The Copper Assassin

by Madolyn Rogers

  “Jhen izna bien, ‘a lot linieta.” The words rolled sonorous from the alien tongue.

  Watching her, Gorgo did not move. “The real one.”

  Her full lips curled and she spat. “A clever Wyvernyr, aren’t you?” Her voice came husky with contempt. “Very well. B’yakay. Now leave me. I grow weary.”

  “Only one word? This calls off the golem?”

  She laughed. Though he hadn’t liked her smile, her laugh was worse. “Trusting young man, aren’t you? Decide for yourself if it’s real or not. But decide quickly.”

  Gorgo weighed the question in his mind. He had nothing to go on but his reading of her character and her current manner. He had to trust his judgment. He made his decision: the truth. Warily, he slipped out the door. As he did, he felt a sensation like claws digging into him once more, as though a beast scrabbled at him. Then the talons fell away, and the door boomed shut. Water’s cloak saving him again, no doubt. Proof against tags, she’d said; likely the purpose of Wakár’s last attack had been to put a tracer on him. Yahsta’s blood, a gryffon per day was a bargain for this protection.

  The hallway was a return into a world he had briefly forgotten. Jests, talk, and laughter echoed around him. He breathed deeply, calming himself. He was drenched in sweat and trembling from the tension of the encounter. Blood ran down his right arm, though the graze was shallow. He’d forgotten the wound in those last moments. Now his arm throbbed. Passing warriors glanced at him incuriously. They saw such sights often enough.

  He’d gotten what he’d come for, anyway. That incantation was all-important. Yet somehow once again he’d found far more than he’d bargained for. A Panam Kell of all things. Devourer, why hadn’t he thought to read about Mar’Kesh at the Library of the Past? At any rate, Strace’s possession had worked to his advantage. It had given him the lever he’d needed to push her. Luckily Wakár’s control of Strace was still imperfect enough that he’d been able to deduce the existence of two people in the one body. Just imagine, now, if the seed he’d planted took root, and Wakár did take over Morbid...

  Wrapping up his bleeding arm with his sleeve, Gorgo walked back down the hall. This only gets worse at every step of the game. He could not banish the thought that he was in over his head.

  6: Serpents Wise and Unwise

  He felt safer in crowds. It must have been this that impelled Gorgo to go to the most raucous gathering place in the Catsclaw District, the five-story building known as C’Blange. The din inside was deafening. Gorgo passed gaming tables, musicians, and bars. He scanned everything he passed, watching for threats, his nerves prickling. He found healers in the back rooms who were accustomed to binding up knife wounds, and with his arm tended, Gorgo indulged in a late lunch in the dining hall downstairs. He found himself dawdling over the meal, in no hurry to move on. He told himself he needed time to think out his next move. He supposed the truth was he just wanted to put it off.

  He had reached the point of no turning back. There simply was no way to foil Morbid’s plans without getting close to her. Gorgo was out of time for any other course of action; Morbid was scheduled to buy the assassin tonight, if she hadn’t already. The memory of Janna’s murder haunted him: the speed of it, the helplessness of everyone in the room against the golem. His stomach knotted. The Warlord could be the golem’s next victim. But now he had the key to stop the beast, if he could only get close enough to use it.

  The trick was to fool Morbid as to his true intentions. He would pretend to be a sailor from Harpy. The ship’s captain was an Oribul; Gorgo would say he was a young cousin of his named Rashin. With what he had learned from Strace/Wakár, he could convincingly play the role of Cockatrice’s seller, coming now to offer an additional incantation in exchange for a cut of the action. He would offer the false incantation Wakár had uttered, not the real one. What should he demand from Morbid in return? Perhaps a political appointment upon the Warlord’s assassination. Whether Morbid agreed to this, or tried to force what she wanted from him without it, the ruse would keep him close to the heart of her operation, where he might have a chance to foil her scheme. If he could be nearby when Cockatrice was launched, he could use the word he’d learned to call her off.

  This was as far as he had projected. It was a rudimentary plan, and dangerous, but it would serve to start the game. Once he was in the midst of it, he would count on his intuition to seize whatever advantage the situation offered, as he had with Strace. He ran these ideas through his mind for some time. Eventually he knew he was stalling. It was time to move on. Leaving C’Blange, he hiked down into Ilkour. Dread weighed heavier on him with every step.

  By the time he reached Morbid’s dwelling, the Cataracts, the sun was just brushing the mountaintops. The four-story inn looked grim, a monolith of grey stone trimmed in iron. At each corner, iron castings, worked in fantastic curls like frozen waterfalls, cascaded from the crenulated roof down to the ground. Broad steps of rough-cut grey rock led up to the front door. A massive iron wyvern guarded each side. The metal beasts crouched there as though they might take flight, balancing on the claws of their winged forelimbs, their heads forward. Their barbed tails curled about their taloned feet.

  Gorgo strolled up the steps between them, endeavoring to look at ease. As he passed one of the iron wyverns, a hand caught hold of his left arm above the elbow—an unusually large hand, encased in what felt like a steel gauntlet, with an authority that stopped him dead in his tracks. A deep but pleasant woman’s voice said, “How fortunate that we meet here. I’ve been looking for you.”

  He turned his head to see her, and found himself gazing up, into a golden-skinned face that towered above him. She was golden everywhere, covered in armor of polished bronze that gleamed with brass and copper filigrees. Even the curls of her hair that showed under her helmet were reddish gold. Her eyes were the color of unburnished bronze, dark in a face with skin the pale gold of winter butter. She looked as bright and splendid and exotic as the southern raiders of history, as if one of them had stepped living and real—and seven feet tall—from some fireside tale into the dull grey stone of a Wyverna street.

  Cockatrice herself. His thoughts spun uselessly, seeking traction. How could the golem be standing here, in full daylight and in plain view from every building on the street? Then he realized she must have been on the steps all along, invisible to him until she took hold of him. While he stared, she spoke again, in business-like tones. “What is your name?”

  Gorgo found his tongue and gave her the name he had meant to use with Morbid. “Rashin.”

  “Come with me, please, Rashin.” Without releasing his arm, she turned and began leading him up the steps. Despite her courteous words, her strength brooked no denial. He had no choice but to accompany her.

  “What is your business with me?”

  “You must be quiet now.” She led him through the lobby of the Cataracts. No one looked their way or moved aside for them. Gorgo could not even hear the sound of their own footfalls on the floor. They wove among people unnoticed. His mind flew. Devourer, who did she think he was, and what did she want with him?

  On the stairs she resumed talking. “You were the one hiding in the building last night when I killed the sailor. I need to ask you some questions.”

  Demon hells. She did know who he was. “You need to, or Morbid does?”

  “Had I meant Morbid, I would have said so.”

  “I have business with Morbid myself. She won’t thank you for detaining me.”

  “I have business with Morbid too. Yours will wait.”

  Gorgo held his silence for a moment, debating his next move. Apparently the golem was in Morbid’s service now, since she was here at the Cataracts, but had she been in her service last night when she had murdered Janna? He studied her covertly as they climbed. She gripped his arm with her right hand; her gauntlet was of leather after all, not steel. In her left hand she carried the heavy weapon he had noted the other night, a double-bladed axe with a pointed tip.
The cockatrice symbol featured prominently in her gear. Her bronze neck guard was cast in the form of two of the beasts fighting, while the pommel of her straight sword was fashioned like a cock’s head, its mouth open in a silent scream. The giant shield strapped across her back was emblazoned with a cockatrice, one talon lifted, its scaled tail capped by a hissing snake’s head. The cockatrice’s feathers glistened in red, green, and blue precious stones.

  How had the golem recognized him? She had never looked back at him last night, seemingly unaware of him. Well, he could always try a denial and see where it got him. “You are mistaken. I was nowhere near you last night.”

  “I am not mistaken. Though you walk in the Fifth Circle, you have not troubled to disguise your scent. It was you in the building.”

  Yahsta, the thing must have the nose of a bloodhound. That much was clear, though he had no idea what the ‘Fifth Circle’ was. Gorgo gave up his pretense as useless. “Then why didn’t you question me last night?”

  “I had no business with you last night.”

  They had reached the fourth floor, and the golem stepped into a broad hallway. Gorgo toyed with the thought of using the word Wakár had given him now. But he did not know what it would actually do. It would be a risk, and as yet there was no need. He needed to find out what was going on. Cockatrice escorted him briskly through deserted passageways, under an archway she had to duck beneath, and into a dim, quiet alcove that held two couches. A leaded glass window, colored green, filtered in murky twilight from the street outside. Behind Cockatrice, the open archway turned opaque. She released him with enough force that he half-fell onto one of the couches. “Why did you follow me last night?”

  Gorgo settled himself and marshaled the story he had planned to feed Morbid. He found an answer. “I had been keeping an eye on Janna, intending to dispose of her at an opportune moment. When I saw her abducted by others, I followed to see what was happening. Fortunately, you did my work for me.”

  “What was your interest in Janna?”

  “I sailed on Harpy and helped bring you to these shores. I was a party to your sale to Janna. She knew too much and couldn’t be trusted to keep her mouth shut. It was necessary to silence her.”

  “What do you know of Angel Eyes?”

  “Nothing at all.” Those bronze eyes fastened on his with peculiar intensity. They seemed to spin, beer-colored pools in an immobile face, and he found his throat working without any power to stop it. “I know nothing of him,” his voice croaked without his will.

  The eyes released him. Gorgo swallowed and rubbed his throat. He had never experienced a truth spell before.

  Had she been human, he would have said Cockatrice sighed. She was silent a moment. “What did Angel Eyes do after I left?”

  “He left before the jacks arrived,” Gorgo said dryly.

  “What is a jack?”

  “It’s what we call the police officers.”

  “What is a police officer?”

  Gorgo stared, momentarily taken aback. He examined the formidable, alien creature, created in a city thousands of miles from here by a people long dead, and appreciated for the first time the peculiar dilemma she must find herself in. Whatever information the Kahlrites had gifted her with, it was knowledge of Madness and the society of the warring priest castes. The culture she was designed for no longer existed. She had woken to find herself in a city as strange and foreign to her as she was to it. She knew literally nothing of Wyverna. She must be as puzzled by its complexities as any stranger, the fearsome abilities that had brought down Madness hampered by ignorance. In fact...

  “How do you speak our language?” Gorgo asked.

  “I speak all languages. Explain to me what is a ‘police officer.’ ”

  “An agent of the government, who keeps order in the city.”

  “What is a ‘government?’ ”

  I guess Madness never had one. It’s what you’re about to bring down, as the pawn of a traitor. But Cockatrice had been designed to be a weapon, no more. The sword does not ask whom it kills. Aloud, he said, “The government consists of those who rule Wyverna.”

  “That is the city where we are.” It was almost a question.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you follow Angel Eyes when he left?”

  “No.”

  Once again Gorgo endured those whirring eyes and his throat worked without his will, confirming what he’d said. His real value to Cockatrice seemed to lie in what he could tell her of Angel Eyes. Unfortunately that value was at an end; Gorgo knew nothing more of him. He tried a new gambit. “It seems to me Morbid has not told you much of what you need to know. She is stingy with those who work for her, isn’t she?”

  “What is your business with Morbid?”

  “I’ll discuss that with Morbid herself. She won’t appreciate your prying into it.” Gorgo feared the reappearance of those whirring eyes, which would drag from him his true purpose here. He could only hope she was obedient enough to Morbid that his words would keep her from asking.

  The golem raised one hand to her throat. At the base of her neck, beneath the bronze gorget, a round lump had formed. It swelled, bursting through her gold-pale skin. A leathery white egg popped free into her hand, leaving her skin unbroken. Her fingers contracted, punching through the thick eggshell, tearing it into shreds. Something writhed, half-visible, in its scraps. With a movement quicker than he could follow, Cockatrice flung it at him. Before Gorgo could dodge, it whipped about his neck. A shard of leathery shell fell into his lap. Something silken and cool slid against his skin, and a hiss whispered in his ear. A serpent’s head rested on his left shoulder, forked tongue flickering. The snake’s body twined his throat. On his right shoulder perched an identical serpent’s head, wise eyes regarding him hypnotically. Devourer—it was one of the two-headed amphisbaena he had read about in the Library of the Past. His breath came short, wondering if everything else that journal had said about the golem was true too.

  Cockatrice’s voice broke into his thoughts. “You will come with me please. You will not speak or do anything unless I order it.” She seized his wrist. Was it time to use the word? But the mystery of her actions was only deepening, and Gorgo’s need to understand had grown apace. She did not intend to kill him, he thought. He could afford to wait and see where this led. Besides, he did not know how the serpent around his neck might react to the word.

  The opaque veil over the archway vanished, and Cockatrice led him out. They strode through turnings that Gorgo committed to memory, up to an unmarked metal door. Cockatrice opened it noiselessly, and they passed into an antechamber. Voices floated through an open archway. Cockatrice halted just before the opening, and Gorgo with her. Neither of the occupants of the room looked their way.

  The handsome Kharvay, Radice, was pouring himself wine. “Don’t fret, Morbid dear,” he said lazily. “We have the assassin. If the Fence lords give you trouble, we shall have them killed.”

  A woman seated in a leather chair scowled at him. So this is Morbid. No, she looked nothing like the statuesque Pirate from the arena. She was slight, almost scrawny, although ropy muscles showed in her arms, and Gorgo would wager she was stronger than she looked. She wore a rapier at her side, and he guessed she could use it well. Older, too, than he’d realized, though of course she would have to be in her forties. Her face was harshly lined. Her dark hair was cut short, a cap of ravelly curls twisting over her head. Their tight coils made Gorgo think of a nest of serpents—though perhaps he merely had snakes on his mind at this moment. Her green eyes were quick and intelligent, her pale mouth delicate, but twisted now into a mocking sneer. “Useless assassin!” she spat. “She’s caused me more trouble already than I could have imagined.”

  Radice laughed. “It, not she. It’s not really a woman, you know.” It seemed neither of them could see Cockatrice, or Gorgo either. Gorgo wondered at the golem’s game, spying on her own mistress.

  “Fine,” Morbid snarled. “But you’re being st
upid about the Fence—not that it surprises me. They worry me, every one of them. Well, perhaps not Jonlan. But that Slythe harpy and her cursed family will be endless trouble. The same for the bloody monk—his family wields an influence out of all proportion to their numbers. I wish I could banish them all. And the Implementer! Treacherous vulture—I don’t know how the Warlord has tolerated him. The worst is the Hologrim harpy, you know as well as I. She is too perilous to play with. She concerns me most of all.”

  Gorgo interpreted Morbid’s rant easily, as it mostly matched his own assessment of the Fence lords. Jonlan of the Mad Dream family, always overlooked among the titans; the Slythe Ciano, reckoned dangerous for her family though he knew little of her personally; the monk M’Chay, with an influence that belied his small size; the Implementer Mayden, ambitious and depraved; and Wormlight, perhaps the most powerful sorceress in Wyverna. Gorgo did not blame Morbid for not wanting to deal with any of them.

  Radice had waited through this speech with a slight smile. “I don’t deny any of it. And you haven’t even mentioned my favorite Fence hobgoblin. What of the Hands of the Warlord?”

  Morbid made a quick dismissing wave of her hand. “Bah. I think he will vanish when the Warlord dies. Is he anything more than a homunculus? No, he does not trouble me.”

  Radice shrugged. “None of them alarm me. You keep forgetting—we have the assassin.”

  “Cursed assassin! Where is she? I ordered her to report.”

  Cockatrice released Gorgo’s wrist and stepped forward into the room. The amphisbaena tightened its hold around Gorgo’s neck, and he stayed where he was. “I am reporting as ordered, Sender.” Her voice, though not loud, seemed to boom in the chamber.

  Radice jumped back, hand going to his sword hilt; Morbid spun to her feet and drew her rapier before her eyes found Cockatrice. She snicked her sword back into its sheath. “Yahsta’s blood, stop doing that!” She straightened up and ran a hand through her hair. She licked her lips and composed her face back into its hard lines. She showed no sign that she saw Gorgo. “Report, Cockatrice.”