her in a cruel grip and at some unspoken signal, the monster, who had stolen Father Danith’s clothes sailed out into the hall and dragged Father Yimil’s body away from the stairs, using his holy robes to mop up the few drops of crimson that speckled the stone.

  “No going back now” the monster said wearily, as he dumped the father’s body on top of one of the guard’s. The pale woman used her free hand to jerk
her bolt clear.

  “It was too late from the moment I failed to shoot, we’ve no more time to debate whether we trust each other, we’ve got to move now or we don’t stand a chance, do you agree?”

  Tara felt the woman’s body tense as she waited for the monster’s reaction. The monster merely nodded and began to unwind the stinking bandages from his face. Without his stolen mask you might have mistaken him for a normal man but his eyes were flat and without pity, her embryonic psychic senses told her that there was something wrong but it was his dark eyes that convinced her she was looking at a monster, perhaps it took a child to see it but there was no mistaking those eyes for human any more.

  “They might be looking for a monk now.” Akna said, as he quickly undressed one of the guards and pulled on his mail and tabard. “We kill the child?”

  Tara tried to scream again, she had no doubt that the dead eyed man could do it. The woman clamped down harder on her mouth and she could taste the metallic tang of blood though whether it was her own tongue or she had bitten the woman’s hand, she couldn’t tell. She tried to apologise, to beg but that only seemed to make the grip more painful.