by Scott Baron
“He wasn’t here. But Happizano was.”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“His son.”
“Oh, shit. Was he okay?”
“Yeah, he’s fine. I haven’t seen him around lately, though. Word is, after the attack his dad decided to take him with along wherever he went.”
Hozark nodded along with the story. So that was how the Council was playing it. Most interesting.
“Makes sense,” he said. “I can’t imagine how worried he must’ve been.”
“I was in the marketplace at the time, but people said he damn near blew out part of the building when he got back and saw what had happened. He’s a very powerful man.”
“I know. But why the new security staff? I mean, between you and me, they look kind of, well––”
“Council?” she said, finishing his thought. “Yeah, you’ve got that right. It’s a bit weird, Council guards in our colors. But rumor is, the visla asked the Council to come help provide security while he was gone, after that incident.”
“But doesn’t he, uh, how do I put this nicely? Not particularly like the Council?”
“You’re right on that, so for him to have asked them to come here, it must have been a real concern. Many of our guards and staff were killed in the attack, you know.”
“Still, for him to invite them into his home...”
“Well, word is, it was actually the Council who just happened to have some of their people nearby when all of this happened. They’re the ones who got Happizano to safety with his father. They even come by to check up on things and make sure we are okay, from time to time.”
Hozark had to admit, it was a clever story, and one that not only allowed for the Council lackeys’ presence should they be noted, but also explained where the visla’s son was. The whole thing was well planned and well played. As seemed to be so much of the case with this strange series of events.
Someone was pulling a lot of strings, and in an incredibly convoluted way. Much was in play, and Hozark was quite sure he didn’t know all of it. Not yet, at least.
“Here’s his office,” Inari said. “I can open the door wards, but only for a minute. Put that on his desk, and he’ll get it when he returns.”
“Is it okay to leave there?”
“Trust me, no one will touch it,” she said, then quietly uttered the spells allowing temporary access.
Hozark memorized them immediately.
It was a courtesy the visla had afforded a few of his staff. The ability to come and go to perform their tasks even if he was not present. But they couldn’t linger. If they did, they would trigger his alarms, and who knew what other magical protections he may have hidden in those walls.
Hozark dropped the package on Jinnik’s desk and quickly exited the room, but as he had been placing the container, he noticed something out in the open. Something that tied this confusing web of intrigue into an even greater knot.
There was a folded letter, and on it was the Council’s validity seal.
There was no opportunity to read it, though. Not with Inari standing right there. So Hozark ignored it, for the time being, and left his odd package.
When the visla did finally return, he would likely wonder why a sealed container of dried root vegetables had been placed in his office, but, if at all possible, Hozark hoped to find the visla well before that happened. And he had a feeling that letter would guide the way.
Inari walked him to the lift disc and shook his hand warmly before returning to her tasks. “I hope your stay is a pleasant one,” she said.
“Thanks, Inari. Maybe I’ll see you around before we head out again.”
“That would be nice,” she said with a warm smile as the lift disc began its descent.
He would head out, all right, but it seemed he had more work to do first. And it involved a round trip back up to the top.
Chapter Forty-Three
Hozark stepped off the lift disc with purpose, striding across the foyer like a man on a mission, his eyes scanning the working men and women with a haughty confidence.
The guard who had so foolishly interrupted him earlier was at his assigned station now, but he was making a conscious effort to avoid making eye contact with the troublesome worker. In fact, no one, it seemed, wanted anything to do with him.
Whispers of his berating of the guard must have spread in spite of the man’s efforts.
That served his purposes just fine. Better than that, in fact, for now he was not only within the security perimeter, and therefore seen as already vetted to be there, but he was also avoided.
It was a perfect combination.
Hozark could go wherever he wanted, to a degree. He could probably even ride back to the top on the lift disc if he pushed his luck, but without a package to deliver, that would not be prudent. And though Inari had taken a shine to him, a sudden repeat appearance so soon would cause even her to have questions.
He walked toward the access door to the service area away from the main foyer and tucked in. The building was relatively quiet with the visla off world, and finding a spot to step out of sight and slip into his shimmer cloak was quite easy.
After so much difficulty, a bit of ease was a nice change of pace, even if it would only last a short moment.
The invisible assassin waited by the door several minutes, until a worker carrying cleaned linen passed through on his way to deliver it to wherever it was destined. Hozark followed close behind, exiting through the door in his wake, then peeling off and moving straight toward the lift disc.
He could not simply step on and ascend. Yes, he could easily get around the bored-looking guards standing there, but if an empty lift activated, all sorts of problems would arise. Namely, a swift security response to the confined space.
But with his shimmer cloak, Hozark had a different option. It would take patience, and quite possibly hours of standing still, but he was as well practiced at that as he was at killing in an instant. In fact, a little bit of quiet meditation while he waited beside the lift disc would even provide a lovely refresher of sorts.
It was a Ghalian trick. To slip into a meditative state while remaining alert to what was around them. Akin to having two halves of the mind functioning on parallel, but utterly different, levels at the same time.
But Hozark did not have to wait long. In less than an hour, a pair of Council guards made their way to the lift disc, the cloaked killer watching their every move.
“Making the rounds?” the guards at the lift asked.
“Yep. Same shit, different hour.”
“Better watch how loud you say that. I hear the Council might be having one of their agents do a sweep any day now.”
“Really? An agent? But why?”
“Way beyond my pay grade. But you know how those guys can be.”
“Yeah, real sticklers for details,” the guard replied. “Thanks for the heads-up,” he said, stepping onto the lift disc to join his partner. “Let’s get this done. Take us up.”
The spell was activated, and the two men rose quickly to the upper levels of the estate tower. Little did they know, there was a third riding along with them, invisibly tucked at the very back edge of the disc.
Hozark had taken a little gamble at the men’s destination. The lift disc had been accessed several times while he had been waiting, but those had all appeared to be regular estate workers, and none who seemed to be members of the visla’s private staff.
The new security detail, however, were more likely to have full access to the more important areas of the building, and realistically, the middle floors were not of great concern to them. Only the entryway level and the private chambers would be of interest.
The disc ascended in a flash, arriving at the topmost level of the tower, just as Hozark had hoped. The two guards stepped out, but then paused a moment at the lift exit as they scanned the area around them.
It was imperative they move ahead, for if not, the disc could be recalled at any moment, leavi
ng Hozark stuck inside and descending to the wrong floor. On a contract, the assassin would have just stunned the men and hidden their sleeping bodies until he completed his hit. But in this case, he was forced to be utterly stealthy, forced to leave no trace.
As quietly as he could, Hozark uttered a tiny, minimally powered spell. It wasn’t a Ghalian tool, nor was it used by any military forces. In fact, it was something employed by children more often than not.
A fart spell.
The guards both sniffed the air, the pungent aroma of someone’s bowels filling their nostrils. Each assumed it was the other, and neither wanted to stand in the other man’s stink, so they quickly stepped away to get started on their rounds.
Hozark moved off of the lift disc and headed the other direction, walking with complete silence as he made his way to Visla Jinnik’s office.
Inari was long finished with her tasks by this time, and no other staffers were anywhere in sight on the floor. It was just Hozark and the guards, so far as he could tell. But a Ghalian was always cautious, and he took a moment to quickly check the nearby rooms to ensure he was correct in his assessment.
Even in a shimmer cloak, one did not want to be disturbed unexpectedly. All it took was one person accidentally bumping into an invisible intruder to set off a chain of events he would rather not have to deal with.
The first set of rooms were empty, and he noted the signs of damage that he had seen on his previous visit had all been repaired. If you did not know a brutally violent battle had taken place here, there was no way you would be able to tell from looking.
He paused at young Happizano’s room. It was spotless. All of the scattered toys were neatly put away, and, more importantly, the blood of his tutor had been thoroughly cleansed from the floor. But it was too clean. It did not feel like a young boy lived there, but more like a staged scene attempting to give that impression.
It mattered not. The boy was safe, and that was what was important.
He left the youth’s room and continued his sweep. As he suspected, the floor was indeed empty, save those two guards, and they would soon be finishing their rounds.
It was funny, in a way. The Council had sent a group of uninformed men to guard the estate after the vicious attack. But what they didn’t know was they were guarding it from their own forces.
Voices caught Hozark’s attention. The security team, it seemed, was moving a bit faster than he had expected. The clock was ticking. Hozark focused his senses on the magic in the air and made his way to the visla’s warded door.
How long he would have inside the room was a big question mark. A variable he had no way to know the answer to. Inari had told him to be quick about it, but if she or another staffer had chores to do, say, cleaning or delivering materials, one would think at least a few minutes would be permitted.
But in the interest of safety, Hozark reduced his time to just one minute. He would get in, read the letter, get out, and get back to his ship. That was it. Sheer elegance in its simplicity.
But simple was never truly simple, in his experience.
Hozark pulled up the words Inari had spoken in his mind. He, and the others of his order, were almost freakish in their ability to retain spells like that. But it was not a quirk of neurology or chemistry, but simply a skill they had trained into them from their earliest years.
A Ghalian assassin was a killer, no doubt, but they were also some of the greatest intelligence gatherers in the galaxy. And that knowledge had to be collected, then retained, and all in a manner that would be undiscoverable should they be captured and searched.
Their minds, however, served as the perfect repository. A hidden vault of information that could never be stolen. And that storage space was now offering up the means of entrance into the visla’s office.
Hozark took a long moment to focus on the intent of the spell. The drive behind it that made it work. Once that was firmly fixed in place, he quietly spoke the words of the spell, releasing the spells warding the doorway from intruders. He reached out with his konus to ensure it was open. It was, and there were no additional spells guarding it.
He slipped into the room and made for the visla’s desk. The container he had delivered earlier was still there, untouched. And just where he’d seen it, the validity seal-bearing letter sat beside it. Hozark paused before moving anywhere near the page.
His recent experience with the seal itself had made him very wary of anything related to this quest. He pulled strong magic from his konus and focused on the page, the seal, and everything around it.
There were some magical protections in the room, and even a few catch-traps on the desk itself, but those all appeared to be unrelated to this letter. At least so far as he could tell. The caster of the trap spell had been masterful in his or her use of it, and there was always the possibility that this was simply another layer of incredibly powerful magic he was unable to detect despite his skills.
Hozark took a breath and reached out for the page. Nothing happened when his fingers touched the parchment.
Quickly, he unfolded the note and read the contents, committing every word to memory in an instant. Within were instructions. A demand. A location he was to go to and what he was to do. If it hadn’t been clear before, this made it abundantly so. The visla was being forced to do some Council member’s bidding against his will.
If he didn’t, his son would be killed.
It was an audacious plan, getting a man of his power to do another’s bidding, essentially serving as a strong arm for the organization he so detested.
But the anonymous validity seal was confounding. It gave Hozark no lead to go on, no clarification as to who exactly it was who had done this to the man.
But that didn’t matter. Not at the moment. What did was that they had to find Jinnik, wherever he was, and return his boy to him. Once that was accomplished, the man would be free to have his revenge, and Hozark and his team would be released to continue their work. To find those behind these machinations.
Forty seconds. He had twenty more to get out before his self-imposed deadline.
Hozark gently re-folded the page, then placed the letter back where it had been resting. He was about to leave when something on the visla’s desk made him pause. He only had a few seconds to decide, and that choice was quickly made. He snatched the item from the desk and concealed it within his shimmer cloak as he hurried from the room.
The two guards didn’t notice anything amiss when they summoned the lift disc, nor did they feel the slight breeze of the camouflaged man slip past them when they reached the ground floor.
The hidden assassin moved with speed and grace, his shimmer cloak remaining perfectly engaged as he made his way out of the visla’s estate and into the city’s bustling pathways and thoroughfares.
With the number of people milling about, passing through shimmered as he was would be difficult, as well as an excessive use of his limited magic, so Hozark tucked into an alleyway and quickly shed his shimmer cloak, stashing it in his clothing as he re-emerged onto the path as simply an average man just out for a walk.
It only took a short while to make his way back to his ship, which he promptly boarded and launched into the sky. His friends were waiting for him, and he had much to tell them.
Chapter Forty-Four
The shimmer-cloaked craft exited the planet’s atmosphere at a slow rate of speed to ensure it did not generate a heat glow that even the powerful spell could not obscure. It was somewhat tedious, especially when Hozark had much to inform his crewmates about, but it had to be done.
The fact that the Council of Twenty had a presence here, albeit a somewhat surreptitious one, gave his flight something of an urgency. But once he was safely in the embrace of the blackness of space, the master Ghalian was able to resume his course with haste.
A quick scan of the ships in orbit revealed that, as he had feared, a few were Council craft circling the globe under the guise of simple trade ships with their landing crew
s on the surface.
It was just further confirmation that there was no way they could bring the visla’s son back home. Not now, anyway. That meant no life of luxury. No classy food. No spa treatments and drinks. None of that was in the cards for the boy now. Instead, they had a hard road ahead of them. One that Hozark knew Bud and Laskar would not be thrilled about.
He flew out to the small moon where his comrades were in a low orbit waiting for his return. Hozark then docked atop the craft, only disengaging his shimmer once he was entirely sure there were no other ships to observe them.
He cast the spell forming his magical umbilical to the mothership and hurried inside.
A whiff of something aromatic greeted him as soon as he stepped into the ship. Someone had cooked. That meant they would likely all be in the galley.
As expected, Hozark found all of his friends sharing a meal. Prepared with fresh ingredients, he noted, wondering if Bud had finally decided to take up his cooking hobby once more.
“Did you save any for me?” he asked as he stepped into the room.
“Holy shit, man!” Laskar blurted. “How the hell do you do that? I didn’t even notice you docking to the ship.”
“Years of practice, dear Laskar.”
Hap was seated beside Henni, and, for a change, he actually seemed to be in decent spirits. It seemed that the promise of going home had pulled him out of his funk to a great degree. Hozark found himself feeling bad that he was to be the bearer of bad news.
He and Bud shared a look. One that said clearly that the boy would not be going home.
“Hey. I baked some dessert. You want some, Hap?” Bud asked, hoping to lessen the blow with sweets.
“Yeah, sure,” Hap replied, then turned his full attention to Hozark. “I can’t wait to get home. And when we’re there, I’ll show you guys the garden. My dad just had the first one installed. He said by the time I’m grown, there will be a dozen of them.”
Hozark took a breath. There was simply no pussyfooting around the harsh facts. Better to get it out there all at once and let the chips fall where they may.
