Assassin's Edge

by Juliet E. McKenna

  “We’ve had word from Livak.” Usara spoke without preamble. “Pirates have landed on those islands in the mid-ocean that ships bound for Kellarin use as a staging post.”

  “I recall the maps.” Sorgrad’s azure eyes were astute. They hardened. “I’m sure Planir has some cunning plan to sink them.”

  “Pirates?”

  ’Gren raised a curious finger to poke at the spell before Sorgrad slapped it away.

  “Planir says it’s none of his concern, nor yet Hadrumal’s,” Shiv said tartly.

  “Ryshad and Halice are raising a force from Kellarin and we’re in Zyoutessela looking to do the same.” Usara matched the Mountain Man’s directness. “Livak said you could help us.”

  “Zyoutessela?” Sorgrad elbowed his grinning brother in the ribs to forestall some comment. “Don’t know it but docks are much of a muchness, Col, Peorle, wherever.” He frowned. “We’re the wrong side of Lagontar.”

  “We’ll hitch a ride to Nestar Haven and pick up a ship for Col.”

  ’Gren was already securing his blanket with a leather strap and foraging among the leaves for a battered leather backpack.

  “Col to Attar, then across the Gulf of Lescar. We can’t get to you soon enough to be any use.” Sorgrad shook his head. “But I can give you a few hints to save you getting robbed yourselves.”

  “We can’t leave Livak and Halice twisting in the wind.” ’Gren looked mulish. “And why should they get all the loot?”

  “That’s an interesting point.” Sorgrad smiled. “Even advice should be worth some silver.”

  “You won’t just help us for Livak’s sake?” Shiv looked disappointed.

  “You should take to acting in masquerades, wizard,” Sorgrad laughed. “Livak would be the first one to take a rise out of me for not asking a fair price.”

  Usara shrugged. “D’Alsennin can pay you a share in whatever loot the pirates may have.”

  “We get to pick it over,” demanded ’Gren.

  The wizards looked at each other. “If Halice agrees,” Usara said cautiously.

  “But we want more from you that just advice. We want to bring you here to do this yourself.” Shiv bent closer to the mirror. “Sorgrad, how much elemental magic have you learned in Solura?”

  Sorgrad’s face hardened. “Not enough to make this trip worth my while.”

  “Have you any notion of translocating yourself?” asked Usara.

  “The spell’s closely tied to air affinity,” Shiv assured him. “You should at least be able to try.”

  “Pigs can try whistling but they’re still ill suited to it.” Sorgrad shook his head obstinately.

  “Then we’ll bring you here ourselves.” Shiv absently rubbed his palms on his thighs.

  “You drop me in the ocean, wizard, and I won’t drown until I’ve made you sorry for it.”

  ’Gren was looking wary and accordingly threatening.

  “Sorgrad, I know you can summon a candle flame. You can hold this bespeaking steady to help us.” Usara set the mirror down on the table and Shiv hurried to sit opposite him.

  “How?” Sorgrad asked with reluctant interest.

  “Feel for the fire,” said Shiv. “Use it to maintain the circle of light.”

  With the mirror now flat, Usara allowed himself a sceptical look at the other mage.

  Shiv didn’t respond, concentrating instead on the mirror. “All you have to do is sustain the reflection.”

  The spell dimmed and Sorgren’s cautious voice took on a metallic echo. “Like this?”

  “That’ll do,” Usara assured him. “If we work cursed fast,” he added to Shiv in a low voice.

  He planted his hands on the table and took a deep breath, staring unseeing at the white cloth. As he drew his hands round in opposing swirls, an azure trace lingered on the linen like a memory of blue sky behind fine cloud. Usara lifted his hands to cup them before him, cradling a swelling ball of slate-blue magelight. The sphere grew, paling as it did so from slate through indigo to the faint gold-tinged colour of a summer evening sky. The eggshell blue washed over the wizards and disappeared beyond the confines of the room.

  Shiv’s eyes were tight shut as he pressed his palms together, arms outstretched. He spread his fingers wide and turquoise brilliance netted his hands. Fleeting, like lightning from a clear sky, it was gone almost before it was seen. The mage frowned and new strands of light appeared but still no more substantial than a spider’s web reflecting moonlight. Shiv took a deep breath and the tracery of power strengthened to ultramarine. He drew his hands apart with infinite care and the strands of magelight thickened and twisted, threads snapping and rejoining, coiling and spiralling upwards. As the weave extended, it grew thinner, paler. It reached the window and fled.

  “Is something supposed to be happening?”

  ’Gren’s interested voice rang out from the silver mirror.

  “You tell me,” responded Sorgrad curtly.

  Usara’s head dipped towards the table and Shiv scrubbed sweat from his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Shit!”

  “So we flag down a cart after all?” Sorgrad’s mockery betrayed a trace of disappointment.

  “It’s too far,” Usara gasped. “When we’re reaching outside our own affinities.”

  “We nearly had them.” Shiv flexed his hands and scowled. “We should be able to manage one.”

  “We go together or not at all, wizard.” Sorgrad’s muted voice was uncompromising.

  Usara looked at Shiv. “We could do it with Larissa’s help.”

  Shiv groaned. “You’re not serious?”

  “Show me another way?” Usara brushed faint traces of power from his hands. “Besides asking the Imperial Despatch to pack Casuel in a crate and send him along?”

  Shiv rubbed at his temples. “I don’t know who’d be more trouble.”

  “We have to do something,” snapped Usara. “Or we may as well go back to Planir with our tails between our legs.”

  “Larissa can help us bring them here.” Shiv sounded distinctly unenthusiastic. “That’ll give her some insight into combining affinities that she can wave in front of Kalion’s cronies. But we’re not taking her to Suthyfer, agreed?”

  “I don’t know if you’re interested but I can barely see you.” Sorgrad’s chagrined voice was fading fast.

  Usara gestured and the wavering spell rallied. “We need help from another mage to bring you here. Don’t go far and we’ll find you when we need you.”

  “You don’t think we’ve got our own plans for the day?”

  ’Gren’s distant voice challenged mischievously. Sorgrad’s response was too muffled to be audible and then the bespeaking shattered into glittering fragments that sank away into the mirror’s reflection.

  “Curse it!” Usara snuffed the candle with an angry hand.

  “Come on.” Shiv was heading for the door. “They can’t have gone far.”

  Pered and Larissa proved to be the only people in the wide room occupying most of the inn’s ground floor. Too big to be called a parlour, too salubrious to be merely a taproom, its well-scrubbed tables and ladder-backed chairs could offer comfortable intimacy for two as well as convivial circles for larger gatherings. Curtains fluttered at open windows as a fresh sea breeze scoured the scent of the previous night’s wine and revelry out of the corners. Larissa and Pered were sitting by the wide arch of the hearth, a tray on the table between them. Pered expertly measured herbs into a hinged sphere of silver mesh, snapped it shut and dropped it into a fine ceramic cup. “Tisane?” he offered as Shiv approached. “It’s a local blend, decent enough, if a bit heavy on the linden leaves.”

  “Please.” Shiv took a seat. “Larissa.” He hesitated as an aproned maid brought a jug of hot water from the kettle hanging over the fire.

  “We find we need your help in working a spell.” Usara pulled a chair over from a nearby table and sat astride it.

  Shiv waited until the maid had delivered more cups. “But please rec
onsider sailing with us after that. This whole voyage promises to be extremely dangerous.”

  Larissa studied her cup, prodding the metal ball of steeping herbs with a spoon. Her hazel eyes were reddened and she clutched a handkerchief that Shiv recognised as Pered’s. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Join us in a translocation.” Usara looked to see the maid was out of earshot. “We need to bring two people from Solura.”

  “Solura?” Larissa looked up, startled.

  “Western Solura,” Shiv offered, adding cold water to the tisane Pered handed him.

  “It’s still a cursed long way.” Larissa wrinkled her nose in thought. “We need as much air around us as possible, somewhere outside, high up for preference.”

  Pered passed a crystal pot of honey to Usara as the bearded mage grimaced at the taste of his drink. “You can take a carriage up to the top of the portage way. Everyone goes to see the views.”

  “As long as we can find a reasonably discreet corner.” Usara looked at him.

  Pered nodded. “There’s a park full of monuments off to the side of the square on the actual crest. Sieurs Den This and Tor That have spent coffers of coin to get themselves noticed, without realising no one gives them a second thought once they’re a generation dead.”

  Shiv grinned. “Have you drawn everything in Hadrumal by now?”

  “At least three times,” Pered assured him.

  “Let’s get on, shall we?” Usara stood up.

  Larissa drained her cup and raised an expectant brow at Shiv who sighed and set down his half-finished drink.

  The bright sun outside was warm enough for Larissa to fan herself and unbutton her high collar. Swathed in silks and layers of muslins rather than wool, the ladies of southern Tormalin swept past, elegant in more unstructured styles than the formal tailoring of Hadrumal.

  “Here!” Pered raised a hand as a hireling carriage deposited a flurry of giggling girls at a milliner’s opposite. “Up to the vantage point, if you please,” he told the driver.

  Usara handed Larissa in beside Shiv who looked silently out of the window. The sound of iron-bound wheels on cobbles filled the coach.

  “I wonder if Ryshad’s family built any of these?” Pered mused as the shops and inns of the commerce quarter yielded to sprawling houses; hollow squares of ruddy-tiled roofs above whitewashed walls shaded by trees fragrant with blossom. Stout walls encircled such dwellings, occasional open gates offering glimpses of busy households within. On the flagway either side of the road efficient servants delivered sacks and barrels, workmen carried tools and materials. Nursemaids gathered little ones skipping with delight safely away from rumbling carts and carriages while footmen escorted youths sullen at the prospect of lessons and maidens impatient at such chaperoning.

  Usara studied the passing city. “Ryshad’s brothers live on the other side of the isthmus, don’t they?” he said at length. “Anyway, these houses would be five, six generations old, before the Inglis trade really started bringing in the coin. When would you say these were built, Shiv? Aleonne the Gallant’s reign or Inshol the Curt?”

  Shiv didn’t reply. Larissa was studying her hands again so Pered and Usara exchanged a shrug and sat in silence.

  The horses leaned into their collars to pull the carriage up the road that snaked ever higher towards the pass cutting a deep cleft in the saw-edged mountains north and south of the isthmus. Houses became smaller and more closely packed and the cobbles gave way to hard-packed earth. Each frontage showed three or four rows of windows and garret rooms besides beneath the brown and ochre tiles. Hurrying out from behind a loaded dray, a girl with a scarlet fan startled a saddle horse, which whinnied its indignation as it shied away and startled their coach’s team. The driver’s rebukes and the girl’s defiance added sharp notes to the murmur and bustle all around. Within the carriage, the silence persisted.

  “Here we are,” Pered announced with determined cheerfulness when the coach drew to a halt. He paid off the driver as Usara got out and offered Larissa a courteous hand. She waved it away with a tight smile.

  “So where are we?” Shiv surveyed the broad square that had been hacked out of the rock to flatten the crest of the pass. On either side jagged cliffs fell back towards the ocean, broken by uncertain slabs and screes, doughty herbs and flowers scrabbling to maintain a foothold on the sparse, sun-scorched soil.

  “The princes who built the road joining the two harbours made sure that the Emperor granted them the dues in perpetuity. This is where they collect them.” Pered nodded towards several heavy wagons plodding across the flagstoned expanse, just arrived up the wide road that led to the unseen port of the city’s larger, older half that faced the calmer waters of Caladhrian Gulf rather than the uncertain currents of the ocean. Galleys looking little larger than a child’s playthings dotted brilliant blue waters that reached to the horizon.

  Usara watched a liveried man wearing the badge of some Tormalin princes stroll up to a laden cart’s driver. He produced an amulet that won him a nod but those that followed were waved towards a long row of water troughs beneath wind-tossed shade trees. “It must be worth the cost, to avoid the time and risks of a voyage around the cape.”

  “Mind your backs!” Pered pulled Larissa aside as toiling horses snorted behind her, sides heaving as their driver slackened their reins. “Ferd, get that manifest to Den Rannion’s clerk! Jump to it, lad!” A child leapt from the back of the cart and ran off as the driver urged his reluctant team towards a space beside a gang of men dividing the cargo they had just carried up here between two wagons waiting impatiently for goods from Caladhria, Lescar and countries beyond.

  Shiv surveyed the constant activity all around. “They must have paid for the road ten times over by now”

  “More like a hundred times,” Pered opined. “But a Sieur can always find a use for more coin.” He nodded at the detachment of armed men relaxing around the base of a massive statue of Dastennin. Crowned with seaweed, the god of the sea’s robe broke into roiling foam around his feet, his weathered bronze hands green with age, outstretched in benediction towards both seas.

  Larissa closed her eyes and turned her face to the steady breeze, face rapt. “I feel I could touch the sky up here.”

  “It’s a splendid place to work with the air,” agreed Usara with hopeful anticipation. “Even I can feel that.”

  Shiv turned to Pered. “Working magic in the open isn’t exactly against the Emperor’s writ but I don’t relish debating the point with Den Rannion’s sworn men. You said there were more private places up here?”

  “This way.” Pered led them towards a mighty tower on the southerly side of the square. With its flared base of tightly fitted stones seamlessly married to the rock beneath, it looked like some marvellous tree grown of living stone.

  “Wasn’t the Sieur Den Rannion one of the original patrons of the Kellarin colony?” Larissa queried, nodding towards the men with silver eagle’s head badges bright on their copper-coloured jerkins who shielded the tower’s door with crossed pikes.

  “That was his brother, Messire Ancel.” Shiv glanced up at the broad balcony circling the slender waist of the tower. “The present Sieur is no friend to Temar.”

  Excited voices floated out across the great square, exclaiming over the views. Above, where the tower was capped with a sturdily built watch-room, sworn men kept vigil to east and west. A great eagle spread vast bronze wings over them, poised eternally on the moment of flight.

  Larissa tilted her head to one side. “If you can get mages with the right affinities working together, we could well bring ships safely around the Cape of Winds. Then D’Alsennin wouldn’t have to pay for the privilege of this rigmarole of portage across the isthmus.”

  “I’m not sure Temar would want to put the Emperor’s nose out of joint like that.” Shiv waved away a hopeful lad offering a tray of sweetmeats.

  “Where are we going?” Larissa looked uncertain as Pered led Usara towards the queue of w
ell-dressed merchant folk and comfortably humble townspeople waiting to gain access to the fabled tower and its balcony with letters of introduction or the simpler expedient of a few well-chosen coins. Smiling lackeys offered them wine and tisanes beneath an awning fluttering in the constant wind.

  “I’m not sure.” Shiv picked up his pace and Larissa hurried with him.

  “I can’t imagine anyone building a greater monument than Den Rannion’s,” Pered was saying to Usara. “But that doesn’t stop them trying.” He waved a hand at the miscellany of commemorative stone and metalwork planted haphazard in an irregular space between the mighty tower and the ragged, fissured mountainside beyond.

  Shiv raised an eyebrow at the blatant panegyric to some long-dead Tor Leoril engraved on a massive marble urn. “You said we could find a discreet corner?”

  “This way.” Pered led the mages through monuments ranging from the blandly functional to the frankly bizarre. They passed a granite bull, big as life and pawing ferociously at its plinth, and reached a mighty bronze dragon leprous with verdigris and fighting against chains that ran from a collar to metal posts embedded in the ground. Its bating wings cast a deep shadow over a creature half fish, half hound that lounged unconcerned on a high drift of scallop shells carved from a single slab of marble. Behind, an empty space was effectively blocked from passing view and any curious eyes on the tower’s balcony.

  Shiv nodded approvingly. “We’d still better work fast.”

  “I’ll stand guard.” Pered took himself off to sit apparently idly some way beyond the dragon, digging charcoal and parchment out of one pocket. Usara stifled a smile.

  Shiv raised questioning brows at Larissa who braced herself and held out hands that betrayed her tension with a faint tremor. Usara completed the triangle and all three mages concentrated on the empty air between them. The only sound was the stealthy scrape of Pered’s sketching.

  “Dear heart,” Shiv said conversationally. “This would be easier without distractions.”

  “Sorry.” There was an apologetic rustle and then silence from Pered.

  Larissa’s gaze hadn’t wavered. She focused on a shimmer of blue at the very mid-point between them. The strand of magelight was barely a hair’s thickness but startling in its sapphire intensity. A faint smile curved Larissa’s full lips as the magic split, doubling and redoubling, threads blurring and fluttering in the curious wind coiling around the mages. “Usara?” she invited.