Assassins' Dawn

by Stephen Leigh

  He looked as nearly smug as he ever allowed himself to look.

  “There are these things called ideals, Seneschal. Did you talk about them in between gossiping about me?” She really did not feel well. She told herself that it was the company and not just her body. “I pledged myself to follow the laws of the Alliance because I felt that, even if not perfect, they were for the most part just. I don’t intend to follow that oath only when it’s convenient for me, nor do I think myself wise enough to alter the laws I follow because I might not be comfortable with the results. Now, that’s an old woman talking, mind you; I haven’t your sophistication or education, Santos. But I am Regent. As long as I am, we’ll do things according to my wishes.”

  “Some of your accomplishments are in the textbooks at the Academy, Regent; your work on Thule, for instance. But”—he smiled again, as d’Embry thought that, somehow, she’d known that particular word was coming—“everyone, even the best, can sometimes make a mistake in judgment.”

  “We should both remember that, shouldn’t we?” She’d raised her voice to say that, and the weakness of her lungs betrayed her. She doubled over in a paroxysm of coughing. Dull, insistent pain throbbed in her stomach and chest, the symbiote moving uneasily. The attack subsided slowly. D’Embry reached for a tissue, spat into it and folded it in her fist, wishing she hadn’t given in to anger. It made her look weak, feeding the pity she sensed McClannan felt for her.

  “Have you heard from your daughter lately?” Had he said it in anything but the carefully neutral voice he used, she might have been provoked again, sensing in his indelicate change of subject a placation for an old used-up woman and a none-too-subtle suggestion that she should retire.

  “No, I haven’t,” she replied tartly. And just as well. Every time, Anne would try to get her to come back to the estate on Aris, to give up the Diplos. The last time d’Embry had been to Aris, it had taken only a week of sitting, surrounded by four generations of offspring, to become bored and surly. Anne hadn’t enjoyed the visit, nor had d’Embry. She wondered how Anne contrived to forget the horrors of each visit and invite her again.

  “Aris is a beautiful world,” McClannan ventured.

  “They spent several fortunes taking everything dangerous or unsightly out of it.”

  “You have a lot to look forward to when you go there.” The prodding in his voice almost made her laugh scornfully.

  “It’s an antiseptic, artificial place. It’s like living in a museum with all the exhibits chosen by someone else. After the first enthusiasm wears off, it’s dreadfully stultifying. I’m never comfortable there.”

  McClannan pursed his lips, almost—but not quite—looking disappointed. He shook his head slightly. “Have you ever told your daughter that?”

  “Many times. Every visit.” She felt a quick shudder of pain in her abdomen. She willed herself not to show it. The symbiote twitched; d’Embry felt a flooding of relief as it released some chemical of its own into her bloodstream. Her discomfort passed, but a faint fogginess remained, calming her but dulling her senses. She could not seem to care much about McClannan’s slick criticisms. They still irritated her, but she didn’t want to do anything about them. Damn it, you parasite! Don’t do this to me. Leave me my feelings even if it means pain. “You’d like Anne,” she said. “She resembles you. She listens to what’s told her, then selectively ignores what she doesn’t want to hear.”

  It pleased her to see a hint of peevishness in McClannan. His fingers tightened, a faint redness touched his cheeks, and his lips pressed together, whitening. Another time, that would have been enough to make her feel childishly gleeful at having broken his facade. But this victory wasn’t as sweet as it should be. She couldn’t summon enough energy to care.

  “Well, Regent, I really didn’t think I had much chance of persuading you to change your mind, and I see you’re in a bit of pain today. I doubt that you want to be bothered with Neweden affairs or idle chatter.”

  Meaning that I ignore my responsibilities as Regent, you son of a bitch. Even as she thought it, the lethargy slid back over her, making everything seem distant. She fought the tiredness, forced herself to smile.

  “I probably shouldn’t be bothered with useless and stupid second thoughts on decisions already made,” she said. She waited a moment, watching the flash of anger behind his eyes. “Let me get some work done here, Seneschal. I’m sure you have duties to attend to as well. Duties other than mine.”

  He rose primly and bowed slightly to her. “Always, Regent, always. If I can help you, though, please let me know. I won’t hide what I feel—I believe that you’ve made a mistake in this. Sula Hermond is an enemy of the Alliance, as are all the Oldins.”

  “I knew the Sula when he was Thane of the Hoorka, Seneschal. He might have been proud, arrogant, and stubbornly blind, but he was a man whose word you could trust. He tells me he’s only here to trade.”

  “He’s been eight standards with the Oldins. What if he’s changed, or what if they’re using him as a dupe? I saw the record of your talk with him—I don’t like the man, Regent.”

  “I wouldn’t think you would, Seneschal. Sula Hermond speaks his mind freely, without guile, and I’ve always found that he keeps to the spirit, not just the letter, of his own morals.” She stared at him, he looked steadily back. “We disagree on most things, the Sula and I, but I find that I like the man.”

  “Then I pray that you don’t discover your affection for him to be your downfall, Regent.”

  “I’ll manage, Seneschal,” she said.

  “I’m certain you will,” he replied, with absolutely no conviction in his voice. “Are you certain you don’t wish me to pursue this further? A thorough check of a ship’s log inevitably unearths some discrepancy . . .”

  “I think you know my answer.”

  McClannan nodded. He strolled leisurely to the door, stroking the replica of a d’Vellia soundsculpture as he went by—it moaned in the wind of his passage. He waited patiently for the door to open. He went through.

  D’Embry sighed, leaning back gingerly in her floater. She closed her eyes. After a few minutes, her breathing deepened and became more regular. The head lolled back.

  She slept.

  • • •

  He’d taken a flitter from Sterka Port to Vingi’s keep. Stepping from the gate of Vingi’s grounds into the overcast day, Gyll indulged a whim. He waved away the flitter’s pilot, deciding impulsively to walk and see Sterka again.

  For the most part, the city seemed the same: cluttered, narrow streets made for pedestrian traffic and not groundcars, rich and poor dwellings separated only by a street of small shops, residences and businesses mixed hodgepodge. Chaotic. It brought a smile to his face, born of memory and amusement at what he now saw as archaic and haphazard planning. Sterka was nothing like the sleek and clean lines of OldinHome, the ordered beauty of the buildings and parks there. The scenes gave him hope that he could accomplish his mission on Neweden, the true reason that he’d kept from d’Embry.

  He would take Hoorka away from Neweden, away from the Alliance. He would lead them again, under the Oldin flag.

  (And as he walked, something nagged at him, some vague feeling of unease, a prickling at the back of his neck: danger. He stopped, turning this way and that, but he could see nothing out of the ordinary. Just a street crowded with people, that was all; a noisy conglomeration, most of whom seemed to be kin intent on their own thoughts. Gyll continued walking.)

  He’d badgered and cajoled Grandsire FitzEvard, telling the wily old man that he could not give the Oldins a viable military force without a nucleus of trained people—his own old kin. Oldin wanted them too fast to start from scratch. Oh, yes, the Trader-Hoorka he had already were good people, but the Neweden Hoorka would serve as a larger training force, and the work would go that much faster. Let me go back to Neweden, Gyll had said. Let me go back and get them.

  It had taken time and much argument, but FitzEvard, under pressure from
Gyll, Helgin, and Kaethe Oldin—Gyll’s lover and FitzEvard’s granddaughter—had at last relented. Kaethe was banned; she could not go, but Gyll and Helgin would return to Neweden. FitzEvard had even smiled when he told them. Gyll would be in charge of the ship, and it would operate as any Oldin trading mission—except that Gyll would seek to recruit his old guild as well.

  Gyll knew what he had to offer—far, far more than squalid Neweden, the world Gyll had once thought as all. Far more than the Alliance offered. Gyll could see now why all the Trading Families disliked the Alliance. If the Alliance died, Gyll would not grieve. If what Gyll did here helped to negate its influence, he would be pleased.

  Gyll had found several truths about himself in the time since he’d left Neweden. Paramount among them was that he enjoyed being a leader. The leader, the one who commanded, who created. He’d given that up when the guild of Hoorka had faced political problems on Neweden, when it seemed that he had dealt with them poorly—and he had found that he was bored and restless, and that he could not keep his hands away from the reins of leadership. That had led to his conflict with Valdisa, to whom he’d given the Thane-ship. It had driven them apart, driven Gyll from his kin, and the troubles of Neweden had given the Hoorka less and less work.

  He would amend that all now, if he could.

  He could not change Neweden, but he could change Hoorka. It would have to be slow, have to be careful, but he was confident. He was Sula now, not Thane, and the title suited him better.

  If d’Embry knew, Goshawk would swiftly be seeking some other port. Meddling, she would call it, interference with Alliance business. Gyll did not enjoy lying, but he was slowly finding that it was sometimes necessary. If he had to lie to get Hoorka, he would do it.

  As he walked, Gyll let the impressions soak into him, comparing them with remembrances of standards past. He strolled slowly (though the small uneasiness he had felt earlier would not go away), observing. It seemed to Gyll that it was the people as well as the city that had changed. Yes, much was still similar: lassari still drew back from him, as they were supposed to do, the guilded kin nodded politely even as they stared at his clothing and the strange emblem on his belt where the holo of the guild insignia should have been. It seemed that there were perhaps more lassari now, more low kin whose shabby clothing proclaimed the poorness of their guild. And the churches—Neweden had always been haunted by piety and a multitude of gods from which to choose; that trait seemed to have become more pronounced in the time he’d been gone. Neweden was, as the scholar Cranmer had written, “surprisingly rich in gods for a damned poor place; it must be the cheap rent.” Gyll was most surprised at the number dedicated to She of the Five Limbs, goddess of the extinct ippicators and also patron of the Hoorka. It seemed that a cult had sprung up around Her. Whatever, every block he walked had its church, of one god or another.

  Gyll could only speculate on what that might mean, whether it was due to the solace provided by religion in bad times and the promise it gave of eventual reward, or because, by becoming a member of the clergy, a person became something between guilded kin and lassari. To become a minister of the gods had always been one way of improving your lot if you were lassari, and that was why the regulations regarding the establishment of churches were strict here: high taxes, an avalanche of paperwork, and constant proof of a sufficient congregation.

  He knew FitzEvard Oldin would be pleased either way. It meant that things were not all well on Neweden.

  There was something odd in the way Gyll was regarded by those he passed, something subliminal. He could sense hostility from the lassari even as they stepped out of his direct path, and the guilded kin seemed wary rather than strictly polite. Twice, he saw the green-robed Magistrates of Justice judging a duel, a crowd gathered around the conflict—that had always been a rare scene when he’d last been here. And though kin had always gone armed on the street, the weapons were now more prominent, placed boldly at the hip as if in defiance and challenge. Guild-kin walked together in bands, as well, traveling with companions rather than alone. The sense of worry came back to him, stronger now. He stopped and glanced behind him: guilded kin went in and out of the door of a bakery, a pack of jussar youths lolled against a wall, two women argued prices with a vendor of sweetmeats, a group of kin (the Sterka Jewelers’ Guild, by their buckles) scowled their way around the obstacle of his body. Nothing there to feed his paranoia. Gyll shrugged and continued his aimless strolling.

  A building he did not remember blocked his path. He turned left, found that the street died after a few blocks, forcing him to go right, down an alley to another street. He knew where he was, roughly if not precisely; somewhere on the edges of Dasta Burrough, one of the lassari sectors. Gyll didn’t care for the sights or the smells, and that nagging feeling of being pursued still insinuated itself. The street was less crowded now. He stepped around a sated wirehead sprawled near the central gutter, moved into shadow and out again, now making his way up a series of wide steps. He kept his hand near his dagger even as he cursed his uneasiness, then justified it by recalling what he had taught his new Hoorka. To an extent, fear is good. Only a fool is truly unafraid, and fools tend to die quickly in a crisis. Don’t allow fear to cripple you or make you change your tactics, but don’t shut it out, either. Listen to it.

  He turned left at a crossing street, then left again, trying to find his way back to the street of shops without admitting defeat and retracing his steps. He came to the mouth of an alley. The houses near him were empty and dark, ruinous, and the street was oddly deserted. Something about the scene, something in his fear and the net of shadows around him made him hesitate. Maybe the scent of rotting garbage and dampness welling from the alleyway: Gyll took a false step forward, waited, thinking that in a moment he would feel rather foolish.

  The feint saved him.

  A hand holding a crowd-prod stabbed air where he should have been—that first glimpse of the prod showed Gyll that the weapon had been altered, and the ugly blue-bronze scorch marks at the tip indicated that the alteration was likely to be deadly. Gyll caught sight of his attacker; a thin, sallow face, a gray bodysuit with a tear at one shoulder. The man took a quick step from the alley. A dagger held in the left hand followed the prod, slicing at Gyll. He sidestepped, feeling cloth tearing as the dagger’s edge slid along his side; in the same motion, Gyll grasped the man’s dagger hand at the wrist. He twisted, hard, and brought the hand down and his knee up. The weapon went clattering away as the man yelped in pain. Another lunge with the prod; Gyll went with the move, falling backward and bringing up his legs sharply into the man’s midsection, propelling him back over Gyll’s head. Gyll lurched to his feet, sliding his own dagger from its sheath, crouching, watching as his assailant groggily regained his footing. It took the man several seconds, but Gyll did not move toward him. He waited, breathing quickly but easily.

  There was no guild holo on the man’s buckle, no identifying insignia anywhere on him. The ripped bodysuit seemed to be plain dress available anywhere. “Back off now and this won’t go further, lassari,” Gyll said. “Think about it, man; if I’d wanted you dead, I had plenty of time.”

  The lassari grimaced, whether in pain or answer, Gyll could not tell. He shuffled his feet, his fingers loosening and tightening on the prod’s handle. “You’re bleeding, offworlder.”

  “Don’t mistake a scratch for anything else.”

  The lassari straightened, the crowd-prod now held down at his side. He nearly smiled—the edges of his mouth curved upward. “You were almost Hag-kin. You’re quicker than you look to be, old man.”

  “For a frigging coward who’d attack without warning, you don’t move nearly as quickly as you need to. With your skills, you’ll be Hag-kin yourself soon enough.”

  The smile vanished. Thin shoulders shrugged under frayed cloth. “Give me another chance, offworlder. I’ll be glad to show you the ways of Neweden. A personal introduction to our gods, neh?” The man spat on the pavement between th
em. In another time, that would have sent Gyll into a rage: Neweden reflexes. Now it almost amused him, a futile, empty insult. It didn’t touch him, didn’t mean anything. “You’re blocking my way, lassari,” he said simply. “I’m not really interested in proving to you that I’m good with this blade, but I am. Very. It’s your choice.”

  The lassari shifted weight from one foot to the other. He seemed to turn the decision over in his mind; thought twisted the narrow face into a mask, a snarl. Gyll braced himself, certain that he’d be attacked once more—when you were Thane, you wouldn’t have hesitated when the man was done. You’d have finished it, and not had to worry. He hoped the man would back down, was afraid he wouldn’t. He had no real fear of the man—he was inept and clumsy—but he didn’t want to begin his stay on Neweden with another death. He’d killed too many here already. On the bad nights, they crowded his sleep.

  The lassari took a step away from Gyll. Then, as if that movement broke the stasis of confrontation, the man fled, turning and running. The sound of his flight echoed from the buildings.

  Gyll straightened. The muscles of his back were sore, and he tried to convince himself that it was a result of the unaccustomed drag of Neweden’s gravity that made him ache. He examined his side—the dagger had barely broken the skin, though now that the adrenaline surge was gone, he could feel the pain. He frowned. The dagger the lassari had lost was stuck halfway in a pile of garbage the wind had gathered against the curb. Gyll picked it up—a cheap thing, the blade filed from some stock metal, the hilt just tape over the bare steel. Rough, but effective enough; a lassari weapon like a thousand he’d seen before. Gyll stuck it in his belt. He began walking.

  There were people around him before he’d gone two blocks. He mused on the attack. Once before, such a thing had happened after leaving the Li-Gallant. Coincidence? Gyll shrugged back the phantoms of speculation and looked about him. He could see the spire of Tri-Guild Church transfixing clouds. He moved toward it, ignoring the stares his torn, bloody tunic caused.