“You wanted to free your father and mother, didn’t you?” Vayle said.
Lysa sniffled. “It wasn’t the only way. I’m a conjurer too. I could have reversed the effects. I could have searched their minds, yanked out the thoughts and emotions and feelings and all the bad things Siggy planted inside them. Or maybe I couldn’t have. They’re still husks, even now. It’s been too long. Nineteen years under a conjurer’s control… I don’t know that there’s any good left in them anymore.”
Nilly covered her eyes, and began choking on tears.
Interesting. Not the crying, but Lysa’s revelation. That was a good piece of information to know, in case we were able to wrangle a few conjurers and get them on our side. Which, admittedly, seemed unlikely.
“Why,” Vayle asked, “did the conjurers need your help, Lysa?”
“I was to be the queen of the South. There was to be war between the South and North. They abandoned those plans for me many years ago.”
Vayle stood. “What could they gain from war?”
“This world,” Lysa said blankly.
Chapter 9
What a fan-fuck-tastic day. First I discover Kane Calbid will be assaulting the walls of Vereumene in short order, and then Lysa Rabthorn informs me the conjurers intend to incite a great war that sucks in every family, major and minor. And then after the war ends, those goat-fucking conjurers sweep in and pick up the pieces, taking my world for their own.
But something wasn’t adding up. If the conjurers did manage to accomplish their goal of a great war — which was looking likely — they’d still need a sizeable force to come in and obliterate the remaining armies and families, even if most of them were weakened. You can’t exactly procure a conjurer army when the vast majority of your people have been wiped out. Unless… well, maybe they didn’t come from Mizridahl. Perhaps they came to Mizridahl.
The long-standing theory was that conjurers originated from a cult somewhere in the South; that’s where they showed up first, near the shores. If they sailed here, that would mean they had their own world. Own cities, own people. Hmm. That’s a slightly more terrifying thought than having Braddock Glannondil string his banner up through my intestines.
But first things first. Pristia, Braddock’s wife, needed to die. If the old hag would keel over before the Glannondil army marched off to war, maybe Braddock would come to and realize he was about to commit the kind of blunder that would have his name next to those of the sort of kings who’d single-handedly dismantled their own empires.
I had the perfect plan for how to make that happen. The idea was simple. Lure the Glannondil armies out of Erior with, oh… let’s say five thousand men. Then, a smaller number, perhaps one hundred assassins from, oh, I don’t know… the Black Rot, for example, could sneak inside the empty walls, find Pristia and cut her down. Voi-fucking-la.
Now, the obvious problem may seem to lie in obtaining five thousand men. While I had not yet discovered the secret to breeding five thousand boys and subsequently jettisoning them all into adulthood instantaneously, I did know that a ten-thousand-strong army was conveniently marching my way. Inconveniently, it would likely shatter the walls I took shelter behind and slaughter everyone that joined me.
But here’s the rub: the leader of this army, Kane Calbid, wanted Serith Rabthorn’s throne. Unbeknownst to my hopeful new-pal-to-be, Kane, Serith had all but transferred his kingship over. For all Kane knew, Serith’s army was waiting on him here, ready to fortify the walls and bunker down for the long haul. His spies would discover the truth soon enough, but if I could reach him before then and offer my assistance in letting him into the kingdom with nary a sword swung on his behalf, he might well agree to my terms.
And the terms would be simple: I’d need half his men for a short excursion to the northeast, to avenge my brother’s death by obliterating all slaver camps along the coast — a harmless endeavor for his skilled soldiers. The truth is that I would use those men to knock on Braddock’s door, feign an attack, then make him chase us all over. But the truth is optional in these sort of negotiations.
This plan was greeted with a healthy dose of skepticism from Big Gruff, a silent wow from Kale, and an “Are you fucking drunk?” from Vayle, who very rarely uses the fuck word.
But as they sipped and gulped and threw back wine before licking flames under a black sky, they all came to see it as I did. We had no other choice. If we couldn’t stop this war from happening and prevent the conjurers from taking our home… we would likely be their slaves. They’d imprison us, take our minds and use our blades to hunt down rebellious families who hadn’t sworn their servitude to the conjurers. Even if we could run free forever, darting from beyond the reach of their shadows, what kind of life is that? One I’d sooner end willingly than live until the Reaper calls my name.
After convincing Serith to let us stay in Vereumene for two weeks — under the guise that my guys and gals needed rest and it’d be awfully difficult to protect his daughter while fatigued — I penned a letter to Kane, gave it to Big Gruff and sent him to a messenger camp about a day’s ride west. The mountain of a man returned several days later, with a reply in tow.
It said this.
I accept your proposal. Seven days. Nightfall.
Kane Calbid.
Huh. Well, I suppose I could never fault a man for being simple and succinct.
“When’d you get this?” I asked Big Gruff.
“’Ey,” he hollered toward a Rot repositioning a spit above a fire, “is that trout? Big lake trout? I smell it!”
I smacked Big Gruff upside his big head. “Listen, man! This is important. When’d you get this letter?”
He counted silently on his big, hairy fingers. “Let’s figger this out. I get there in one day. Send ’er out with a messenger. And then… er, let’s see. Yeah, yeah. Ten days later, I get it back. Then I sleep a night there — ale is woo-hoo strong, let me tell you that, Shepherd — then I come here today, rode hard all through the mornin’. But… I gotta know. Is that trout? You know how much I love trout.”
Afraid foam would begin to percolate out from his jowls and he’d go rabid in the eyes, I told him yes, he was smelling trout, and then released the Rot-turned-beast.
Hmm. Ten days for Big Gruff to receive a reply meant it probably took five days for it to get to Kane and five more to get back. Big Gruff spent a day at the camp and another day to get the letter to me. Well, surprise, surprise. Today was day seven. Time to pretty up this plan of mine and get it ready for its first and only date.
A shiver tore through me, and I slapped myself like I was putting out flames. In reality, I was brushing off the grime that soiled my body, the filth that wrapped me up in a big, dung-filled hug, and the muck I slowly sunk into like quicksand. I felt dirty, all right? Real fuckin’ dirty. Putting this plan into action meant I was playing the game. There are plenty of games in this world, but most people only play two. The first is a game that everyone participates in. You don’t have a choice. Soon as you pop your head out of your mother’s womb, you’re in it, baby — you’re playing the game of survival.
The second game, it doesn’t have an official title, but it revolves around power: trying to obtain it, attempting to increase it, or, if you enjoy playing the first game, trying to lose it.
I enjoyed the game of survival. Living’s pretty nice, as it turns out. But generally, if you’re a fucker-up of the whole realm stability thing, your stay in this world will be quite short. Aiding a usurper and then using half his ten-thousand-strong army for my cause, that… that’s not good for realm stability. But it was the only choice I had if I wanted to keep surviving.
I sipped hot tea as I walked into the bleakness of underground. Years ago Serith’s court had ordered the construction of a new sewer system, but plans had changed and now all that remained of that sanitary promise was a big hole in the ground. At the far end, where a wall of dirt lay piled high, a shadow sat by its lonesome.
“I heard a whi
sper you might be here,” I said. “I’m surprised to find you alone. Your mother seems to follow you wherever you go.”
“She is sleeping,” Lysa answered. “She sleeps much of the time. It’s better that way.”
“Do you love your mother? Your father?”
“I’ve tried, but”—she looked at me, hazel slits in the darkness—“why are you asking me this?”
“Your father has asked me to protect you. I don’t know if he’s told you, but this city—”
“I don’t need someone to protect me,” she spat. “And it doesn’t take a great deal of independent thought to understand my father intends to surrender to Kane Calbid. You have still not answered my question. Why did you ask me if I loved my parents?”
Boy, this girl didn’t take kindly to being given the runaround. I appreciated the no-nonsense type, but only if they were on my side. And I wasn’t sure which side Lysa was on yet.
“Things,” I said, “may happen to your father. And—”
She lifted a hand, silencing me. “You might have too much cowardice in you to plainly tell me you intend to kill my father on behalf of Kane Calbid, or as part of a larger scheme. But I am not a coward. I will tell you the truth: No, Mr. Assassin, I do not intend to avenge his death in any form and certainly not by obliterating your mind. I also do not intend to allow you to protect me under the guise of perverting my gift into a weapon of war.
“I will leave this place soon, so do what you must. I have a gift, Mr. Assassin, and it can be used for good. It can be used to help those in the throes of despair. My mother and my father are too far gone, but the little boy who lost his puppy, the little girl whose father never returned from war, the farmers whose crops have been ravaged — their sanity can be restored. I am a conjurer, Mr. Assassin. One unlike you have ever seen. Goodbye.”
I sat there dumbfounded as the nineteen-year-old girl verbally slapped me across my face and promptly got up and walked away. I had clearly underestimated Lysa Rabthorn, and it saddened me she was not on my side. But thankfully she didn’t play sides, and fear of her retribution was one less worry on my mind.
A small band of rainclouds arrived near noon, and then… I wasn’t sure what happened. I became less intrigued by my surroundings and more lost in my thoughts, until the encroaching darkness of night had me on my feet, walking my camp and prepping my assassins.
Satisfied my men and ladies knew their roles, I went off toward the gate, where winding ramps led up to the parapet.
I took no more than two steps when my commander caught up to me.
“You’re sober now,” she said.
“And you’re not,” I replied.
“Sober as I’ll ever be. You haven’t changed your mind about a thing?”
“No.”
“This isn’t justice,” she said sharply.
I looked around, just in case a city guardsman was lurking about. Convinced we were alone, I stabbed a meaningful finger in her chest, right between her breasts. “Honor and justice might keep you afloat in this life, Vayle, but they do nothing for me. And they’ve never been the foundation of the Black Rot. You can pick and choose jobs as you will, only accept ones that make you all hot and bothered with the idea of justice, but what happens here tonight is necessary for the survival of the Black Rot as a whole. One will never be greater than the whole.”
Shaking her head, she threw a hand toward the general direction of the city gate. “Set them free. There’s less than two hundred of them. Kane Calbid won’t care if there are two hundred guards sworn to Serith running free. He won’t pursue them; they can… they can rejoin their wives, their mothers, fathers, brothers… their babies! Everyone who Serith allowed to leave this city.”
“That’s not the agreement I made with Kane.”
“Fuck your agreement. He’s going to see a dead king. That’s not good enough for him? Hell, Astul, why can’t these men lay down their arms soon as you do the deed? Allow them to surrender to Kane’s armies.”
She’d been needling me about this for days, although not with quite so much vigor. It was getting tiresome. I slammed my hand against the wooden siding of a building in frustration, punching it straight through.
“You know why?” I said, much too loudly. Spit flung on the tail of my words. “Because all it takes is one proud guardsman, the man who thinks his destiny is to protect the bloody king. And suddenly the city guard sees us as unrightful usurpers, and the Rots are fighting two hundred well-armed men. We won’t escape without injury. I won’t let that happen. The guards will die with their backs turned, unable to mount a resistance, unable to harm our Rots.”
Through gnashed teeth, she said, “We could have gone about this systematically.”
“We didn’t and we won’t.”
“We could have convinced Serith to dissolve the city guard.”
“He’s batshit insane. Wouldn’t have worked. He’s convinced they took an oath and that perishing under Kane Calbid’s assault is the only proper way for their contract to expire.”
“Using Lysa as a negotiation point would have made him think otherwise.”
A sense of profound anger rose up in my stomach like a bad burn after a hot meal. “I’m done with this conversation. It’s over. It’s getting late. It’s time to end this.”
She blew air out her nose like a disgruntled dog. “You don’t think this is the right decision, either. You don’t know what the right decision is, do you? Look at you! You’re smitten with anger. When you’re confident, I’ve seen you deflect criticism like plate deflects steel. You laugh at it, and give it a wink and move on. You’re… you’re scared, aren’t you, Astul? Scared that I’m right. Scared that—”
“Maybe I fucking am,” I spat. “Let’s drop the shit, can we, Vayle? Letting these men go free, or making them surrender to Kane Calbid, whatever it is you want to do with them, has just as many pitfalls. It’ll end with their butchering all the same. At least this decision will save their families and our Rots. The guardsmen themselves will die quickly, and Kane Calbid will honor our agreement.”
“I hope you understand,” she said, “you will be the one who will live with the misery of butchering two hundred lives, of widowing two hundred wives, of orphaning hundreds of children when the wives lose their minds. And all to better your position in the game. Our position. It’s not an easy thing to endure, a scarred past. Trust me, hmm?”
“I can handle it,” I said.
She smiled gloomily. “I’m sure you can.” She took a drink of her wine. “I’ve handled it for years. It’s easy at first. Starts out as nightmares that you wake up from and forget about as you eat your breakfast. But soon, they linger a little longer. A little longer. A little longer, till you go to sleep with the same horrors you awoke with.” She bit her lip as she regarded her skin of wine. “Soon you drink to chase away the nightmares. Then you drink to chase away the headaches. Then the sickness. Then the shakes.”
“I won’t let that happen,” I said.
“You won’t have a choice. But I’ll be here for you when it happens, forever and for always, because I love you, Astul, as much as a friend can. I’ve been with you for fifteen years, and it’s been the greatest time of my life. But it makes me very sad to know that in those fifteen years”—her mouth twisted into a frown—“you haven’t grown one bit.”
She twirled around, drank her wine, and walked back toward the encampment.
I hadn’t grown? I hadn’t grown? A wooden pail lay nearby. I turned it upside down, stood on top of it and yelled, “Look at me now! I’ve grown!”
Suddenly realizing that was something I would’ve done when I was ten, in response to my mother telling me I needed to grow up, I became frustrated, jumped down and walked hastily toward the parapet.
I stayed there for a while, pacing the stones, kicking the crenellations, bullshitting with the few guards that meandered around. One man, with a scar on his cheek and a shaky hand, told me he never even said goodbye to his son
and wife as they fled to the safety of Austrick. Didn’t want the last memory his son had of his face to be slathered with rust from the helmet he wore.
He contemplated running, but said one of his fellow guardsmen would probably stick him before he’d make it out the gate.
It was then I knew I’d made the right decision. But I wondered if I couldn’t have snuck it in my proposal to Kane that the guardsmen would be allowed to go free. Maybe I should have. Of course, that would have required me to think of others. Regret coagulated in my stomach like syrup, heavy and sickening. Goddammit, Vayle, I thought. This is your fault I feel like this.
I peered out into the field of rock that looked like an idle ocean of ink. Sometimes when the moon was swapping between clouds, its pale bulb would gleam off the placid water, as if you could swim over to it, touch its dimpled surface and then burrow into its clutches. What would it be like, to be all alone up there? Peaceful, probably. All alone, one tiny speck looking out into whatever lies beyond.
All alone… much like the forward-moving silhouette that crested a ridge in the distance. There he was, Kane Calbid’s scout, coming to see that the deed would be done.
I descended down from the parapet and took the long walk to the keep. The guards allowed me entry, and a short while later, Serith Rabthorn walked beside me, persuaded to take a stroll along the battlements.
As we emerged from the doors of the keep, I coyly glanced to the right. The campfires were hissing as spit grease dripped onto the embers, but the Rots had all vanished.
We passed a building with a thatched roof on the way to the parapet ramp. The corners of the wall and the severe angle of the roof were such that they concealed an alleyway nestled between that building and its neighbor. Even I, who knew what lay waiting in that passage, couldn’t see them. As invisible as the wind and silent as poison.
“We’re leaving in the morning,” I told Serith, placing my hand under his arm so he could climb the ramp without falling and breaking his brittle face.
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