The Copper Assassin

by Madolyn Rogers

  Na•ar shuddered. “Please. Quote no bad poetry in my presence.”

  “It says the essential, anyway. How much does it exaggerate?”

  “Very little.”

  “Invulnerable? Nothing is save the gods.”

  Na•ar’s lip curled slightly. “I forgot all Kharvays are superstitious.”

  “You do not believe in Yahsta beneath the sea?”

  “His existence is a fact. But he is not invulnerable.”

  “If even a god is not invulnerable, this construct cannot be either.”

  “Close enough for your purposes.”

  “How much are you asking, Na•ar?”

  “I would consider one thousand mountains to be a fair trade.”

  Gorgo thought Radice must choke on this; it was a staggering sum. The green coin stamped with a mountain was the most valuable currency in Wyverna. Gorgo had never even held one of the coins in his hand, and only seen them at the gaming tables of the richest casinos. But the Kharvay did not blink or bargain. “Three days from now I will be back with one thousand mountains, Na•ar, on Morbid’s honor.” He stood and bowed.

  Na•ar nodded. “A pleasure doing business, Radice.”

  From his hiding place Gorgo saw the noble stride out of sight and heard the door open and close. Now if Na•ar would just leave... But the older man showed no signs of leaving. He sat at the table, turning over some papers and occasionally writing. Gorgo forced his breathing to stay slow and quiet, despite the rapid beat of his heart. With a flicker of amusement, he wondered what Water must think by now. He might have an angry sorceress to deal with soon—if he ever made it out of this room alive. The little exchange in the tavern tonight had not been just a simple matter of smugglers as they had thought, but something deeper. A smuggler only wanted to make money and avoid the jacks; the smuggler’s customer was a more shadowy figure. What did Morbid want with the Assassin of the Kahlrites? It could hardly be good. Not that it mattered as far as Gorgo’s fate went. Smugglers or their customers, they were equally ruthless. Either way, if he was discovered he was dead. Gorgo thought of the knife at his waist, the only weapon he carried. How good a fighter was Na•ar?

  The room’s inner door sounded softly. He heard a man’s footsteps. “It’s taken care of, Na•ar.” He came into Gorgo’s view, and Gorgo recognized the man from the antechamber, the one who had announced him. Now his position was ever more perilous. If Na•ar found it was not Radice whom his man had announced...

  His luck seemed to be running on the down side. “What did the visitor want?” Korl asked.

  “To handle a little business for Morbid. He’s one of her top confederates—I’m surprised you didn’t recognize him.”

  Gorgo cursed silently. Korl knew he had not admitted a Kharvay. Gorgo saw the puzzled furrows in the man’s brow. But they were swept away almost instantly by alarm. “Business for Morbid—Na•ar, you didn’t offer the item to Morbid, did you? You know what they’ll do with it.” Na•ar looked up expressionlessly. “You sold it?”

  “Naturally. I wouldn’t offer such a thing where I couldn’t sell it. Morbid’s cabal was probably the only sure sell in town. They have both the money and the need for it.”

  “The need—aye! You realize you’ve just sealed the Warlord’s death sentence.”

  The words stopped Gorgo cold. Of course Morbid would use the assassin to kill the Warlord and take power. Cold prickles ran down his skin. He forced his breathing to stay level.

  “You have entirely too much tongue in your head at times, Korl.” Na•ar maintained his tranquil tone, and Korl paid no mind.

  “This is what she’s wanted for years. No other way could she kill the Warlord. Na•ar, if you give it to her... Do you want Morbid to rule us? Or worse… Think what happened to Madness. This could mean civil war, destruction!”

  Korl’s voice had risen sharply, but Na•ar replied with disinterest. “I doubt very much if this or anything else can kill the Warlord. At any rate, it’s not worth your time to concern yourself. Let the Fence handle its own problems. You have work to do.”

  “You have something else planned, don’t you? This is just a means.”

  “It’s a means to a thousand mountains, yes. Let Morbid do with it as she will. If she can seize power from the Fence, then she’s earned it. That’s the true way of Wyverna.”

  “She hasn’t earned it. Not this way.” Korl didn’t budge, and at last Na•ar gave him his full attention and allowed an emotion to color his voice—amusement.

  “Your concern for our leader is very touching, but if this can harm that hellspawn, I’ll chew steel knives. I’d put down my profit on it, if there were any to take the bet. Now go do your work.”

  Korl hesitated, then bowed uneasily. “I’ll trust your judgment.” He exited out the door to the antechamber. Na•ar gathered up his papers and left through one of the other doors.

  Gorgo sucked in a deep breath of cool air, and it seemed like the first breath he had taken in minutes. He forced his hand to unclench from his dagger. The words he had just heard echoed in his head, and yet hardly seemed real. Rebellion. Murder. The Warlord’s doom. Gorgo shook his head, trying to jar his thoughts into place. “Yahsta’s balls,” he whispered, “what now?”

  2: On the Run

  Gorgo needed to flee, that much was clear. As soon as Korl cooled off, he’d remember that he had admitted an Oribul, not a Kharvay, and no doubt would tell Na•ar so at once. Gorgo cursed himself, remembering that like a fool, he’d given Korl not only his name but his family enclave, Pton. All the Ptons lived within the same large compound in the River District; Na•ar would know exactly where to find him. And even if Gorgo didn’t go home—Korl had seen his face. With that much information, Na•ar could simply hire a sorcerer to track him down by magic, to call up an image of Gorgo in a crystal or mirror. They could find him wherever he went.

  Gorgo pushed these fears away. The first problem was to get out of this room without being seen. Na•ar had left through one door, and Korl had gone back out to the antechamber through another. That left the third one. Gorgo pulled back the window curtains and ghosted across the room to it. If he were an underworlder, he would slip out through the antechamber instead and stab Korl in the back, and perhaps end his problem right there. But he hadn’t the stomach for it. He had never killed anyone, and had no desire to start.

  Taking a breath, Gorgo pushed open the door. Behind it lay only a dark and deserted room. Faint moonlight filtered through the window and showed him a barred door in the opposite wall. He unbarred it and slipped out, and found himself back in the empty upstairs hallway. At least half an hour had passed since he had left Water, he judged. She had likely given up on him long ago. Still, just in case, he headed back in the direction of the Red Room. He did not need to leave an enraged sorceress behind him, on top of all his other problems.

  He reached the Red Room and found the hallway deserted, as he had expected. The oil lamps burned smokily behind their dim glass, barely illuminating his surroundings. The velvety carpeting and dark walls seemed to close in from the shadows. He looked up and down the empty hallway, shrugged, and turned away.

  Then he heard a hiss behind him. He wheeled to see Water standing there, a pale shadow in the dim light. She leaned against the wall, her arms crossed and eyes narrowed. “Na•ar must have taken a dislike to you,” she purred. “Or was it a liking?”

  “Neither. Something came up unexpectedly.” Gorgo felt discomfited by her sudden appearance, and tried not to show it. Devourer, she must have been standing there invisible the whole time, watching him. “I regret I’m called away. I will be at your disposal on another evening, if you desire.”

  “I never offer the same opportunity twice.” Her tone was flinty, her eyes hard.

  He would have to offer her something more to mollify her. “I apologize; I have the manners of a pig.” He smiled ruefully. “Believe me, I would not pass up the opportunity for anything less than an emergency.�
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  Her manner softened. Some curiousity showed in her eyes. “Emergencies do have a way of coming up quickly at the Tricked Eel. If you’ve killed someone, you’d best hurry away. I’ve even seen jacks patrolling Blue Light.”

  The words suggested she was underworld, or at least in sympathy with it. At the thought, an idea sprang on Gorgo, a sudden hope. “Do you offer magical services, Water? I need a spell to cloak me, to prevent anyone from finding me through magic.”

  Her brows rose. “Do you? Interesting.” She was silent a moment, her expression guarded now, unreadable. “Yes, I sell my skills on occasion. What you ask is a simple thing to do. But it’s annoying. It requires regular attention from me to maintain the cloak. For that reason I seldom offer the service. When I do, my standard fee is a gryffon per day. It goes up after the first week.”

  Gorgo pulled out the three gryffons he had recently won from her. “For the first three days, Water.”

  She considered him for a moment, and then gave him the same tipped smile as she had in the casino below, the right half of her mouth curving up, the other still. “Very well then.” She reclaimed her coins and pocketed them. She tossed her long pale hair back, and her fingers danced in the air in a complicated pattern. Then she stepped forward and with quick, professional movements touched the sides of his head, his eyes and his feet.

  Gorgo felt no different, but perhaps that was normal. “It’s done?”

  “Yes, and well done. A clean cloak that shouldn’t show. You will be invisible to any magical scan, and I’ve added protections against the trickier forms of magical detection: vision tricks, tags, and mind probes.”

  The words meant nothing to Gorgo, but he would have to trust she knew her business. “Where may I send future payments?”

  “I have a box at Three Queens Drowned. You know it?”

  “Thanks to Six & Seven, I know every casino in town.”

  She laughed, a throaty chuckle. “So who did you kill?”

  “As yet, I’m hoping to avoid it. Your pardon, Water.” He bowed, swung about, and loped back through the hall to take the winding stairs down to the main room. Urgency tugged at him. He wondered how many minutes he had before Korl and Na•ar talked again, before Na•ar realized Gorgo had likely overheard everything. If the merchant had any lingering doubts, the door Gorgo had left unbarred behind him would settle the issue. That would make it clear Gorgo had been inside the suite, and slipped out unseen.

  The main room was hotter and noisier than before. Six & Seven was still playing Fates where Gorgo had left him. His fawn hair was soaked with sweat; his eyes and teeth flashed as he called out bets. A heap of gryffons lay before him. Gorgo angled through the crowd in a seemingly aimless way that would draw no attention. Passing behind Six & Seven, he whispered, “I’ve drawn some heat. Meet me tomorrow nightfall at our usual spot.” Considering, he added, “You’d best scatter too; they may have seen me speak to you.”

  Six & Seven did not turn, or give any sign he’d heard. He called across the table cheerfully, “Four gryffons to match you, Uki!” Satisfied, Gorgo faded away into the crowd. His cousin would be there.

  No bouncer glanced at him as he made his way out the door. He turned and strolled up the street in the arctic light, forcing himself to look unhurried. He circled nearly halfway round the block, well out of sight of the casino, but saw no sign of pursuit. Then he put Blue Light behind him, moving west into darkened streets with few travelers. The pound of his heart slowed. He was over the first hurdle; he had made it out.

  Now what? He couldn’t go home, not when Na•ar would know where to find him. Or could he? Gorgo toyed with the idea. It might not be so easy for Na•ar to have him casually killed. The Ptons were a noble family and had some status. And if trouble arose, Gorgo’s aunt Armida would certainly force the police into acting. For a second, he felt hopeful. Then cold sense returned. He couldn’t count on such considerations stopping Na•ar. The stakes were too high for the merchant to be cautious. Na•ar might well hire an assassin who could dispatch Gorgo secretly. He would be safer on the run—as long as Water’s cloak was good enough to hide him.

  That was the next question: could he trust her? She had seemed placated by the end of their talk, but he had no feel for her motives, and that worried him. Had she cast anything at all on him, or had she merely put on a show and taken his money? And even if she had made an honest exchange with him, how skilled a sorceress was she? He searched his memory for any gossip he had heard of her, but the few scraps he remembered suggested she was a minor sorceress, of no particular reputation. It seemed like not much to trust his life on.

  He needed to check out the cloak, and there was only one obvious option. The Stone Hearth District lay not far away. It teemed with sorcerers, and they were skilled and professional. He would have to be cautious in his queries, though, as many of them worked for the Fence. Like any prudent Wyvernyr, Gorgo steered clear of government business. He had already gotten himself in trouble with the underworld tonight; he didn’t need to draw the attention of the Fence too. Still, he turned his steps that way. The Fence was the lesser worry right now.

  Thoughts of the Fence brought him back to the Warlord. Could Morbid’s plot really succeed? Could she take down the Warlord? The thought was almost incomprehensible. The Warlord had made Wyverna.

  Before they came here, they had been a scattered peoples, a loose assortment of families living strewn across the ice islands just off the mainland. The pirate queen Black Cat Kharvay had founded their culture, settling the islands with a band of renegades. Over the centuries they had welcomed every new outcast and rebel from the mainland into their ranks: criminals fleeing justice, wizards banished for strange magics, exiled monks from the Greycowl Mountains. In time a dozen major families shared the islands, but it was always the Kharvays who ruled. The islands were too barren to support them, so they lived by piracy. Then as now, the Catsclaw commanded the great ships, and the countries of the mainland came to fear the sight of their sails.

  But the ice islands had enemies. Assassins from the continent, ancient foes of the Kharvays, often infiltrated the capital. Mainland kingdoms banded together to oppose them, and muttered of invasion. That would have finished them; the ice islands were too scattered and open to defend. On the seas, their people vied with the southern raiders, golden warriors from a ruined empire, as fierce and ruthless as they were. In the final years their losses mounted, and the end threatened.

  Armida had told Gorgo of those days, of the debates in the great city of Ptalmilkour, the shouting in the council halls, the factions that formed, the fracturing of the families. The ruler at that time was Tiolt Kharvay; he talked of appeasing the landed nations. It was then the Warlord, an Oribul who had risen to command of the Catsclaw, took power. The Warlord spoke in the councils and gathered supporters for a bold plan. In the thick of winter their people took ship, cramming all who would come and all the wealth they could carry into every vessel that would float. They sailed out through the northern ices over uncharted ocean, in the perilous season of storms. Days later the southern raiders landed in swarms of thousands on the ice islands, looting and burning all that remained.

  They came at last to this mountain range on the edge of the world, and here they settled, naming their city for the wyverns that hunted from the mountain peaks. It was here, Armida said, that they had become Wyvernyrs, forged finally into one people, one nation. Here they had become mighty. Two years after Wyverna’s founding, the Warlord led the fleet to the homeland of the southern raiders. The fleet razed their cities and annihilated them from the face of the earth. Wyverna ruled the seas uncontested now. From their hidden stronghold, none could touch them.

  It was the Warlord who had saved them, who made them strong. Here in Wyverna, it was the Warlord who held them together, who ruled with an iron hand and kept the squabbling families at peace. The Warlord was Wyverna.

  This was what Morbid would destroy for her own ambitions—the might
of Wyverna. All to return to Kharvay rule. Morbid was part of the past that had failed them. Now she might ravage their future. If she loosed Cockatrice, Wyverna could fall as Madness had fallen, consumed by riots and flames. Sweat congealed on Gorgo’s skin in the cold night air. The thought came cold to him, lodging in his breastbone with certainty. She had to be stopped, though he did not know how.

  A change in his surroundings returned his thoughts to the present. His steps had taken him to the verge of Stone Hearth. The district nestled right below the sheer cliffs that towered up behind the city. Those cliffs themselves were merely foothills of the high mountain range. Gorgo gazed up at the far peaks, visible as no more than a blackness eating up the stars in the western half of the sky. Yahsta’s Claws, they called the mountains, as though the great god-beast who slumbered beneath the faceless ocean had stuck his toes up here at the edge of the world to scratch the sky. The distant pinnacles were fearsomely high and steep. No one knew what lay beyond them—perhaps nothing, the end of the earth. At the opposite end of the world behind them, did Yahsta point his curling horns up into the air? Or were the end and the beginning the same place, as some speculated, and west beyond Yahsta’s Claws he raised his hoary eastern head?

  This was the place where such fruitless speculation was meat and drink. The Stone Hearth District was a wizard’s private club, where the cream of the Hologrim sorcerers and the bulk of the Mad Dream family had gathered after the Uprooting. It was a quiet, well-kept district of cobbled streets and small houses. Nearly midnight now, the houses were dark, but all the inns had bowls of glowing moss before the doors, and smoky streetlamps burned. Moonlight painted a glistening path across the cobblestones. The moon hung low in the sky, just risen, and greenish-gold as a young apple this time of year. It was waning from the round pig moon of a few nights past, and wouldn’t set till after dawn.

  Gorgo glided through the streets on his soft leather boots. He passed an inn or two that was nearly deserted before he came to one where he heard the hum of voices through the half-open door. The runes over the door proclaimed it the Crone Crab; above the entrance lurked a giant crab, a lifeless beast four feet wide. Moonlight gleamed greenish on its great upraised claws, and its tiny stalked eyes seemed to peer down at Gorgo.