Dragon Assassin

by Arthur Slade

  The Akkadians really loved their treasure.

  The treasure room could either be hidden deep, deep in catacombs below his house, or located here on the top floor. Because he was an architect, I believed he’d use the top floor. Architects liked to build things high, not tunnel deep into the ground like miners, and surely the columns around the home provided enough support for the weight of his treasure. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d designed the home so that sunlight could dapple across his hoard.

  It turned out I was mostly right.

  I snuck into the hall and came across a central room with a stone door. It was not the entrance to a bedroom, like all the other doors made of wood. This door would keep a team of men with hammers at bay for hours. I didn’t have a hammer, but if everything went right I wouldn’t need one.

  My lock picks fit easily into the keyhole, but there were no pins to move no matter where I poked. Though I hated to use spells in Akkad, where magic was outlawed, I whispered “Enderos” and made a small gesture with my hand.

  There was no click. No sign anything had changed. Nothing at all.

  So, in frustration, I turned the knob, and the door edged open an inch.

  My jaw dropped. Apparently, he was brazen enough to leave the door to his treasure room unlocked. I pushed the thick stone door the rest of the way open. It moved without the slightest grinding. The executioner had built impressively well. I walked in, leaving the door open. The whole room glittered in the moonlight.

  There were shiny chalices along one wall. The second wall was bare brick. And the third wall displayed ornamental weapons. I could tell that from where I was standing because the weapons were mostly made of gold and silver crusted with gems. One good blow in a sword fight and they’d fall to pieces. There was also a table with several miniature buildings constructed of marble, which I assumed were copies of his creations.

  In the centre was what I’d come for. A collection of his architectural drawings, each tied with a golden string.

  I made my way around the table. I found it odd that the wall behind it was bare brick. You would think every bit of space would display his wealth and power. Perhaps one bare wall was a nod to the fact he’d climbed from poverty to the second most powerful position in the Empire. My dragon eye revealed the outline on the bricks of what looked like a lumpy man drawn by a child. It was some sort of art piece that Naram-Sin found attractive. Or one of his children had drawn it.

  I turned and faced the table, occasionally glancing toward the open door. There was enough light to see each scroll. I went through them and discovered drawings of a house of worship for the great man-bear god Ak, plans for an armoury, and ones for the interior of the white tower that stood next to the Imperial Palace. That one gave me a shudder, since I’d read they used that tower as a place to imprison any wizards they had caught. There was something about the walls that dulled their powers.

  But I didn’t need the maps for any of those buildings. What I couldn’t find was his drawings of the palace itself. I seemed to have discovered every single home, tax building or wall that the executioner had designed — there was even an impressive bathroom on a mountainside. But I could not find the Imperial Palace.

  The final scroll I opened made me smile. It was of the palace in Akkadium where the emperor lived.

  Where my brother hid.

  With these plans, my companions and I could work our way through that palace, knowing every room and every hiding place. I lifted the scroll, let out a silent yell of victory, and stepped back from the table.

  Something shifted behind me and made the slightest grinding. That didn’t make sense because there was nothing behind me.

  I turned to see that the lumpy man drawn on the wall looked clearer. The bricks inside his outline had moved outward. How very odd!

  Then his black coal eyes opened.

  “Thief,” a gruff voice said. His brick lips moved.

  “I’m not,” I said, clutching the stolen item.

  “Thief,” he repeated, and I knew why the wall could talk. Why it could move. It was a golem. Waiting there for any intruders.

  “Good golem,” I said, backing away. “Nice golem.”

  I’d read about these stone creatures made from clay or brick or sand and how they were single-minded and slow.

  The books were wrong.

  Because the golem lashed out with great speed and grabbed me by the arm in a bone-crushing grip. “I break you,” he said, and squeezed my other arm before I could reach a dagger. “I break you in two.”

  Chapter 3

  A Grip of Stone

  Several moments passed where I couldn’t believe what was happening. Such disbelief, Maestru Alesius had taught, can kill you. Your brain stops functioning and is not willing to admit the truth of the situation.

  The pain of the bones in my arms pressing closer and closer as the golem squeezed snapped me out of any hesitation. I tried to pull away, but the hands were far too strong. I’d been taught how to twist and break free of a normal human grip, and I tried this method, but this was not a grip that could be broken.

  I needed more force. More strength.

  It stretched out its arms, holding me far enough away that my flailing legs caught none of the items in the treasure room. After the golem had broken me, it would retreat into the walls. Maybe keeping its grip on me so my bones became a message to future thieves.

  In pure desperation, I set my feet against the beast’s chest, pushing as hard as I could, stretching my arms and grunting with the pain. My hands would be ripped off, but I kept up the pressure, twisting my arm at the same time.

  My right hand came loose.

  I was half free!

  But the sudden release made me swing around closer to the beast, and he reached down and grabbed me by the head. His huge hand fit around my skull like a vise.

  “Crush you,” he said. “Thief. Crush thief.”

  He squeezed my head. Those five thick fingers were forcing five parts of my skull inward. I banged against him with my right hand and then grabbed at his fingers, each one almost as thick as my wrist. They continued to squeeze.

  I scrabbled at my belt until I stumbled across the sheath and pulled out one of the Uriken daggers. Maestru Alesius had said they were over three thousand years old — perhaps older than the spell that made this golem. I hoped that meant they’d cut right through him.

  I stabbed at the creature, and a chunk of brick came away. I slashed and jabbed again and again, knocking pebbles to the floor. Hope swelled in my thumping heart. I swung at the arm above my head and an eyeball-sized chunk flew off.

  “Bad knife,” the golem said. “Very. Bad. Knife.”

  He was squeezing so hard now I expected to hear the cracking of my skull. I stabbed again and again, but missed with the next blow and the next. My thoughts grew darker and slower.

  “Crush you dead.”

  Darkness came, then light, and I realized I was seeing through my dragon eye. It was showing me the spell that created the golem, a tight mesh of thousands of tiny glowing stitches that held the bricks together. It was beautiful. Mesmerizing.

  But still it was squeezing my skull. The darkness was coming again, and I was certain I was soon to die.

  Darkness for a beat. Another beat.

  Then a male voice said, “Release her.”

  But it was too late. I was falling, falling, falling toward death.

  Chapter 4

  Not a Thief

  The fall was short.

  I hit the floor and crumpled into a heap of bones and flesh. My skull was on fire, my arms feeling as if they’d both been broken. I placed my right hand on the floor and tried to push up but collapsed. I’d let go of my knife and yet couldn’t open my eyes to find it.

  “You’re not dead,” the male voice said. “It has been a long time since someone was foolish enough to try to rob me.”

  Speech was beyond me. Even moving my jaw sent a sharp pain along my cheek. I felt lu
cky that I understood what the man was saying. My head pulsed and seemed to expand, and I wondered if it had been reshaped.

  Soft footsteps approached and something poked my left arm. It hurt, hurt a lot, but I couldn’t move it. Then it poked my right arm. And it tapped my skull.

  “Nothing is broken,” he said. “You can open your eyes.”

  He was wrong. I could never open my eyes again. But I tried.

  One did open. My human eye, and I saw a staff floating above me. So that was what had been poking me. The bottom of the staff was a wooden bear’s paw. Its head was a bear. A hand was holding the head, and beyond it was a tall, thin man with white hair and gaunt features, but blazing life in his eyes.

  There was no pity there.

  The executioner! Naram-Sin stared down at me, and despite his age he was not stooped. I was looking up into the eyes that had guided that axe to so many deaths. A man who could kill a prisoner in one moment and return to his study to design a palace the next. And a man who, apparently, could also wield magic.

  “You’re very young,” he said. “But I guess the older thieves know not to visit my home. The ones who didn’t have that knowledge are all dead. You’ll soon join them. But first: What brought you here, child?”

  I tried to answer, but such was the pain that my mouth wouldn’t move. The golem must have broken my jaw.

  “Oh, I see.” He bent down easily, showing no sign of being over a hundred years old, and picked up the plans I’d been clutching. “You are an admirer of my work. Which plan could you possibly believe would be worth risking your life for?” He raised one finger. “Ah, the Vaults of Vercimax, I bet. Many would die to know the secret ways into that treasure house. You dream of jewels, do you?” He unrolled the plans and his eyes widened. “The Emperor’s Palace? You truly have a death wish. Why would you want this, thief?”

  This time my jaw moved, my lips made shapes, but no words would come out. Then I tried again and managed: “I— I’m not a thief.” My voice was ragged, but at least it worked. I’d been worried that my brainpan and the grey jelly inside it were damaged.

  “You are in my home. You are clutching my architectural drawing. You are a thief.”

  I shook my head. It hurt, and I saw that the golem loomed right behind me with his hands open.

  “I’m an assassin,” I said.

  He raised a white eyebrow. “An assassin stealing the plans to the Emperor’s Palace. One, even as aged and slow-witted as me, might jump to some rather nasty conclusions.”

  I decided it best to say nothing. He had come to that conclusion quickly, and I now regretted telling him about my vocation. The golem had squeezed out all my good sense.

  “Pick her up,” Naram-Sin said, and before I could move the golem grabbed me by the shoulders and lifted me into the air. By pure reflex I’d snatched up my dagger from the floor.

  “Sheathe your toy, child,” he said, then he turned and strode out of the room, saying, “Bring her to the guest room.”

  I sheathed the dagger and was surprised that the executioner didn’t seem to want to kill me right away. The golem followed him, carrying me with no effort. Each footstep tested the strength of the floor, made the wood creak as my own footsteps hadn’t, but it had been a well-built house. We went down the hallway and into a medium-sized room with a bed, a dresser, and a view toward the ocean. The type of room built to impress a guest. There was also a padded bench. Above the bench, hanging on the wall, was his massive executioner’s axe. I shuddered at the sight.

  “Place her on the bench and stand next to her. If she draws her dagger again, kill her.”

  The golem placed me as instructed and stood right beside me. His brick face was impassive, but those strange glowing eyes watched me. They were not angry. Just single-minded. I rubbed my shoulders and my arms, bringing blood back to the muscles. The bruising and pain would take weeks to heal.

  “What is your name, assassin?” Naram-Sin asked.

  “Carmen,” I said.

  “Judging by your age, I’d say you are a recent graduate.” He crossed his arms and drew himself above me. “I will assume you were not sent to kill me, otherwise you would have been haunting my chambers and eviscerated by the wards I have there. Why do you want those plans?”

  “I was paid to retrieve them.” I spat this out. “Paid really well.”

  “That is a lie,” he said. He didn’t even blink. “No one would pay an assassin to steal papers. Let me tell you why you tried to steal them. Emperor Sargon has declared all assassins should be executed. And you have decided to kill him, which would nullify that declaration. And the plans were your first step in completing that task. Am I correct?”

  If I agreed, then I’d be admitting that I had planned to kill the emperor. Which was a death sentence, and he was standing with his executioner’s axe on the wall behind him.

  “It’s not correct,” I said.

  He raised his eyebrow again; he had an expressive face for an old man. “Oh, it’s not? Then please correct my assumptions.”

  “I want to kill my brother.”

  He cocked his head to one side. “I’m listening.”

  “His name is Corwin. He planned the assault on the Red Assassin Keep. He betrayed the guild of assassins, and I want to kill him and eliminate the threat to assassins. It is only his skill that allows the emperor to hunt all of us down.”

  Naram-Sin stared at me for a long time. “A family vendetta. How very interesting. So you have no intention of attempting to take the life of my emperor?”

  “If there was opportunity, I’d reason with him.”

  This got a gruff laugh from the executioner. “No one can reason with Emperor Sargon, believe me. Now, once you are finished this task of killing your brother, you would leave the palace without touching a hair on the emperor’s head?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And are you employed by anyone in this task?”

  “No. This is a personal job.”

  He rubbed his chin and then raised a finger somewhat dramatically. He turned his back on me, opened a small chest on his desk, and withdrew something. He then walked directly up to me and said, “Put out your hand, palm up.”

  His dark, dark eyes were filled with a sense of satisfaction and delight. Like he was enjoying every moment of this.

  I put out my hand. He placed a bronze coin in my palm. It had the head of Emperor Rexen on it, so it was a very old coin.

  “I want you to kill Emperor Sargon for me,” the executioner said.

  Chapter 5

  Payment for Services

  “What?” I honestly believed my hearing wasn’t working.

  “I want you to take one of those daggers you have on your belt and use it to end Emperor Sargon’s life. Or use both, your choice. That is why I’ve paid you.” His stare was as calm as if he were asking me to pass him a bowl of sugar.

  “But— but he’s your emperor!”

  “His grandfather was my emperor. His father was my emperor. His brother I accepted grudgingly. Sargon, I do not. He defiles the palace I designed.”

  “But why would you want him dead?” I asked.

  “Are your clients required to explain why an assassination must be committed?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Well, I will tell you this: When I was the emperor’s right hand, we were hard and we were strong. You must be that way to hold an empire together. No enemy can harbour a moment of doubt about your willingness to respond to the smallest slight. But we were logical. Sargon is not logical. He will bring this empire down.”

  “I— I can’t just kill him,” I said.

  “Why not? You are an assassin. If you make it into the palace, then you are already in the beating heart of his empire — you just have to add stabbing him to your list of things to do that day.”

  I looked at the coin. It would only buy me a loaf of bread.

  “This is not enough.”

  At that the executioner laughed and lau
ghed so hard that he wiped his eyes. “It is about price? No. I will not pay you more. This is a symbol. You are in my home. You have affronted me by attempting to steal my grandest work. You are also getting your life in return for this promise.”

  “If I say no, you’ll kill me?”

  “I won’t kill you,” he said, though he looked at the golem. The message was clear. The golem would kill me. “But I’d rather you used logic. If you kill your brother, Sargon will still continue to hunt you down. And he is — believe me, I do not say this lightly — the most dangerous man in the kingdom. So to strike close to his heart and not kill him means you’ll have all his resources hunting for you. And you and all your assassin friends will die. But it won’t stop there. They will take families of assassins to the block. Merchants who sold goods to assassins too. Anyone who gave shelter. All will die.”

  I placed the coin in the wallet on my belt. “It’s a deal,” I said.

  He smiled. There was such a keen, cold intellect in his eyes. He would have to be cold to have survived in the courts of the emperors for all these years. “Good,” he said. “Now go fetch us tea.”

  At first I thought he was speaking to me, and I was slightly flustered and not sure how to reply, then the golem backed away and lumbered out of the room. The noise of his steps told me he was going down the stairs.

  “How is it you know magic?” I asked. “When it is outlawed in the Empire.”

  “You outlaw that which you do not control, but that doesn’t mean those in power don’t use it. If you have it and no one else does you are stronger.” He walked over to his desk and flipped through his papers, laying them out in neat piles. “I wasn’t born wielding magic, but after looking in the eyes of so many men and women when they died, I grew curious. Where do they go? What magic keeps us here on this plane of existence until our lifelines are cut? And so I studied. I learned. With the emperor’s permission. My emperor.” He shook his head. His hair was clean-cut and perfectly angular. “I learned so many spells and opened so many doors, real and imagined. But I don’t know where people go after death.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve learned a great amount about how to send them there. And I have gathered enough magic to protect myself.” He pulled open a drawer. “Ah, here!”