by Mark Robson
‘Yes, well . . . Wait a minute! I know you. You’re—’
Shantella did not hesitate. The volume of his voice was increasing. If he were to wake others in the house, her escape would become complicated. Even as she pounced, the assassin whipped a cushion from a convenient chair. Her blade gleamed as it plunged down with unerring accuracy, slicing between his ribs and into his heart. The cushion, jammed firmly over the Lord’s face, muffled his cries. He struggled, fighting with all his failing strength to break free, but he fought in vain. Shantella knew her trade. With the deathblow dealt, she concentrated on maintaining his silence, leaning on the cushion and restricting the thrashing of his arms.
A surge of triumph sent shivers thrilling up her spine as his struggles began to subside. Seeing his life ebb away made her feel more alive than ever.
‘Goodbye, Marnillus,’ she whispered.
Jabal looked at the Legionnaire with an expression of disbelief. ‘Martial law? Since when has Shandrim been under martial law?’
‘It’s been implemented in the last few days, sir,’ the soldier replied, looking pleased at an excuse to show off his knowledge to men of obvious status. ‘Ever since Emperor Surabar was assassinated the city has been gradually descending into anarchy. Despite the new restrictions Lord Marnillus was found dead in his bed a couple of days ago, sir. There have been several riots and a lot of unnecessary bloodshed. The official word on Marnillus is that he suffered heart failure in his sleep. Seems unlikely, if you ask me. The man was burly, it’s true, but he wasn’t particularly overweight. Most thought him to be in good physical health. If he died of natural causes, then it was a cruel twist of fate for him. After his death the remaining candidates for the Mantle suddenly decided that the streets were not safe after dark. That clinched it for me. He was assassinated. No doubt about it. The only question remaining is who commissioned the hit.’
The military blockade across the main road into Shandrim from the north was manned by no less than a dozen Legionnaires. Further along the street, Jabal could see evidence of more patrols moving through the city, all in full fighting gear. Whoever was organising the policing of the city was taking the situation very seriously.
‘I see,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Please, excuse our ignorance, for we have travelled quite some distance to get here. We’re not up to date with current affairs in the capital. What restrictions are you placing on the citizens?’
‘Adults are not to gather in groups larger than six,’ the Legionnaire responded, his eyes automatically rising as he sought to recall the new rules. ‘Any meeting larger than this must be authorised by the City Clerk’s Office. No one is to be on the streets after dark. The eighth call currently marks the night call. You have just under an hour to get to where you’re going, or you’ll be taken off the streets by the patrols, questioned, and held overnight under guard. I wouldn’t recommend that. They have you sleep on the floor in a warehouse. It’s very uncomfortable. I doubt there are many who actually get any sleep there.’
‘In that case we had better be on our way. Thank you for your time.’
Jabal turned in his saddle towards Kempten, reached out and shook him by the hand. ‘It was a pleasure to meet you, sir. Fate has rarely treated me to such an interesting travelling companion. Good luck with your research. I shall look out for a copy of your book when it’s finished.’
Kempten gave a slight bow in his saddle. ‘And I, yours, sir. Shand guide you and protect you. I hope we meet again some day.’
With the words of parting complete, the two crossed through the barrier and went their separate ways. Jabal continued straight down the main road towards the city centre, while Kempten turned right up the first main cross street. Neither of them looked back to see if the Legionnaires were taking note of where they had gone.
‘The streets are crawling with soldiers. Is Shandrim always like this?’ Calvyn asked, his voice sounding out of place emanating from the mouth of the illusory brutish figure.
Reynik shook his head, instinctively checking his own disguise to make sure the magic was still working. It was. ‘Something major must have happened during the last few days,’ he said. ‘The streets were not being patrolled this heavily when I left, and the Legions had no blockades in place then.’
The sun had dropped below the horizon and dusk was already beginning to concede the city to night. Their vantage point on the high ground to the west of the city suburbs gave them a good view over the western quarter. Patrols of soldiers were numerous, their torches bobbing through the city like dancing lines of tiny fireflies.
‘Dodging patrols every other step of the way is not going to make it easy to move around the city,’ Calvyn observed.
‘We don’t have much choice,’ Reynik replied. ‘I’d rather not try to penetrate the Guild during the day. They do most of their business by night, so there will likely be less of them in the complex after full dark. I doubt they’ll be put off by the patrols. Come on. We’ll just have to be careful to avoid being seen. We can’t take the horses any closer to the city, but the nearest village is at least a league from here. Have you any ideas?’
‘We could leave them here. They’ll be as safe as anywhere else. We’re a fair distance from the road. I’ll place a compulsion on them not to stray far until we return. It’s not a difficult spell. Just give me a minute.’
Calvyn began muttering in a strange tongue. A sensation of power tickled the back of Reynik’s neck as the outlandish words rippled the air. The two horses pricked up their ears and turned to listen. With a final syllable of power, Calvyn completed his spell. A haunting echo hung in the air.
‘It’s done,’ he said. ‘They’ll not stray of their own accord. Of course this will not prevent them from being taken by force, but if anyone does try, the horses will resist.’
Reynik nodded. The horses had already set to grazing, seemingly content with their location. The two young men removed saddlebags, saddles and bridles from the animals, stowing the gear deep within a nearby thicket of hawthorn and brambles. Calvyn marked one of the trees with a series of small cuts. How he expected to find his mark, Reynik did not ask. Out of habit, he took a few moments to commit the patterns of trees and bushes to memory. Since training with Femke, his powers of observation had improved markedly. When he was content that he had a firm mental map of where their gear was, he led them down the side of the ridge towards the edge of the city.
The main roads were blockaded, but there were many ways into the city. Shandrim bore little resemblance to the Thrandorian capital, Mantor, with its great city wall and tightly controlled entry and exit points. Shandrim’s walls had long since fallen into disrepair. Only a few small sections of the old walls were now maintained, more for their historic value than for any protective attributes. Once they had encircled what was now the central part of the city, but the population of Shandar’s capital had outgrown the walls many centuries ago. There were now vastly more people living outside the original city wall than inside.
A string of successive Emperors had cared little for controlling the growth of the city boundaries, so the housing on the outskirts had been built with no sense of order. The chaotic tangle of streets and alleys between houses of all shapes and sizes gave the outer city a warren-like feel, dark and complex: a natural breeding ground for thievery and violence, to say nothing of vermin and disease. Public amenities were few, and there were great areas of housing that barely qualified as habitable. Most were wooden structures, cemented together with dried mud, whilst the more permanent stone-built dwellings were predominant in the richer areas towards the centre of the city. However, the darker aspects of life in the poorer districts did nothing to deter thousands from living there, each looking to claim their small slice of the wealth for which Shandrim was famed.
Defence of the city had not been a consideration for many generations. The might of the Legions had deterred even the most aggressive of nations from thoughts of conquest. Shandar had long been the aggres
sor, subsuming other societies and kingdoms into the Empire. It was inconceivable that any would be capable of sending armies here, to the seat of Shandar’s power.
For Calvyn, entering one of the poorer districts came as a huge shock. The air was thick with the stench of human waste. The reek was so intense that he could taste it at the back of his tongue like a residue of foul treacle. Rats and smaller vermin were everywhere, scratching around in the mud of the alleyways and scuttling across the cobbled streets in numbers that made him shudder. It was clear from the animals’ disinterest in the two men that they were seldom hunted. It was hard for him to imagine living in this fashion. His parents had not been wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but no one in his poor country village had lived in such squalid conditions. He looked around with a mixture of distaste and horror. He dreaded to think what the insides of the buildings were like. It did not bear thinking about, he decided.
Steeling his nose and stomach, he did his best to ignore his surroundings and concentrate on following Reynik. He ranged ahead with his mind, seeking to locate the patrols before they ran into them. Whispered warnings to Reynik whenever he sensed people approaching saved them from inadvertent confrontations on more than one occasion. Progress was slow, but street by street and alley by alley they weaved a tortuous path through the city towards their goal.
It was getting late when they reached the entrance to the alley where the transfer stone unique to the wolf spider talisman was located. Dusk had long since given way to the full dark of night. Lurking in deep shadow and observing the alley in silence, the two young men held their position for a full half hour. Aside from the frequent scurry of rodents, nothing moved.
‘Do you sense anyone nearby?’ Reynik finally asked in a barely-audible whisper.
‘No. The alley appears clear,’ Calvyn replied softly.
‘Is the transfer going to muddle your senses the way it did mine when I first used the icon?’
‘I don’t know until I try, but it shouldn’t do. My mind has undergone a lot of specialist training to guard against magical interference. I’ll try to protect my senses as we use the device.’
‘The room we’ll arrive in is certain to have a guard,’ Reynik warned. ‘For the first few seconds we’ll be very vulnerable.’
‘Understood,’ Calvyn responded. ‘I should be able to give us a certain amount of protection, but I don’t want to alert the Guild to my abilities unless it becomes absolutely necessary.’
Reynik nodded. ‘That makes sense. Are you ready? Then let’s go.’
CHAPTER TEN
‘You there! Stop where you are!’
No sooner had Reynik and Calvyn moved out from the shadows than the bellowed order froze them briefly in their tracks. They had been so focused on the alley and looking for possible watchers that they had not noticed a patrol of Legionnaires rounding the corner down the street to their left.
‘Go! Go!’ Reynik urged, his momentary surprise overcome. This was no time for explanations. He launched into a sprint, with Calvyn a step behind him. A few paces and the darkness of the alley swallowed them. The tromping sounds of running, booted feet closed quickly on their position. It took a moment for Reynik to find the right stone in the thick darkness.
‘Here, hold this,’ he ordered in a hoarse whisper, holding out the spider talisman. ‘Here we go.’
He touched the icon to the transfer stone, belatedly remembering that he had meant to draw a weapon before entering the Guild complex. It was too late now. The magic was already swirling through him. Despite his previous exposure to the sensations, the feeling of exploding and coalescing left him unbalanced as he materialised in the wolf spider suite. Had he been alone, he would have died there and then. The assassin, Firedrake, who was on watch duty, was quick to react to their emergence. He had drawn and thrown a blade before their bodies had fully solidified, but Calvyn, too, was quick to react.
The blade in flight took a sudden swerve to the left, missing Reynik by the narrowest of margins. A second blade followed and that also flew in a curved path that defied the laws of nature. Firedrake gasped with surprise. He knew his throws had been good, but neither had found their mark. He was given no time to theorise on how he had missed. The man bearing the wolf spider icon had taken only an instant to recover, and was bearing down on him with a sword that had all but leaped into his hand.
Firedrake drew his own sword, his mind reeling in confusion. This was not the same young man who had been initiated into the Guild as Brother Wolf Spider. The person he had seen that day was boyish of face, and only of medium build. This man was broad-shouldered, muscular and ugly as chewed blackroot. It was impossible. Icons could not change hands without the death of the holder. There had been no initiation of another at the bonding stone. It made no sense.
He blocked the intruder’s first swing, but he was unprepared for the speed and agility of the big man. Their blades rang no more than three times. Before Firedrake knew what had hit him, the bearer of the wolf spider icon had run him through. His fingers slackened on the hilt of his sword. The blade tumbled from his fingers, clattering to the floor with a loud jangle of metal on stone. His jaw slackened with shock and he looked down as his attacker pulled his blade free. The room jolted, then tilted, as he fell first to his knees and then onto his side. His hands sought the wound, but he could not feel anything. The light dimmed and the two men’s whispered exchange echoed strangely in his ears, gradually fading as darkness overtook him.
Reynik shuddered as he pulled his blade clear of Firedrake’s body. He had been given no choice. It was kill or be killed. That made the justification easier, but he doubted he would ever gain pleasure from taking a life, unless it was that of Shalidar.
‘I’m pleased to see you didn’t suffer any ill effects from the transfer,’ he whispered to Calvyn. ‘I don’t know what you did to his knives, but thank you. I think that was Brother Firedrake. He and I have tangled before.’
‘You were very fast. You’re good with that sword.’
‘Thanks. I had a good teacher.’
Reynik looked around at the familiar room, his eyes avoiding the body of the assassin. Much of the furniture had been moved back to where it had been positioned before Femke had barricaded herself in here after her successful spying escapade a couple of weeks ago. Some of the pieces showed signs of damage from that incident. The door to the corridor was the only real change. It was clearly new, the old one having been shattered.
‘Is there any way you can use that sensing ability of yours to work out where Femke is being held?’ Reynik asked softly. ‘I don’t want to test my skills further unless it becomes absolutely necessary.’
Calvyn’s eyes went distant for a moment as he reached out with his mind. Reynik held his breath as he watched. It looked very strange to see a thuggish brute of a man in a trance. It seemed wrong. The glamour was a marvel, he decided. Even Femke could not have produced a disguise of this subtlety.
The moment passed and Calvyn gave a sigh.
‘I can’t tell,’ he said. ‘Whoever built this place was very clever. Someone has protected against the interference of magicians. There are magical echoes reverberating throughout the complex. I’ve touched Femke’s mind once before in the Royal Palace at Mantor. I thought that I would be able to track her down easily, but all I can tell you is that she is still alive. I can feel her presence, but I wouldn’t like to guess where she is. I might be able to narrow down her position as we move, but for the moment we’ll have to search using conventional methods.’
A loud BONG suddenly reverberated through the complex. It sounded as if someone had just struck a massive gong with great force.
‘What was that?’ Calvyn whispered urgently. ‘Have we set off an alarm?’
‘I don’t know,’ Reynik replied, his brows drawn into a frown. ‘I never heard that noise during my time here. I’ve no idea what it means. Come on, we’d better get near enough to the meeting chamber to see what happens. We
might learn something to our advantage. We can retreat back here if need be. There’s no other way into these apartments from within the complex.’
Calvyn nodded and signalled for Reynik to lead the way.
They moved swiftly but silently out of the chamber with swords held at the ready. There was no one in the corridor outside, so they sped along to the end. On reaching the door that led into the wolf spider alcove in the central chamber, Reynik opened the door just enough to peep through. Calvyn did not press to see, but reached out instead with his mind. He did not sustain the effort for more than a few seconds. Whatever was causing the magical interference was much stronger in the chamber ahead, and his attempt to sense the underground cavern left him feeling momentarily dizzy and confused. He leaned against the wall and rubbed his temples at the sudden flare of pain in his head.
At first, Reynik could see nothing. The light in the chamber was too dim. After a few moments his eyes began to adjust to the light. The shadowy figure of the Guildmaster was emerging from the stairwell close to the central podium.
‘Who was it this time, Guildmaster?’
‘I don’t know yet, Brother Fox. I’m glad to see that it was not you. I’m going to the bonding stone now. Will you join me?’
‘Of course, Guildmaster. Did we have anyone out on assignment tonight? I thought we were going to leave the rest of the Imperial candidates alone. The tattle on the street is that the nobility are rallying behind our chosen man. I didn’t expect more intervention on our part.’
‘I’ve not ordered anything specific tonight,’ Ferdand replied, ‘but several of the Brothers are out in the city following up our ongoing commitments. You’re right. The race for the Mantle is all but done. We’ll see no further business this side of the final vote in the Imperial Court. It may be that the victor will wish to eliminate the other candidates afterwards in order to prevent any subsequent trouble. If that’s the case, then we’ll accept the commissions.’
