The Archon's Assassin

by D. P. Prior

  This time, he built up his rhythm slowly, until the stone was clanging and grinding against the iron, softening, blending, making it ring with a single musical note.

  He resumed mowing, and after half a dozen mishaps, finally had the motion. His cuts grew smoother, more certain. He began to move around the hilltop steadily, each swish of the scythe barely missing the ground; every blade of grass falling to collect in neat piles at his side. His hands were raw with blisters, his back an agony of needle-stabs, knees fiery and swollen. He labored up onto the summit without one wasted movement, scything like a man skimming milk.

  The blade struck metal, and he stopped, lowering the snaith and crouching down in the tall grass. Something glinted in the soil. He pulled aside the grass and scratched in the earth. It quickly grew visible: the hilt of a sword, followed by the scabbard. A short sword, just like—

  Was it? Could it be…

  He pulled free a gladius, keen-edged and shining, as if newly forged. He stood, went through the forms, thrusting and slashing, twirling the blade. It looked the same; felt the same. The balance was perfect, the weight featherlight. He peered closer at the weapon, noted the knobbed hilt with ridges for the fingers; the central channel. Then he remembered the inscription, lifted the blade to his eyes. There it was, punched into the steel:

  VADE IN PACEM. Go in peace.

  It had always summed up the paradox of the Elect for him: dispatching the enemy with a blessing.

  A tremor ran through his every muscle. The cold clutch of the ineffable tightened around his chest. He could only describe it as dread; but dread of the unknown, the unseen, not of anything tangible.

  Is this why Heredwin had enticed him here? Had he known two days ago? And did he know this was exactly what Aristodeus wanted: for Shader to find the Sword of the Archon and re-enter the fray?

  “The ground is in a giving mood,” Heredwin said, snatching up the scythe. “A job well done deserves a reward.”

  A reward? Is that what it was? And then Shader’s mind was tearing off at another tangent. The Archon’s sword. Was Heredwin… No. The Archon had shown himself to Shader before, that time in the Abyss. There’d been no need for disguise then, so why would there be now?

  Shader stared at the gladius, shaking his head. “But it was lost. Taken from the worlds.” It had buried itself in the flesh of the great serpent, Eingana, and the two had vanished.

  Heredwin touched the blade with a lover’s delicacy. “It was crafted as a safeguard, a receptacle for the Archon’s own power. A mirror of his essence.”

  “But this is what Aristodeus wants,” Shader said. “For me to possess the sword.”

  Heredwin withdrew his hand and leaned on the scythe. “The forgings of the Supernal Realm aren’t objects to be possessed. The Archon made it, but not as a slave. With the sword’s work done, it’s free to do as it pleases; like the wolf-men, to go wherever it’s drawn.”

  But did it still have the same power? The power to heal, to fly as if held in an invisible hand? And what of the way it had protected Shader from the might of Eingana directed against him by Sektis Gandaw?

  Heredwin scoffed, still reading Shader’s thoughts. “You miss that power?”

  Shader didn’t know how to answer that. Part of him did, he was sure. But was that the part nurtured by Aristodeus? Honed to do his bidding?

  “What do you see in your mind’s eye,” Heredwin said, “when you think of all you could have achieved with the sword? All you could still achieve?”

  Shader shut his eyes and focused. He was immediately someplace else: an enormous cavern formed from coal. “A man—I think—a gigantic man, encased in ice.”

  “Look closer. Describe him to me.”

  Tingles of wrongness crawled beneath Shader’s skin. There was a tug on his umbilicus, a steady pressure dragging him toward the figure in ice. Quickly, he called out what he saw: “A shadow. A chiseled shadow. The features are obscured by the ice, but…”

  “Yes?” Heredwin prompted.

  Shader began to shudder. “The eyes. The eyes are violet.”

  Heredwin let out a sharp hiss. “And what do you feel?”

  “Numbness. Boredom.” And then he realized: “His boredom, but bubbling up from it, his bile, his rage.”

  “And what do you hear?” Heredwin asked. “Soft words and caressing whispers? Promises in the dark, leading you home?”

  Shader was about to say no, but then he became aware of it: an almost inaudible susurrus: invitations, enticements, reassurances.

  He opened his eyes and sucked in air. How long had he forgotten to breathe?

  Heredwin put a hand on his arm. The touch was soft and loamy, and the aroma of freshly-tilled earth filled Shader’s nostrils. When Heredwin laughed, it was like the chatter of a sparkling brook.

  “Your ambivalence deafens you to the Demiurgos’s promptings,” Heredwin said. “You neither seek power nor shun it.”

  Shader’s grip on the gladius slackened. “Why is the Sword of the Archon here?”

  “Knows what it wants, I suppose. Reckon it sees right through you.”

  “What—”

  Heredwin cut him off. “It is here because it wants to be. P’raps even because it needs to be.”

  “And you,” Shader wanted to ask. “What about you?”

  Again, Heredwin betrayed the impression he was reading Shader’s thoughts. “I am the Weald’s as she is mine,” he said. “But in this cosmic drama you’ve been pitched into, know that I’ve chosen sides.”

  “The Archon’s?” Shader said.

  “Eingana’s. When she seeded the Earth after her rape, we was all affected. All changed. Just as this sword was changed when it lodged within her flesh.”

  Heredwin stared off into the clouds for a long moment. When he next spoke, there was a hint of amusement in his voice. “And what of you, Pater? Which side will you take?”

  Shader returned the gladius to its scabbard. “Rhiannon’s. Saphra’s. If they’re alive, I’ll bring them back. And if they’re dead, I’ll avenge them.”

  “So, you will do the philosopher’s bidding, after all? You will travel to Aethir?”

  Shader could do nothing about that. “Can you get me there?”

  Heredwin shook his head, the white patches of his mask dazzling in the sun, the black lost in shadow.

  “I have eyes and ears on Aethir but cannot pass there.”

  “What about Sammy—Huntsman’s apprentice?” The boy had walked between worlds as if he’d been born to it. “Can you contact him?”

  “Sahul rarely listens to the Weald.”

  Shader ground his teeth in frustration. “Is that it? All the help you can give?” He was starting to resent the mowing, time he could have spent doing something—anything—that might bring Rhiannon back.

  “I’ve heard,”—Heredwin cupped a hand to his ear—“that Aristodeus may soon have business in Verusia. You might say a little birdie told me.”

  “He’s on Earth?”

  Heredwin shook his head. “Has a group to do his bidding. Sent them to old Sartis on Aethir.” He let out a scornful laugh. “If the fire giant don’t eat them, they’ll be headed to the Schwarzwald next. Of that, I’m certain.”

  How did he know? Why Verusia?

  Shader shook off the swarm of clamoring thoughts and tried to focus on the practicalities. “So, they can travel between the worlds. Is it one of Aristodeus’s portals, a plane ship?”

  “My point is,” Heredwin said, “that if they can get here, they can likely get back, if you follow what I’m saying.”

  Shader did. The only problem was that Verusia was across the Channel and the other side of occupied Gallia.

  He opened his mouth to say as much, but the words would have been redundant.

  “This is the help I can give you.” Heredwin swept out his arm as a proud black stallion trotted over the brow of the hill, nickering and throwing its great head. It scraped the earth with its hoof and rolled its pearly
eyes at Shader, studying him. He felt naked under its gaze, and not a little unworthy.

  “Caledon will bear you as swift as a gale, and he knows how to evade Sahulian patrols.” Anticipating Shader’s next question, Heredwin went on. “The Ancients built a tunnel under the sea to Gallia. Caledon knows the way. You’ll be there before noon, trusting you don’t meet any adversity. He knows his way to Verusia, too. It’s to the heart of the Black Forest, you needs go. To the town of Wolfmalen.”

  “Wolfmalen?” Shader said. “But that’s—”

  “The home of the Liche Lord, yes,” Heredwin said.

  Shader started to say no. Verusia was bad enough, after what he’d been through with the Seventh Horse. After Trajinot. But Otto Blightey’s doorstep?

  “Aristodeus sees his lackeys as expendable,” Heredwin said. “Bar one. We do not feel the same way.”

  “We” again. We are like the insects in our numbers.

  Heredwin chuckled. “Plentiful but hidden. Forgotten by all but simpletons, lunatics, and poets; the transgressors of time; and the turncoats among the homunculi of Aethir, who share with us their scheming. Other than that, you could be forgiven for thinking we didn’t exist.”

  “So, why me?” Why had Heredwin revealed himself to Shader?

  “Why indeed? Ask yourself that again one day.”

  “And what do you mean ‘bar one’? Who’s not expendable?”

  “The dwarf with no name.”

  “Nameless? He’s sending Nameless to the Liche Lord?”

  “And others with him. A priest known to you. The soldier that watches over him. A tribesman of the Mamba, a pair of assassins, and one of our turncoats.”

  Priests and assassins? With Nameless?

  “They seek the Liche Lord’s armor. I fear for them. For them all.”

  “This priest. You said he was known to me.”

  “Ludo, his name is.”

  “Ludo? But how? What’s he—?”

  “And one of the assassins is pale-skinned and pink of eye.”

  “Shadrak?”

  What had Aristodeus done? How had he managed this? Brought them all together? Ludo had no place in his scheming. And Verusia… None of them should go anywhere near there. Evil like Blightey’s was best left well alone.

  Heredwin was already walking away over the hill. “Wherever there’s meddling, evil’s not far behind. Watch for wolves in sheep’s clothing, and you might just save your friends. Might even get your woman back, too.”

  My woman? Shader thought. Hardly.

  But he would find Rhiannon, whatever it took. She’d suffered due to her involvement with him, and that made him responsible. Responsible for her daughter, too.

  And then he would deal with Aristodeus.

  Heredwin had gone, and Shader was alone with the stallion. The scent of fresh-cut grass filled his nostrils, and a light breeze caressed the skin of his cheeks. He touched his weathered face, felt the hotness left by mowing in the sun.

  Taking a long look at the encompassing Weald, the rolling hills surmounting distant Hallow, he savored the moment, as if it were to be the last peace he would ever know.

  THE FIRE GIANT’S OVEN

  Mount Sartis, Aethir

  Shog, it was darker than Ballbreaker’s Black Ale.

  Stifling as a stout lassie’s chest hair, too.

  There’d been heat. Tremendous heat, and then… nothing. Not strictly nothing: an acrid stench first. The sensation of being hoisted aloft as the glow coming off the lava swirled away to a pinprick, and then even that went out.

  A hard floor pressed into his back. He swept his hands out, felt with his fingers. Metal. He turned his head for a look, but it was so heavy he cricked his neck. He groaned and let it drop back to the floor—with a clang.

  “Shog,” he rasped, as if he’d gargled sand. He coughed, and phlegm came up, sooty and reeking of eggs.

  He spat, but it splashed against something and dripped back in his face. Was he in a box? A metal box? Some kind of coffin? His heart skipped a beat then rattled off a drum roll. He only prevented it from growing to a full-blown military tattoo by telling himself the thought made no sense. He’d lifted his head, and it clanged when it struck the floor. That meant either—

  What was that smell? It was the same stench he’d breathed in before passing out, only there was something else: residual vomit, maybe. Like when someone heaved in a beer hall, and they mopped it up with nothing but water. And there were other smells, too, vaguer, harder to discern. Sweat, perhaps. A hint of garlic? A fart? Yes, someone had most definitely ruptured the keg, as they used to say in Arx Gravis.

  Now there was a familiar name. A name that begged the question: Who was he? Arx Gravis. Dwarves. The dwarves of the Ravine City. Yes, and they had beer halls. And that term—ruptured the keg—it was a euphemism for the malodorous flatulence associated with drinking Ironbelly’s Special Brew, a drink derided as piss by any respectable dwarf, but one guzzled with gusto when it was all they had left.

  He brought a hand to the side of his head and gave a light rap. Metal again. Or stone. Or something in between. He was pretty sure he didn’t have a metal head. He remembered snogging any number of wenches; had felt their bristles brush against his own. So, it was on his head; around it. Some kind of casing. A helm, then.

  Course it was. A black one, made of scarolite. That bald bastard had put it on him, back when… back when…

  The Dodecagon. That was it: the place it had happened. The council chamber. The philosopher had been there—Aristodeus—along with Thumil and Cordy and, and, and… Which one was he? Couldn’t have been Cordy. She had breasts and hips and the finest golden beard. That left Thumil, which seemed about right.

  Only it wasn’t, because he remembered looking out at Thumil and Cordy through the slit of a great helm and wondering how it had come to this; wondering who the shog he was.

  Thumil’s hair—all patchy, coming out in tufts. He’d wondered back then if he was responsible for that, what with all the trouble he’d caused. But that was the thing of it: what trouble? He was shogged if he could recall his own name, never mind whatever it was he was supposed to have done.

  In his mind’s eye, he strode to one of the Dodecagon’s stone doors. They were hermetically sealed, but he was imagining, and he’d seen what was on the other side of them many a time. Only, when he passed through the stone like a ghost, it wasn’t the fluted columns, the hexagonal brickwork, or even the statues of the mythical kings of Arnoch that caught his attention. It was the canal of blood flowing from deep within the ravine city itself, and bobbing in its crimson waters, grotesque islands made from the dismembered bodies of countless dwarves.

  He tried to scream, but his throat was too dry. He shook and shuddered, gasped for breath, hoping against hope it would not come; that he’d suffocate in this tomb of darkness, and have all trace he’d ever existed expunged from the world.

  Involuntarily, air squeezed down his throat, tickled the tops of his lungs, and left him panting for more. His skull was a burning agony radiating from a thudding pain between his eyes. His stomach knotted, reminding him it was still there. He tested out his legs, rolled from the hips, extended the knees.

  He flapped his hands about, patting, reaching. His fingers found something, curled around it. A familiar weight scuffed along the floor as he pulled it closer. An axe. How come he knew it was an axe, but still didn’t know who he was?

  The retreating red waters of his vision seemed to gurgle and say, “A butcher. Isn’t it obvious? Kin-killer, pariah, the most damned of all dwarven kind.” But he wasn’t Maldark the Fallen, that much he knew. He was worse, his crimes even greater. Was that his doom, his punishment, to eternally remember the horrors he’d committed without ever knowing his own name?

  He sat, still half-expecting to meet pressed earth or the lid of a coffin. Rolling to his knees, he crawled ahead, pushing the axe in front of him. It stopped against something soft and giving. He poked with his fingers, g
ripped fabric, and shook. Someone groaned in response.

  Peering into the darkness beyond whoever it was, he could see the hairline of a square etched in reddish light. He scrambled toward it until he reached a wall. It was warm and metallic like the floor. Tracing the edge of the square, he found a little purchase and pulled. There was an answering rattle, but it didn’t budge. A door, then, locked or bolted. He pushed, but there was no give. With a swell of curses pressing up against his clenched teeth, he began to pound at it with the haft of the axe.

  People started to moan and cough. He stole a look behind. Yellow slits stared back at him through the dark. There was a low growl, a light patter as the devilish eyes drew nearer, and then a voice, harsh and throaty, the words barely formed.

  “Calm… Nameless… No… fear.”

  Nameless? That was… That was what Shadrak had called him, back then. In Arx Gravis, when Shader had awoken him in his cell. Yes, Nameless: the name that wasn’t a name. Identity dawned on him like a bad memory. And like memories, it was riddled with empty spaces—the things he couldn’t remember; the things he shouldn’t.

  Pushing down on the axe haft, he stood. The blackness began to shimmer and dance with tiny lights—living lights that banked and twirled, drifted and hovered. More and more of the creatures swarmed into the air, casting their orange glow about the cramped room and the huddled bodies shifting and moaning on the floor. They were insects, fireflies, swarming from the gaping maw of a wolf, which trembled and panted, but never released him from its jaundiced glare.

  There was enough light now to see that they were in some kind of iron chamber, a cell of sorts, with just the one outline of a door but no visible lock or handle. The walls were skirted with a thicker ridge of metal dotted with the mouths of tubes.

  “Better,” barked the wolf, as the air around it buckled and folded, and Bird stood in its place. The little man scratched his bald head and drew his feathered cloak around him. Heavy lids drooped over his eyes, and beneath his hawkish nose, a faint smile played on his lips. His skin was dappled with the light of the fireflies, and deep grooves crisscrossed his face, giving him the appearance of one of the mummified councilors perpetually displayed in Arx Gravis’s corridors of power.