The Assassin's Twisted Path

by Elizabeth Guizzetti

  If she drove the one to Edar, she’d have to kill her. At least, he’d dispose of the body for her. They might even be able to tell me the species of this one.

  Ensuring she caught sight of her again, Byronia crossed the street. Her pursuer was still behind her. She circled the block and headed for Edar’s cottage.

  The windows were dark. Byronia knocked on the door, suddenly realizing she hadn’t considered Edar might not be home.

  She glanced over her shoulder again. The being was looking right at her back and approached.

  She pounded on the door.

  From inside, Roark called, “I’m coming!” She was glad now she had someone to help her kill the being.

  Rubbing sleep from his eyes, Roark opened the small window in the door. “Byrony.” He opened the door.

  “Don’t close it. I brought you a subject.”

  Roark looked over her shoulder. “Will he be missed?”

  “Unknown.” Byronia noticed that Roark called the being a he. Maybe she was a he.

  “What’s all this now?” Edar said. “Lady Byronia, do you know the hour?”

  “I’m in need. And I have information for all of us.”

  “Then come in, come in, lady.”

  The golden-haired being stood at Edar’s gate as if deciding whether or not to come in.

  Byronia stepped back to the open door ensuring she could be seen.

  “Hey, ho … I’d still like to see those poems. Maybe you have something to recite in there.”

  Byronia backed into the cottage.

  “Now that’s a body,” Edar whispered from behind her.

  Roark sighed. “He better not be missed.”

  •

  As soon as the one was through the door, Roark grabbed him from behind and twisted his arm to his back. “My friend doesn’t seem to enjoy your advances.”

  Without a word, the big hairy human turned and shoved him to the ground. He grabbed Byronia and tried to rip the bag from her waist. She gave him an uppercut on the chin, but he was seemingly unfazed. He growled, tore the bag away from her, and turned back towards the door.

  Byronia jumped on his back and pummeled him with a dagger’s pommel. He cried out in a high musical soprano.

  With the hope that his vital organs should be where most humans were on the body, Roark stabbed him in the side. Surprised by the lack of blood, Roark withdrew the knife and stuck again.

  The being screamed again. Byronia quickly bound his hands behind his back and shoved a rag in his mouth. His hair seemed to have a life of its own. As a braid whistled through the wind and cracked through the air, Roark jumped back before the lash landed. The man jumped to his feet and tried to retreat.

  Roark tackled him. The golden hair reached back for Roark’s face. Byronia got a rope on his feet. “You alright?” she asked still holding his struggling legs.

  “Yes, let’s get him downstairs.”

  Together, they lifted the larger being, Roark at the feet and Byronia at the shoulders. They made it two steps when the golden locks wrapped around Byronia’s wrists and squeezed.

  She screamed as it cut off the circulation to her hands.

  Edar rushed forward with a kitchen knife. He sawed through the hair holding Byronia. The being howled as if it hurt him as the hair fell away from her bruised flesh.

  Edar screamed as a braid grabbed him. A thick twisting lock cut into his skin, opening a lesion. He raced past Roark to one of his lamps. He placed his wrist over his lamp and burned the strands.

  The being wailed as Roark dragged it down the steps to the lab, but it was overwhelmed by the cries of each individual strand alighting on Edar’s wrist.

  “What are you?” the being shrieked as Roark strapped him to the table.

  “What are you?” Byronia asked back.

  “Are you one of the slaves from the ship?” Roark asked. “One that the sailors are talking about?”

  The being howled and its hair ripped from its roots and wrapped around its own neck. It squeezed while screaming out its last breaths. The hair turned from gold to gray. The body’s flesh desiccated. Edar screamed as the burnt hair on his arm sparked and fells to the stone floor, leaving a raised rash.

  “Bring me the salve,” Edar panted.

  Roark rushed to get the latest salve, applied it gently, and bandaged Edar’s arm. Byronia asked, “Is my skin red? Do I have a rash?”

  “No. You look a little flush, that’s all.”

  “I believe this is a being from another Realm. Something we haven’t seen before. Can you do a dissection? You learn; the Guild learns.”

  Roark frowned. “This is why Corwin wanted me to see the rash and why you are here.”

  “Yes. I would’ve told you, but you didn’t ask.”

  “After our dissection, my lady, we shall go upstairs and have a nice cup of tea, and you can tell us why you brought him to us.”

  Roark glanced over at his master. “Edar, shouldn’t …

  “Dissection first.” Edar gestured at the deteriorating flesh. “We don’t seem to have much time. Lady Byronia, would you prefer to take dictation or assist?”

  “Assist,” she said.

  “Very well, Roark, if you would take dictation then? On fresh parchment. I’m sure Lady Byronia will need a copy for your employer,” Edar said.

  Roark hurried to get a fresh parchment and filled the inkwell. Then he sat at the small desk on the east wall beside the lantern. He sketched out the corpse.

  “Cut off the robes but be gentle with the fabric. It too may have secrets.”

  Byronia undressed the creature. As she removed its inner robes, she said, “I was wrong. This one isn’t female, in fact, I see no reproductive organs at all. Perhaps it is like a Telchine?”

  “My knowledge of the Telchine is limited,” Edar said.

  “The Telchine mold their young out of clay and then have a breath of life ritual,” Roark said. “They are asexual in nature.”

  “Have either of you done an autopsy on a Telchine?”

  “No,” they said together.

  “When they die, they turn back into the clay from which they came,” Roark said.

  “Damn, we could really use an example,” Edar said.

  “I’m sure someone in the Guild knows the secrets of Telchine life,” Roark said.

  Edar nodded. “Well, put that in the notes and let’s continue. No sexual organs; age: assumed adult. Cause of death self-strangulation with its own hair.”

  Byronia removed the golden rings it wore on its fingers and in its earlobes. She weighed them and tested the metal. “Gold over nickel” and placed them beside Roark.

  Edar weighed and measured the body. “Thirteen stone, Six feet, Nine fingers widths.”

  “Eyes were lavender, no pupil, growing milky.”

  “Hair color was gold, but now gray.”

  Edar looked at the hair through his stacked lenses. “Each hair begins in a small sucker, rather than a follicle.” He said. “And ends with a tiny stinger.”

  “Perhaps that’s why the creature started to shed after its death?” Byronia asked. “May we see?” Roark asked.

  “Solid hypothesis,” Edar stepped away from the stacked lens.

  Roark peeked at the hair, sketched it, went back to his notes. Byronia chewed her inner cheek as her brow rose. Roark wished she wasn’t so obvious in displaying her reactions. She was a Guild Diplomat and able to hide her emotions. Why wasn’t she?

  “The hair is thicker than mine,” Edar said. “I’m sorry, dear.” He plucked a hair off Byronia’s head and examined it. “And yours.”

  Roark plucked his own hair before his master did it and handed it over.

  “That’s interesting.” Edar said. “Now I don’t suppose you’d be willing to part with any body hair?”

  Roark slipped his hand under his tunic and found a hair under his arm. He yanked it out. He wished he hadn’t groaned at the sting.

  “Lowest Realm, lad, we have tweezers.”<
br />
  “Yesterday, you told me this rash might hold life or death. There is no time for tweezers when you’re ill,” Roark said.

  Edar smiled softly as he and Byronia lifted the body and placed a wooden block underneath the torso. “The creature does have enlarged pectorals, but no nipples.”

  Edar carved into the chest, he curved his scalpel under the pectorals and ran them up to the shoulders, then he peeled back the flesh. Edar sliced into the sides of the corpse, leaving the ribs attached to the breastbone, he removed the entire frontal ribcage as one chest plate.

  “Oh, my Gods, Roark, come look,” Byronia said.

  Roark stood to see inside the body. Long fibrous threads ran under the flesh, intertwining with other threads and ending in a connective web embracing each organ which was covered in small white bumps.

  Edar took a needle to the bump. “Papule contains no fluid. Get me jars, milady.”

  Byronia hurried to the cabinet and came back with labeled jars.

  Using a serrated blade, Edar cut through the fibrous threads and placed each organ in a jar of bitter-smelling alcohol. From what Edar called the heart, dripped long viscous strands of blood which coagulated quicker than any blood Roark had ever seen except maybe dwarves.

  They slowly moved through each organ within the chest, moving downward to the stomach. “It feels like the creature eats.”

  “I only observed them drinking wine.”

  Edar sliced open the stomach, more fibrous material. He put it into the jar. Byronia weighed the filled jar.

  Roark’s hand cramped from the writing and drawing, but the autopsy continued long into the night.

  •

  Roark set the tea upon Edar’s table; Byronia spread another dose of Edar’s latest salve over his rash. Roark noticed there was no difference between the red hives now and the first dose.

  “I didn’t expect I could catch it. It’s been so many years since I’ve had any human disease.” Edar asked softly. “Do you think it was your species that protected you tonight?”

  “No. I’ve heard reports of Fairsinge children with the rash. Rentgirls and slaves mostly,” Byronia said.

  “And my sailor friend said she saw a Fairsinge with the rash and a Daosith on her ship died from it.” Roark shuddered. “Do you think it might be the Curse?”

  “Perhaps. Or it might just be slower on those with the curse … who knows?”

  “How would we test for that?”

  “The only way I can think is something awful,” Byronia said, her eyes downcast.

  “Both of you listen,” Edar said, his voice full of every long year in his life and undeath. “We have no time for tea. Byronia, pack the organs and bring them to the Guild House. I’m sure that will help the both of you. But you’ll return with information won’t you, my girl?”

  “Yes, I’ll return.”

  “Good.”

  “And Roark, you will stay and help me find a cure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, then I’ll retire. Without rest, no one can heal,” Edar said.

  Once the cottage was quiet, Roark realized he still hadn’t had the chance to look at his Vodnik samples. He found them still wrapped as he left them. He carried them downstairs into the lab for archival purposes. Unfortunately, they had putrefied into thick, foul-smelling water.

  •

  Chapter 12

  Port Denwort in the Realm of Dynion

  Roark unwrapped the bandages from Edar’s wounded arm. Even overnight, the salve had not tamed the rash. It seemed to be spreading, but Roark hadn’t looked closely in the chaos.

  “Make another poultice, this time with two parts quicksilver and one-part lanoline and sulfur,” Edar said, his voice shrill.

  Roark pressed two doses of quicksilver into a jar of lanoline. He tried to hold his breath as he stirred in the sulfur, but the rotten-egg smell assaulted his nose.

  Roark spread the new lotion onto the rash. “Feel any better?”

  “Perhaps, I can’t tell yet.”

  Edar screamed. Roark saw another welt raise.

  “Don’t move.”

  Roark grabbed a skin press - typically used to isolate warts and moles. Quarantining the raised flesh, it was easy to see something wriggling under the skin.

  With tweezers, he pulled out a long fibrous hair. They repeated the procedure with each bump, the ones higher on the arm had filaments; the original wound was empty.

  “Perhaps it was the quicksilver … maybe it ran from the quicksilver,” Roark said. “Our traditional cures might be spreading it … ”

  Edar’s ashen face grew even more pallid. “I don’t know what will become of me, but take my works and go.”

  “But the transmutation … ”

  “I don’t know those secrets.”

  “But I brought something, many things from my journeys … ” Under Roark’s tunic, the quartz trembled. Be still!

  Roark ignored it. “I just didn’t get the chance to show you. Lord Corwin gave me Lady Daena’s journal!” He removed the quartz from under his shirt and handed it to him then ran into his room for the book. “Daena’s dead, but before she died, Corwin believes she moved her soul into another body.”

  Edar didn’t move from his chair. His eyes were focused on the quartz of his former colleague and friend. “Why didn’t you tell me immediately?”

  “You cut me off … you wanted to find a cure … ”

  Edar gripped the quartz until his knuckles grew white. “Get out of my sight.”

  Roark did not fear Edar, but the look of utter betrayal upon the lich’s face crushed him. He reached for the book and Edar swatted his hand away. “Leave it.”

  He went to Edar’s mother’s room, changed into traveling gear and packed. He wondered what Corwin would think of his failure.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Edar asked when Roark stepped from the room.

  “Home, until the Guild calls again.”

  “Never mind that. Go to David and see if he knows of anyone willing to give me their body. Otherwise, you’ll be buying a slave. Hurry now. Who knows how much time I have left?”

  Not bothering to change, Roark dashed to Mayor Kleidmacher’s main gate. The footman smiled and greeted Roark warmly.

  “I must see the Mayor, good sir.” Roark bowed his head. “Edar Candlewick is close to death.”

  The footman looked surprised but announced Roark.

  Mayor Kleidmacher greeted him with a small incline of his head from his chair, his silver cane sitting beside him. In a weak, wheezy voice, the mayor said, “Now what’s this about Edar?”

  Roark perched on a velvet cushioned bench. “Edar contacted a rash from a patient. He was shocked, as he believed he was immune from most human diseases. My master believes we have learned the recipe for transmutation, but the spell is violent.”

  “And you need?”

  “A healthy body. The spell calls for someone no longer clinging to life—perhaps wracked by guilt. Edar will try it on himself once we have the man.”

  Hoping that it would be a criminal, Roark added, “But as a Guild member, Mister Mayor, I believe we choose someone who won’t be missed. It wouldn’t be good if I heard this through the Guild grapevine.”

  Kleidmacher tapped his wrinkled finger to a grizzled chin. “I might know someone. A firstborn of eighteen. Family’s had trouble with him since he was a lad. But if it works, Lord Roark?”

  Self-reproach dripped into Roark’s soul. “You can be the next served, Mister Mayor. Edar has long been grateful for your patronage.”

  “Good. Strange folks are coming to Port Denwort; the city needs a stronger mayor to ensure our protection. I’ll get Edar the body. Tell him to be at home, first thing in the morning.”

  •

  Chapter 13

  Port Denwort in the Realm of Dynion

  “My son … anything you can do,” the farmwife said between sobs.

  “I cannot guarantee my remedies will help Thomas.�
� Edar acted like a stern apothecary to the farmers, but Roark saw the wanton gleam that he tried to hide. “And it is a dangerous procedure.”

  Remorse stained Roark’s heart. Corwin had been right. Edar was still the man who bought Kian to do medical tests. When given the chance, he experimented upon his own people. Roark wanted to tell the family to run far away from this house and never come back, but the words caught in his throat. If Edar didn’t have a new body, he might die. Why aren’t the answers as easy as they once were?

  Roark wondered if these questions would ever end.

  “You may find him quite changed by the procedure,” Edar said. “How do you feel about that?”

  The farmwife’s callused hands rubbed together in worry. She leaned her wiry shoulder upon on her sturdy husband for support. His calm brown eyes scanned the parlor. He was rather short for a human, but even at fifty, the man had good posture and a strong jawline. The son took after his father though his shoulders were hunched, and his eyes never left the floor.

  “A change would be good,” the farmhusband said.

  The son whispered, “I want to go home.”

  “And do what?” his father said. “Continue to cause your mother’s pain?”

  The farmwife’s crumpled to her knees. Tears spilled freely down her cheeks as she sobbed louder. Roark wondered if his mother would ever cry for him like that. Probably not.

  Edar jumped into chivalrous action. He kneeled before her as the human knights kneel before their queen. “Sweet farmer, do not weep. I swear I will do all in my power to bring your son’s body back to health. But I must warn you of the danger. Let me call for a cup of chamomile to soothe your nerves.”

  “Master Candlewick, that won’t be necessary.” The farmhusband helped his wife to her feet.

  “I believe it is,” Edar said. “Lord Roark, be a dear; would you see to the poor woman’s comfort.”

  Roark inclined his head. The farmerwife’s eyes opened wide. “A lord?”

  “Yes, I earned my lordship from my family and am here to learn remedies. Now if you please, good farmwife. My master grows his own herbs. A bit of chamomile will ease your suffering.”

  Roark listened as Edar and the farmhusband spoke in hushed voices, but he couldn’t make out every word. Once the farmwife and her son were seated in the kitchen and had piping cups of chamomile, Roark hurried back to the men.