She hoped.
Daphne left the knife where it was, and crept to the door of the old woman’s office, four floors up in the City Council building. She knew the layout well, having sneaked around before, on her nocturnal wanderings through the city. Breaking into the mansions of the rich, and the more heavily guarded public buildings had become a habit for Daphne as she practised her skills. Prowling alone at night, and then sleeping and studying during the day, had become her routine since Douanna had left over a third before. The Rahain merchant had travelled back to Jade Falls, to put some distance between herself and the execution of her commissions.
Crouching low, Daphne looked out through the keyhole.
Bending her sight with line-vision, she scanned the corridor in both directions, finding it empty.
She left the room and ran down the corridor, her feet making no noise on the thick carpet. She searched the wall at the end of the passageway, finding the concealed door leading to the servants’ stairwell. She heard voices approach from the left, crowing over some victory in the council, and she went through. She put her ear to the door as she shut it, listening as the voices came closer.
‘When you see your brother,’ a low voice said, ‘give him my hearty congratulations. I’m sure he’ll do a fine job bringing those recalcitrant savages to heel.’
‘I will, thank you,’ a younger voice replied, as they passed the door.
‘Now, let’s see what excuse Myella has for not turning up this evening.’
‘I’m sure it’ll be a good one, she never likes to miss giving the Liberals a bloody nose!’
Oh, it’s quite good, Daphne thought, smiling in the darkness.
Thirty minutes later, she was well on her way through the dark streets of the city. It was past midnight, the streets were quiet, and she slipped through the shadows, keeping close to the walls and back alleys.
Her night wasn’t over, and she turned towards the High Senate, towering above her in the central cavern of the city.
She had questioned the value of assassinating members of the City Council, first the drunken brute that she had poisoned, and then drowned in his bath, and now the old woman, when those who sat in the High Senate seemed to hold all the power. Douanna had explained about the virtual veto the City Council wielded over matters of war, as they held the keys to the capital’s treasury, the largest reserve of coin in the republic.
She recalled the words of the Rahain she had overheard by the stairs. If the city councillors were talking about crushing savages and beating Liberals, it could only mean that they had passed a resolution to supply funds for some sort of expedition that the High Senate had needed approval for. More pertinent to her assignment that night, it also meant that the senators would have to wait for word of the City Council’s vote before they could disband for the Autumn’s Day holiday, and that her next target would therefore still be inside.
From a nearby roof, she noticed that the security surrounding the High Senate appeared to be normal, meaning that news of Councillor Myella’s death had not yet arrived. She settled in to wait, watching the guards patrol the streets around the huge complex. Her view also encompassed the large courtyard at the rear, where the senators’ carriages were stationed. Slaves and gaien stood in the night air, waiting for the orders to take their masters home, or to a party, or wherever else the elite in Rahain society went while the rest of the city slept.
As she leaned back against the stone roof, Daphne inspected the damage to the armour covering her left arm. It had been fashioned by a Rahain stone mage, who had crafted thin, compressed plates of a black, green-veined rock, held within a hinged steel frame. The entire piece fitted her from shoulder to wrist, and was so light and thin that it was unnoticeable when worn under a cloak.
She saw a tiny chip in the smooth, dark stonework halfway down her forearm, from where Myella’s bolt had struck. Douanna had assured her that the work was of the highest quality, and that the mage was not only the best at what he did, but was also discreet regarding his paid commissions.
At her wrist, the forearm guard extended past her knuckles, ending in a studded steel bar, capable of delivering a punch. She had been practising fighting using her left arm, to parry, and to strike. Her elbow remained fused at an angle, but the freedom the arm-guard gave her had improved her overall movement, as she no longer had to worry about protecting her crippled limb at every turn.
Movement in the courtyard below caught her eye. She watched from the shadows as the rear doors of the senate building opened, and small pockets of senators started to emerge, hailing their carriages.
Daphne slipped into battle-vision, drawing on just enough to allow her to pick out individual faces among the crowd forming below. Her eyes focussed as she recognised her second target of the night.
Flanouac, a senator from the Patriot Party. One of the main proponents of the war strategy against the Kellach Brigdomin, sponsor of the laws authorising the invasion, and one of those most responsible for the death and enslavement of hundreds of thousands. Douanna had told her that he was now agitating for the transfer of troops into the demilitarised Plateau, as soon as their tunnel through the mountains was complete. Ostensibly about protecting trade routes from the Kellach and Sanang bandits who roamed the mountains, Douanna had insisted that Flanouac’s true motive was to provoke a fight with the Holdings. She had explained that the Conservatives were loath to begin hostilities in light of their signed peace with the northern realm, and so the Patriots were attempting to provide a pretext that would allow them to go to war without formally breaking the terms of the treaty.
Daphne’s mind had already glossed over these details. He was one of the politicians who had caused untold suffering among the Kellach tribes, and that, for the moment, was enough for her.
She watched as Flanouac said his farewells to a group of senators, and boarded his carriage. The gaien lurched ahead, and exited through the large, double-arched entrance, and onto one of the main streets surrounding the walled senate complex. Daphne scrambled up and over the top of the roof where she had been hiding, to observe the direction the carriage chose. Over the last half-third that she had been tailing the senator, he had once or twice gone out to a restaurant or party, but tonight she saw that he was taking his normal route homeward, to his mansion in Silverlight Caverns, one of the most exclusive addresses in the city.
Daphne sprinted across the roof of the tall building where she had been crouching, until she reached an access shaft, high up the cavern side. A network of service tunnels ran between the main caverns, and she had learned the layout by stealing a map from a city library. There was no direct route to Flanouac’s mansion, so she emerged from the tunnels into a large vertical ventilation shaft directly above Silverlight Caverns.
They were beautiful. Natural pillars, formed of stalagmites merged with stalactites, seemed to hold up the brooding, heavy ceiling. The grey rock was streaked with polished seams of silver, which ran along the ground, and across the cavern walls. A score of large mansions appeared to rise out of the stone, their silver seams shimmering in the lamplight.
A network of high roads linked the main entrances of the mansions, while, below them, a narrower web of trenches and tunnels criss-crossed the cavern, to allow the servile classes to move around without being seen by the nobles who lived there. At this hour, the servants’ passageways were silent and deserted. Daphne lowered herself into the closest one, and began to make her way to the home of Flanouac.
As she passed the high walls of a private garden, she heard the sound of a carriage approaching along one of the high roads. She withdrew into the shadows, and used a short burst of line-vision to confirm that the passenger was indeed her target. Waiting until it had passed, she put her hands on her knees. A wave of nausea washed through her, and she gagged.
Even with all of her practice, switching back and forth between her skills could still cause her difficulties.
The feeling passed, and she reached
into a pocket sewn into the inside of her vest. She took out a small stick of keenweed, brought all the way from the Sanang frontier by Douanna, and lit it after striking a spark with a Rahain match.
She closed her eyes as she inhaled, knowing that her senses would be flooded with the combination of the narcotic with her battle-vision. She felt her energy increase, and the last traces of her nausea vanished. Preparing herself, she opened her eyes, taking in every detail around her in an instant.
An alert calmness filled her as a surge of energy rippled through her body, and she ran down the passageways towards Flanouac’s mansion.
She had never been in his home before, but it was as unprotected as the other mansions in Silverlight that she had broken into. There were a few complacent guards posted on the main gate, but none watching the low back walls, and she was over and into the marble flagstoned yard without being seen. The avenue running towards the large house was lined with statues of ancient Rahain notables. According to Douanna, this cavern had been continuously inhabited for thousands of years, and had gained its present form under the rule of a tyrant some three and a half millennia before.
Daphne felt a little surge of pride that an upstart Holdings renegade was able to infiltrate the inner sanctuaries of a society as ancient as the Rahain. Bringing their arrogance down a peg or two was its own motivation.
She studied the mansion from the shadow of a statue, noting where lamps were lit. She shot her line-vision up to the index finger of a massive figure of a Rahain warrior, her marble hand pointing to the sky, and gazed into each room in turn.
She paused when she scanned the third room. Inside, a woman was helping two young children pack some bags and travel cases with clothes and toys. They were laughing, as the boy was trying on a selection of his sister’s hats.
So he has a family, she thought. Doesn’t matter. Changes nothing.
She continued examining the rooms. In the fifth one along, she saw a study, where Flanouac was facing the window, sorting out some documents on a desk. The room to the left of where he was standing seemed empty, its windows dark.
Daphne ran to the side of the mansion, under the dark window to the left of Flanouac’s study. The wall was faced in the grey, silver-shot stone that was present everywhere in the cavern, and had been moulded with deep rusticated blocks.
She looked down at the armour covering her crippled limb. The stone mage who had constructed it had set a retractable iron claw into the framework under her left wrist. She released a catch to extend it, and approached the wall. She hooked the claw onto a ledge above a stone block, put some of her weight onto her left arm, and began to climb. It was hard work, and she was sweating as she scaled the wall, guessing that it was the keenweed that was allowing her to push past her normal limits.
She clambered up onto a balcony, and sat for a moment to recover her breath.
The tall windows leading off the balcony were dark. She got up, listened at the doors, then entered the mansion. She crossed the floor, and put her ear to the inner door. She heard nothing, and crept out of the dark room and into a corridor. She padded to the next door along, and opened it a crack.
Flanouac was still within, his back to her as he stood as his desk.
Daphne entered. She drew a knife from her belt, and aimed at the space between his shoulder blades.
He must have heard something, as he started to turn just as she threw the knife. His eyes opened wide as the blade struck him in the chest under his left shoulder, missing his heart.
Daphne ran towards the desk as he fell. She caught him, and lowered him to the ground.
There was a choking, gasping sound coming from his mouth, along with flecks of blood. Must have punctured a lung, she thought.
He stared at her in shock, pain, and a raw fear of death.
‘Who are you?’ he gasped, as she lay him onto the carpet.
‘The spirit of vengeance,’ she whispered, putting her foot against his shoulder, pinning him to the floor.
‘Why?’ he groaned, his tongue flickering. ‘Why?’
‘For what you did to the Kellach Brigdomin.’ She extracted the knife from his chest, stepping aside to avoid the spray of blood that followed. Flanouac’s face paled, as his life pulsed out through the wound.
‘You don’t have to kill me,’ he whispered, trying to raise his head, but failing, his neck flopping uselessly.
‘I know that,’ she said, ‘but I’m going to do it anyway.’
‘For the Kellach?’ he asked, his breath ragged and laboured. ‘But you are Holdings.’
‘I am,’ she replied, kneeling in close, her knife at his neck.
‘You hypocrite!’ he gasped. ‘If you want to kill warmongers, you should have started at home.’
She paused.
‘Look at what you are doing in Sanang,’ he went on, blood trickling down his chin. ‘You think the Holdings are innocent?’
He pointed up at her. ‘You are the same as us…’
She slit his throat, silencing him. Blood pumped out through the slash she had made, and his vertical pupils dilated.
She stood, the bloody knife dripping onto the cream-coloured carpet.
‘I am nothing like you.’
She stooped, wiping the knife on the dead Rahain’s tunic, then approached the balcony doors, and slipped outside. The air was warm, and she remembered that she was not really outside, but deep underground. She resolved to visit the surface as soon as she could, so she could feel fresh air blowing on her face. The air down in the caverns was stale and close, and she started to feel claustrophobic.
Don’t falter now, she told herself, as she leaned against the balcony railing. She had to get far away from there, before the keenweed could wear off. She slung her legs over the edge, and climbed back down to the ground.
With no sound of any alarm, she sprinted to the rear wall of the garden, and hoisted herself up. Sitting perched upon a ledge just below the top of the wall, she looked back at the mansion, sending a surge of line-vision back up to the stone warrior’s raised finger. She gazed into the room where she had killed Flanouac.
The study was crowded with terrified servants and tearful guards. Next to the body, a woman stood, her face crumpled and distraught, as she looked down at her dead husband. Two small children were hugging the corpse, crying hysterically. Each clung onto one of their father’s arms, while servants tried to pull them clear.
Daphne looked away, shielding her heart from the waves of pain that she could feel coming from the people within the room. She jumped down from the wall, lowered herself into the servants’ trenches, and started to run.
It took half the night to reach Douanna’s home, in the fashionable area of the Topaz Caverns. She had been forced to hide for hours until the Silverlight entrance tunnel was clear enough for her to escape back through the ventilation shaft. Her nerves were shot, the keenweed all but worn off, and her use of battle-vision, as well as the numerous bursts of line-vision, had left her body exhausted, but her mind buzzing.
She let herself in through a small side door, and nearly collapsed with relief. Holding onto the wall, she straightened herself, and stumbled down to the basement. The lamps were dimmed, and the kitchens were empty. She staggered over to the deep sinks and began washing the blood from her hands, pouring freezing cold water from a large jug.
‘Good evening, my lady,’ she heard behind her.
‘Good evening,’ she replied to the old servant, one of Douanna’s longest serving, and the only other person living in the house.
‘Busy night, my lady?’
‘So-so,’ she said, never sure how much Douanna had told him about what she was doing. It made for a strange and uncomfortable relationship, with Daphne dancing around her true role in the household, while the old servant often hinted that he knew more, without ever confirming it. Daphne had no doubt that he reported her every word back to his mistress.
‘Is my lady hungry?’ he asked.
Daphne
turned to face him, drying her hands on a towel.
‘Not much appetite this evening.’
‘As you say, my lady,’ he said, his eyes scanning her.
‘I would be grateful,’ she went on, ‘if you could bring some wine up to my room in half an hour.’
‘As you wish, my lady,’ he replied. ‘Red or white?’
‘Actually, make it brandy,’ she said, walking towards the stairs.
‘Very good, my lady.’
She trudged up the stone steps to the top floor, where she had a bed chamber and washroom. She changed out of her night-stalker clothes, unfastening and removing her arm-guard with care, and placing it on the small table at the end of her bed. She put her knives away, and pulled on a light cotton robe, just as the old servant entered with a tray.
She lit a cigarette as he set down the bottle of brandy and a single glass on the bedside table, next to her armour.
‘Would my lady be requiring anything else?’
‘Not tonight, thank you.’
‘Very good, my lady,’ he nodded, leaving her room and closing the door behind him.
She sat on the edge of her bed, and poured herself a glass.
The keenweed had worn off, and the brandy hit her quickly, sending her mood downwards into a morose cycle of guilt and shame. As self-pity engulfed her, she tried to reason with herself, knowing the alcohol was fuelling the after-effects of the narcotics, but it was too late.
Tears started to fall down her cheeks, and the image of the slain politician’s grieving wife and children shone in her mind as if seared there. They had been getting ready to go off on their autumn holiday, packing their little bags with toys. But she had intervened in their lives, to destroy them, in one night of blood they would never be able to forget.
The Queen's Executioner Page 15
