“Commander,” said Lieutenant V’Sel, clenched fist pressed to mid-chest as she strode in. “I have the all-aspects report for you.”
The two soldiers sat down at a plain table situated near the door.
“Still no message from the Shylan Shields?” said Delara.
“None, but we have had one from the office of the Master of Seals.”
“Ah, their protector.” Delara smiled. “Let’s see what it says, hmm?”
V’Sel took out a missive envelope, made from pale-blue silk-paper and bearing an official stamp. She broke the seal, extracted a single slip of paper, swiftly scanned the contents and grunted when she was done. “Offers congratulations on your retrieval of the deadly vial—which he spells phial—and the capture of one of the would-be assassins. Requests that you present yourself at his chambers without delay, so that you may acquaint him with all the details of the mission in advance of his own report to the Emperor.” She placed the letter and its envelope on the table. “Requires that you also bring the vial to ensure its safe and complete eradication.”
Delara and V’Sel exchanged a look of amused scepticism.
“He really has no shame,” said Delara.
“He cannot force you to attend him, Commander.”
Which was true—the Nightblades answered only to the Emperor, but the nature of court politics was a maze of manners which required decorum and affability for successful continuity.
“No, he cannot but I shall visit him later, purely as a courtesy. The vial, though, will remain here.”
V’Sel gave a sharp, satisfied nod. “So, the all-aspects report, Commander?”
“Are there any problems requiring my immediate attention, Lieutenant? Anything presenting a detriment to the operations of our enclave here in the palace?”
“Not at this time, Commander.”
“Good. Any other matters of which I should be made aware?”
“Just one. Our prisoner is asking to speak with you.”
Delara raised an eyebrow. “After that unhinged performance on the rooftop, I see no reason for another encounter.”
V’Sel frowned. “I agree. However, he insists that in the event of such a denial I should tell you these words—‘I know how to destroy it.’”
Delara’s eyes widened. “Say again?”
“He said—‘I know how to destroy it,’ and that you would know what that meant.” Lieutenant V’Sel rested her arms on the table. “Do you know what he means, Commander?”
“Yes,” Delara said, getting to her feet. “It means that we’re off to have a chat with our prisoner.”
The Nightblades’ brig was a small but well-built, iron-banded confinement cell, situated on the enclave’s top floor. The prisoner, however, had been spirited away from the courtyard on his arrival, marched through side passages and down to the fake pantry in the basement. Near the Commander’s chamber were the sentry stairs which linked the patrol gallery to the upper walkways and the inner yard. It also provided a more discreet route down to the kitchen and stores.
“Who’s playing decoy?” Delara said as they descended the spiral stairs. Due to the nature of the ongoing intrigue she had ordered a decoy prisoner placed in the brig.
“Cadet Teolm,” said V’Sel. “She’s had experience in dressing up as a man.”
Delara gave her second-in-command a perplexed look.
“Comes from a theatrical family, Commander.”
“I see. Useful.”
The fake pantry was reached from the main storeroom door, thereby avoiding the gawping stares of the kitchen staff. There were two guards, both stationed in separate darkened alcoves. Nods were exchanged as the commander and her deputy approached the “pantry” door. One of the guards unlocked it and the two women entered. A shadowy figure could be seen reclining on a simple truckle bed in the spartan room lit only by two rush-candles on a shelf in view of the door’s viewing slit. A table and two chairs sat between the candles and the door.
The door thudded shut, the lock clicked and the prone figure swung his legs round into a sitting position.
“Got my message, then,” he said.
“I’m here out of curiosity,” Delara said. She went over to sit at the table, gesturing to the other chair. The prisoner laughed and came over to sit opposite her. “I’m curious as to why an assassin wishes to erase the means of assassination.”
The prisoner sighed and shook his head. “Okay, let’s get one thing straight—since we got here, me and my associates have done nothing but try to hunt down the blood-poison in order to stop it being used!”
“Yet there you were, climbing out onto a tavern roof, carrying a stuffed boar containing that very vial.”
“Put that way it sounds berserk, but if I hadn’t grabbed it and hauled my arse out onto the roof, the vial would now be in the hands of the Shylan boys, or, rather, the hands of their boss, the Master of Seals!” The prisoner sat back. “I hear he’s got, shall we say, ambitions!” He grinned.
Delara regarded the prisoner’s open amusement with irritation. For an ordinary citizen, he appeared to be disturbingly well informed.
“Your name is Pazzyk,” she said. “Is that correct?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Okay, Mr. Pazzyk, my time is precious so why don’t you tell me, in as few words as possible, exactly how to destroy the vial.”
The man Pazzyk leaned on the table, one hand supporting his chin as he continued to smile his annoying smile.
“Gladly. You are completely right—time is not on our side so I’ll give it to you straight. The only way to destroy that skaggin’ vial is with a magical artefact or object of some kind. It was created by sorcery and only sorcery can harm it. And it so happens that there is a suitable magical artefact right here in the palace …”
Lieutenant V’Sel, who had been standing just behind Delara, moved round to the table and leaned in threateningly. “What is this artefact, and where is it? No more games, citizen, tell us what we need to know!”
“Nothing would please me more,” Pazzyk said. “But in return I need some reassurances, and some cooperation. In short your help.” He was looking directly at Delara. “We need each other—you need me to help destroy the vial, I need your help to bring about a … certain outcome.”
“You’re testing our patience,” said the lieutenant, but Commander Delara held up one hand.
“Wait, V’Sel, let us hear his plan. As long as it’s brief.”
“It’s pretty straightforward, Commander,” Pazzyk said. “You, me and a handful of your finest will go skulking through the shadows of the palace to where my companions are imprisoned, we set them free, then we go in search of that artefact I mentioned. We dodge any search parties, use the artefact on the vial, smashetty-smash, job done!”
“This is drivelling, infantile nonsense,” snarled V’Sel. “Please, Commander, let me loosen his tongue by more direct means.”
“Well, I’ve heard that one before,” muttered Pazzyk.
Delara leaned forward, smiling at her prisoner. She spread her hands. “Time is running out, Mr. Pazzyk. Tell us what you know about this artefact, before things get ugly.”
Pazzyk’s smile never wavered, although Delara did notice a sheen of sweat on his neck.
“She is really impressive,” he said, indicating V’Sel with a tilt of the head. “I bet you selected her yourself, y’know, after that attempt on the Emperor’s life two years ago …” He cocked his head, as if listening. “Yeah, in that trading port on the east coast … called Egrishen, that was it …”
Delara was aghast at hearing these dangerous things spoken. “You cannot possibly know about that! Tongues were silenced and grim vows were taken to ensure that knowledge of that incident could not spread.” She drew her battle-knife and V’Sel did the same. “Perhaps you’re not an assassin after all, but a spy—I have heard that diabolical abilities like the reading of minds can be learned by those eager to serve dark powers. What power do you
call ‘master’? Speak!”
It only took a moment for the man Pazzyk to go from relaxed affability to wide-eyed alertness.
“Well, that was a leap of deduction,” he said. “All I wanted was to keep you occupied, keep our little chat ticking along while …”
Suddenly one of the rush-lights on the shelf went out, and Pazzyk breathed a sigh of relief.
“Finally,” he said.
With the intention of reaching across the table to grab the man by the scruff of the neck, Delara went to shift her upper body forward while raising her arms—but not a muscle responded. She was locked in position, a frozen statue whose voice was likewise rendered unresponsive, and since V’Sel had neither moved nor spoken she too had to be afflicted by the same paralysis. Delara’s mind burned with anger, and a crawling fear—she was defenceless and completely at the mercy of their prisoner.
Then, just to heighten her trepidation, the air above Pazzyk rippled, twisted, and a curious bird, a mechanical wooden bird, appeared and alighted neatly on his shoulder.
“Sorry about the delay,” said the bird. “It was a little more complicated than anticipated but I’ve modified Dervla’s awareness stream with the cut-outs and the dummy persona. The bold Lieutenant V’Sel is no longer in stab-the-assassin mode but awaits the trigger speech to kick off the new narrative branch.”
Listening to this, Delara could barely comprehend what was being said. Something had been done to both her and V’Sel—were they possessed by spirits, or merely by vile spellwork?
“Will this dummy persona of yours do the job?” said Pazzyk. “It won’t get tongue-tied or anything …”
“I will be guiding it at all times,” said the demonic bird. “But there is a small chance that the narrative conjunction may have to be reset.”
“Oh really!”
“Let us not forget that all this is modifications-on-the-fly, all untested. I mean, it is going to work! It’s just that live testing usually reveals … rough patches—don’t worry. I’ll ensure that V’Sel brings a squad of the Nightblades finest and the commander’s background knowledge should get us to where your companions are being held.”
“Shame about the no-teleport rule,” said Pazzyk.
“That would be a red flag to the Legacy, plus sirens and fireworks. My own hacks are dangerous enough,” said the bird. “Let us focus on the task in hand.”
The man Pazzyk nodded, then glanced uncertainly at Delara. “Sorry about all this,” he said. “I’m betting that you hardly understand what any of it is about, which I guess must be scary, right? All I can say is that after we break my buddies out, we’ll head for the artefact and get you sorted, get you back to your old self—or something like it. Then maybe you can tell me what the hell’s going on out there in the really-real world and how the frack you ended up in here.”
“Time to go, Captain,” said the sorcerous bird.
“Right, okay.” Pazzyk straightened, cleared his throat and turned to face Delara’s second-in-command.
“Lieutenant V’Sel,” he said. “My name is Pazzyk—I’m an old friend of the commander’s from our days as raw recruits at the Coronal Hill training grounds. I couldn’t reveal my secret identity until now because …”
The sound of his voice slowly faded to a muffled murmur as her sight likewise grew hazy and dark. In the moments before all senses drowned in nothingness she could just make out her own voice speaking to V’Sel, confirming all that Pazzyk had said and offering whatever assistance he needed to crush the blood-poison conspiracy. Then grey rolled into black and not even fear remained as she slipped into a blank void.
When the blackness rolled away, it seemed that no time at all had passed—yet Delara was clearly no longer in the Nightblades enclave. The surroundings were dark and cold, smelling of brick and dank mould, while hooded figures stood quietly nearby, facing an archway beyond which torchlight flickered. In her hand, a short padded cudgel, a thief’s weapon, yet her battle-knife was still at her waist. And next to her, hood thrown back, stood the man Pazzyk. Delara could feel the cudgel’s weight in her hand and knew she was back in command of her own body.
We’re in one of the old armoury vaults beneath the east wing, Delara realised. Which puts us directly under the Shylan Shields barracks and their lockup. This mind-spy’s plan must be to assault the cells from below, which is complete madness. If I can disable him, perhaps some of the others will retreat and save themselves …
But before she could mount her attack, a familiar paralysis swept over her limbs, petrifying her voice.
“And there it is,” said the voice of that bird-thing. “Narrative conjoining has become disaligned and knocked the dummy persona into standby—I can reset it very easily.”
The man Pazzyk looked round at something positioned out of Delara’s view. “Will this happen again?”
“It’s caused by an accumulation of sub-distinctual errors, which is an unavoidable by-product of my modifications. In short, yes, we can expect this to happen again.”
“Huh, not terrific—well, as long as it crops up when we’re between hotspots everything should be fine and dandy. Are you back in charge yet? Are we ready to kick in the doors?”
“Dummy persona is conjoined to the narrative—the commander is ready.”
“Grand—lead the way.”
Delara wanted to beg them to kill her but her throat was like stone as the black void came in like a tide.
When it swept away again, Delara was running upstairs, two at a time. She stumbled, barking her shins on the stone steps. Someone came to her aid, helped her back to her feet.
“Are you okay, Commander?” It was one of the Nightblades, a cadet called Lelinue.
“Come on, keep going!” said a man’s voice from further back down the stairs. “We can all have a gab later—those skaggers are only seconds behind us!”
It was the man Pazzyk, accompanied by a fur-snouted Gomri. Delara snarled, sidestepped the cadet and went down to confront him.
“Damn, it’s happening again,” said another voice from somewhere high up. “The narrative conjunction is out of alignment!”
Pazzyk saw the look in her eyes and dodged her first blow with the cudgel. Then he stepped in close and she could feel a hand close around her fist which was gripping her knife hilt, locking it in place.
“Stop … Stop and listen to me!” he said. “We broke my friends out of the clink so the Shylans are hellbent on carving us up and spilling our blood—so you can either do the job for them and submit yourself to their tender mercies, or you can help us figure out how to slow them down!”
For an angry moment they were locked together, then Delara decided that his comeuppance would have to wait. She relaxed her grip on the knife, and they broke apart.
“They’re only four flights away, Captain!” said the Gomri.
“What have you done!” Delara said. “What tumult have you unleashed?”
“Oh, you know, sedition, strife, chaos, the usual!”
The man Pazzyk was both insulting and aggravating, but right at this moment the Shylan Shields presented a far more deadly threat. She dashed upstairs, looked left and right to confirm her suspicions about their location—the disused north-west tower, reserved for vassal delegations from the south-east frontier—and directed everyone’s attention towards the dustsheet-swathed furniture.
“Grab it all, sheets included, and stack it at the head of the stairs! Quickly!”
The five of them went into a frenzy of action, dragging or carrying divans, cabinets, tables, chairs out to the landing and piling it all up. A trio of burly Shylans with axes appeared from the floor below—in response, Delara opened a bottle of berry liquor she found during the ransack and doused the sheet-covered heap of furniture. She lit it with an emberwick provided by one of her cadets and together they kicked at the burning mass which toppled over and down. As they hurried off through the mostly empty day lounge, the drawn-out crash mingled satisfyingly with the cries of t
he trapped.
“Nice tactic,” said Pazzyk. “That was done with a familiar flair …”
“I require answers,” Delara said, noticing that they were heading towards a door that led out onto the linking galleries. “Where are we going?”
“To meet the rest of our friends at the Quadrad Pavilion up on the roof of the Shylan Barracks—our diversion should have given them an easy journey.”
Delara was baffled. “You’ll—we’ll be trapped. There is no escape from that roof!”
“Oh, there is, so I’ve been assured, anyway …”
“I’m ready to realign her conjunction,” said an invisible voice. “Now that the excitement has died down.”
“There is no sanity to your actions,” Delara said. “All will die because of your folly.”
Pazzyk gave a sad smile. “We’re caught in a strange trap, Commander, a deathless existence where life isn’t what it used to be. All right, Arky, ready when you are.”
She drew breath for another condemnation but the black void flowed in, flooding her in nothingness.
And then the nothing drained away, and again her surroundings were completely altered between one heartbeat and the next. One of her cadets was helping her to her feet quite near the head of a flight of steps leading up the side of a white stone wall. It was cold up here, the light was grey and specks of rain were gusting around them.
“Quickly—bring her up here!”
The voice was that of the sorcerous machine-bird, and as she stumbled up the steps Delara realised that she was at the pavilion shrine atop the Shylan Shield part of the palace. And behind her, the crack and snap of arrows striking stone, and thrum of a bow launching a response. The cadet ducked and hurried over to the open, pillared pavilion whose curved white roof sheltered the four statues standing within.
There was Pazzyk, on the floor, propped up against the statue’s plinth. A snapped-off stump of an arrow jutted from his upper chest and his exposed shirt was drenched in blood.
“A bad place to take an arrow,” she observed. “Your survival may be in doubt.”
Pazzyk smiled through pain and exhaustion. “I’ve had worse, dear heart. Now, you might want to get that poison vial ready—you’ll need it for the next part.”
Splintered Suns Page 37
