The Copper Assassin

by Madolyn Rogers

  The Copper Assassin

  Tales of Wyverna #1

  by Madolyn Rogers

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The Copper Assassin

  Copyright © 2020 by Madolyn Rogers

  Cover art by Wirawan Pranoto of Polar Engine studio © 2020

  Cover design by Shawn T. King of STK Kreations © 2020

  Map by Michael Baker of Fantasy World Emporium © 2020

  All rights reserved. This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

  For my father, who first sparked my love of fantasy

  Contents

  1: The Tricked Eel

  2: On the Run

  3: The Library of the Past

  4: Hunters and Prey

  5: Claws

  6: Serpents Wise and Unwise

  7: The Carousel

  8: Madness in the City of Dragons

  9: Shadows of the Past

  10: Trials

  11: The Noose Tightens

  12: Chess Pieces

  13: At the Gate

  14: Murder in Mind

  15: Dicing With the Devourer

  16: The Undoing

  17: Facing the Fates

  18: The Fence of Finality

  Character List

  Glossary

  1: The Tricked Eel

  By day the city of Wyverna brooded, a dour grey expanse of stone buildings stretching for miles along a narrow eastern shore, pinned between the mountains and the sea. But as the sun plummeted below the sheer peaks that swallowed half the western sky, the city stirred to life. Music and the murmur of swelling crowds cascaded through its streets. Deep in alleyways, living shadows prowled, welcoming the shroud of darkness. Beyond them, a thousand lights fought the dark: streetlamps flared gold, magical glowglobes winked white beneath balconies, and rosy braziers smoldered. As night pounced, Wyverna opened its myriad glowing eyes, and awakened.

  In the River District, where Wyverna’s largest river tumbled to the sea, the last swimmers splashed to shore through waves turned black as oil in the dusk. The water was frigid in this spring month of the Spawning Moon, but these youths hardly cared. They sprang from the water with the grace of young animals and clambered up the slippery banks, their nude bodies smoke-colored shadows in the gloom. Laughter and chatter rang over the strand.

  Gorgo stood at the top of the bank, impatient. He was dressed already, though his thick black hair still dripped. All the swimmers bore the dark coloring of the Oribul family, as they were all cousins to one degree or another. Gorgo was darker than many of them, with classic Oribul looks: skin the color of umber and coal-black eyes. He was not tall, but his body was muscular and compact. He might have been carved of stone in the twilight.

  Below him, Rall surged from the river. She danced up the slope, calling over her shoulder, “You’re an idiot, and you’ll be shark’s bait before the year is up.”

  A young man caught up to Rall with a bound. Six & Seven was paler than most of the others, his skin a cinnamon brown, and his fawn-colored hair gleamed like a candle flame in the last light of evening. “I’m lucky and skilled and I’ll be rich within a year. But doubt all you want, sweetheart; I’ll bring you back bracers of diamond from the mainland. Far be it from me to hold any rancor. I’ll be magnanimous—”

  “You’ll be a lackspittle. A glib tongue and luck with the dice won’t get you far.”

  “But my magnificent talent and heart of steel will get me anywhere!” Six & Seven flashed a grin at her.

  Gorgo was past smiling at his cousins’ banter. It had once been amusing, but the argument had gone on for weeks now. Six & Seven talked endlessly of joining the Catsclaw, the elite navy of warriors who commanded the great ships on their summer raids. He bubbled with stories of the wealth he would win and the battles he would fight. Rall never failed to take the bait and heap scorn on his likely ability to advance past the rank of trainee.

  Now they had joined Gorgo at the top of the bank, where their clothes were flung over the bushes. Another cousin, nearly dressed, laughed at them both. “Give it up, Six & Seven. You can’t hope to convince Rall of anything.”

  Six & Seven shrugged as he reached for his trousers, his smile still shimmering. “That’s the fun of it.”

  Gorgo snorted, casting a dark look at Six & Seven to remind him it was time to go. They had been friends since childhood, and spent most evenings in each other’s company. They were only distantly related, third cousins in actuality, but Gorgo had no siblings, and Six & Seven was the closest thing he knew to a brother.

  Six & Seven caught Gorgo’s glance and strolled over, clapping him on the shoulder. “Ready for Ilkour? I’ve got eight gryffons biting through my pocket.” He jangled the coins for emphasis. Six & Seven’s favorite pastime of late was to frequent the casinos in Ilkour, the downtown district. He was equally adept at dice, cards, or the great wheel of Fates.

  Rall laughed as she buckled her knife belt. “They’ll be biting you in the back soon enough.”

  “When did I last lose at the tables?” Six & Seven asked.

  “Last night,” Gorgo replied with a fleeting grin. His voice was deep and smooth, as dark as his skin.

  “And what was your luck, Gorgo?” Rall asked.

  “More profitable.”

  “He won two wyrms.” Six & Seven’s taunt was good-natured. The tiniest coin of the city, a wyrm bought nothing.

  “I wasn’t referring to money,” Gorgo said equably. He had in fact heard a rumor of interest, which he collected just as Six & Seven collected wins at the tables.

  “Oh?” Rall’s brows arched. “Gorgo scored with a Hologrim sorceress? Or maybe a Pirate?” Either romantic conquest would have been unlikely. The sorceresses of the Hologrim family were renowned for their power, and Pirates were the highest-ranking members of the Catsclaw.

  Gorgo shrugged, unmoved by her mockery. Around them, the group was dissolving. Two of their cousins called out that they were going to a Veajhing dance tonight, and invited everyone to come along. One of the young women looked at Gorgo and Six & Seven and said, “I suppose you’re bent on going into Ilkour,” and rolled her eyes. Rall struck off on her own, while the other five trooped away in a noisy crowd, leaving Gorgo and Six & Seven alone on the riverbank.

  “Let’s go, Gorgo. The night’s stirring.” Six & Seven’s eyes were bright, his pale hair blowing about him in a tawny cloud.

  They loped across Black Bridge and headed south, toward the heart of Wyverna. In moments they were striding down an avenue between the dark silent bulks of mansions, where firefly streetlamps cast pools of murky green light.

  “Rall’s right, you know. There’s no point to joining the Catsclaw,” Gorgo said.

  “You would agree with her. You’re entirely too much like Rall at times. Neither of you has a sense of humor to speak of.”

  “She’s got sense. What’s the gain?”

  “You must be joking, Gorgo. How else can you get power, renown, wealth? How else can you find adventure? Sail beyond coastal waters, back into the world?”

  Gorgo hid a smile. They were both of noble family and had never lacked for money or entertainment. Six & Seven thrived on his nights of catting about the city, visiting casinos, taverns, and music houses with unending delight. He would never give up the pleasures of the city for the rules of the Catsclaw. It was Gorgo who had grown bored with the diversions. Outwardly, Gorgo only shrugg
ed. “How many Pirates are killed by the lesser races while pillaging in the mainland?”

  They were young enough that the distant world was more myth than reality to them. They had been three when the Warlord brought their people across the ocean to found this city, fifteen years ago. They remembered no more than fragments of the voyage: the great galleons, the thousand ships, the winter passage through the ice. They remembered nothing of the world beyond.

  “You can’t deny piracy’s a good life,” Six & Seven protested.

  “Can’t I? It mostly means following orders, from what I can see. Rules, not power. Months on end shipboard, nothing but dueling to relieve the boredom. And unless you’re a bloody fine warrior, you won’t rise very high in the hierarchy.”

  “Spare me, Gorgo! We’re already fine warriors. At the arena yesterday we were dueling with Wildcats.”

  “Wildcats. A few ranks short of even the lowest Pirate.” Gorgo’s tone was dry. “True, you might make Pirate. But for all your wits and drive, you might find yourself obeying orders from someone bigger and stronger than you, with no hope of advancing beyond him.” In reality, Gorgo knew Catsclaw promotion was rather more complicated than that, but there was no denying you couldn’t advance to the highest levels without superb fighting skills.

  “Well, that’s the way of life, isn’t it? We’ve got what we were given. It’s luck, like my luck at gambling. Anything you do depends on how good you are. If you don’t have the courage to try yourself, then you’re no Wyvernyr. You might as well be one of the lesser races we take as slaves.”

  “What you’re born with is a lot more than how good you are in a swordfight. I won’t choose a path where I can’t use all my talents to succeed.” Gorgo bit down upon further words. He had not intended to say so much. He would wager he had spent far more hours than Six & Seven had pondering what the life of the Catsclaw was truly like, debating whether to join. Sometimes Gorgo envied his cousin’s ability to dance lightly through life, needing nothing beyond the pleasures of the moment. Six & Seven did not seem to feel the hunger that gnawed at him. Gorgo’s restlessness had grown over the last year. Every day he became more conscious of the pointlessness of his life. He had talents, but nothing to use them on. Maybe everything came too easily to him.

  His parents were no help. His mother rarely looked up from the family accounts, which she handled with sharp efficiency. She had taught Gorgo the work, and he was quicker at the mathematics than she was, but it bored him. Gorgo rarely saw his father, who was always wrapped up in the petty politics of the Oribul family. Gorgo had his father’s skills—in fact, he was better at reading people than his father was—but family squabbles interested him even less than the family accounts. Gorgo’s days were filled with useless trivia, and even his nighttime excursions into Ilkour had begun to pall.

  Gorgo burned for something more, for a purpose. He thirsted for a challenge. The obvious answer was to join the Catsclaw. He might even do well there; he fought well enough, and he learned quickly. But the idea filled him with a dark forboding. He did not want to give himself over to another’s command.

  They were leaving the mansions and gardens of the River District behind. The avenue passed through a hedge of sweet-smelling, thorny bushes, and ahead of them rose a packed jumble of buildings, crowding up the steep hill of the Catsclaw District. The structures were raw stone, like most of the city, and had been hastily built and jammed together without order, part of the first frenzy of building on this shore. A gate stood open across the street, a Catsclaw guard lounging in its shadow. She glanced at them without interest as they passed. In moments they were swallowed by the maze of cramped little streets. They passed barracks, crèches, cafeterias, hearing the hum of voices beyond the walls, the communal life of the Catsclaw.

  “If we do well at the tables tonight,” Six & Seven said, “let’s blow some and take a room in Ilkour for the rest of the night. Better than walking back all this way half-drunk.”

  “Fine with me.” Gorgo glanced sideways at him. “What low-class pit do you have in mind for us tonight?”

  “Mmm.” Six & Seven smiled a little, as though at some private taste of honey, and jangled the coins in his pocket again. Seconds passed before he glanced sideways at Gorgo and admitted, with half-laughing apprehension, “Blue Light.”

  “Blue Light! By Yahsta’s toes, you would.” Gorgo groaned, already resigned. The Blue Light quarter of Ilkour stretched only two blocks wide, but its reputation loomed large, a favorite haunt for the high end of the underworld. “The worst wyvern’s nest in the city. The place is filthy with magic. And the kind of people who frequent it—”

  “You would go to one of those swanky casinos again, I suppose. Expensive as hell, and all for the privilege of rubbing elbows with every high muckety-muck and blooded noble in the city. Not to mention all of those Oribuls of the royal enclaves who look down on us for being expatriate. It’s a pleasure, sure. A fine wild time.” Six & Seven’s grumbles were tolerant; he knew he had won the argument.

  “You can meet people with power at places like that. You can learn things. All you’ll find in Blue Light is a lot of shadow dwellers running on the down side of the law.” Not that anything he had ever learned in Ilkour had turned out to be useful, Gorgo amended to himself.

  Six & Seven shrugged. “That’s what I like.”

  While they talked, an occasional warrior of the Catsclaw passed them in these narrow alleys, heading perhaps to a card game or to supper. Distant sounds filtered through the closed windows, the clatter of weapons practice, the laughter of revelry. But mostly they were alone under the darkening sky, cold biting their noses and quickening their steps. It was a long and twisting way, and their spirits soared high in anticipation of Ilkour.

  The buildings of the Catsclaw fell back, and sea breeze whipped their faces, thick with the stink of fish and salt. Spread out below them was Ilkour, the Jewel District, the heart of the city. It glowed luminescent between the mottled grey curtains of the sky and the water. Cold Harbor made an inky well at its eastern end. On the water bided the spiky silhouettes of warships, glittering with lantern light, grey ghosts against the blackness of the bay. From this vantage point, their rigging protruded from that pitchy hole like the legs of spiders creeping from a pit. On the wharves around Cold Harbor, the fuzzy globes of streetlamps shone like pearls. They cast light in watery nets over the gilded fronts of restaurants and taverns, and were swallowed in the abscesses of warehouses. Small human figures moved against this tapestry, minnows swimming in the pearly glow. Beyond the harbor on all sides the city stretched in a patchwork of tumbled dark and light.

  The sound of the city carried faintly to them, a distant murmur like the sound of a woman’s laugh, far away, low and amused. Sometimes Gorgo imagined that the sound was in fact a voice coming to them from long ago and far distant, an echo from across fifteen years and hundreds of leagues of empty ocean, from a city now dead and looted. The ghost of old Ptalmilkour, capital of the ice islands that had been their homeland, still hung about Ilkour.

  The young men exchanged a hungry smile and descended into Ilkour, prowling through streets crowded with revelers. Soon they saw an azure haze gleaming between the buildings ahead. Another turn, and they arrived at the curved street of scarred, unpaved bedrock that girdled Blue Light. The quarter consisted of only two circular blocks, arranged in concentric rings. The sapphire light that gave the place its name spilled out across the street like arctic fog, fingering the edges of the houses opposite, glimmering along the eaves. It lapped against the mouths of the alleys like an invitation, or a warning. The light came from the air itself; it was alive and burning with otherworldly radiance, brilliant here at the verge, receding into cobalt depths in the inner block.

  “Ah. It’s early yet. Let’s have a drink.” Six & Seven glanced northwest along the street, and Gorgo, anticipating his direction, rebuked him matter-of-factly.

  “You’ll never breed if you keep after Yahsta’s Sperm.
”

  “Or maybe I’ll breed young godlings.” Undeterred, Six & Seven loped like a hound on the scent down the curved street past the strange shops of Blue Light, and Gorgo kept pace. Sleepy twitterings and coos emerged from a darkened aviary, while music drifted from the windows of the next building. The sound of a string fiol soared high, piercing in its sweetness, numbing in its monotony. They passed by a dusty bookstore and stopped before the tavern Screaming Midnight. From the open doorway exuded the reek of liquor and thick smoke.

  Six & Seven passed into its shadows just before Gorgo, and threaded through the tables to the long bar. The bartender tonight was a stunning woman with ebony skin. “What’ll it be, gentlemen?” she inquired in a low pleasant voice.

  “Yahsta’s Sperm—two glasses.” Six & Seven rested his hands on the bar, bright-eyed. The thick white liqueur was technically banned, but laws were shaky in Blue Light. The drink’s nickname came from its color and its punch, as potent as though it were really the seed of a god. More than alcohol was rumored to go into its ingredients. It was expensive, but Six & Seven was free with his cash in pursuit of his gambler’s high. Gorgo distrusted the drink, but not enough to pass up its piquancy.

  The gorgeous bartender served them swiftly. She could not be from any of the known families, Gorgo reflected as he savored the drink’s bite; none of them had skin so dark, not even the Oribuls.

  Six & Seven extended his closed fist in formal greeting. “I’m Six & Seven. My mother named me after the lucky throw at dice.”

  Disinterested but courteous, she touched her closed fist to his own. “Thamba.” She turned away to wash bar glasses.

  “We’re on our way to the Tricked Eel to try the tables. Maybe you’d like to join us when you get off.”

  The bartender produced a meaningless smile. “I work all night.”

  Six & Seven rolled a mouthful of the liqueur around his tongue. He looked like he might try another gambit, but footsteps sounded behind them. A young noble had entered the tavern. He was older than they were, perhaps some thirty years, good-looking and proud in his bearing. He was likely of the Kharvay family, Gorgo decided. He had fair skin bronzed by the sun, long copper-colored ringlets, and intense dark eyes. His clothes were of the highest quality, fine leather trousers and boots of suede, a bright silk shirt showing under his tunic. He wore a rapier at his waist, as many Kharvay nobles did.