He looked out upon God’s Row, one of the finest streets in Avarest. No run-down buildings here, no beggars sitting in the street in rags, their hands held up in desperation. The city guard would have made sure of it. Instead, men and women dressed in their finery, brightly colored silks and velvets, walked along the streets or traveled them in coaches, stopping from time to time to admire some bobble or piece of clothing at one of the many high-end shops lining the lane.
The shop owners did not shout their prices, huckstering to passersby as was common in the Downs. Instead, tailors and silversmiths and merchants of all sorts bowed to their well-dressed, well-moneyed guests and scraped and complimented them on their most discerning choice of this potion or that trinket, their tones always admiring, always slightly apologetic. Aaron shook his head in wonder, noting that the shop owners wore clothes and jewelry almost as nice as that of their patrons, a single piece of which would have been worth a fortune to a man or woman living in the Downs.
City guards, their uniforms washed and bright, patrolled the street, smiling and nodding to men and women who rarely deigned to notice their presence and, when they did, did so with the air of someone who’d sat down for tea and noticed some foul scent on the air. “You mean to tell me,” he said, unable to keep the incredulity from his voice, “that Grinner, your boss, works at one of these shops?”
Claude sneered at him, apparently emboldened by the crowds of people, “Don’t be a fool. Of course he doesn’t. He’s there.” He motioned with his head toward a large building in the center of the street.
Aaron took in the building with its large, gold-trimmed marble pedestals, and raised an eyebrow as he noticed the stylized image etched into the door. It was the image of a woman’s outline lying recumbent on a golden divan. The woman was naked save for a gold-trimmed tiara, but her impossibly long hair managed to maintain her modesty while hinting at what was hidden beneath. He’d seen the image enough to know it for what it was—Aliandra, the Goddess of Beauty and Youth. In the last few years, the minor goddess had grown increasingly popular with the rich upper class. Unsurprisingly, worship of Aliandra had never taken root in the Downs—it was hard to worry about beauty when your children starved and each trip you made to work gave you about even odds of getting mugged or worse.
“A church.” He said, his voice flat, “Your boss works for a priest.”
“Grinner works for no one,” Claude said, but Aaron was barely paying him any attention. He was staring at the milling crowd of people and trying to decide how he was going to get at Grinner—if, indeed, he was in the church—and get his mother’s necklace back.
“And it won’t matter to you either way.” There was something in the fat man’s tone that Aaron didn’t like, and he turned to see Claude smiling that slow, cruel smile, “Tell me,” Claude said, “would you like to watch when I do my experiments on the barmaid? Would you like to watch her beg me to kill her? I believe I’d like that.”
“Watch yourself, Claude,” Aaron said, “you’ve still got plenty of fingers left.”
The fat man grinned, “What are you going to do, Mr. Envelar? Kill me in front of all these people? Torture me, maybe? With city guards no less than a yell away? I doubt that. I doubt that very much.” He winked, “I’ll be seeing you soon, Mr. Envelar.”
He stepped out into the street before Aaron could grab him, weaving his way through the crowd and heading in the direction of the church. “Shit,” Aaron hissed. He hesitated in a moment of indecision. The man had been right—there were too many people here, too many witnesses. Not to mention the fact that the city guard—seemingly everywhere, now that he looked—would be on him before he even got his sword out of its sheathe.
His mind raced, and he seriously considered turning around and going back to the Downs. After all, he knew where Grinner was now, could find him again. But he’ll move. Claude will tell him what happened, and you’ll be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life, always wondering if today would be the day that you were taken. Or Celes. Or May. In the end, the thought of May or Celes hanging from two wooden posts while the fat man performed his perverted experiments decided him, and he stepped into the street.
Claude was taking his time, confident in his escape, and it didn’t take Aaron long to catch up with him. “Ah, Mr. Envelar,” the fat man said, smiling widely, “shall we visit Grinner together th—“
He cut off, as Aaron lashed out in one quick motion, bringing the ridge of his hand as hard as he could into the man’s throat. Something crunched beneath the blow, but he didn’t slow, continuing to press his way through the crowd and ignoring the rattling wheezes behind him.
He was nearly at the Church gate when a woman in the crowd screamed, then someone else joined in. He turned to see several of the city guardsmen rushing forward, not toward him, thank the gods, but toward where a growing circle of people watched a man thrash and kick on the cobbles. The man’s face was turning a dark shade of blue, and those around him watched, unhelping, as if they’d paid for seats at the spectacle. “See ya around, Claude,” he said before walking through the gates and into the church.
***
Inside, the church was dimly lit, the only illumination coming from the sun streaming through the stained glass windows and falling on the floor and pews in dappled splashes of red and blue and green.
“I’m sorry, sir, but the morning service isn’t for another two hours.”
A deep, mellifluous voice. Aaron turned to see a man standing on the small stage of the church on which sat a four foot high wooden podium. The man walked closer, a peaceful smile on his face. He wore pristine white robes, but his garments did little to hide his thickly muscled chest and arms, and even in the poor light cast through the windows, Aaron could see that the man had a strong jaw line and features that belonged on some ancient hero of legend. The big man was smiling, holding his hands up in apology, but Aaron noted that his knuckles were calloused, and his hands and arms looked big enough to crush boulders, if he got the desire.
“I’m here to see the priest,” Aaron said, scanning the church for anyone else but seeing no one.
The man bowed his head slightly, “I’m sorry, sir, but his Holiness is resting, just now. Communing with the goddess takes much out of him.”
Aaron snorted. He’d heard of the strange worshipping that took place in the temples of Aliandra, had heard stories of orgies and more, dedicated to the Goddess of Beauty and Youth. He turned to fully face the big man, throwing his cloak behind one shoulder and exposing the sword strapped to his back, “Ah, well. I guess I’ll just talk to Grinner then.”
The man’s eyes narrowed and suddenly he was charging forward, shockingly fast for a man his size. Ah Pit, Aaron had time to think, then the man bulled into him with the force of a stampeding horse, and the next thing he knew, Aaron was flying through the air. He struck a wooden pew, knocking it over, and the air was knocked out of him as the pew fell over. He tumbled across the floor, finally coming to a gasping, groaning stop. He reached unsteadily for the handle of his sword, still gasping, fighting to get his breath back, but thick fingers settled on his shoulders in a crushing grip, jerking him off the ground as if he weighed no more than a child. He struggled against the man’s hold, but he might as well have been trying to move a mountain for all the good it did him and, in another moment, he was flying again.
This time he struck the solid wood podium. Something gave in his wounded arm with a sickening crack, and he screamed. Gasping, grunting with pain and effort, he turned to look back at his attacker and watched his assailant approaching through blurry, unfocused eyes. The man was approaching slowly now, confident that he had the upper hand. Aaron reached for the sword at his back with unsteady fingers, but they found nothing, and panic gripped him as he noticed his blade lying halfway across the room between him and his attacker.
He started to crawl toward it and had barely made any progress when the big man was on him again. Aaron curled up into a p
rotective ball, and the big man grabbed him by the front of the shirt and pulled him off the floor once more. “You shouldn’t have come here,” he said, the mask of fury on his face making him appear like some righteous god bent on destruction.
Aaron’s vision swam, but he lashed out with the knife he’d taken from his boot when the man grabbed him. He stabbed the blade into the inside of his assailant’s arm opposite his elbow. The big man roared in pain, his grip loosening, and Aaron fell to the ground in a heap. He’d risen to his hands and knees when the man’s foot struck him in the chest. He felt a rib crack, and he tumbled across the floor until he fetched up against another pew.
He pulled himself up until he was sitting with his back against the pew and managed to raise blurry eyes in time to see the man coming for him again. The white sleeve of the man’s robe was coated in blood, the knife still protruding from his arm, but if the wound pained him, he gave no sign. Still, pain or not, the big man’s movements were less sure, more sluggish, and as he reached forward, Aaron jerked the knife out of his arm and plunged it into the side of his attacker’s slab of a thigh, about three fingers down from the groin, as he’d been shown so long ago.
The big man roared in pain and anger and a fist that felt more like a boulder struck Aaron’s shoulder which immediately went numb and senseless. Darkness threatened at the corners of his vision, but Aaron grunted with effort, reaching up with his good hand and grabbing hold of the handle of the knife. He wrenched the blade sideways, tearing through the meat of the man’s inner thigh.
Blood fountained out in a spray, covering Aaron, and the big man’s grip loosened. Aaron fell back to the ground with a grunt and watched the big man stumble back, a look of confused disbelief on his face. He pawed ineffectually at the knife in his leg for a moment before falling to his knees, his gaze meeting Aaron’s, uncomprehending.
“Severed … the arteries,” Aaron gasped by way of explanation, his teeth gritted against the pain. “You need those.”
The big man’s face twisted in fury, and he reached for Aaron only to collapse, his face striking the floor with a loud thud. Aaron lay there for a minute, gasping, then he levered himself up to a sitting position, his back leaned against the pew. His left arm hung useless and unresponsive, and the sharp, biting pain in his chest told him that he’d definitely cracked a rib, maybe more than one.
The dark river of unconsciousness threatened to surge forward, and Aaron shook his head, forcing it back with a will. He had no doubt that if he fell asleep here, now, he would not wake up again. He grabbed hold of the pew with his good hand and pulled himself to his feet, hissing at the pain in his chest and arm.
Slowly, gingerly, he bent to retrieve his knife and noticed a silver necklace on the man’s neck, something hanging from it. He pulled the necklace over the man’s head and saw that a key dangled from the silver chain. He stuffed the key into the pocket of his trousers before pulling his knife out of the big man’s thigh. It came free with a sickening, liquid sound, and he wiped it on the man’s white robe before sliding it back into his boot. That done, he shuffled across the room and grabbed his sword from where it had fallen, drawing the blade and slinging the sheathe across his back.
He glanced around the room and noted a door behind the altar, started toward it. He was just passing the altar when he lost his balance and was forced to catch himself on its wooden surface. He paused for a moment, taking a few slow breaths, as deep as his wounded rib would allow, then shuffled to the door.
He was surprised to find the door unlocked, and he stepped through it, easing it shut behind him. A short hallway stretched ahead of him. A candle burned in a silver candle holder halfway down the hallway’s length, and by its uncertain light he saw several doors on either wall. He limped to the first door and looked inside, grunting in surprise. The walls, ceiling, and floor of the room had been painted in a blue so bright it was almost painful to look upon. An enormous bed took up almost the entire floor, the only piece of furniture in the room, and its sheets and pillows matched the color of the room itself, making it difficult to tell where the bed began and ended. No doubt an intentional illusion.
He passed a room of green, another of black, and another of crimson, all of them a match for the blue room, all of them unoccupied. The worshippers of Aliandra, it seemed, expressed the worship of their goddess in some peculiar ways. He didn’t bother to look at the rest as he passed them, instead making his way to the door at the end of the hall. He reached the door only to find it locked, so he retrieved the key he’d found around the big man’s neck and was relieved to find that it fit. He took a deep breath, readied his sword, and walked inside.
The room was twice as large as the others he’d seen, and he was surprised to find it normal, if richly appointed. A large desk sat in one corner, stacked high with papers. Letters from parishioners, perhaps? Or kill orders for some unfortunate souls who’d earned Grinner’s displeasure? Aaron found that he didn’t much care; it wasn’t what he’d come for, after all. Several bookshelves stood against the walls, a fortune in books and scrolls piled high on their shelves, and a large fireplace sat on one side of the room. At the opposite end, separated from the rest of the room by a thin gauzy curtain of silk, sat a bed as large the ones in the rooms he’d passed, though this one, at least, was covered with simple satin sheets that seemed almost abnormally modest when compared to the others.
A man lay in the bed asleep. He was dressed in silk night clothes and a black mask covered his eyes. He was older than Aaron had expected, his shoulder length silver hair tied in a tail. He was thin too, only just past the point of emaciation. Aaron watched him as he closed the door, not bothering to ease it shut.
The man stirred at the sound but did not remove the mask he wore, “Not now, Gregory, please,” he said, a slight smile on his face, “I’m very tired, and the congregation will be here in a few hours. Later though … well … we’ll see.”
Instead of answering, Aaron shuffled to the desk, grabbing the wooden chair behind it and dragging it toward the side of the bed. The chair scraped against the hardwood floor, and the man in the bed frowned as Aaron pulled it up beside the bed and eased his way into it, wincing as his wounded rib complained at the movement.
“Really, Gregory,” the man said, pulling the mask off with one hand, “I thought I was clear abou—“ he paused as he saw Aaron sitting there, his wide eyes noting the sword in his hand. “You’re not Gregory.”
“No.”
“Gregory,” the man said, louder. “Gregory!”
“You’ll have to talk quite a bit louder than that if you want him to hear you, I’m afraid. Even still, I wouldn’t expect an answer anytime soon.”
The man looked at Aaron, at the blood covering his clothes and hands, and his eyes widened, his expression turning incredulous as he sat up in bed. “What have you done, fool? Who would dare to bring violence into the house of the gods? A curse will be brought on your life, a damnation that will follow you for all of your short miserable days.”
Aaron thought of his parents, murdered when he was a child, thought of the orphanage in which he’d grown up, in which he’d been beaten and tortured. “You’ll have to excuse me if I’m not impressed, father, but I’ve been cursed since the day of my birth, and a man can only be damned once. Or should I call you Grinner?”
The incredulous expression of fear and outrage vanished from the man’s face in an instant, and he met Aaron’s gaze with cold, calculating eyes. “I don’t know who you are, but if you’ve hurt Gregory….”
“Not hurt. Killed. I thought I’d made that clear. And my name’s Aaron. Aaron Envelar.”
Tightly-controlled fury blazed in the man’s eyes, but when he spoke, his voice was calm, “Envelar … I know that name. Ah, yes. The one they call the “Silent Blade.” I don’t know what business has brought you here,” he said, speaking with the authority of a king to his servants instead of a man caught unawares in his bed, still dressed in his night clothes, �
�But you should not have hurt him. He was mine, Mr. Envelar, and no one takes what’s mine.”
Aaron smiled, though there was no humor in it, “Ah. If that upsets you, I don’t suppose it’d be a great time to mention that you’ll need to look for a new second in command.”
The silver-haired man’s eyes widened slightly, the only indication of surprise or emotion at all. “Claude was a dog, loyal, slightly stupid, prone to making messes, but he, too, was mine.” He shook his head as if in wonder, “I don’t know what drives you, Envelar, but you have doomed not only yourself but all those you care about. I will visit such vengeance upon those you love—“
Aaron tapped the man on the shoulder with the flat of his blade, “Careful, Grinner. Your man said much the same, before he died. I don’t take well to threats, never have.” He shrugged, “I’m told I have temper problems. Now, then, your men attacked an inn tonight, one called the Maiden’s Haven. A shitty dive, really, but, unfortunately for you, it also just happened to be the shitty dive at which I was staying.”
“And what?” Grinner said, “Those fools were acting against my orders. If you lost someone, I’m sure we can come to some kind of arrangement. I am a very rich man.”
Aaron leaned back in the chair, regarding the old man with a kind of wonder. Not only did he seem almost unconcerned about the sword being brandished in his face, he also seemed to think that a man who’d fought his way to him to take revenge for a murdered loved one would be willing to take a sack of coins for his trouble. Aaron studied him, shaking his head, “You’re serious.”
Grinner shrugged, his hands held up, a smile on his face, “In my experience, gold has a way of soothing even the most terrible of hurts.”
“I don’t want your money.”
For the first time, a look of uncertainty entered Grinner’s eyes. “No? What then? I’m certain we can come to some kind of arrangement. Who was it you lost? A wife? A brother? I’m sure that—“
The Silent Blade Page 6
