Weapon of Fear

by Chris A. Jackson

  Mya could hardly believe what they had accomplished during the course of the morning. If Hoseph appeared suddenly, he’d be in for a surprise.

  “We’s spiders…” Gimp had said, and her fanciful description seemed apt.

  Taut strings of catgut webbed every corridor and room above the first floor. A labyrinth of narrow passages—hard to discern unless you knew where they were—twisted through the tangle. Bells hung from the trip wires at odd intervals, tinkling alarms when disturbed. Three bedrooms were kept free of obstruction, but that would change every night. Dee, Paxal, and Mya would each have two urchins armed with crossbows sleeping in shifts in their rooms. Digger and Nestor would patrol the halls of the second floor. In case of fire—Gods of Light, please don’t let them try to burn us out—rope lay coiled at each window, and buckets of water and sand were positioned at the bedroom doors.

  At midday, Pax called out that lunch was ready, and the urchins bolted through the maze of strings for the kitchen hall. Mya found them stuffing their grinning faces with bread, stew, and sliced fruit.

  Dee motioned to her from the kitchen door. “Pax dismissed Cook for a few days, but she made a pot of stew before she left. When that’s gone, he’s going to make our meals himself.”

  “I didn’t know Pax could cook,” she whispered before stepping into the kitchen. The air was still and humid—the windows were all shut tight—but redolent with the aroma of peppers, garlic, and spices. A pot simmered atop the stove; the lunch Cook had left for them. Beside it sat a much larger pot into which Pax was dumping a curious assortment of chicken, potatoes, onions, peppers, and chunks of bacon.

  “Can’t cook,” Pax admitted, “but I figured it best to get the help out of harm’s way. If that bastard of a priest comes at us again, it’ll be soon.” Wiping his hands, he filled three bowls from the smaller pot and nodded to the table. “Have a seat.”

  “Good thinking.” Mya tore off a hunk of fresh, dark bread heavy with nuts and raisins. “We’re just about as secure as we can be. I’d like everyone to get some sleep this afternoon. I need to go out.”

  “Out? Why?” Dee paused in the middle of buttering a piece of bread, concern plain on his face.

  “Other than the fact that all the hammering’s driving me crazy, I thought I might check the neighborhood for threats.” She bit into her bread. Paxal already played mother hen to her, and now it seemed that Dee had picked up the protective attitude.

  “That sounds dangerous.” Paxal placed the stew on the table and joined them.

  “Maybe, but if we’re surrounded by assassins, I need to know.”

  “Can’t argue with that.” Paxal ate a bite of stew and grimaced. “Damn cook thinks red pepper’s a vegetable, not a spice.”

  Dee reached for a pitcher and poured three cups of lemonade. He placed one before Paxal. “That’ll cut the heat.”

  “Thanks.” Pax shortened the contents of his cup by half.

  “I’m just wondering what to do if I spot assassins. If they’re guild, that means Lady T sent them.” She sampled the stew, a heady concoction of sausage, garlic, onions, lentils, and a slurry of spices.

  “Do you think she’d do that?” Dee asked.

  “Not really.” She nibbled bread and sipped lemonade, clicking her nails under the table.

  “Stop fidgeting and eat.” Pax pointed to her bowl.

  Mya glared at him. “I feel like I should be doing something.”

  “You are. You’re eating lunch.” Pax pointed at her bowl with his spoon, his face set in stern lines of disapproval.

  “He’s right. We’ve done all we can.” Dee ate, but didn’t look at her. “All we can do is wait.”

  “Like a spider…” The problem was, Mya hated waiting. Dee was right, if the information Lady T had given her was true, if the prince believed her, if they could foil the plan, if…if…if… She thought seriously about murdering the conspirators in their beds, but that would require preparation she didn’t have time for, and if she missed one, the others would know she was onto their plot. She couldn’t kill Duveau, and couldn’t find Hoseph.

  You know where I live, you bastard. Come and get me.

  “Exactly.” Dee ate more stew. “And we should buy you some clothes.”

  “What do I need? I’m a spinster mistress of an orphanage.”

  Dee finished his stew and took his bowl to the wash barrel. “If Duveau doesn’t kill Arbuckle before the coronation, I think you should go.”

  “To the coronation?” She stared at him as if he’d sprouted wings. “You want me to sneak into the palace in the middle of the coronation?”

  “No, I think you should pose as an eligible young lady looking to catch the eye of the emperor-to-be, and go with your noble aunt, Lady T.” Dee looked her in the eye as he returned to the table. “Every noble in Tsing will be there, and every single one with a daughter of the right age will bring them along. There hasn’t been an unwed emperor in three hundred years, so he’s quite a catch.”

  “And you think Lady T will go along with that?”

  “I don’t think she can refuse if you show up at her door unannounced.”

  “He’s got a point.” Pax nodded.

  Mya glared at the old innkeeper. He wasn’t helping. “You really think Duveau will make his attempt during the coronation?”

  “I have no idea, but he’s a wizard, not an assassin.” Dee shrugged. “I don’t think either of us has a clue what he’ll do, but he’s not supposed to let the prince be crowned. If the prince is still breathing the morning of the event, where else will he be able to be in the same room with him?”

  “So he’ll do it in full view of hundreds of people?”

  “Maybe he’ll use magic to make it look like someone else kills the prince.” Dee shrugged again. “He could conjure a demon in the middle of the whole show for all I know.”

  “I don’t even know what he looks like.” Mya knew little about magic, but she knew some of what it could do. She was evidence of that. “In fact, he can probably look like whoever or whatever he wants.”

  “And he doesn’t know what you look like.” Dee finished his lemonade. “He certainly won’t be expecting the lovely young lady on Lady T’s arm to thwart him.”

  “He’s got a point.” Paxal looked from Mya to Dee and back.

  Mya glared at them both. “There’s also the point that I don’t really want the new emperor to know what I look like.” She held up the ring on her finger. “I’m wearing his father’s ring. He might actually recognize it.”

  “A little gold paint will fix that.”

  “You have answers for everything, don’t you?” She didn’t want to admit that the notion of walking into the palace in plain view of every noble in the city made her skin crawl. “Answer me this? If I do have to kill Duveau in front of hundreds of nobles and the gods-be-damned emperor himself, how to I get out of there?”

  “You tell everyone that you were hired as Lady T’s bodyguard, and when the lady saw her emperor in danger, she ordered you to intervene.” Dee smiled innocently.

  Mya felt the perverse desire to wipe that smile off. “You were never this imaginative when you were my assistant, Dee.”

  “You never asked me for my opinion.” He shrugged and looked down at his hands. “Except with your correspondence.”

  As much as she hated to admit it, Dee’s plan had merit. There was no harm in preparing. “Fine. If the prince and Duveau are both still around for the coronation, I’ll go.”

  Chapter XXV

  Hoseph looked over the five mercenaries with a mixture of disgust and satisfaction. Three men, a dwarf, and a lanky woman stood ready, armed with short blades and hand axes, torches, oil, and crossbows. They’d not balked at the notion of killing children if they got in the way, nor burning an entire block of Midtown if necessary. For a sword-for-hire, gold trumped morality.

  “Ready?”

  “Don’t know why we can’t just bash in the door.” One of the men thumbed th
e keen edge of a hand axe. “Don’t like magic.”

  “Because, you brainless git, they’ll be ready and fill you full of crossbow bolts.” The woman cocked her crossbow and loaded a bolt. “I like the priest’s plan. Pop in, kill everyone, light a fire, and pop out. Clean and simple. No witnesses.”

  “Don’t you call me—”

  “Shut up, Rance. Yurty’s right.” Maul, their thick-necked leader, glared down the other man. “We’re ready.”

  “Good.” Hoseph wiped his palms on his robe and tried to ignore the persistent ringing in his ears, pervasive headache, and fatigue. Transferring five through the Sphere of Shadow would be taxing. Soon, it’ll be done, and I can rest.

  He’d been surprised to find Mya and her people still occupying the same building at nightfall. He’d watched for hours that evening. Lights blazed in every window, and he’d caught a glimpse of shadows moving on the third floor. She was dug in, ready for him. Well, he wasn’t going in alone this time, and his mercenaries might surprise her. They could touch her even if guild assassins couldn’t. And if some of them were killed in the process, well, no great loss. They were mercenaries. Their lives were full of risks.

  “Remember, we’ll be appearing in the third floor hallway. Mya is deadly. Kill whoever you have to, but she’s the target. Distract her long enough for me to get behind her, and the job is done.”

  They nodded and readied their weapons; Yurty and Rance lit torches. Maul clamped a heavy hand on Hoseph’s shoulder, and the rest did likewise in succession. When they were all thus connected, the priest invoked Demia’s talisman.

  They entered the Sphere of Shadow, and Hoseph knew instantly that this would be more difficult than he’d anticipated. Transferring a single additional person through the Sphere taxed him. Five dragged at him so heavily that he felt as if his soul was being drawn and quartered from the inside outward.

  Focus! It will pass as soon as we materialize.

  Hoseph envisioned the third floor hall and started the invocation, but felt as if a spectral hand restrained him. Something had changed. He’d experienced this before when trying to materialize in a room where furniture had been moved or people stood about, interfering with his intended destination. He shifted his point of arrival in his mind and tried again, but still felt resistance.

  The pressure on his soul dragged at him. He felt as if he might fly apart any moment. Unaccustomed panic threatened. Hoseph shifted his destination closer to the wall near the end of the hall, and the resistance eased. Finally! The priest pushed through into the real world.

  Screams and gasps of shock greeted him, and for a moment, Hoseph thought one might be his, so fiercely did the pain blossom behind his eyes. He blinked hard to clear his vision, wondering if the incongruous jingle of bells was some strange auditory hallucination. Maul’s fingers dug painfully into his shoulder. Something was dreadfully wrong.

  Wrenching himself free of the mercenary’s grasp, the priest rebounded off of something resilient, certainly not a wall. He flailed an arm for balance, and felt a taut cord catch his hand. What in the name of… Hoseph turned and beheld a scene reminiscent of a painting he had once seen in the temple of Xakra the Tangler, Mistress of Webs.

  The entire hallway was crisscrossed with strands of heavy twine. The feeling of resistance had saved Hoseph from materializing within the convoluted web, but not so his companions. Maul struggled against the half-dozen strings that pierced his torso and legs, fighting to reach a belt knife. The dwarf hung without a twitch, four strings intersecting his head at various angles, his eyes bulging horribly and blood oozing from his nose and ears. Yurty waved her torch, trying to burn through the strings that pinned arm and legs, grimacing against the pain. The other two men twitched and moaned with taut lines through their chests. Rance lost his grip on his torch, and the flaming brand hung in the air, the wooden shaft transected by a string.

  Hoseph had woefully underestimated Mya once again. The shadows he had spied earlier in the evening in the third-floor windows had seemed carelessness to him, not calculated to draw him in. He’d blundered right into a trap seemingly designed to thwart the very attack he had chosen to employ. How could she have known?

  “Ding a ling! Ding a ling!” came a shrill shout from behind one of the closed doors. A chorus of similar calls rang out, and the priest knew the rest of the trap was about to be sprung.

  Hoseph reached into the web of taut catgut and wrenched the dagger from Maul’s hip sheath. One slash severed the strings transecting Maul’s arm, and he handed over the knife. “Cut yourself free, then the others.”

  “We’re buggered! Get us out of here!” Yurty demanded through gritted teeth as she wrenched severed strings from her body.

  “Free yourselves!” Hoseph wouldn’t give up yet. “We can still—”

  Three doors opened, and small grimy faces peered into the torch-lit hall. Feral grins preceded the glint of loaded crossbows, the nearest only feet away from Hoseph and his immobilized mercenaries. Before Hoseph could react, two of them fired. Thankfully, the urchins apparently had little training. One bolt thudded into the wall, and the other only tugged at Hoseph’s robes.

  “It’s that priest!”

  Several more crossbow-wielding urchins surged into the hall, crouching among the maze of twine to aim their weapons.

  Maul was almost free, his face contorted in pain and fury. Yurty had managed to burn enough of the strings to reach her crossbow. The weapon, however, was tangled. She twisted and fired at the nearest door. Missing an urchin by inches, the bolt vanished into the darkness. Rance hung limply, his face pale, while the other man struggled feebly to reach a blade. Hoseph had to intervene or they’d all be shot down and his chance to kill Mya would be ruined.

  The priest cast forth his soul-searching invocation, sending a pulse of darkness through the hallway. Cries of despair rang out from urchins and mercenaries alike, and weapons clattered to the floor. Yurty dropped her torch into the pool of volatile oil that had leaked from the pierced skin at her hip. The liquid ignited with a whoosh, engulfing the woman in flames. A horrible scream tore from her throat as her clothes blackened and hair shriveled. Tongues of flame licked at the ceiling.

  This wasn’t going according to plan at all.

  Another crossbow cracked, and the bolt buzzed past Hoseph’s ear. In the gloom at the far end of the hall, a grizzled old man reloaded a crossbow. Beside him, two more urchins raised their own weapons. Still, there was no sign of Mya.

  Hoseph dissolved into the Sphere of Shadow and visualized the hallway behind the old man. Resistance inhibited him again. He shifted his destination again and again, but everywhere he tried, he was blocked. He even tried the room he’d been in before, but no, it, too, must be trapped. He had nowhere to go in the hallway except back where he had been standing, nowhere safe from which to attack. If he returned to the same spot, he would die. He had no choice but to flee.

  Perhaps the fire will do the job for me.

  Picturing a new destination, Hoseph coalesced on the rooftop across the street, the perch he had spied from earlier in the evening. He sank to his knees as he head swam, gripping the tiles as he fought off the dizziness, and tried to ignore the pain and ringing in his ears. Lifting his head, he watched the growing glow of fire behind the drapes of the third-floor windows.

  The first shout snapped Mya out of a fitful, dream-filled sleep. Lurching out of bed, she fought a dizzying disorientation, not quite sure where she was. Then the door opened, and a flickering light outlined Nails and Gimp, crossbows at the ready. The urchins fired their weapons into the hallway without hesitation, then backed into the room.

  “It’s that priest!” Nails shouted, reaching for another bolt.

  Mya snatched her daggers from the night table, dodging as a crossbow bolt zipped through the door and thudded into the far wall. Halfway to the door, a wave of darkness swept through the wall toward her. Dear gods, no!

  Hoseph’s soul-wrenching magic folded her knee
s.

  The sting of a slap across her cheek, hateful words burning into her soul—I wish you’d never been born—blood on her hands, blood on the knife, the astonished look on her mother’s face as blood pulsed from the severed artery in her neck.

  Not real… It’s just magic! Focus or you’re dead!

  Screaming, Mya gripped her daggers so hard she felt the sinews and bones of her hands cracking and popping under the strain. She pressed herself to her feet. Lurching for the door, she tripped over Nails, curled and sobbing on the floor, and slammed into the doorjamb. The impact rattled her teeth—No pain—and she blinked as a wave of hot air washed against her face.

  Fire… The sight of flames outside the door burned away the lingering despair. A human shape writhed in the inferno. Was it Hoseph? No, the screams were a woman’s. Others hung limp, taut strings of catgut piercing their bodies. One hulking man slashed with a knife, trying to fight free. Hoseph must have materialized his assassins right in the midst of their web. Spiders indeed. Hoseph was nowhere to be seen.

  Damn! She spun, but no killer priest lurked behind her. But the fire…

  “FIRE!” Mya grasped the bucket of wet sand beside her door and flung the contents onto the burning woman. The flames dimmed, but still spread along the floor. Oil… They brought oil to burn us out.

  Paxal strove through the maze of strings with another sand bucket, but slowly. Dee emerged from his door, his face pale and sheened with sweat, but his eyes clear and determined. He leveled a crossbow at the assassins and fired. The bolt caught the big man in the chest and he went down with a guttural cry.

  But the fire…