The Stiehl Assassin

by Terry Brooks

  She hadn’t believed it was real at first—hadn’t believed there was a machine that could discover hidden things so long as they were of material substance. It was a Dwarf invention, he had told her, initially used—ridiculously, perhaps—for painting walls.

  But why couldn’t it be used to uncover soldiers who could make themselves disappear as well? Why couldn’t it be used to detect Skaar, who could vanish through either genetic manipulation or magic?

  Ketter Vause was betting everything that it could.

  And Ketter Vause, she knew, seldom made a bad bet.

  NINETEEN

  TWO DAYS FOLLOWING DRISKER’S return from the Valley of Shale, and his departure with his young charges on their own journey, the Behemoth arrived at the eastern edge of the Four Lands. Ahead, the dark, choppy waters of the Tiderace appeared as a ragged sprawl that stretched to the horizon and beyond. The air smelled of the ocean—of fish and crustaceans, kelp and seagrasses. There was in the smell and sights and feel of the Tiderace an irresistible timelessness and promise that whispered of experiences and adventures. It was a siren song. In the manner of the creatures rumored since the dawn of time to lure men to their doom, it called to you. If you were disposed to heed such calls, if the sea was the answer to how you should spend your life, you responded. You put aside everything else—land, home, family, friends, and community—and you went to her. And you were welcomed into a cold unforgiving embrace that promised nothing more than a chance to experience a deeper closeness to the proximity of death.

  To this, the Behemoth had come, to the first real test of what she could manage, of how much she could withstand. It would take two weeks to cross the Tiderace—a journey of wild expectations tempered by harsh truths—and she would have to weather whatever fate nature would throw her way. Once beyond the shores of the Four Lands, there would be no turning back. There would be no help save that which the men and women aboard her could provide. Landing on the ocean’s surface would be possible but very dangerous. And if it was required, their vessel was all the comfort they would find.

  All this crossed Darcon Leah’s mind as he stood looking out from the bow of the Behemoth, well forward from the rest of those he traveled with, alone with his thoughts. Fears and doubts rose in waves, and he found a need to tamp them down quickly and firmly—to reassure himself that he and his companions were equal to the demands of the challenges ahead. To promise himself that they would overcome whatever obstacles they would encounter and succeed in what they had been sent to do.

  The highlander shook his head at the prospect.

  He could not help but wonder if Tindall’s machine was up to it—or even if it could possibly do what the old man believed. It was such a mad, hopeless claim, and Dar was not one to believe in pipe dreams. To change the weather—to alter its intended course by taking forcibly from nature’s hands the management of a quixotic and frequently unreadable aspect of life’s inevitability—was more than troubling. In the abstract, it seemed a violation. In reality, it seemed to foretell dismal consequences.

  If men were not meant to tamper with the mechanics of nature’s workings, as so many beliefs and legends claimed, what sort of doom were they courting by attempting to do so here?

  “You seem lost in thought, highlander,” said a voice at his side.

  He glanced over quickly, startled to discover that Rocan Arneas had come up beside him; in his reverie, he had not heard the man approach. Not so strange given the rush of the winds this near to the coast and the creaking and thumping of the Behemoth’s component pieces as it was buffeted.

  But still…

  “Just wondering what lies ahead,” he replied.

  “Time and tide and what they choose to offer. The foresight to see any of it before it happens is not given to mere men and women. It is a daunting prospect, but there’s excitement to it, as well. A new continent, new lands and new peoples. New discoveries of all sorts…”

  The Rover let his voice trail off and then laughed. “But this is a Rover’s life and has been for centuries untold. Travel the world, make her your home. It’s like exploring a vast house with many rooms—so many rooms you know you will not see all of them in a single lifetime. But there is the challenge, isn’t it? There is the promise of a life worth living.”

  Dar was not so sure, but he guessed it was in the blood of Rovers who, for the most part, rarely settled, even though some had taken root. As had those in Aperex who built vessels like the Behemoth and found in the results of that effort the life they were looking for. But the larger number of Rovers still preferred to travel, to move about the world and never stop anywhere for too long.

  “Two weeks, then?” Dar asked. “The time remaining in our journey?”

  Rocan shrugged. “As best I can make out from what little I already know, and from what the Skaar princess tells me of her journey here.” He paused. “A fine young woman, that one. If I were ten years younger and still inclined to risk everything for love, such a dangerous beauty could tempt me. Wild and a bit headstrong, determined to be who she wants and never anything less. A fine bedmate for anyone. A fine wife and mother, too, one day.”

  “A bit headstrong?” Dar shook his head. “You have no idea.”

  Rocan laughed again. “Then you must enlighten me, highlander. I love a good story, and she looks to be one.”

  “One night, when I’m drunk and foolish enough, maybe.”

  “Oh, that will come, I think. And sooner rather than later.”

  They were silent for a moment. “So you believe this machine the old man has constructed can do what he claims?” Dar ventured finally. “Change the weather? Reorder nature? Because despite Drisker’s belief in what the shades of the dead claim, I am having serious doubts.”

  “Well, you would be a fool not to, highlander.” The other man shifted about to face him.

  Highlander, he called him. Not Blade or any such ominous or tradition-laden title that would reference the Druids. Here, on this vessel, he was an equal and a fellow traveler. Well, fair enough. The Druids were history and best left that way.

  “I have doubts, as well,” Rocan continued. “But I have hopes, too. Expectations of what might be. Dreams, if you wish. And I have seen Annabelle at work. I have seen what she can do, and it is beyond anything I had ever thought possible. She shoulders her way carrying bags of possibilities and reveals them as truths. I have given myself over to embracing those truths. I would not have expended my time and credits otherwise. I would not be here, standing beside you.”

  “But even if it works, even if it can alter the weather—this everlasting winter freeze—how long can we expect any change she makes to last? How far-reaching will it turn out to be? Will it in any way change the course of the struggle we left behind, or the thinking of these Skaar? If Ajin d’Amphere is typical, then I am doubtful of the latter. And that’s at the crux of what Drisker Arc is hoping to achieve. He wants the invasion reversed, and how many times in the course of your experience has that happened?”

  Rocan shrugged. “What I believe is that sooner or later everything changes. Knowing that, I don’t have any unreasonable expectations about what Annabelle can accomplish. What I hope is that whatever she manages to do will last long enough to make a difference.”

  Dar smiled. “Take what you’re given and be thankful?”

  “Something like that. In my world, it’s pretty much the most you can expect.” He glanced around. “I should get back to the pilot box. I worry those youngsters at the controls might have us going back the way we came. We’ll talk more later, eh?”

  Dar Leah nodded. “If we do, you’ll probably convince me of your arguments about Annabelle. Why did the old man name her, anyway? She’s just a machine.”

  Rocan started away, then turned back with a finger to his lips. “Sshhh. Don’t tell him that. He thinks she’s alive.”

 
; And he burst out laughing.

  * * *

  —

  On the stern of the Behemoth, Shea Ohmsford was watching Tindall as he used a series of cloths to wipe down Annabelle’s sea-dampened components, polishing her as one might a prized Sprint. The old man did this every day, mostly at the same time, and every day he took almost two hours doing it. He had started on their first day out of Aperex, and Shea, lacking anything more interesting to occupy his time, had wandered over to join him. He had thought to stay only for a few minutes, but the intensity of Tindall’s efforts and the mystery that surrounded Annabelle had captured his attention. Enough so that he had come back to watch again on the second day, and by then the two were talking.

  At first, they had not spoken at all. Tindall had worked diligently on cleaning off the machine, barely glancing at the boy, while Shea had been content simply to watch. But by the second day, the old man had begun describing what various parts of Annabelle were intended to do—sometimes digressing into complicated explanations of how the science functioned, and how in the Old World she would not have been so much the oddity she was now. Science, he said, was once the primary mover and shaker of the world, and magic was thought to be impossible.

  “In those days, centuries ago, the world was a different place, Shea.” He used the boy’s name casually, which was something of a surprise since Shea didn’t think he even knew it. “It was through science that all the great inventions were brought to life. We had flying machines that could travel off this world entirely. We had machines that could transport you from one place to another in seconds. There were mechanical people. There were machines that could think and talk like you and I. It was a marvelous time, a wondrous time, and it should have lasted much, much longer, given how far we had progressed. But then it spun out of control, and wars, poisons, sickness, and irrevocable damage to our natural resources put an end to it.”

  “The Great Wars,” Shea said.

  Tindall nodded. “A cataclysmic destruction of everything we knew. Science was virtually obliterated—all the knowledge, the books, and the records first, then the scientists themselves. All gone. It was all we could manage as a species just to survive. Machines weathered, rusted, fell apart, and were gone. The knowledge of how to build them disappeared—in part, at least, because those who had survived wanted nothing to do with science anymore. It was throwing out the good along with the bad, but people were wary—and some were militant. So a machine like Annabelle became a fairy tale and an impossibility. Magic replaced science as a means for progress, and the world changed—as worlds will do when disaster befalls them.”

  “Yet you knew how to build machines?” the boy asked.

  Tindall chuckled. “I knew how to read about how to build machines, and I was lucky enough to find books and records that had not been destroyed. So I began the process of inventing anew. It was so fascinating to re-create things once believed lost! And I have barely scratched the surface of what is possible. I am a poor beginner trying to take the place of the really great minds that preceded me. And Annabelle…” He paused to run a hand lovingly across a long stretch of her smooth metal-and-composite surface. “Annabelle is my greatest achievement.”

  So the conversation had begun, and now, on the beginning of the fourth day into their long journey, they were meeting again. Tindall was cleaning the dampness of the sea-soaked air off Annabelle, all the while speaking of earlier times and the sciences of the Old World, while Shea sat watching and listening and now and then asking his questions. A bond was growing between the old man and the boy, until both were so at ease with each other it seemed their new relationship had just been waiting to surface.

  On this day, Tindall was working harder to clean Annabelle than before, because there had been rough weather during the night that had left the machine coated in salt. Although canvas wrappings protected her, nothing could keep that salt water and air from getting in. Left so coated, Annabelle would begin to rust and corrode. Parts of her machinery would become clogged or damaged, and if that happened, it was possible she would fail to function as intended.

  Shea sauntered over from the aft decking where he had been watching Ajin drilling with a sword, and waited until the old man glanced over.

  “Do you know what happened to Seelah?” the boy asked.

  Tindall paused what he was doing. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because I haven’t seen her since we boarded the Behemoth. I wondered if maybe Rocan had left her behind.”

  “I don’t think the choice would be his.” Tindall gave Shea a look. “But would you be troubled if he had?”

  “I might. Yes, in fact. She’s saved us more than once. We might need saving again.”

  Tindall nodded. “Point taken. Well, you can stop worrying. She’s aboard. She’s just keeping out of sight, the way she usually does. She doesn’t like airships anyway. She’s a ground animal. Flying is something she could live without.”

  “So she’s in hiding?”

  “If you haven’t seen her, then it seems likely, doesn’t it? Now, that’s enough questions, young man. I have things to do that don’t involve giving out answers.”

  He turned back to Annabelle, wiping down her smooth metallic surfaces. “Can you tell me something about how she works?” Shea asked.

  Tindall harrumphed. “Seelah or Annabelle?”

  “Your machine, of course. Tell me how it functions. Can you?”

  He had been working up to this for days, wanting to know the answer, but was afraid of rushing the question and making it seem as if he did not believe she could do what the old man claimed. So he had held back from asking, impatient to know but wary of choosing his time. But now that they were well under way into the unknown, his patience had failed entirely.

  Tindall gave him a look—one that lingered, as if he was measuring Shea’s purpose in asking. Then he shrugged. “Hard to explain the specifics. It’s all in scientific terms with which you are not familiar, and trying to explain them clearly would take more time than I have left on this earth. But in simple terms, Annabelle takes elements and remakes them, then puts them into the air, which causes a reaction. Different configurations of those elements produce different results. The trick is in finding which elements create which reactions. So if you have a drought, you need one set of elements reconfigured to create rain. Once, these elements were called particles, and the particles were broken down into even smaller bits and called by different names. The machines that did all this were amazing creations, and they accomplished things I can only dream about. But Annabelle is a simpler form of such machines, a less complex creation.”

  “But she can make changes in the weather, like you say? You just have to let her know what those changes need to be?”

  The old man nodded. “Theoretically, yes. But I’ve only tested her in one or two different ways. What we plan to do in Skaarsland is a new usage entirely, and I cannot know for certain if she will respond to the challenge. Not until we get there and put her to the test. But I think she will succeed. I have faith in her.”

  What he had went well beyond faith, the boy thought. It was more an obsession. Or addiction, maybe. Tindall was bound to Annabelle in a way that would have been disturbing if the boy had not become so close to him and found him so reasonable to talk to. Odd, that no one else had made the effort. Rocan alone seemed to share Tindall’s passion, but the Rover lacked the scientific understanding of Annabelle that the old man had accrued. He lacked the experience of having worked for years to create her, learning about her anew virtually every day.

  Shea was in the same boat, but he wasn’t so much interested in the specifics of how Annabelle worked as he was in what it meant to be so committed to her. All those years spent in trying to realize a dream. All those years of inventing things—some great, some small, some successes, some failures—but all of it leading to the building of this o
ne machine. What did that require? What sort of mindset did you need to make a single dream a reality? He had witnessed such single-mindedness in only one other type of individual—the men engaged in the politics of war, who sought to build empires and claim power. And they were all self-serving and ego-driven. Such men always claimed they were acting for the benefit of others, but at the end of the day they were mostly acting for themselves.

  Tindall, he had decided early on, was of a different sort entirely.

  “Would you teach me a little of the science that makes Annabelle work?” he asked impulsively. Then added hastily, “I wouldn’t want to take up too much of your time. Just a little, maybe?”

  The old man stopped his cleaning and looked over. A smile crossed his pinched lips. “I would be pleased to do that. Let’s begin today, as soon as I am finished.”

  The smile lingered as he went back to work.

  * * *

  —

  Farther aft, right up against the stern railing of the Behemoth, Ajin d’Amphere was going through a series of training exercises, both with and without weapons. She did this every day as a way to keep strong and to occupy her time usefully—a habit she had acquired early in her life and adhered to obsessively since. It derived from her understanding of the fact that being the king’s daughter—back when she had decided that marrying herself to the Skaar army was a way to gain her father’s approval—would still not result in anyone showing her any special consideration. If she wasn’t as quick and strong and prepared as every other soldier, she would quickly lose what initial respect she was accorded. She had to be not just as accomplished as her compatriots but better. So more training, harder effort, deeper concentration, and extensive study became a part of her life.

  As she grew, she surpassed the other soldiers quickly in proficiency and knowledge, but kept their respect and earned their friendship by always putting them before herself. That she was a princess ceased to matter. Whatever she did in those years, she always approached it as if she were a low-ranking soldier still trying to prove her worth.