Once Were Men

by Marin Landis

  “Do you not? Do you not exploit the weaknesses of those you wish to manipulate? What weapons will you not use?”

  Like the last time, out on the plains, at the crossroads, she didn’t see him move. Back then she had an excuse, she didn’t know he was there. Now she knew and yet he still managed to move faster than her Kehan enhanced abilities could register. Almost simultaneously with the finish of her question he appeared before her, a short, four-bladed knife at her neck, his face a finger’s breadth from hers.

  “Repeating myself would be inefficient and I have no inclination towards games or verbal sparring. Answer my questions fully and without dissembling.”

  "Very well, I will tell you what I know of her. She is the leader of the Shadow Assassins, a secretive cult of highly effective killers in the employ the Dark Lady, Ain-Ordra. None have seen her face, hence her title, and everything about her is a mystery. I have however, thanks to you, managed to glean some extremely useful information about her." She was feeling increasingly more smug, which did little to allay her uneasiness about the truth she believed she had uncovered.

  "Tell me," he whispered, no further from her than before. Did he suspect? He must know that the interrogation wasn't taking on the form he originally expected.

  "I will, in exchange for being untied." She was taking a risk. Often in a situation like this, one would only untie a person they were soon to execute.

  He paused briefly, considering her offer. "I agree to your terms. I bound you only to forestall a need to harm you when you awoke. There are certain safeguards in place to prevent your escape. Though they be your chambers, be assured I have secured them most thoroughly."

  She believed him. She wouldn't try to escape. In fact, she believed that they might function best as allies if her suspicions about the Faceless One proved correct.

  He untied her, there being knots within knots, over the course of ten minutes. He assiduously avoided touching her which was telling. His proximity meant that she got a close look at the young Talvar. She hadn't really seen one this closely before, the last time she was this close to him, she had a knife pressed against her. He was little different to any other man. Plainly he was young, his face was entirely beardless and his skin was wrinkle-free. She thought to how Luchis looked and that was similar but the ravages of time had taken a slight toll. Not so much of a toll as she imagined would have been evident on the face of the Faceless One. His skin was lighter colored than hers, it being almost gray and now that he was so close and moving she could detect an odor similar to that which her mentor exuded. That settled it. She had no idea what part of their diet could produce such a smell, but it confirmed her beliefs. The Faceless One was Talvar and quite possibly was known to this man.

  She stood and stretched while he returned to his posture of languor on her couch. No matter his seemingly relaxed attitude, she knew he was ready to strike at the slightest wrong move. Though she had trained with the best and by the best, this Talvar was a cut above. Stupidly fast and able to control darkness. How valuable that must be. Why did the Faceless One not teach her that. She could feel her bitterness growing. Betrayed. She felt betrayed.

  "Your voice, dark elf, and your scent. Traces of my mistress in both."

  To his credit, there was no reaction. "You're claiming that the Faceless One is Talvar? That would make sense, but none would collude in your religious crusade. Though beyond the realms of possibility it is not."

  She squirmed trying to find a comfortable position. She didn't want to sit nearer to him, not merely because she feared him a considerable amount (though wouldn't show it) but she wanted some space to give her the maximum chance should he decide that she should die. She sat on her writing desk and rested her bare feet on the hard chair, wondering briefly where her shoes had gone.

  "Not merely that she is one of your kind, but that she is somehow connected to you. Your speech patterns are similar and you move in a similar way. I have been trained, by her ironically, to notice such things." She had invented some of that but knew she was correct.

  "That cannot be." He frowned.

  "Why can it not? You are a highly trained assassin yourself. How many Talvar females do you think are in the Shadow Assassin training occupation?"

  "I'm no Shadow Assassin," he asserted shamefacedly and then held up his hand. "Before you speak, I know how untrue that is. I am an assassin that uses shadows to assassinate. I just don't..." He pulled his legs up and took on the classic meditation pose, falling abruptly into Kehan. That would certainly help him analyse the information better.

  She knew that somehow they'd both been raised and trained by the same woman and who must have known that they'd encounter each other in potentially fatal situations. That devious bitch.

  "What is your name, dark elf? I tire of referring to you thusly.”

  "Huh," he was thoughtful, very much so if he struggled to hear her. His mind must be racing. "Oh, yes, I am Sjarcu." He spoke his own name in the weird accent that the Faceless One sometimes used when angry. The vowels short and the consonants harsh.

  "I am Runild, I am the Chief Librarian here, but of course you'll know that is a mere cover. One it took me years to establish. I'm quite proud of it actually. And I think that we don't have to be enemies. Someone, maybe more than one someone, has manipulated us."

  "This seems true, I can find no flaw in your argument," he said, leaping off the couch nimbly, trance banished. "Were we steered to this place? Was a violent confrontation the goal? It was certainly expected. Surakoita, my mentor, knew that I was stinging from our last encounter. Enough so that I'd use that as an excuse to pay you a visit. She is canny, I can only hope that there was some plan behind this." He clenched his fist and Runild thought he might lash out, but he took a deep breath. "We work against that which you stand for, Runild. The yoke of religion and the ignorance of superstition." He stopped and looked contemplative again.

  "What is it?" She knew he had more to add.

  "Nothing. This is the second time I have doubted her in recent months. It is a troubling sensation. I have known little but her instruction and she rescued me from a world where everything was not as it seemed. It appears that all life is like that; not as it seems. Tempered by our own outlook, we perceive what we want to perceive or have been taught to perceive.”

  “You would do well here, Sjarcu,” she made her best effort to pronounce it properly. She wondered if he could be an ally, none others were, even Samarkus she believed used her. “There are many with such thoughts, philosophers and thinkers. Your people are devoid of such are they not?”

  “Yes, and we have become obsessed with the avoidance of anything non-corporeal save what we can measure. The Tumar amongst others which may seem magical, but are mere science in mystic’s clothing.” He paused again, probably wondering why he was opening up and then looked straight into her eyes. She felt a certain kinship at that moment. They were the same, raised in the arts of stealth and cunning by the same woman, full of falsehood, her motives unclear. Did she expect them to fight? For one of them to slay the other? Was this a test or a way to leave only the most capable alive? Runild knew that he had those same thoughts.

  “The Faceless One, your Surakoita, what will she be expecting from this encounter?” she asked softly.

  “I know not, yet we shall not give it to her, whatever dastardly ideal she craves.” He sat again, this time more stiffly, his tension evident. She could have taken him then, his eyes, throat, chest, unprotected, but she did not, the notion buried almost immediately.

  “What then?”

  “My plan was to determine your purpose and then slay you,” he seemed almost apologetic. “Now I have no ideas.”

  “Mine was to track down this Melvekior, this Prince. He is your friend?”

  “Not friend, but he was the cause of my first doubt. He liberated a divine being from base servitude and he is noble. Not just by birth or station, but he acts for what he sees as the greater good, though there is
a darkness within him of which he is unaware. What need have you with him?”

  “I sought that same divine being, Tiriel,” she noticed Sjarcu nod slightly, “and he interrupted my plans. He is only the second man to have bested me, you being the other and I owe you both a measure of discomfort for that.” She laughed, only half joking.

  “You have been successful thus far,” he laughed also, without humor.

  “Should we seek revenge then on Surakoita, he might deliver that to us.”

  “Or something else. He is not to be trifled with. That is my instinct.”

  “We need no more enemies you and I, Sjarcu. If he cannot be our ally, we will not let him become a barrier.”

  There was an unspoken pact made then. No hands were shaken, no contracts signed, but the silent agreement formed by two kindred spirits.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Revenge

  “When I heard that he’d become the Prince of Maresh-Kar, I panicked. I couldn’t sleep. All I did was play through my mind the last words he said to me. ‘You’ll regret this, you filthy toad.’ I was no toad, but now I regretted it.” - Galtian Morevem.

  At the time Galtian wasn’t worried. The flesh golems would take care of him, they’d sell the woman and all would be well. Finulia would present him with some morsel of magical power or a caress or some money. None of those things materialized.

  He went back to the house days later, having seen no traffic, neither Finulia nor her fellow cultist, Accus, none of their servants or any delivery men. He sat for three days watching from his store. He chased away all customers and sat, at the front door, in an almost blind panic. The days fled and he hardly slept. His imagination ran riot. Did the knight kill everyone and then succumb to his wounds? Did he manage to slay Finulia and Accus and then himself die at the hands of the golems, neither of which would need to leave the manse or receive food or even know how to eat or shop? He finally managed to raise the courage to go to the large two story house that served as Ain-Ordra’s temple in Amaranthe. Such was Her bad name and fearsome reputation that her worship was frowned upon and thus the existence of a house of devotion to her was an open secret. The Deniers weren’t interested in religion, it was yet another thing they denied. Rumour has it that they worshiped Kehenre, but that made no sense when they didn’t believe in anything but their own personal quests for perfection. Neither the militia or the Guard cared either. They were superstitious and more concerned with lining their pockets.

  What if they were dead? There was nobody to report it to. Well, I’ll have a jolly good time helping myself then, he chuckled as he made his way down the road towards the house.

  There was no answer to his loud and eventually frantic knocking. He tried the handle. The door wasn’t locked. Why would it be? None would rob the house of the Dark Lady. The light in the reception area was dim and there was a terrific smell, it nearly knocked him from his feet. He knew where the lamps were and while one was broken, the other functioned and illuminated the area in a soft light. He straight away wished it hadn’t. What had been, presumably, flesh golems, were now piles of putrefying skin, muscle and Herself knows what. Mixed with leather straps and cords, the flesh had rapidly decayed. He imagined this was due to the loss of the magic keeping them ‘alive’. To the right of the lobby was a small library, which was the only room he’d been in, his attempts to accompany Finulia to her bedroom met with laughter at every attempt. He wondered again, for the umpteenth time why he still followed her around like a lovesick maiden. He concluded again, as he had before, that it must have been some sort of sorcery. He secretly, very secretly; in the far recesses of his consciousness, hoped that she had been harmed. Even dead. Or if not dead, powerless and then she would view him as a savior, come to her rescue.

  He crept to the library door, it was a plain, dark brown door, not fully closed, but not open enough for him to see within. He pushed the door gently, tensed for anything, particularly an angry knight, but nothing jumped out at him. When he realized there was no internal objection, he pushed the door open fully. It was as he remembered it. High backed couches, comfy buttoned chairs, a few small bookcases arranged around the walls, a door on the opposite side, a table in the center of the furniture arrangement. He could see a plate of what looked to be half eaten food on a plate on the table. Thinking himself clever, he went to test the temperature of the food. That would give him some sort of information.

  “Don’t you dare touch my food, you little cretin!”

  Galtian nearly jumped out of his skin. Not only did he not expect the voice from nowhere, but he didn’t expect the figure on the couch, its high back having hidden Finulia admirably. She was curled up almost in a fetal position, head half buried in a cushion, hence the almost muffled tone of her voice.

  “Hell’s teeth, Finulia, mistress, what is happening?” His concern was real, for her and for his safety too now that she was here and obviously in a state of dissatisfaction.

  “I’m trying, unsuccessfully since you burst in, trying to rest and recover from your little gift. What do you want?” She spat the question at him.

  She looked smaller than he remembered. She wore none of her usual makeup; her skin a grayish hue, her eyes sunken, her mouth a thin gash, its lips curled with disdain. Much of her beauty was an illusion then, he thought, disappointed. She wore a plain brown shift and her think ankles poked out, the legs hairier than he recalled from the times he had gazed longingly at them.

  “I came to see to your health, mistress, I had seen no activity and then found the golems destroyed.”

  “I am in no danger, you may be off. “ She waved her hand in dismissal.

  “Lady, I’d rather…”

  “Off, I tell you, be fucking off!” she screeched rising to a sitting position, her eyes crazed and rolling in her head. “If I see you here again, I’ll reduce you to a pile of skin and bone to rival those in the other room.” She fell to the couch, plainly exhausted from her efforts.

  Galtian didn’t need to hear any more. Damn that bloody knight, this is his doing, he muttered venomously to himself as he shuffled into the street, his hip playing up for the first time in months.

  The air was cool this far underground. Cool and run through with the unmistakable stench of human waste. At first Shiv paid close attention to this and situated his hideout in the least smelly part of the abandoned purification factory he could find, but after a while he became accustomed to it. Originally for the collection and disposal by burning of the sewerage that wouldn’t simply flow through the Undercourse Grate the plant closed when someone discovered that Volcanium could be used to disintegrate even the most hardy of detritus. With no more need for such an industry the factory shut and then people stopped going to it. The only thing that got caught in the grate now was the odd dead body, animal and human, that died in the sewer or was dumped in the sewer. Murder being rarer than one might imagine and Volcanium being more commonplace than one from outside Amaranthe might imagine, there weren’t many human bodies. When there was anything large enough to stick and start to stink, Shiv would wade out with an ax and chop it into pieces small enough to slip through with the sewerage.

  It was a disgusting existence and he was interminably glad that he wouldn’t be living it for long. It was necessary for now. Until he could be sure that no Princes or Necromancers were looking for him, he would stay down here, venturing out only at night. He’d adopted a new criminal name. Shiv. Far better than the last one he had. Nobody wants to be called Insect and anyone who referred to him by that name or even mentioned it would get “Shivved.” It was his new thing. Healthier and smarter than he was in the old days, richer and meaner, he quickly usurped the leadership of his old gang, the Nabbers and set about masterminding a resurgence of their influence. He had one goal. Infiltrate the Mayor’s offices, find out Melvekior’s comings and goings and, in time, shiv the pompous bastard. The thought of it terrified him, but also energized him.

  How he would do it was still a
mystery, but he had told his boys to go out and ‘Nab’ some young, attractive and most importantly, stupid, female orphans from the Church and bring them back here. It was well known that the home for unwanted children was run by a cruel and harsh mistress; most of his boys had come from there. Anyone they liberated would do anything for shelter and food and he’d learned firsthand what foolishness could be committed in the name of love. The veil of infatuation had been lifted from his eyes well and truly. When he thought about Finulia now he felt nothing but shame. How would a woman so beautiful be interested in him and she barely showed any interest at all. Even the smattering of abuse and rare touches of chaste affection Finulia directed at him were enough to have him leashed like a hound. His ego led him to believe that she wanted him, despite the evidence and it would be the same for those stuffy old men at the Mayoral Chambers. They’d be in his pocket before the year was up. For Galtian, now Shiv, revenge was a slow burner. First Melvekior, then Finulia. Until then he had plenty of other work to keep himself going. There was the small matter of The Skulls, the criminal gang in Amaranthe that everyone knew. The Nabbers, if he was honest with himself and he vowed to never let his ego get in the way again, were a group of children and beggars. The Skulls were the big boys. Tough, plentiful and led by a ravening psychopath, Juppar of Vinuli. So that’s three mortal enemies he had and none of them even cared. For the moment.

  King Calra Alpre was impatient. He sat at his writing desk tapping his fingers and his feet. He wasn’t accustomed to being kept waiting and believed that patience was only a virtue for other people. He had far better things to do than wait around for a criminal although he had no intention of missing the appointment. He wasn’t truly sure that it was an appointment. He’d spread the word via a couple of beggars and rough looking types in Magnar while handing out money to random lowlives.