And now he stood before Sula Hermond himself. Steban arranged his face in the neutral aloofness Thane Valdisa had taught him, and bowed deeply to the man. Sula Hermond didn’t appear overly prepossessing; he was old, to Steban’s eyes, his hair gone mostly white. His eyes were more sad than anything else, as if some old mood had settled there, wrapping itself in folds of quiet and sorrow. Still, the body was lean, taut with well-toned muscles, and there were tracks of old knife scars on his hands. Steban felt that he’d probably like the man. He could understand why Thane Valdisa had once been his lover. “Sula Gyll Hermond?” he asked when their gazes met.
“Yes,” the old man replied quietly. A strong voice, Steban thought, but I doubt that he raises it often. A man who rules by strength of friendship rather than fear. Steban glanced down at the bio-monitor on his belt—a light glowed green: positive ID.
“Your life has been claimed for Dame Fate and She of the Five, Sula. We of the Hoorka have received a contract naming you as the victim.” Steban’s voice was dispassionate, made distant by the rote recitation of memorized, well-rehearsed words. His eyes were half-closed, as if he rummaged in his head for the text. “You have several options—”
Sula Hermond had raised one hand, a gentle interruption. Steban wondered—this is the man who created the assassins, gave them their skills, had killed more himself than any of the rest, more even than the famous Aldhelm? Sula Hermond acted like a shy teacher. “I know the routine,” he said, and he smiled. “You say it well, too—you’ve done the lessons properly.”
In confusion, Steban smiled back, then immediately replaced the smile with the mask of Hoorka aloofness. He knew that Sula Hermond saw the slip and was amused by it; the man’s smile grew larger. “Do you wish to negate the contract, Sula?” Steban asked. Thane Valdisa had told him to expect payment. Steban was already fumbling for the pouch on his belt in anticipation.
“I think not.” Softly, always softly.
Steban looked up, bewildered now. He let the flap of the pouch drop. The old man still smiled at him, sad and gentle. “Sula, I thought—”
“—that I would pay,” Gyll finished for him. “I know.” Steban did not understand. From the tales he had heard, from what he’d seen here today at the port, the Family Oldin was wealthy. Surely the Sula misunderstood him. He shook his head. “Sula, if the contract is paid out, you will not be hunted.”
The smile was still there, but harder-edged now, the eyes gone distant. “I realize that, son. Don’t forget who wrote the code.” The man took a deep breath, straightening and stretching, and Steban realized that, despite the Sula’s age, he would be a formidable opponent. He looked quick and devious. “It would be amusing,” the Sula continued, “to ask Thane Valdisa what she would do if I were to simply take this shuttle back to Goshawk and sit. Would she rent a shuttle herself and come knocking at the door? Do the Hoorka have the powered suits and heavy artillery she’d need to breach the hull? Boy, I tell you, the Hoorka wouldn’t have the money, the people, the equipment, or the expertise. I could do it, she could not. The sunstar would rise laughing at the guild-kin.”
Sula Hermond had become more and more perilous to Steban’s eyes as the old man spoke, less the kindly teacher and more the vaunted assassin of Hoorka tales. Now he sighed, a long exhalation, and leaned back against the rough wooden wall of the shed, arms folded at the chest, and he was once more the gentle elder.
“But I won’t do that,” he said. “You’ll tell Valdisa this, boy: I’ve neglected the gods of Neweden long enough—my gods, whether I want them or not—and I intend to do penance for that neglect. I’ll put my life in Dame Fate’s hands. I will run—tell Valdisa that it will end in the hunt of knives, and that I quite intend to see the sunstar rising tomorrow. Tell her that—you can remember it all?”
Steban nodded. He’d forgotten the Hoorka mask again; his mouth hung open.
“Good. You’ve done your duty then, boy. I know the rules of this game, if not some of the others I’ve been forced to play recently. At least I should be good at it. You have some tracer-dye with you. Use it, and you can go.”
Sula Hermond extended his hands toward Steban. The apprentice fumbled again under his nightcloak, pulling forth a small vial. He touched the cap—a fine mist covered the hands, a quickly drying dew. “Fine. Now give my words to the Thane.”
As Steban turned to leave, Sula Hermond called after him. “Tell her one more thing, apprentice. Tell her that he who creates has leave to destroy, as well. I don’t like what Hoorka has become. This will be the last hunt.”
“Sula?”
“Just tell her that.”
Steban left the shelter. He was confused, his mind a tumult. He could not decide what he had just seen, which Sula Hermond was the true one: the harsh assassin, the gentle old man.
• • •
They stayed—a static triangle—as far apart in the room as they could. Gyll was seated behind his desk; Helgin, looking battered and bruised, was in a floater snuggled in the corner nearest the door; McWilms, his attention divided between the other two and the view of Neweden through the port, stood, arms akimbo, leaning against the outside wall.
“It was a good little joke, Gyll,” Helgin said. His voice was hoarse, his face—what could be seen of it under the beard—was mottled with a gold-brown bruise. He twisted his beard around a finger. “A wonderful little joke. Hah, hah,” he said with leaden precision. “Now please tell me that you weren’t serious.”
“I am. I’ll run the contract.”
“Don’t push the joke too far, Gyll; I might not think it’s funny anymore. I might even start believing that you’re telling the truth.”
“I know it surprises you when people do that.” Gyll glanced at Helgin. The Motsognir stared back, impassive. “It’s the truth. I want to go through with it.”
“Valdisa will be one of the Hoorka, Sula.” McWilms spoke, shrugging away from the wall. He didn’t look comfortable to Gyll, as if the fit of the Trader-Hoorka uniform bothered him, or as if he were forced to be privy to a private quarrel in which he had no part. “We, ahh, didn’t exactly leave her with many good full kin. She’ll be one of those hunting you, almost certainly.”
Gyll frowned. He’d suspected that such would be the case, but McWilms’s words made him face the truth of that speculation. “I wish that didn’t matter to me, Jeriad. But it does. It fails to change the essence of my decision, though.”
McWilms looked through the port at the expanse of Neweden, as if fascinated by the cloud patterns. “I wasn’t trying to change your mind, Sula, just pointing out something you might not have known. I understand your decision quite well, myself, unlike others.”
“I don’t,” Helgin grumbled. He glanced at McWilms, scowled at his back, and turned to Gyll. “I don’t understand at all.”
“You’re not from Neweden,” McWilms commented, staring at the world, “and you’re not Gyll. You’re not anything like Gyll.”
The dwarf shot a glance of venom at McWilms. Gyll spoke hastily, seeing the irritation in the dwarf—he knew the short-fused Motsognir temperament. “You know how the Hoorka are set up here, Helgin. A victim won’t die if it’s not his time to do so. Dame Fate rules Hoorka.”
“That’s superstitious rationalization that you don’t believe much more than me. And you also set it up to buy out the contracts.”
“There were always some of those who could afford to pay off the contract, and who still chose to run.”
“Yah, the idiots with death wishes, or fools who felt themselves invulnerable, like childish heroes.”
“Which am I, Helgin? Idiot or fool?” Gyll felt his own temper rising, his voice gaining volume to match the thunder of the Motsognir. McWilms had turned to watch them, his face grave, his left hand very near his vibro hilt.
Helgin gave each of them a look of disgust. “And people complain about my temper,” he said. “You’re neither one, Gyll. You’re my friend, whether you let yourself believe that now
or not. The Motsognir don’t give friendship outside our race easily. I speak to you as I would one of my own: what the hell do you hope to accomplish?” Around and around: his finger toyed with his beard.
“I’ve no idea, Helgin.” Gyll took a deep breath. “It could be a whim, I suppose. But too much has gone on around me lately. You know what I’m referring to. Now someone’s gone to the trouble of signing a contract for my life. I want to know who that is—and there’s only one way, by my old code, to gain that information, and that’s to die. I don’t intend to do that, but neither do I want to feed Hoorka’s purse. That’s not all,” he said, raising a hand to silence the protest he saw forming on Helgin’s lips. “The reasons are all small and all internal.” Yah, killing that unknown man, finding that I’ve been splendidly lied to, seeing the manipulation going on behind my back, even the finding of the ippicator. “I’m not sure I could articulate them very well, but they add up to this—I want to take the chance. I want to see where I stand with Dame Fate.”
“It sounds damned silly to me.”
“Helgin—”
“I mean it.” The Motsognir lurched to his feet. Unsteadily, limping, he strode over to Gyll’s desk. “People don’t play frigging games with their lives. Not if they’re sane.”
Gyll rose as well, leaning on the desk, hands on the wood. “And you don’t tell me what I can or can’t do.” He stared at the Motsognir, but he could feel McWilms’s gaze on him as well. “I’m well aware that this isn’t a game.”
“I know what you’re after, Gyll—a sign from the gods that you’ve been doing the right things, that you’ve done all you could. You’re looking for absolution. If the answer’s ‘yes,’ then you live; ‘no,’ and you die. Very simple.”
“And my business.”
“No!” The dwarf stamped a bare foot into the rug. “It’s not just your business. You’ve given allegiance to the Family Oldin. You owe them your services as Sula—you owe that to the Neweden Hoorka that have joined you.”
McWilms stirred. “Those Neweden Hoorka will, to a person, understand what Gyll is doing, Motsognir. Leave us out of your arguments.”
“The Oldins lied,” Gyll said stiffly. “That makes me wonder about loyalty.”
Helgin shook his head. “You’re stubborn, the lot of you. The Oldins didn’t so much lie as they did leave you out of their machinations.”
“Lies of omission,” Gyll half-shouted.
“Kindness to your frigging sensibilities, you mean,” Helgin roared back.
For a long minute, no one said anything. McWilms returned to his survey of Neweden. Gyll and Helgin stood in poses of defiance. Then Helgin, with a curse of disgust, spat on the floor and turned. He stalked from the room without looking back. Gyll watched the door close behind the Motsognir, his feelings twisted.
McWilms moved away from the wall. He smiled at Gyll with compassion. “I’ll bet he’s a real bastard when he’s mad.”
Gyll’s face was still downturned with anger. “You can be certain of it.” Then he forced himself to smile in return—the effort was not entirely successful. “I’m sorry you had to watch this, Jeriad, but I wanted you to know what I intend to do. It doesn’t endanger your status here; Helgin will make sure of that, once he calms down.”
“I understand, Sula.”
“Helgin doesn’t.” Again, the frown. “He thinks I’m crazy. There’re times I’d like to wrap that beard of his around his throat.”
“Whenever you want to do it, let me know. I’ll give you a hand.”
Despite himself, Gyll chuckled. “Did you manage to find out anything in Sterka?”
“I checked around, as you asked, Sula. I think I have good news for you. Let me go and get the map I drew.”
Gyll nodded. McWilms reached out, grasped Gyll’s bicep with a firm hand. “We could wait until morning to do this, Sula.”
“If Dame Fate wills it.”
“She does. I’m certain.”
Gyll smiled. “I’m glad you think so. But no, we do it now.”
• • •
Outside her window, the sunstar was setting behind Sterka Port, sinking into a cushion of low clouds and touching the sky with a ruddy orange—not an overly pretty sunset, but adequate. M’Dame Tha. d’Embry stared into the last light of the day, shielding her eyes with a hand tinted the shade of the sunstar itself. She could see that the Trader shuttle had left the port—and she wondered whether it would return.
A spasm hunched her over, her fingers clenching the sill with whitened knuckles. Falling apart, aren’t we, symbiote, just like this world. Falling apart, and all we can do is delay the inevitable. She felt the release of the symbiote’s chemicals into her bloodstream, allowing her to slowly straighten. The sun had dipped lower, wrapping itself in the clouds, its light gone muddy.
Well, go ahead and make the grand gesture. It won’t do any good, but you’ll be able to tell your conscience that you tried. She sighed, and made her way back to her desk. She was conscious of her walk, that it was stooped and slow—an old woman’s walk, an invalid’s hobble. She lowered herself down on the floater’s cushions, her arms supporting her. The effort made her wheeze asthmatically. She waited, felt her breath come slowly back. So tired; gods, is it worth it? And, as always when she had those thoughts, the symbiote—its survival dependent on hers—slipped a mild euphoric into her. So you can sense the despair, symbiote? Too bad you can’t communicate—what a strange existence you must have, a leech listening to the maunderings of a worn-out mind. She could feel the parasite lurking, just below the threshold of her thoughts, as if she could, in some deep concentration, reach out and speak with it.
She stretched out a tinted hand, touched the contact that activated her com-unit. It swiveled slowly up from the desk. She laid her fingers on the keyboard and stared for a second at the contrast of her wrinkled skin against the smooth and perfect keys. The machines stay young while we fall apart. She tapped out the familiar letters of her key entry, then asked for the line to Diplo Center on Niffleheim. She thought for a moment that McClannan had been smart for once and canceled her validation code, but the screen lightened with the menu of access codes for Niffleheim, as well as the local time there: 2:04 p.m. That meant, if she was lucky, that Arthol would be back from lunch. Maybe. It would be safer to wait, but she was afraid that she’d be too tired later.
She was always tired.
502G3486DC: ARTHOL PETTENGILL. She keyed in the code deliberately, one-fingered, pressing needlessly hard. The screen went into a flurry of static as the tachyon relays kicked in, and she heard the ocean roar of interference. A minute. Two. She thought of canceling the call, of trying again later; then there was the distant click of connection. A faint, shrill burring rode in the interference, and then a wavering, static-pocked face stared out at her; mustachioed, balding, but with surprisingly young eyes in the pudgy face.
“Tha! Good to see you . . . well, perhaps not so good, is it? Trouble, it has to be trouble or you wouldn’t look so serious, and you wouldn’t be wasting good Diplo money on the relay.”
She had never been one to mince words—she knew Pettengill would not expect it now. “Do the Diplos want to be called murderers?” she asked dryly. “If that’s trouble, then yes, you’re right, Arthol. And you’re looking good, young man—a credit to your teacher, I hope.”
Pettengill chuckled at the contrast between the two halves of her speech. “You were a tough one to follow, m’Dame, but I try. I try. Now, what’s this about a murder?”
“Your little Regent McClannan took out a Hoorka contract on a Trader—and an Oldin at that—Sula Gyll Hermond.”
In the welter of interference, Pettengill frowned. “Hermond was the head of your assassins’ guild, wasn’t he?—the one we think killed Guillene on Heritage?”
“Yah, and he’s been with the Oldins for the last eight standards. McClannan, over my protest, bought a contract on the man—a damned ugly way for a Regent to deal with his problems, if you ask
me. I want McClannan taken out of here, Arthol. He’s not competent. If you have to have him as a Regent, put him somewhere else. Not here. He’ll botch it, I guarantee you.” She paused for breath, ready to resume her commentary against McClannan, but she waited too long.
“And put yourself back in as Regent, Tha?”
He said it gently. It stopped d’Embry in mid-word.
For a moment, she was silent with shock, both at the soft accusation and at the fact that she’d not anticipated it, when it seemed so logical a conclusion to make. “Arthol, I think you know me better than to sling that particular piece of mud at me,” she said carefully. “My interest in this is the image of the Alliance, as damnably altruistic and self-sacrificing and false as that sounds. And in any case, I think . . .” She halted again, realizing that what she was about to say was the truth. So you’ve come to that decision at last. Good. “I think that my health would preclude any reappointment. Hell, Arthol, I’m all done, both with Neweden and the Diplos. All I care about is making it through the next day. I’m an old woman, good for the occasional lecturing and speechifying, the relic you’ll drag into your classrooms once a standard for the entertainment of the current batch of bright young hopefuls.” A breath, again, and this time Pettengill did not interrupt. “Just let me do one more thing for the good of the Alliance, my friend. Bounce McClannan out of here. Put him somewhere safe. Make him rescind the frigging contract. It’s not the way we should deal with crises, this method of his.”
She sat back, waiting. Beneath the view of her screen, his hands would be moving, clasping, unclasping—nervous habits she remembered well. His face shuddered with some vagary of the relays, breaking apart and reforming. “As I understand the Hoorka, Tha, the victim can pay off the contract. The Oldins are rich enough. Why not bleed their pockets a little?”
Assassins' Dawn Page 64