Holding Onto Hope

by Michael Anderle

  “This artifact?” Nemon pulled the necklace out of a pocket in his vest.

  “My gods,” Orien said in something close to horror. “You weren’t joking. That is as ugly as sin.”

  “Isn’t it?” Ben grimaced.

  The man turned it in his hands and assessed it critically. “I think it has a certain elegance.”

  “You think that because it’s worth so much money, dear,” Delia said with obvious fondness.

  “Forget that. How did you get it?” Ben asked.

  “I would hardly send an untried novice alone into one of the most well-guarded houses in Heffog,” Nemon told him. Again, he sounded offended. “I make backup plans. You were not the only person there that night.”

  “Were you dressed as a guard?” he asked suspiciously.

  Nemon smiled. “Not me, but you have the tactic right. It was very tragic, you know. The guards tried to decide between the escaped slave and the necklace and wound up with neither. Kerill was immensely displeased.”

  “How terrible for him,” he muttered.

  “I don’t think you mean that.”

  “You’re right, I don’t.” He considered the necklace. “Well, that makes my plan somewhat simpler, then. I thought Kerill would keep an eye on that piece in particular for a while. But, since he’s not—”

  “Ben,” Elantria interjected with impressive restraint, “what exactly are you planning?”

  “Well.” He smiled around the room. “I want to assassinate Kerill and Birra, and I would guess you two wanted to rob him blind, yes? And Nemon would certainly love to get his hands on a few more pieces. So…what do you all say we do that?”

  “What?” she demanded.

  Nemon burst out laughing. “He’s going in again. Ah, the stones on this one. I should associate with more humans. They always surprise me.” He took Delia’s hand and kissed the back of it and she smiled at him.

  Elantria met Ben’s gaze over their heads and shrugged as if to say she still didn’t understand the couple.

  He thought he did. Whatever else he was, the man was charming and he delighted in flouting social norms, much in the same way Delia seemed to. Both were tolerant of each other’s foibles.

  “So, you are going back?” Elantria asked him.

  “I am. I came up with a damned good plan the first time and I intend to follow through.” He folded his arms and looked at each of them. “Not that anyone else has to get involved, but it would help.”

  “You don’t say.” She sighed. “And then you’d involve me—publicly—in another assassination.”

  Rather than reply, he waited. His instinct was to blabber about how important this was, but he had the good sense to keep his mouth shut. He studied the emotions that flitted across her face.

  “I don’t like this turning into outright war,” she admitted. She seemed to be talking to the fireplace.

  “You knew it was coming, though,” Orien said.

  She looked sharply at him. “I did not. How would I know that?”

  “Because whenever there’s mass enslavement, there’s a war,” he said bluntly. “You helped me escape and you’ve helped others. You’ve targeted slave traders for a while now. And while you were getting ready for something bigger, I…”

  Elantria looked at him in surprise and waited for him to finish the sentence.

  “I was gathering information,” the elf said. “I told myself the delay was good but I was too much of a coward to make it a war.” Wryly, he said to Ben, “When I told you not to call her a coward, it was because I knew which of the two of us deserved that title.”

  “We can all share it,” Nemon said equably.

  Everyone looked at him.

  “I thought that might move the conversation along.” He raised an eyebrow. “No? Well, then. Regardless, an attack on Kerill would make a good opening salvo in a war.”

  “What do you know of war?” Elantria asked bluntly.

  “I know showmanship,” he said with a flourish of one hand. “You and I both know that elves like to dress up their brutishness with pretty words, but the one thing they respect is a show of force. Kerill was allowed to do what he did because no one opposed him. The question here is whether we go with the original plan or we do this openly.”

  Utter silence followed his challenge.

  Ben considered what he’d heard for a moment and then, tired of his butt going numb while he propped himself on the table, dragged a chair to the fire and sat with the others.

  “So, it’s a question of trying to make it fall apart without them knowing,” he said, “or doing it in the open.” The others nodded. “There would be less pushback if it’s quiet, I guess,” he mused. “But we run the risk of it simply going elsewhere. There’s no possibility that it would all fall apart without Kerill, I guess.”

  “Now that there’s a profit being made, it’s not likely.” Elantria sighed.

  “Actually, depending on how we did it…” Orien frowned in thought. “He sold me knowing I was elven and of his same nation. It’s against elven law. I’d be within my rights to kill him.”

  “What are you saying?” She looked warily at him.

  “I’m saying that if the rest of you hold the guards off, I could make his death a symbol.” His face was like a mask now. “I don’t have redress against his heir, but—”

  “I could handle that,” Ben said quietly. “Then the estate would pass to his son. Elven slave traders would be shamed, and—”

  “And the trade begins to fall apart in Heffog,” Elantria murmured. “We’d need to be careful to prevent the humans from sweeping in and filling the gap in the market.”

  “I think you’re forgetting that you’re known as Jorys’ assassin.” Nemon raised his eyebrows at her. “That was rather a sign of things to come, wasn’t it?”

  “Ah. Right.” She looked sourly at Ben, although there was amusement there. “I keep forgetting how my reputation has changed in the past few days.”

  “I don’t think you forget anything ever,” Ben retorted. A smile tugged at his lips. “In fact, I anticipate reminders of this for the rest of my natural life assuming you don’t shorten that span yourself.”

  “A good caveat,” she said blandly.

  He smiled and shifted in his chair.

  “Are you well, Ben?” Nemon asked. “You have a strange look on your face.”

  “I’m, uh…” Feeling had begun to come back and half his butt experienced pins and needles. “It’s nothing.” Trying not to leap out of his chair and wiggle around the room, he returned to the subject at hand. “So, Orien kills Kerill while the rest of us hold the guards off —if necessary—and I kill Birra. Orien then, presumably, makes some kind of public statement—”

  “I have to make the accusation first,” the elf said and sighed. “There have to be witnesses. I’ll need seven heads of household to watch. They don’t all have to be noble, which makes it easier, but it does remove the element of surprise somewhat.”

  “Only somewhat?” Ben quipped. “So holding the guards off will be imperative. Okay.”

  “And you or Delia will need to kill Birra,” Nemon told him. “Orien is right. He has no redress there. Anyone with elven blood will be held to elven law as soon as it’s invoked.”

  “I can do it,” Delia said. “I can get into any noble house.”

  “No.” Ben shook his head. “This is your city and you’re known to be close to Nemon. You don’t need to risk it. I’m an outsider so I can take the risk. When this is over, I’ll disappear.”

  “You have to get through it alive first, smart guy.”

  Ben smiled slightly, knowing the others in the room wouldn’t have heard the joke. Oddly, this was what gave him the most confidence in the plan working out. Prima would never joke if she were truly worried. She had reminded him to be careful but at the same time, she told him she thought it was possible.

  “I can’t decide if I’d rather you stay here,” Elantria murmured, “or whether
I’d rather set you loose without any idea which city you would set on fire next.”

  “Hey.” He rolled his eyes. “I’ve grown up considerably since the start of this. In the future, any violence will be precisely targeted and considered in advance.”

  “You say that like it’s comforting,” she replied waspishly.

  “She’s right, you know. It’s not comforting at all.”

  He threw his hands up. “Fine. Everyone else come up with the plan and I’ll go along with it. Promise.”

  “It’s a solid plan,” Nemon said. “I don’t think we need to alter it much. I, however, must move quickly to find the seven heads of household to serve as witnesses. It’s not essential that they be sympathetic to our cause, but I think we can all agree that this isn’t time to push the odds out of our favor.”

  He disappeared and Delia bent to murmur a few words in Orien’s ear before she followed.

  “What did she say?” Ben asked when she was gone. “Never mind. If she’d wanted the rest of us to hear—”

  “It’s fine.” Orien looked even paler than usual. “She told me that there is a reason elven law sentences slave traders to death. Delia knows how much I’ve doubted this and in fact, she told me to do it immediately after my escape.” He saw Ben’s surprise. “Nemon and Delia took me in originally when I escaped and Elantria helped me from there.”

  “So the four of you go way back,” He said.

  “You could say that.” The elf nudged Elantria with an elbow. “And they’ve only tried to kill each other a few times. Come on now, we need to do some planning.”

  The two of them hurried away as well and left him seated alone on his chair.

  “That was a joke,” he called after them. “Right? Guys?”

  There was no answer.

  “People in this city are insane,” he told Prima.

  “Maybe that’s why you fit in so well.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Once the decisions were made, Elantria and Nemon both swung into action with impressive speed.

  Runners were dispatched from her house and within the hour, dozens of people appeared. At first glance, they looked wildly different—children, stooped old women, fishermen, and serving girls in livery. As often as not, however, a disguise fell away to reveal an entirely different shape beneath, and whether or not they were in disguise, all of them had watchful eyes and weapons.

  Elantria summoned them to a meeting in the early afternoon. Instead of in the courtyard, which Ben had expected, it was held in the basement. He walked past a confusingly large pile of crates in the main hall and down the stairs to where dozens of pairs of eyes all focused on him mistrustfully.

  “This is Ben,” she said and gestured at him. “You’ll know him as Jorys’ assassin.”

  The mistrust grew somewhat less palpable.

  “Tonight,” she said, “Ben will deal with Birra and her guards. Kule, Havern, I want you to go with him. Raise your hands so he knows who you are.”

  Two people complied. He could not have said at a glance whether they were elven, human, dwarven, or a mixture of all three. Both were slight and short, with dark hair and dusky skin. Something was unsettling about how dark their eyes were, and it took him a moment to notice what.

  They had no whites. Every part of the orb was black.

  Ben swallowed, nodded, and decided not to ask questions about that. He was half-sure they might be actual demons and he didn’t want to learn too much and wind up dead.

  “Promise you’ll yank me out of this world if they try to possess me,” he muttered under his breath as he and Orien tramped down the last couple of creaking stairs.

  “Awwww, you’re no fun.”

  He leaned against the back wall with his arms folded and made a point of not looking at Kule and Havern.

  “As you know, we will move against Lord Kerill tonight.” Elantra looked at her team. “He is the architect of the slave trade in Heffog and his death will be a symbol. Many of you know Orien.” She gestured to him. “As an elf of the same nation, he has the right under elven law to kill Kerill for his crimes. Tonight, he will do so.”

  A murmur swelled through the gathering.

  “What changed?” Kule asked the question, or possibly Havern. Ben could not have said for sure if the one who spoke was male or female. The voice clarified nothing. It seemed to be an entirely normal voice, but…things…lurked in it.

  Things with teeth, his imagination said. The back of his neck crawled.

  Elantria looked at the two demons—he had decided to think of them as demons—and considered her words carefully.

  “I’ll let Ben answer that,” she said finally.

  He gaped at her in surprise.

  She gestured for him to come forward. The gleam in her eyes said that this was a little payback for bringing her into this situation. You started this, her smile said. Now you have to make the speeches.

  Ben swallowed. He walked to the table where she had spread her documents and looked at the crowd. An unsettling number of those present had eyes of unrelieved black. He saw elves and dwarves and even someone who looked as if they might have orc blood. Heffog truly was a melting pot.

  “What changed is that I killed Jorys,” he said abruptly after a moment. “It was a stupid decision and there was no plan. I saw the opportunity and I took it, and I put Elantria in danger—and all of you, I suppose. I want you to know that she would have been more cautious with this. Anyone who knows her probably won’t be surprised to hear that she read me the riot act and threw me out on my ass.”

  This triggered a burst of surprised laughter. He looked at Elantria and she smiled slightly.

  “But my stupidity doesn’t end there,” he said to another round of laughter. “Because after I did that and she chewed me out, I decided to argue with her. Now, for those of you wondering how I’m still alive, I have no idea so I can’t answer you.”

  There was a snicker from nearby. Orien had his face buried in one hand and his shoulders shook with laughter.

  “Well, the long story short is that both Elantria and I made some good points in that argument.” He smiled at them. “All of you know that she’d do almost anything to keep the people in this city safe. I’m too impulsive, and she was…maybe a little too cautious.”

  He met her gaze and waited for her tiny nod. She made him wait but she smirked a little.

  “And she listened to a few of us,” he continued, “when we suggested that now might be the time to strike. Kerill has been unopposed for years while he turned Heffog into a trading hub for slaves, but it’s time to end it. We all agreed on that. In the end…the rest was merely details.”

  At his gesture, Elantria returned to the table. “It’s a close enough rendition of the facts,” she said and provoked another round of chuckles. “We have allies in this fight. Over the years, the underworld of Heffog has grown strong. We are many and the nobles are few.”

  “You’re a noble,” said someone. They didn’t seem overawed by her at all.

  Ben couldn’t imagine that.

  “I have noble blood,” she corrected. “As does Nemon. So we can both tell you how little that’s worth and how good they are at making rules to ensure that only a few people claim the title. With many of their number gone to join the elven monarchy, the rest are weak. They sought to consolidate power and rule us through fear, but that won’t work. Not anymore. Jorys was the first. Kerill and his niece are next. From there…we will see where it goes.”

  “A bloodbath,” Prima said dryly. “That’s the expression, isn’t it?”

  He nodded.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to stay and help them with that?”

  “I’m better for the first part,” he murmured. “But I’ll consider it.”

  Elantria called various people to the table to give them their assignments and most left at a run. Kule and Havern stayed close, their gazes fixed on Ben each time he looked up.

  When there were only a
few left, she looked at Orien.

  “Are you ready?” she asked him.

  He looked thoughtful. “No. But I never will be.” He managed a smile. “He destroyed us. He scattered us across the world and sold our lives for a pile of gold coins he didn’t even need.” His gaze hardened and settled on her. “I told you the first time we met that this was coming. Then, I hid from it.”

  “And I let you.” She smiled sadly in return. “Until someone gave us a push.”

  Both looked at Ben, who cleared his throat awkwardly.

  Elantria focused on the elf again. “Kerill had already planned a dinner tonight and had invited three heads of household. There will be three more in the building from common-born families, and one more noble he was able to convince to drop by. You’ll have your seven witnesses.’

  “Thank you.” Orien nodded. “I’ll…go get ready.”

  She watched him walk away with a small frown, then said to Ben, “Watch out for him.”

  “I will.”

  “Remember.” Her face was grave. “He must be the one to kill Kerill. Keep him safe but do not finish the job for him.”

  He nodded. “I’ll deal with Birra as quickly as I can and get back to him.”

  “Good.” She nodded to him, and to Kule and Havern. “Go with the gods. Strike swiftly and true. Your carriage is upstairs.”

  Ben had questions about how they were supposed to get past the guards, but those were answered immediately once he got upstairs. The carriage, which waited out front, was half-full and being loaded.

  It wasn’t so much a carriage, however, as a cart.

  The conveyance was full of crates.

  He sighed. Now he understood why all those crates were there. He was supposed to get into one, wasn’t he? It seemed all kinds of disappointing that he would be smuggled into Kerill’s house like a sack of potatoes.

  The discomfort of that idea was vastly increased when he realized he would be shut in with the two demons.

  “You have to be kidding me,” he whispered to Prima as Kule and Havern climbed into the crate.

  “If you don’t want to get shut in crates with demons, don’t start civil wars.”