undying legion 01 - unbound man

by karlov, matt

  It lay flat in the deepest corner, hidden from the doorway, boxes and crates stacked around it. By now, Clade imagined, everyone else had probably forgotten it was even there.

  “Dusty, isn’t it,” Estelle said with a sniff as she peered around the cellar.

  “A little.” Clade stepped in behind her, allowing the door at the base of the stairs to swing closed, and raised his lamp. Light flared off jagged stone walls and a low, rough-hewn ceiling. The chamber was rectangular in shape, about twice as long as it was wide, and was filled with crates and chests of all shapes and sizes. Shadows in the far corner tugged at his eye, but he resisted the urge to look.

  “Very well, Clade,” Estelle said, arms folded. “Let’s see these gold reserves.”

  Clade set his lamp down on a stack of crates. The low light hid the lines of her face and the grey in her hair, peeling years from her appearance. He was reminded of the day he first met her, the day the Oculus recruiter had knocked on his own door and told his parents all the things he could have if they’d just let her take him away with her. She’d been younger then than he was now. Not much older than Sera, really.

  Estelle quirked an eyebrow. “What is it? Are you unwell again?”

  Clade shook his head. Don’t be a fool. You know it has to be done. Leave her alive and you’ll feel her at your back all the way to the golems. But his hand refused to move.

  “Clade?” The concern in her voice was genuine. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

  “Have you never wondered, Estelle?” His voice sounded harsh in his ears and he paused, coughing to clear his throat before continuing. “Have you never wondered about Azador?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Wondered what?”

  “Everything. What is it? Where does it come from? What does it want, really? What does it want with us? Why does it require us to —”

  “Enough!” She was angry, but there was something else in her voice as well. Fear? “You know the answers as well as any other Oculus sorcerer.”

  “Yes, I know the answers. ‘Azador grieves for the fallen Empire. Azador offers the Council guidance and wisdom.’ But that’s not the whole truth, is it?” He stepped toward her. “It doesn’t include the part about it binding every single damn one of us to its consciousness!”

  “Not another word —”

  “It’s not here, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  Estelle stopped short, her gaze piercing. “What do you mean?”

  “I can sense it,” Clade said. “I know when it’s with me. I know when it’s with someone nearby. It’s not here.”

  She looked at him, silent, her expression unreadable.

  “And do you know what I sense when it’s near?” he said. “Greed. Azador lusts, Estelle. It longs for control. It longs for power. Above all, it longs for the golems.” He softened his tone. “It doesn’t grieve. Maybe it did once. I don’t know. But all it has now is rage and darkness, and a vast, insatiable hunger.”

  Estelle said nothing for a long moment. Then, slowly, she nodded. “I know.”

  He blinked. “What do you mean, you know?”

  “I know.” She smiled at his expression. “Some of the answers are true. ‘Azador offers the Council guidance and wisdom.’ I know.”

  Clade stared, waiting for her to go on. “And?”

  “And what? It doesn’t matter.” Estelle laughed. “Don’t you see? Azador is ours. It can’t act in the world on its own. It needs us. So we do enough to keep it happy, and we enjoy the benefits of having it around.”

  Something hollow opened within him. “Enjoy the benefits,” he repeated.

  “Its knowledge and experience, of course,” Estelle said. “But more than that. How long do you imagine a double agent can stay hidden when Azador can see anyone whenever it wishes? And if they try to run, how far are they going to get?” She reached out, grasped his arms. “Azador is good for us, Clade. Without it, we’d just be another pathetic little band of sorcerers with delusions of someday rivalling the Quill. But here we are, on the brink of something great.”

  “Invasion,” he said, his voice flat. “Conquest.”

  “Power,” she returned. “Our power, not Azador’s. Yours and mine. There’s a vacant Councillor’s seat with your name on it. You can be part of this.”

  “To what end?”

  “To whatever end you like! That’s what power means!” She stepped forward, eyes alive with excitement. “Think what we could do!”

  The light caught her face, and for a moment she looked like a goblin from a children’s tale, all grasping leer and hard, gimlet eyes. He shuddered. If Azador could take physical form, this is the shape it would assume. She reached a hand to his face and he turned away in disgust.

  “You’re one of us, Clade,” she said to his retreating back. “You’re Oculus. You can’t escape that.”

  He turned. “Perhaps I can.”

  “No. Azador will find you. No matter how far you run, it’ll find you.”

  “It won’t. I’ve found a way to cut it out.”

  Her confident expression faltered. “They’ll send someone after you. Hunt you down.”

  “Then I’ll cut it out of them, too.”

  Her eyes darted to the door, then back to his face. Yes. You understand.

  Clade moved his weight to the balls of his feet. “I can make this easier for you, if you’ll let me.”

  She swallowed. “If you kill me, Azador will be here in a heartbeat.”

  “I know.”

  Estelle glanced around the cellar, her breaths growing faster, shallower. Looking for water to bind, Councillor? There’s none here. Just you and me, and that box in the corner.

  “I would really rather not hurt you,” he said.

  She hissed, baring her teeth in a snarl. “What’s the plan, then? Lock me up down here? Someone will find me before you even make it out of the city.”

  Clade gestured with his chin. “There’s a box. Long and narrow.”

  A quick glance over her shoulder. “I see it. What’s inside?”

  “Nothing. Yet.”

  She nodded once. “I see. Then what?”

  “Then I leave.”

  Estelle nodded again, almost panting now. Her eyes flicked from Clade to the door, around the cellar and back to Clade again. She flexed her hands. “No.”

  “Estelle —”

  She whirled and grabbed a small jewellery chest, hurling it across the cellar. Clade cursed and ducked. The chest crashed off the wall behind him and burst open, spraying tiny gems like raindrops across the bare stone floor. Estelle cannoned into him, biting and kicking, scratching at his face. He reeled back, skidding on the gemstones and scrabbling for purchase. She stomped on his instep, clawed his eyes; then somehow she was past him and racing for the door.

  He lunged after her, grasping blindly. His questing hand found an ankle and closed desperately about it. Snarling, Estelle tore herself free and spun around; but her foot slipped on some gems and she stumbled, smashing headlong into a heavy, iron-bound chest. For a brief moment she seemed to hang in the air; then, with the faintest of whimpers, she collapsed.

  Clade scrambled across, dropping his knee into her back and twisting her arm around. Her hand was limp. Shit, no, not yet. He reached for her neck, fingers groping for the artery, bracing himself for the arrival of Azador. Tell me you’re not dead. For a moment he felt nothing; then a faint pulse fluttered against his fingertips, weak but regular, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

  All right. Now to get you into the box. He pushed himself to his feet, wincing as he touched the gouges in his cheek. Damn you, Estelle. I told you I didn’t want to hurt you.

  She was heavy, but not as heavy as he’d expected. He dragged her across the stone floor, manoeuvring her onto the side of the timber box and tipping her inside. She flopped over the edge like a rag doll, coming to rest on her back, her head dangling sideways.

  He reached for the lid, then hesitated. Locked in that box witho
ut food or water, she’d likely survive for days before thirst finally took her. A quick death would be better than what he was giving her, but that mercy was out of his hands. In any case, the end result would be the same.

  Estelle was his ninth.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  The lid fit into place like a gear in a Rondossan clock. Clade latched the box shut and smoothed the note affixed to its side. Walls raised and ready, he waited for the first pangs of failure to crawl up out of his gut, as they always did in the wake of a murder. But this time, strangely, they were nowhere to be found.

  All he could find was sorrow.

  Chapter 19

  A death in time saves ninety-nine.

  — Giarvanno do Salin I

  Eilwen barrelled around the corner, racing down the corridor and launching herself at Havilah’s door, pounding and yelling. Her leg was throbbing, but she barely felt it. “Havilah! It’s me. I need to see you right now!”

  She paused, breathing heavily, willing him to open the door. To be alive. But her only answer was a cold, empty silence.

  “Havilah! Open up! Hav—” She broke off mid-word, brushing her sleeve over her eyes. “Damn it.”

  The door was locked. She tried the handle anyway, shoving against the door with her shoulder, then beating futilely with her fists.

  “Eilwen?” Ufeus stood in the corridor, a wary expression on his face. “What are you doing?”

  “Where’s Havilah?” Eilwen marched up to Ufeus, pointing at the unyielding door. “Is he in there?”

  Ufeus shrugged. “Presumably. Why?”

  “Follow me.”

  There was a passage to the garden only a few doors down. Eilwen strode outside and around to the suite’s garden-side door, Ufeus trailing in her wake.

  “Havilah!” She beat against the door with the palm of her hand. “Are you there?” The door was as solid as its inner counterpart, and the latch…

  … was open.

  “That’s not normal,” Ufeus said as the door swung slowly ajar.

  Oh, gods have mercy. Stomach churning, Eilwen peered inside, but the room’s interior was cloaked in shadow. She reached out and poked gingerly at the door, nudging it all the way open.

  Havilah lay sprawled on the floor, his outstretched hand just short of the door.

  “Gods! Havilah!” Eilwen rushed into the room, grasping his hand and pressing it between her palms. “Talk to me. Please. Say something.”

  Ufeus followed her in, hissing through his teeth as he reached the desk. “Ware the box,” he said, and pointed.

  It was small and flat, the size of three fingers pressed together, the faint carvings on its copper face impossible to make out beneath the verdigris. A wicked-looking needle jutted from its side, its tip coated with a viscous, dark goo.

  Poison. Turning Havilah’s hand, she found a pinprick wound just behind his thumb. The bead of blood was already dry.

  Too late. His hand slipped from her grasp and fell limp to the floor. I’m too late.

  Hot tears stung her eyes. “Damn you, Havilah. Damn you, damn you, damn you!” Her fists rained down on his unresisting back and shoulders. “Why did you have to die, damn it? Why did you have to die?”

  Strong hands pulled her back, resisting her efforts to twist away. “Eilwen. Eilwen!” A hard shake, enough to snap her out of her frenzy. “He’s gone, Eilwen. Do you hear me? He’s gone.”

  Her legs gave way beneath her and she sank to the ground, the desk at her back. Ufeus crouched before her. When he spoke, his voice was hard.

  “Look at me, Eilwen,” he said. Slowly, reluctantly, she met his gaze. “You are the adjunct. Do you understand? That means you’re in charge.”

  She stared at him dully. In charge. The words worked their way through her thick, muddy thoughts. Yes. I am in charge. She nodded.

  “We need to tell Master Vorace,” Ufeus said. “We need to inform all the masters, tell them —”

  “No,” Eilwen said, her voice little more than a croak. She coughed. “No,” she said again. “We tell nobody, not yet.”

  “Gods, Eilwen. We can’t keep this a secret —”

  “I mean it.” She glared up at him. “Nobody.”

  “Eilwen —”

  She grabbed his forearm. “Remember what I said before? About needing your service for the sake of the Guild? Well, guess what? Today’s the day.”

  Ufeus pursed his lips. Even in the gloom, the doubt in his eyes was unmistakable.

  “I’m not crazed, Ufeus. But I am, as you just pointed out, in charge.”

  He frowned. “When?”

  “I don’t know! I need to think.”

  “You’ve got tonight,” he said at last. “If you haven’t told the masters by sunrise, I’ll tell them myself.”

  Eilwen scowled. “Fine. But until then, nobody. Understood?”

  He gave a short, grudging nod.

  “Good.” She waved a hand. “Now go.”

  She sagged back against the desk. The air was heavy and still, pressing her down like a great, suffocating mantle. A tap sounded somewhere nearby — someone knocking on Havilah’s door, then a muttered comment as the visitor moved away. Their footsteps sounded hollow, false, as though conjured by some part of her mind that could no longer convince even her.

  Something damp brushed her neck. She reached up to find her collar soaked through. Trails of tears lay thick on her cheeks, and her eyes felt swollen and raw.

  “Oh, Havilah,” she said, and the quaver in her voice was like that of a child. “Why did you have to die?”

  The memory of their first conversation in this room swam before her eyes. The kindness in Havilah’s face as he confronted her about her kills. The trust. She smiled through a fresh outbreak of tears. You believed in me, she thought. I didn’t even believe in myself. Didn’t see any reason why anyone should. But you did anyway. Even though you knew what I was doing, somehow you managed to see past it.

  But then, he hadn’t known her true secret. Would it have made a difference if he had? She wanted to believe that it wouldn’t, that he would have seen her clearly even through that. But maybe betrayal wasn’t the sort of thing you saw through. Maybe it was the sort of thing that was still there at the end, when all the lies and distractions and subterfuge was stripped away.

  The kind of thing that defined who you were.

  Nobody had known her. Not truly. But she’d known all along.

  She was Eilwen Nasareen, and she was a killer.

  She groaned, burying her face in her hands. I tried, Havilah. I tried so hard to become who you thought I could be. She saw Orom walking away down the promenade, saw herself watching him leave, deciding to let him go. When the time had come, she’d chosen wrong, and now Havilah was dead because of it. Because of me.

  But she knew who was behind it, now. And even though she’d failed to save Havilah, she could still save the Guild.

  Laris. The Trademaster had reached out to her, offering her support as Kieffe’s body lay cooling on the other side of the corridor wall. Even then, she’d been playing her. When did it start? Did she agree to my transfer because she thought she could use me against Havilah? Eilwen had been a pawn all along, a piece to be deployed wherever she could best serve someone else’s ends; and the fact that Havilah’s interests aligned with the Guild’s made it no less true of him than it was of Laris. It was how the game was played, and she’d been dragged onto the board without even realising it, way back when Havilah first called her into this room.

  This was not her game. But there was a part of it which was familiar. She’d been trying to fight it, trying to keep it locked away and pretend it wasn’t there. Because Havilah asked me to. But she was tired of fighting. And she was tired of pretending that she didn’t know that sometimes, some things just needed to be done.

  Havilah had seen that, too. Uncompromising, he’d said. This will be my gift to you, Havilah. My gift to the Guild. This part of the game I know all about.

>   Eilwen pushed herself to her feet, grasping the desk to steady herself. Havilah’s body lay sprawled before her. In the darkness, she could almost imagine him to be sleeping.

  She left by the garden door, pulling it carefully closed behind her. No stars shone in the sky, though a silver-grey patch of cloud showed where the moon struggled to break through. The eucalypt outside her own suite rustled softly in the faint breeze, the whisper of its leaves calling to her like a lover.

  The iron trowel was just where she’d left it, in a box of unsorted oddments. She hefted it, frowning at its lightness and the dirt still clinging to its blade. But it had been enough to dig the hole in the first place; and it would be easier the second time, with no roots to cut through.

  She tied back her hair with an old ribbon. Then, kneeling beneath the gently shifting branches, she set to work.

  •

  Laris’s suite was almost a mirror image of Eilwen’s. On the wall where Eilwen had shelves, Laris had chosen to hang a trio of small pastoral pictures with ornate gilt frames. The desk itself was free of personal effects — only a few bundles of paper marred its otherwise empty surface. On the other side lay the back room, Laris’s bedroom. The intervening door stood open, revealing the edge of the bed and a long coat hanging from a hook in the wall. Unlit lamps hung from the ceiling in both rooms.

  Eilwen swung the garden door closed behind her, brushing the fallen glass against the wall with her boot. Then she pulled a chair into the centre of the room and settled in to await the Trademaster’s return.

  She was calm, calmer than she’d felt for a long time. One dagger hung at her side, a second nestled in her boot, and her loop of sharpened wire lay tucked beside her other ankle; and wrapped in lambskin beneath her shirt, the black amber egg. She’d buried it, thinking to bury her killing self with it, but it had been a fool’s hope. The beast had been in her all along. Still, it felt good to have the egg with her, even though she wouldn’t need it tonight. It reminded her of other nights like this — nights of delivering death to those who deserved it. Nights of atonement.