The Copper Assassin

by Madolyn Rogers

They took a back way out of the Tricked Eel. It was past sunset, and the stars shone bright in the cobalt sky above. The trip to the Fence passed in silence. Na•ar was occupied with his own thoughts, and the Margays did not deign to speak. Crowds surged on the streets, laughing, drinking, howling. Almost all the talk was of the assassination attempt and Morbid’s execution, the mood festive. Na•ar was recognized once. “Hey, Na•ar, are you serving free drinks tonight?” the man called, half-toasted already and apparently not noticing the Margays.

  “Not tonight,” Na•ar said.

  “It’s practically treasonous!” the man called after him. “Don’t you want to celebrate the Warlord’s victory?”

  The Fence District was no quieter, although the conversation was more sophisticated. A roar of voices rolled from the doors of D’Zonge, the social center of the Fence. Laughter, cheers, debates, and the clink of glasses floated out to surround Na•ar in his bubble of silence. When they left the blue cupolas of D’Zonge behind them, the din receded. By the time they reached the door of Mort Glave, it seemed like any other night. The Warlord’s seneschal admitted them. In Mort Glave they heard no cheers, only distant low voices conferring. Many Margays and Fence underlings passed them in the halls. In its own quiet way, Mort Glave hummed with activity.

  “The Warlord is in conference,” the seneschal said. “She regrets you’ll have to wait.” He showed Na•ar to a small room, and the Margays closed the door on him. The hollow echo of its closing sounded like the thud of a prison door. Na•ar stood alone in a thick silence. With a sigh, he sat down, got out his cards, and began to play solitaire.

  It was after midnight when Heizhen finally tracked the Warlord down again. She sat in the antechamber to the Gaol, having a drink with M’Chay. As Heizhen arrived, a tall Slythe woman with long black hair and boots that rang on the stone strode from the room. Heizhen stared after her. “Devourer, isn’t that the Chatelaine of the Inquisition?”

  “We had need of her services,” the Warlord said. “Sit down, have a drink. I’m glad you’re here. It saves me the trouble of hunting you up.”

  “I hope you’re in the mood for a story.” Heizhen sprawled into a chair and pulled out sheaves of note paper. “Let’s start at the beginning now, shall we? What have you two been discussing, anyway?”

  “The Fence council,” the Warlord said.

  Heizhen glanced at the monk with twinkling eyes. “I understand you never cast your vote on Morbid’s confirmation, M’Chay.”

  “Oh, I would have voted no. Morbid was not competent to be a governor. Far too excitable. She should have been a pirate like her ancestress.” M’Chay’s tone was placid. He sipped his tea while Heizhen scribbled notes. The conference lasted late into the night.

  17: Facing the Fates

  Gorgo woke from an evil dream. Hazy fragments still drifted through his head: he remembered his stomach split open, freezing cold in his bones, blood everywhere, river eels darting about him, a woman with hair striped black and white. He shook off the remnants of the dream impatiently, looking about him. He lay in a tiny, windowless bedroom of stone, lit by the cool radiance of white glowglobes. The single door stood ajar, and he was alone. He had no clear idea where he was. Somewhere in Mort Glave, no doubt.

  Gorgo tried to raise himself upright in bed, and bit back a groan. Devourer, he was sore, as if he’d been wrung through a wine press. A headache pressed on him like a dull band of iron around his temples; Gorgo guessed it was a memento of his mental combat with Wakár, or perhaps the Dragon Fire. His left leg still throbbed, and a sharper pain pierced his right shoulder. With great care he levered himself upright and looked down at his body. He was naked, and deep purple bruises mottled his dark skin. He couldn’t remember getting half of them. The past day seemed as hazy and unreal as a long nightmare. His left leg had been professionally dressed and bandaged, and it no longer felt hot, at least. The healers must have sewn up the torn flesh, but Gorgo was just as happy not to have to look at it for the moment. His right shoulder, where the cave squid had bitten him, had been bound up as well. The healers had changed the bandages on his right arm, over the cut Wakár had given him, but by comparison, that wound hardly troubled him at all.

  Gorgo looked for his clothes, and saw a pile of clean, nondescript garments lying on a table by the bed. It was neither his own clothing, which had been in shreds when he abandoned it, nor was it the borrowed police uniform. Gorgo winced in remembrance, wondering what penalty he faced for assaulting that police officer. Honeylegs lay curled next to the clothes, her legs drawn up around her in a sleepy ball.

  Gorgo was reaching for her when he heard footsteps at the door, and a voice he recognized. “Good—you’re awake.” Cadi stood in the doorway. “Would you like breakfast?”

  Gorgo nodded and she vanished, to return shortly with a tray of food that she set before him. She seated herself nearby while he ate ravenously. She did not look at him, and he took advantage of the opportunity to study her. She was not much older than he was, he judged, and he wondered how she had come to work for the Warlord. She was a pretty girl, lithe and pale-skinned, with glints of blue in her dark eyes. Her straight black hair was cut short and swung around her face. She wore the same uniform as before, a black jacket and trousers with a shirt of brilliant blue. He saw no weapon on her, but he remembered the other day and reserved judgement. She looked self-sufficient, and indeed there was a strange reserve about her that Gorgo could not entirely fathom. Perhaps it was due to her position as the Warlord’s page. At any rate, she was not someone in whom he would soon confide.

  Cadi glanced at him, and found him done eating. “Finished?” She jumped up to take the tray. “If you care to bathe, I can show you where.”

  “In a moment.” Gorgo leaned back against the headboard. “How long have I slept?”

  She cocked her head to one side, watching him. “A little over one day.”

  That long. Gorgo blew out his breath. He wondered if Six & Seven was worried, and if his parents had bothered to notice his absence yet. How much would he even want to tell them of his adventures? Very little, Gorgo decided, but perhaps he would tell Armida. “Was Morbid executed?”

  “She was executed yesterday with full formality before the Council of the District Lords.”

  “Did Morbid exercise her right of last speech?”

  “Oh yes. I heard she gave a stirring speech, on the founding of the ice islands and our heritage of independence and rebellion. The District Lords all stood up and applauded. The Lords thought the execution was magnificent, they say. I’ve heard there was much talk about the honor it showed to the traditions of the islands.”

  “You didn’t see it yourself?”

  Cadi’s expression shuttered. “Unfortunately, no. I was on other business.”

  He’d hit a raw spot there, Gorgo realized, though he couldn’t guess what. He left off questioning her. “All right, show me the baths.”

  Walking was surprisingly painful, but fortunately the baths were close. His room let out into a long narrow corridor thickly studded with doors and lively with the murmur of voices. This section of Mort Glave seemed to be a living quarters for Fence menials, with baths, kitchens, and common rooms nearby. Gorgo passed a few other young people in the hall, some also padding naked on their way back from the baths, others with cups of steaming tea in hand.

  Gorgo washed with care, keeping his numerous bandages dry. It was an unsatisfying cleansing, but nonetheless the warm water and the exercise revived him. By the time he got back to his room and dressed in the clean clothes, he was moving only a little stiffly. He placed Honeylegs on his shoulder, where she clung with her sticky feet.

  Cadi made no comment on the spider. She had kept him in sight since he awoke, and as soon as he was dressed, she said, “Good. The Warlord wishes to see you. Follow me please.”

  “She wishes to see me this very minute?”

  “She left instructions that she wished to see you as soon as you had woken and
eaten and washed. Follow me please.”

  Gorgo followed her, feeling unsettled. When he had last seen the Warlord, she had been in the midst of events and had little time or attention to bring to bear on him, and he had been glad enough of it. He remembered her last comment to him, and did not look forward to telling her his story. Logically he could expect nothing but good from this interview, he told himself. Although he had interfered with quite a few powerful people in the last few days, he had committed no crime except for assaulting the tail, and he had quite possibly saved the Warlord’s life with the information he had brought her. He hoped that she would merely thank him and send him home again. Or just send him home. But he remembered her penetrating gaze on him in the upper corridors, and felt uneasy. He’d just brought himself to the attention of the most powerful person in Wyverna in a highly dramatic way. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he would not like the consequences.

  The truth was that he didn’t want his future under someone else’s control. It was mostly this fear that had kept him from ever joining the Catsclaw, and if anything, the Fence was far worse. The Warlord was too formidable and clever for him to want to be anywhere near her. There was no hoping she would ever forget him now, but perhaps if he downplayed his story and made himself as unobtrusive as possible, she’d dismiss him as of little interest. Yes, that was the course to follow. It shouldn’t be hard for him to play the role of a lightweight Ilkour playboy who had stumbled into all this by accident and gotten in over his head before he knew what was happening. That was almost the truth, after all. If he played it right, he might slip out of the Warlord’s attention as quickly as he had come. He was not sure exactly what he feared from her notice. But still he walked to this interview with the Warlord with cold clutching at the pit of his stomach.

  “You look as grim now as you did on your way to tell the Warlord her life was in danger,” Cadi said. “Don’t you ever smile?”

  “No,” Gorgo said shortly. Cadi’s brows rose and a cool reserve settled on her, which suited Gorgo. With the part of his mind that was not occupied with obsessing about the coming interview, he noted his surroundings. Cadi had led him from the living area into a vast corridor, stretching without visible end in both directions. “The Hall of the Sea,” Cadi introduced it in passing. The walls were sculpted with images of the undersea: great beds of seaweed in which seals played, vast reefs teeming with fish, even Yahsta’s domain far below, his dark cold halls and their strange demons. This hallway was lit only with the cool blue and green lights of magic, glimmering from the walls and hazing the air, as if the whole corridor lay underwater. Before long, however, the Hall of the Sea joined the Hall of Battles he remembered from yesterday morning (it seemed impossibly long ago), and soon they were treading down the great staircase again. They had seen more people in the halls above than yesterday, and here below the Hall of Iron was likewise busier. They passed by the great double doors of greenstone that led to the Throne Room without entering. Some distance farther down the hall, a door stood open. A buzz of voices came from inside. Cadi preceded him into the room, and he followed.

  This room was much smaller than the Throne Room, dominated by a great table in the center. Across one whole wall stretched a map of the world, worked in colored tiles. Several people occupied the room, giving it a sense of bustling but well-ordered activity. Food was laid out, and the Warlord lounged against the table edge devouring a joint of meat. Gorgo did not recognize anyone else. The Hands was nowhere to be seen, which pleased him. He hadn’t much time to take in the scene, because the Warlord spotted him at once.

  “Good day, Gorgo.” She spoke to the room at large. “Scatter, youngsters.” The cadre of young pages and administrators gathered up their papers, still chattering. The only older person there, a plump, cross-looking woman in a brown smock, sniffed indignantly, but left with the others. Gorgo got a couple of curious glances as they exited, but nothing more. It did not seem that anyone knew who he was, and he felt reassured.

  The room cleared quickly, Cadi vanishing with the rest. The Warlord gestured to a chair. “Sit down, make yourself comfortable. Would you like something to drink?”

  At Gorgo’s nod, a junior page brought him a glass of wine. He recognized her as the girl who’d been in the Throne Room yesterday, the one who’d hidden her laughter when he called the Hands an underling. She recognized him too; her eyes sparkled merrily as she handed him the wineglass. Then she scampered out, and Gorgo was alone with the Warlord. He sipped his wine, keeping his eyes on the floor.

  “How are you feeling this morning? I trust you’ve suffered no ill effects from the Panam Kell’s presence in your mind?”

  “No, I think not.” Gorgo chose not to mention the headache. He hesitated a moment, thinking of Wakár, and then asked, “What happened to Strace?”

  “He’s here now, in the Fence.”

  Gorgo looked up.

  “And once again his mind is his own. The Panam Kell has left him.”

  “You drove her out?”

  “No. He was like that when we brought him here yesterday afternoon. No one knows where the Panam Kell has gone.”

  A chill touched Gorgo at these words. He remembered the suggestion he’d planted with Wakár. Had she been in Morbid when the woman was executed? Or had she gone somewhere else? Then a new thought occurred to him. “Isn’t it possible she is merely hiding in Strace’s mind?”

  “No. I had the Slythe Chatelaine of the Inquisition search his mind last night. Her searches are… thorough. When she sifts a mind, there is nowhere left for anyone to hide.”

  Gorgo swallowed, remembering the young Pirate he had seen under Wakár’s dominion. The Slythe mind witches were as formidable in their own way as the Panam Kell were. He would not like to face one himself. Hard on the tail of this thought came another, unbidden and unwelcome. “Then wouldn’t it have been easy for the Chatelaine to dig the buried word out of my mind yesterday?”

  The Warlord’s smile flashed. “Indeed, she could have done so easily. But she might have destroyed parts of your mind in the process. Slythe mind powers are not so subtle as those of the Panam Kell. They tend to be destructive to the minds they deal with. It is not for nothing the Chatelaine is called the Mind-Bender.” She was silent a moment. “As you might imagine, Strace is not the man he was. Wakár destroyed some portions of his mind in order to control him. Then too, when a Panam Kell inhabits a mind too long, some melding occurs that cannot be undone. When she left his mind, Wakár excised portions of her own that had fused too completely with his. There are fragments of her personality left in him. On top of it all, the Mind-Bender’s search was not gentle with him. He is not the man he was.”

  Pity and horror clutched at Gorgo. He masked his feelings. “What will happen to him?”

  The Warlord shrugged. “I am not a prophet.” She considered Gorgo for a moment. “Strace is not incompetent by any means. He will go back to the Catsclaw. But what will happen to him I cannot say.”

  Gorgo sipped his wine, fascinated despite himself. “It seems, then, that if you’d had the Chatelaine search my mind yesterday, you would have gained by it. The damage would not have been fatal, and you would have been assured of getting the word you needed.”

  The Warlord’s eyebrows climbed, and she looked amused. “I am not so casual with the welfare of my people as that.”

  “But if I had died trying to get the word, it would have been lost to you forever,” Gorgo said, pursuing the issue against his better judgement. “Wouldn’t it have been worth it—one person’s mind, in exchange for the rule of Wyverna?”

  “You are remarkably free-handed with minds, especially considering it’s your own you’re discussing.” The Warlord observed him while he dropped his eyes again. “What makes you think you were at risk of dying?”

  “I heard Heizhen and Luoxjarn discussing it.”

  “It’s true enough. You could have died if the Panam Kell’s will had defeated yours. But I judged you would n
ot. I have seen many men near death, and you were not there yet.” The Warlord reflected for a moment. “Though if it had gone five more minutes, I would have had to stop it. At any rate, the experience was far less damaging to you than having your mind sifted by the Chatelaine would have been.”

  Remembering his combat with Wakár, Gorgo wondered how much worse the Chatelaine could possibly be. Still curious as to the Warlord’s motives, he pressed the point. “I’m willing to believe it. I just thought from your point of view it might have been more economical to use the Chatelaine and be assured of getting the word.”

  “Economical? To have one of my people’s minds made mincemeat? No, I value a good mind far too much to consider that economical.”

  The Warlord was enjoying this debate, Gorgo realized. Belatedly he remembered he was supposed to be playing the part of a lightweight playboy. He shut up.

  When he showed no inclination to say anything more, the Warlord said cheerfully, “But you have a story to tell me that I’ve been waiting to hear.”

  Gorgo sighed, marshaling his thoughts. “Should I start by telling you who I am?”

  “That would be a fine beginning.”

  Her manner was so nonchalant that he was prompted to ask, “Or should I let you tell me?” and then he could have bitten his tongue. Was that unobtrusive? he demanded of himself.

  The Warlord looked amused. “Gorgo of the Pton Enclave of the Oribul family. It’s true the first thing I did was check on your identity. But the rest of this is your story to tell. Do begin.”

  Gorgo wondered darkly how much of the rest of it she could tell him. There was no guessing what she knew already. He’d have to tell the truth. But downplay, he reminded himself; downplay. “I stumbled into this matter just over four days ago. I had gone with my cousin Six & Seven to the Tricked Eel to gamble. I had a bit of luck gambling with a Hologrim sorceress named Water, and she invited me up to a private room—”

  “Luck?” the Warlord interrupted softly.