by S. G. Night
“I don’t—”
“Quicka,” she stated. “You should at least know that one. It’s the only one you need to worry about. You know, the one you use every time you open it?” She swatted him again. “You need to find the rune with your mind — it won’t be hard, it’s looking for something to bind itself to right now — and assign the command you want it to respond to.”
Racath stuck his tongue out at her. “You’re obnoxious.”
She mimicked his gesture. “Same to you. But we love you anyway. Go on, bind it. I’d recommend a very specific word, preferably Rotenic, that way you don’t accidentally stab someone if the word open comes to mind.”
Chuckling, Racath ruffled his friend’s hair, then looked back at the gauntlet. Extending his thoughts, he searched for the rune. He found a tickling presence emanating from both gauntlets, like a feather inside his skull. Pinning it down with his mind, he concentrated on it.
He felt something fall into place. The tingling vanished. Racath tested it. The blades opened, virgin Ioan Steel gleaming.
“There we go!” Alexis applauded. “It should be bound to your thoughts now. Now you, and only you, can open it using whatever command you assigned to it. Pure fauling magic, right?”
Racath nodded and shut the blades again. “Superb. Next?”
Alexis took the crossbow from the table and gave it to him to examine.
“I hate crossbows,” Racath grumbled, taking the weapon.
Alexis bobbed her head. “You’ve told me. For the sake of this demonstration, please reiterate your reasons?”
“They’re hard to aim over long distance,” Racath answered. “And they’re a pain to reload.”
She nodded again. “Agreed. I designed this with those drawbacks in mind.” She pointed to the stings and Racath noticed a system of pulleys built into the device. “When fired, these pulleys are activated by more of my rotendry, and the bow redraws itself for the next shot. You can fire about once every two seconds, more or less.”
“More or less?”
Alexis waggled her hand side to side in a vague gesture. “It gets better though!” She indicated a cylinder buried in the weapon’s body. “Encased in that cylinder are three bolts. Ioan steel, quarter-inch diameter. When you fire, the cylinder rotates and the next bolt falls into place. No manual reloading at all.”
She took the crossbow from him and pointed to a switch on the side. “When you flip this, it rotates the cylinder so that a fourth bolt in the center of the cylinder is loaded. It's got hooked ends, and is attached to a fifty foot cable. Once it hits, you can hold the trigger down and the rotendry on the crossbow kicks in. The cable will retract itself and pull you to your destination.”
“A grapple gun,” Racath said, nodding appreciatively. “Very nice.”
“But don’t think it ends there!” she said excitedly. “You said crossbows are hard to aim over range? Well look at this.” She handed it back to him and pointed at the tube mounted on top of the bow. “Look through that.”
He did so. The tube was a magnifying telescope of sorts. A black cross was inked into the glass lenses, like a targeting sight.
“Now that is impressive stuff, kiddo,” Racath grinned at her. “You’ve outdone yourself.”
“You haven’t even gotten to the best part yet!” Alexis exclaimed, almost dancing with anticipation. “Go on. Ask me how you reload the cylinder after three shots.”
“How do you reload the cylinder after three shots.”
Alexis’s grin was nearly manic. “You don’t.” She took the crossbow back from him and shouldered it. “I was recently rereading that book rotendry that Mrak lends me sometimes. I discovered a few new tricks, but this one in particular takes the cake.”
She turned back to the targets. She sighted, adjusted, and opened fire. Three twangs sounded in quick succession as the bolts lashed out from the weapon, impaling the targets downrange. She looked back at Racath. “Three bolts. I’m out, right?”
Racath nodded.
Without taking her eyes off him, Alexis lifted her arm again and fired off a few more showoffishly blind shots. More bolts erupted from the crossbow, streaking across the range to strike the target.
Racath raised his eyebrows. “How did you…?”
Alexis hit a switch on the weapon and the cylinder to come loose. She showed Racath the contents: three steel bolts glinted in their chambers. Frowning, Racath looked downrange. No bolts protruded from the impacted target.
“The rune I found,” she explained. “Is called ceangalek.”
Racath thought a moment. “To tether?”
“Exactly!” she exclaimed. “Tether. With a couple of extra runes attached to it, I can bind a projectile to its projector. The magic activates once it’s fired, and the effect takes hold once it’s come to a complete stop. With both the missile and the chamber engraved with matching runes, the bolt will…” she bobbed her head back and forth, looking for a word. “Slip through some extraplanar fabric. I don’t really understand how that part works, but the point is that the shots jump back to the magazine after they stop moving.”
Racath whistled. “I repeat, impressive.”
“Just don’t fire it into the sky,” Alexis warned. “Or you’ll be waiting a while for the bolts to reappear.”
“Gotcha,” he said. “This is really good work, Alexis.”
The shorter Majiski beamed at him. “Thanks! It’s not perfect. The recoil is pretty hefty, and it’s a little too heavy and conspicuous to lug around. But I like it. I call it the bolter.”
He gave her a questioning look. “Really? The bolter?”
“What?” Alexis demanded. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Naming is not your specialty, kiddo.”
She showed him her tongue again. “Faul you, you’re just jealous. Could you please take that with you to Milonok, too? Give it a field test for me? I would keep it in the safe house for the most part if I were you, but it might come in handy at some point.”
Racath reached around and gave Alexis a tight one-armed hug. “Thanks, Lexi. I’ll take good care of it.”
“You had better!” she laughed at him. “It’s kind of my baby. I think you’ll enjoy it though. Just try not to have too much fun without me!”
***
EIGHT
Judge, Jury, Executioner
The bell towers rang the seventh hour over the city of Dírorth. The evening leaned toward nightfall. The sky burned a dull, bloody red as the sunset painted the clouds. Side by side, Notak and Rachel crossed over the rooftops of the city: two ebon shades under the gathering dusk.
They came to perch upon a roof that overlooked the empty street. Across the way was a large blocky building of oblate stone — the Westward Trade Company’s central warehouse in Dírorth, home to Hammon’s offices.
Notak and Rachel had scouted everything out the day before. It had been Simtag, and the streets had been nearly vacant from sunrise to sunset while the mandated worship at the Mnogo shrines took place. The Scorpions had taken the opportunity to scope out their objectives. Rachel had searched for a secluded area along Hammon’s route to the Gilded Lily. Notak had surveyed the warehouse.
To his chagrin, Notak had discovered that the merchant was far deeper in the Demons’ pocket than they had originally realized. He knew that the Dominion sometimes would sponsor businesses or establishments that they had particular interests in, providing them with logistical resources, permits, loans, and even detachments of Arkûl for security purposes. But Notak had never seen anything like this.
The warehouse a veritable fortress, bristling with Dominion presence. A high wooden fence ensconced the perimeter. The only entrance was an iron gate near the front. And it was guarded. Notak had counted twenty-four Arkûl soldiers within the warehouse compound. They all wore the customary black armor, stamped with the Dominion’s emblem. Each sported a small buckler, a short scimitar at the waist, and a long halberd.
Notak had been able
to gather a rough understanding of their cycles: at any one time, at least two Arkûl flanked the gate, two more guarded the inner door, squads of four patrolled the interior, and four Arkûl with short bows protected the roof.
The patterns were the same tonight as they’d been the day before. Beacons of torchlight floated along the inside of the fence, like candles on a river, and the silhouettes of the four bowmen overlooked the roof.
“Mother of heaven…” Rachel breathed as she crouched next to Notak in the darkness of their roost across the street. “You said this place was guarded, not that it was entrenched. Faul, that’s not a warehouse, that’s a garrison that likes to hold crates in its spare time!”
“Well put,” Notak nodded. “It is nothing I cannot handle though. I have prepared.”
He had had to resort to something that Oron called intangible projection in order to examine the inside of the building. It was an old Magick that allowed him to separate his consciousness from his body and move freely without being seen. It had its risks — if you spent too much time projected, or if you wandered too far from your body, the separation could become permanent. Then follows death.
But Notak had used the power sparingly and had thusly been able to locate a second-story window. A window that the Arkûl patrols would leave unguarded for the space of fifteen seconds every quarter hour or so. After that, he had ghosted his projection through the walls to examine the interior and locate Hammon’s offices.
“You sure?” Rachel asked uncertainly. “If you want, we can go after Hammon first, then come back and I could help you with this. Together we could pick off the patrols one at a time before going inside.”
Notak shook his head. “No. I had a similar thought — I even considered burning the place down afterward to cover our tracks — but no. Hammon’s death needs to look random, like a back-alley robbery gone wrong. It would be too clear a coincidence for any crisis to emerge at the warehouse of a man who is found dead in a side-street on the same night. The Dominion would suspect.”
Rachel frowned. “I guess you’re right. But are you sure you can handle that many Arkûl?”
“Getting over the fence will not be an issue. I will stay to the shadows their torches cast. They will not see me.”
Rachel shrugged indifferently. “Alright, then.”
“What about you?” Notak asked. “Are you ready?”
She grinned at him. “Oh yeah. I’ve got this guy nailed down. Check this out.”
She nodded at the gate, and Notak looked. A minute passed. Nothing happened.
“What am I looking at?”
“Hang on…” Rachel murmured, watching the gate. “Right about….” The city bell towers tolled once, announcing the half-hour. “Now.”
Below, the gate creaked open, then rattled shut again. A short, plump man in canary yellow robes and an ugly scarlet hat emerged from the warehouse, waddling out into the street. His feet followed a straight, deliberate path down the street.
“That’s him,” Rachel said. Notak noticed how her voice had turned flat and brittle, a low anger rumbling in the back of her throat. “I’m off. Good luck. Don’t get caught.” Clapping him on the shoulder, she stood and ran across the rooftops in the same direction Hammon was walking. She disappeared into the night.
Alone on the roof, Notak returned his attention to the warehouse. He moved to the roof adjacent, getting a different view of the warehouse. From here, he could see the window above the spiked fence posts. He reached out with magic, feeling for the latch with a telekinetic hand. He caught it. Grasped it. Lifted. As though of its own volition, the window opened soundlessly.
Notak released the magic and checked for the Arkûl. There was still torchlight flickering on the walls beneath the window. He watched, waited, until the Arkûl guards begin to rotate their shifts, the iron of their armor clanking as they shuffled. The area was empty — his opening had arrived. Time to move.
He took a few steps back, tensed, and ran at the ledge, hurling himself out into the air over the street.
I should mention something here, about Notak, and Elves in general. Their long absence from Io has created a thick fog of myth around their true natures, myths that have receded only slightly in recent years. One such myth is that the strength of an Elf can match that of a Majiski. That they can strike as hard, run as fast, or jump as high.
While there is some evidence of this, it’s not necessarily the truth. I read once that scholars of the Third Age determined that an adult Majiski possesses the strength, speed, and stamina of anywhere between three to seven Human men, depending on the specimen. Five is a good rule-of-thumb.
Elves, however, are not significantly more adroit than Humans are. You see, while a Majiski is strong because of their natural physiology, they can also draw on their store of magic to amplify their strength. Elves can do this, too — and their supply of arcane energy is substantially larger than a Majiski’s, in terms of raw quantity. As a result, an Elf can draw on enough magic to amplify their physical power to become the rough equal of an unamplified Majiski, if need be.
And that’s what Notak did here. He drew on as much raw magic he could to fuel his muscles, and leapt out into the night. A streak of black shadow, he soared from the roof, across the width of the road, somersaulted, and alighted silently on the other side of the warehouse fence.
With only a few precious seconds to spare, he took three graceful strides, jumped, scrambled up the warehouse wall, and caught the windowsill. Fluidly, he lifted his body upward and entered the warehouse feet-first.
The twilight outside vanished and Notak was plunged into the dusky ambiance of the warehouse. He landed quietly upon the slate floor among a city of crates, shelves, and wooden boxes.
The vast, single room was lit in small spots by hanging lanterns that cast circles of yellow light across the floor, leaving a thousand corners drenched in heavy shadows. Notak noticed several spearheads bobbing up and down above the stacks of crates — more Arkûl patrols. And, on the other side of the warehouse, a staircase reached upward to connect to a blocky, enclosed loft that perched on the wall above the sea of boxes: Hammon’s office.
Notak looked around, searching for the best way to circumnavigate the Arkûl patrolling the crates. He spotted a system of rafters in the high ceiling. Perfect.
He took his lanac axe from his belt and released the lock; the head came free from the shaft and dangled from its long, silver chain. Double-checking to make sure he was completely unseen, Notak climbed one of the shelves, covered the axe with an envelope of magic wards that would muffle any noise it made, and swung his arm in a wide loop.
The axe head wrapped itself around one of the rafters. Notak jumped, swinging from the axe like a vine from a tree. From such a height, the lanterns that lit the warehouse hung below him, shrouding him in darkness as he swung above the heads of the guards. The lanac’s head came free at the height of Notak’s swing and he back-flipped, grabbing onto the rafters so that he clung to them upside down. Carefully, he redrew the axe head and locked it in place. After returning the weapon to his belt, Notak spidered his way from rafter to rafter.
The Arkûl did not see him.
Soon he was hanging above the top of the staircase. Staying close to the shadows, he lowered his feet down and dropped, landing on his toes to avoid announcing his arrival. Quickly as he could, he opened the office door and slipped inside.
Hammon’s vacant office had changed little since Notak had visited as an intangible projection the day before. The walls hosted tall shelves of ledgers and record boxes, as well as a single window that permitted the lantern light outside to bleed through. Most of the space was filled by the large desk covered with ink, parchment, and small knickknacks.
His cat-eyes guiding him through the blackness, Notak walked around the desk and examined the shelf behind it — the place where he had found his target the day before. Notak bit his lip, scanning the over the records. He found a shelf marked manifests, which
was laden with neat stacks of small, identical books. Brass plaques beneath the separate stacks were embossed with dates and various letters. Soon, Notak found the label he was looking for: Year 107.
Notak pulled down the corresponding stack of books and laid them out on the desk. Each bore the name of a month in shiny metallic leaf. The months of the year that had already past — Nizan, Zif, Sivan, and Tamur — were filled from cover to cover with lists and inventories written in careful lettering. The books for the current month, Deach, and the month after were partially filled with what Notak assumed to be tentative manifests and estimates. The rest were empty.
Notak gathered the books and fitted them into a small satchel on his belt. Excellent, he thought to himself. The objective was secured. No flaws in the infiltration. No blood spilt. No foul-ups. His part of the mission was done with. All that was left now was for him to get out, and for Rachel to kill Hammon.
She would have fun with that, Notak was sure of it. He was glad to let her have that little savage pleasure. He had no objection with her taking the blood onto her hands this time. Or any time. There was always plenty of blood to go around. And he didn’t want any more of it than was absolutely necessary.
His task complete, Notak left the office and snuck his way out of the warehouse. No one saw him leave. No one heard his exit. No one ever even knew he was there.
——
Rachel had picked her spot carefully. Hammon’s route to the Gilded Lily would take him through the more squalid parts of Redborough. Bad neighborhoods, places that the wealthy usually avoided. But Hammon, apparently, had no fear of strolling through bandit territory. Another facet of his wealth-spawned arrogance, perhaps. It was honestly a marvel of its own that Hammon hadn’t been killed already.
Yesterday, Rachel had found a spot on the roof of an abandoned building on Lifter’s Street, next to a dark, narrow alley. Lifter’s Street was the seediest of the seedy, dilapidated and deserted, save for a few street gangs that found shelter in the rubble. And, for some idiotic reason, Hammon passed through it every Antag at quarter-to-eight. In just a few minutes, the Human would walk right under Rachel’s roost on the old roof. Like a fat, yellow rodent waddling right beneath an angry panther’s tree.
