Ward Against Death

by Melanie Card

  She nodded, and Ward took that as consent, running his hands down the front of his shirt. Finally something within the realm of normality.

  He sat on the side of the bed and unsheathed his knife, contemplating which finger he should prick. His ring finger was just starting to feel normal again from when he’d woken Celia in the sewers. The thought left a bad taste in his mouth. Just a little blood and his life had been turned upside down and set on fire for good measure. He jabbed the knife into the finger. No, he didn’t want to think about it.

  Blood swelled into a bead, and he drew a goddess-eye on Solartti’s forehead and pressed his palm against it. He placed his other hand over Solartti’s heart, closed his eyes, and focused on stilling his thoughts and his being. He called on knowledge from the Light Son, power over death from the Dark Son, and grace and well-being from the Goddess. In his mind, he envisioned the veil opening and Solartti’s spirit racing back to his body.

  He listened for the sudden inhalation as the deceased breathed once again, but nothing happened.

  He pictured the veil opening further, and with his mind he called to Solartti.

  Still nothing.

  Ward pursed his lips. He’d never had a problem like this before. As much as he was a bad necromancer in every other respect, he’d never before had an unsuccessful wake.

  Celia grabbed his shoulder, and he jumped. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why isn’t he awake?”

  Ward rubbed his hands together. His fingers were cold, also uncommon during a wake. “I don’t know.” If he were a normal necromancer, he’d be able to feel the power, the life force that emanated from all things, and he might have a clue. But he couldn’t and therefore he didn’t. Unless Karysa had something to do with Solartti’s death.

  He stepped into the corridor. To his right, two chambers down, he could see the gallery, bright in comparison to the low lighting of the bedchamber. To his left, more doorways.

  Even if only half of the rumors about Karysa were true, she wasn’t someone he wanted to encounter. He could only pray to the Goddess and her two Sons she wasn’t involved in Celia’s murder, although he doubted he’d be so lucky. Karysa toyed with human life and the veil without concern. No one knew where she’d learned her dark spells, the soul stealing and the false resurrections, but eyewitness accounts proved she had the abilities. Even with a village-worth of murders on her hands in the Principality of Worben, the Necromancer Council of Elders were withholding the warrant on her death in hopes of finding her soul jars and freeing those she’d imprisoned.

  Was that what she’d done to Solartti? But if that was the case, Solartti should have a goddess-eye painted on his forehead, and Ward hadn’t noticed blood on his face or his hands.

  Gentle fingers brushed his arm—Celia’s fingers, uncertain and tender—but he didn’t look at her.

  “If you can’t wake him, we’ll need to get rid of him.”

  “I want to keep him for a couple of days. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have better luck.”

  “He’ll begin to smell.”

  “I know.” Exhaustion weighed on him. He hadn’t slept in days, and he still had to sneak out of the cavern and perform a surgery. He rubbed his face. The earthy scent of charlatous clung to his hands, and his index finger and thumb were still sticky from the zephnyr oil.

  “Let’s move him down to one of the lower levels. As far from our living quarters as possible. I just want another try.”

  §

  After helping Ward wrap Solartti in a cloak, carry him to the second-last level, and place him on the floor of an empty chamber, Celia went to her study. Thankfully, Ward didn’t follow. She knew he was going to ask what was next, and to that she had no idea. She couldn’t think straight, couldn’t wrap her mind around Solartti’s death. Sure, everyone knew an excessive dose of zephnyr oil could put a person in a catatonic state, essentially killing his mind, but his body still lived. Except Solartti wasn’t catatonic. He was dead. So dead he was beyond Ward’s ability to call him back.

  She eased into her chair. For some reason all of her pinprick cuts had begun to ache.

  What killed a man beyond a necromancer’s ability to call him back? She would have to ask Ward, but not now. Now, she needed to be alone. Why hadn’t she killed him yet? She couldn’t seem to find the right moment to seduce him and that made him a liability.

  As for the theory that she needed him in case his spell failed... she wasn’t certain he could repeat the process. Perhaps he couldn’t wake Solartti because he wasn’t powerful enough, although she’d been so sure she’d sensed something back at the Guild’s records room. Perhaps she’d been mistaken and waking her had been an accident. If his spell suddenly failed, would he even try to bring her back?

  She flipped a page in the open book before her, but didn’t look at the text. Now she was being ridiculous. Ward’s abilities as a necromancer were not in question. She knew he’d woken Cooper Smith two weeks before her own wake, and he’d woken her once in her bedroom and once in the sewer before doing whatever he had done to her last.

  And he had been helpful. There was no denying that. She wouldn’t have been able to get the Keeper’s key without his help, nor get out of the Keeper’s house. She wouldn’t have been able to pull all that crystal out of her rear without him, let alone with such gentle precision. Ward would have made a good physician. Why wasn’t he practicing? Admittedly, he was young, but she’d met junior physicians their age working in established practices.

  She ran her hand across the page, smoothing the brittle parchment under her fingers. What made someone skilled, even gifted, turn away from that to do something he was less skilled at, and would make him less profit? She knew it wasn’t for the love of it. She could tell he didn’t enjoy necromancy.

  Her gaze dropped to the book and she stared at the clean, black lines without focusing on the words.

  Someone cleared his throat. It had to be Ward. It couldn’t be Solartti. Her time to be quiet and think was over.

  As she looked up to acknowledge him, her eyes stopped at the bloody parchment, which she had stolen from the Keeper’s safe.

  “Thoughts?” Ward asked from the doorway.

  “Many.” She reached for the parchment and ran her finger over the hard, uneven wax that had sealed the note shut. It belonged to the Guild, which made it official, and the black ink in the wax hadn’t bled into the parchment, which meant it had been opened soon after it was sealed. “One of them being, what was an assassination assignment for a simple scholar doing in that safe?”

  She unfolded the parchment. No, she hadn’t read it wrong in her bedchamber while waiting for Ward to return. It was an assignment to kill the scholar Allyan Nicco and burn his research. But she had been given that assignment and she always destroyed her notes after reading them.

  Heat rushed to her face. The assignment had been four years ago and she still felt guilty. She’d made a serious mistake reading that page on Nicco’s desk. Perhaps if she hadn’t kept the scholar’s research, hadn’t been caught up in the Ancients’ mysteries, her life would have taken a different path.

  She pushed the thought away. She wasn’t killed over Nicco’s research. No one knew she had it. Unless this assignment meant the Master hadn’t trusted her to do the job and had given another assassin the assignment as well? Which still didn’t explain why it was in the Keeper’s safe.

  “Maybe the Master likes to collect unique assignments,” Ward said.

  She turned her attention to him. He still stood in the doorway, his arms crossed, his eyes half open. “You look awful.”

  “Thank you. And right back at you.”

  She sighed and pointed to the chair across from her. “Have a seat and help me think about this. Perhaps together our two tired minds will equal one not-so-tired mind.”

  He paused, as if uncertain, then shuffled over to the chair and sat in it sideways, his legs hanging over one of the arms. “All rig
ht. How about the Master likes to collect unique assignments?”

  “Not likely.” Since the Guild didn’t work that way and it wasn’t the Master’s safe. It was ridiculous of her to have assumed the Master would have it. He would never be foolish enough to keep proof of activities that could be linked to him. “There was only one assignment in there for a scholar.”

  “And I’m sure that many more interesting people have been assassinated under his watch,” Ward said. “Why would someone not want the assignment to be available for public knowledge?”

  “They’re not public knowledge.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “It seemed pretty common knowledge that you and Solartti rummaged through the records room on a regular basis.”

  “Point.” Perhaps she should tell Ward this had been her assignment—her first, actually. That was likely why she hadn’t burned the man’s research. If it wasn’t for that, she would never have found the Ancients’ cavern. She supposed she could also go into a detailed description of how the Assassins’ Guild worked and what information was really in an assignment, but that would take time and he’d ask a lot of questions and she just couldn’t muster the energy to deal with either.

  Ward swung his feet, bouncing them off the obsidian frame. Crammed into the chair like that, elbows and knees jutting from his body at sharp angles, he looked like he had grown too big for a child-sized chair. And yet, for once, he seemed entirely at ease with himself. As if she’d glimpsed the future and seen the self-assured man he’d become... if she didn’t kill him first.

  “All right. If the scholar wasn’t an important person, maybe the person who wanted the assignment done was, and wanted the assignment to be kept a secret.”

  Perhaps she should bother to explain a few things. “The Guild doesn’t take names.” She flipped the parchment over. There was no name on the outside. Not like she expected one, but it was worth a try. If she had the nom de mort of the assassin given the assignment, she might be able to track him or her down.

  “Then what were you doing in the records room?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Well, what is?”

  “We should talk to Nicco’s widow. Perhaps she’ll know why someone bought an assignment for his life, and why the... why it was hidden.”

  “Is everyone in this town so familiar with the Guild?”

  “Hardly. But people, particularly those who’ve had time to think, speculate as to why their loved one was assassinated.”

  “All right. Though I don’t see what the assassination of Allyan Nicco has to do with anything.”

  “It does because I say it does.” And while it was a very loose connection to her murder, it was still a connection.

  “Fine.” He pushed out of the chair, as if the very act required a momentous feat of strength. “First, I sleep. You should probably think about getting some of that yourself. Then, I guess, we go visit the Widow Nicco.”

  §

  Ward left Celia in the study and headed down the corridor. Although exhaustion pulled at him, he couldn’t go to bed yet. He had a surgery to perform, even if spending more time with the Tracker—Thalonist or not—didn’t bode well. The man didn’t need a warrant for an arrest and sentencing—his word was enough for the Grewdian Council.

  And now he’d have proof.

  He grabbed his rucksack with his medical supplies. He wasn’t even sure about the Tracker’s brother. In fact, they looked nothing alike. One dark, the other fair, and with different statures.

  He pulled on his boots.

  Half-brothers. Yes, that was it. They were half-brothers.

  An uneasiness settled in his stomach as he opened the door and stepped into the sewers.

  It didn’t matter whether they were related or not—Ward had an obligation. He had the knowledge to save the life of the brother—or whoever he was—and he had taken the Oath.

  The thought still didn’t sit well, but he strode down the sewer pipe to an access grate, climbed out, and made his way across the city to the Tracker’s room.

  The Tracker answered the door after the first knock.

  “What took you so long?”

  Ward shifted the rucksack on his shoulder and met the man’s gaze. “I said I’d be here, and I am. Did you get the supplies?”

  The Tracker stepped back, allowing Ward into the room. “I did.”

  This time the shutters were open and a lit lamp sat on the table by the bed. Opposite the bed was another larger table Ward hadn’t noticed before, likely because the room had been so dark then. It was laden with more lanterns, a narrow jug of wine, a pitcher of water, a small, squat jug—which he could only assume was the oil—a glass vial, a few bowls, a thin paper package, linen bandages, the silver tube, a few pieces of parchment, and a folded leather apron. Underneath, on the floor, was the tarpaulin.

  “Where do we begin?” the Tracker asked. He sounded nervous. The bravado and menace from the previous night was gone, but was it concern for his brother or worry over the legality of the night’s events?

  “First, has he been fasting?”

  “He can’t even keep water down—of course he’s been fasting. Why are you wasting time?”

  “I won’t presume to insult your pride by telling you what we do tonight will require a strong nerve.” Ward sucked in a long breath. “The surgery must be performed with haste and I will need you to obey and answer me regardless of what you see, or think you see.”

  “Obey?” The Tracker snorted. “You?”

  “You may be a master of the law. Your brother may be a master of something else.” Ward twisted the strap of his rucksack so tight he thought he’d tear it in two. He was about to tell the greatest lie of his life, greater than hiding the fact he stole bodies from cemeteries and performed illegal necropsies, greater than hiding the goddess-eye brand on the back of his neck from patrons. It was the only way to convince the Tracker to let him do what needed to be done and not change his mind halfway through. “I am a master of surgery.”

  The Tracker barked a sharp laugh.

  A chill crept through Ward.

  It wasn’t what he’d expected. He thought he’d quake, return to the tiny mouse he’d been a few hours ago. He’d spent his entire life being afraid, hiding, sneaking glimpses of the life he yearned to live but never could. At this moment, he was not afraid—he was angry. The man was a fool. He was so close to saving his brother’s life, and couldn’t accept Ward had the ability to do so. And Ward did. He knew he did. He could feel it in the fiber of his being.

  “Fine. You do it.”

  The man’s laughter died.

  “Cut him open. Put your hands in his body, cover them with his blood, his life, and heal him.”

  The Tracker glanced at his sleeping brother.

  “You’ve passed sentencing before. You’ve seen how men bleed, how they scream and fight when they’re cut. What did you think a surgery was going to be like?”

  Ward waited.

  The Tracker looked at him, then back to his brother, then to the table with the supplies. He let out a long, ragged sigh. “Where do we begin?”

  “First, we get prepared. Let’s move the bed to the center of the room.”

  The Tracker nodded, and, as if he were a new person, helped Ward move the bed and lay the tarpaulin. They needed to contain as much of the evidence of the night’s activities as possible, and a blood-soaked pallet was a sure giveaway something had happened. Although, with a Tracker involved, people might not ask too many questions.

  The brother stirred and the Tracker shushed him back to sleep.

  Ward squeezed the Tracker’s shoulder. “We need him awake to inhale the anesthetic. Now is as good a time as any for that.”

  He dragged the table with his supplies closer while the Tracker changed to mumbling encouraging words.

  This was it. His first unsupervised surgery. He removed his book from his bag and set it, open to the instructions of the intended operation, on the edge of
the table where he could easily read it. His knives lay in a neat row on a piece of parchment beside three of his needles, each threaded with generous lengths of the fine silk the Tracker had purchased.

  The brother whimpered. Ward unfolded the butcher’s apron and pulled the neck strap over his head, then reached for the bandages, cutting a rectangle off the end.

  A flicker of light shot past him, at the edge of his vision. He glanced up but the room was as it had been. The Tracker sat on the edge of the bed, cradling his brother’s head and shoulders in his arms, talking to him, coaxing him to consciousness.

  Ward turned back to the bandages and again the light flickered at the edge of his vision.

  Still, nothing had changed in the room. He shook his head. It was the shadows dancing on the walls from the single lantern by the window. A gust of wind had made the flame flicker. The theory didn’t reassure him. The night was still. The summer heat sat heavy, even this close to the docks, without gust, or breeze, or even hint of movement.

  He folded the rectangle in half. It was nerves, nothing more. He just needed to administer the anesthetic and light more lanterns, and all would be well.

  With that thought held firm, he folded the linen once more, uncorked the mandragora and zephnyr oil, and doused it in the concoction. He turned to the Tracker and his brother.

  “Is he awake?”

  The Tracker nodded.

  “Good. Start lighting the lanterns.”

  The Tracker hesitated.

  “We need to begin, and I’ll need more light.”

  “I know.” The Tracker stood and looked around the room as if uncertain before crossing to the other lanterns. Ward took his place by the bed. The brother was still covered with sweat, his long hair plastered to his skull. While his eyes were open, they were unfocused, staring at something only he could see.

  Ward upended the bottle into the linen one more time for good measure, then opened and placed the linen over the man’s nose and mouth. He needed a few good breaths to ensure enough of the anesthetic had been inhaled.

  After that, Ward needed to move fast. There was no way of knowing how the anesthetic would take or when it would wear off. Just another risk of surgery. If the patient’s health was more fragile than anticipated, or if the mandragora and zephnyr oil were improperly mixed, it could kill him before Ward even touched him with a blade.