I couldn't. If it was important to Synza that our runins gain the proportions of some mythic duel of wits, then all I could do was play along.
"You were unlucky in Paen Acha," I said, striving for a tone of professional indifference.
"There's no such thing as luck," snarled Synza. "As I said, I was careless. Please don't imagine you can pander to my ego."
I strove to keep my voice steady — and not to point out how he'd just contradicted himself. "I'm just offering my opinion. It was a chance in a thousand that Alvantes startled me at that precise moment."
"A chance I should have accounted for. Do you really imagine such factors can't be predicted, with sufficient care? How did you ever manage as a thief?"
"Not so well," I admitted.
"Hmm. At least you admit your failings." Synza mastered his irritation with a visible effort. "Anyway. Before we go further, don't you think you ought to thank me?"
I'd just started to get to grips with inventing questions, and now here was a fresh conundrum. What could Synza possibly believe I had to thank him for? He'd been trying to kill me for days, and he certainly hadn't failed through a lack of effort. He'd killed Stone, but that had hardly been for my benefit. Even letting me live while he rambled psychotically didn't seem enough to warrant gratitude.
I dredged my mind to think what else had happened recently that might hint at a professional killer interfering in my affairs.
Yet the instant I realised, it seemed obvious. "You killed the guard in the palace," I said.
"Of course I did."
"Thank you," I added, remembering how we'd arrived at the subject. "That can't have been easy."
"Penetrating the most protected building in the land? Disposing of a guard unseen whilst inside its environs? It certainly wasn't."
It was clear he was itching to tell me the details. Was this really the same composed and silent killer I'd once found so unnerving? He was no longer composed, and he certainly wasn't silent. Nor did he seem to be on anything approaching the right side of sane.
"I'm curious," I said. "What were you doing there?"
As I'd predicted, Synza began to reply almost before the question was out of my mouth. "Rumour in the city was that the guard-captain of Altapasaeda and a companion had been imprisoned, pending their execution. What a maddening twist! Getting into the palace was a chore, even for me. Fortunately, the guard was good enough to let me know where they were keeping you before I relieved him of his duties. I waited in a nearby passage to calculate my next move… and before I knew it, your friend Alvantes was blundering past. After I'd checked your cell and found that you'd also vanished, what could I do but follow and hope he'd lead me to you?"
If I'd had any thoughts of trying to keep him talking, I was wondering now if I'd ever get him to shut up. It was as though a dam that had been in place for years, perhaps his entire life, had suddenly and irrevocably ruptured.
I decided it might be better if he didn't know he'd crept past me not once but twice in the prison corridors. I went for ambiguity instead. "You must have been close."
"If I hadn't had to work my way round the outside of the courtyard, I'd have had you at the stables. By the time I realised you'd blundered within my reach, you'd blundered out of it again. It took me time to pick up your trail once you'd fled the palace. Again, I was near. But who could have imagined Alvantes's fool of a father had been careless enough that the King would send out Stick and Stone? Saved from the attentions of one assassin by the intervention of two others!" Synza chuckled hideously. "As I suggested at the opening of our conversation, you are an impossibly lucky man. And as I further intimated, your luck has finally run out."
So that was it? He was happy to keep me breathing so long as I was listening to his rambling exploits, but now he had them off his chest, my services were no longer required? "Wait," I said. "Are you really telling me you broke into the dungeon to kill me so nobody else could kill me first?"
"Of course. How else could I possibly fulfil my orders?"
"I think Mounteban might have let that one slide, under the circumstances."
"This isn't about Mounteban!" Synza roared.
I tumbled back. My rucksack ground hard against my spine, but I barely noticed. Suddenly my heart was thumping in my ears. The rage in his face, normally so expressionless, made me want to crawl off the cliff just to avoid him. He was trembling with fury, head to toe. I couldn't tear my eyes from the slender-bladed knife in his hand, shaking now like a ship's mast in a storm.
Synza took a step towards me.
Then, more slowly, he dragged the knife down to his side, as though he were only partly in control of his own body. He exhaled, scrunched his eyes and clenched his fists, held like that for a long moment.
Synza opened his eyes. "This isn't about Mounteban," he repeated, softly. "This is about professionalism. Something I pride myself on, and in which I've inexcusably failed. What is there to do but put right what I can?"
"I can appreciate that," I said distractedly. Now that I wasn't in immediate fear for my life, I was fully aware of how excruciating was the pain in my back. Something was digging there, a sharp-edged circle pressed into my flesh. And I'd remembered what it was. That knowledge sent a flush of heat through my whole body, a sensation precariously balanced between hope and panic. All this time, I'd been thinking I was helpless…
"Frankly," said Synza, "you exhausted my patience. Who knew such a thing was possible? I grew indiscreet. Though I take some comfort from the fact that Alvantes and yourself will certainly be blamed for my more careless deeds, the fact remains that I've failed my master — failed for the first time in thirty years." He smiled — and the knife in his clenched fist came up once more. "But I tell you this… it will be worth it all to hear you scream."
"Well, that's something, I suppose."
I could see that my cheerfulness threw him. "Shall we to business then?" he said.
"I agree. Absolutely."
This time, Synza eyed me with undisguised curiosity. "I confess I wasn't expecting such enthusiasm."
"To business. And our first order of business should be the extremely good reason you have not to kill me."
"Oh, Damasco. I hope you don't intend to spoil the moment by begging." Synza looked genuinely dejected. "Hasn't this exchange been amicable so far? What a pity to shame yourself now. You can't outbid Castilio Mounteban. Even if you could, you couldn't. You have nothing that could interest me. You never have had and you never will."
"I don't doubt it," I said. But I do have something I think will interest Castilio quite a lot. Far more than my head. Something, in fact, that he'd find so intensely interesting he might even overlook just how long it's taken you to follow his order."
"You run the risk of wounding my feelings. I've made no secret that my performance in this matter has been unsatisfactory. But that is a concern for me and my master only."
"Still, a little added incentive couldn't hurt. Say, if you were to take me back alive, with the one thing he wants most in the world. The thing I'd been planning to take him anyway, to bargain for his protection. Since we're here, I don't see why the negotiations shouldn't start a little early."
"I struggle to know whether you're entertaining or annoying me," said Synza. "Very well. For the sake of ending our unduly long acquaintance on an agreeable note, why don't you explain?"
I began to shrug my pack from my shoulders.
"I don't need to tell you that you shouldn't make any sudden moves," he added. "Or that no move you make could possibly be sudden enough."
The average tortoise would have been unlikely to describe my movements as sudden; but I slowed even further, inching the straps off by degrees. Once they were free, I laid the pack on the strip of tousled grass between me and the edge. If I still wasn't sure how I could turn my one hole card into a genuine bargaining tool, common sense suggested that placing it in jeopardy was a good start.
I unbuckled the pack's straps, f
olded back the flap, loosened the drawstring within. I reached inside, drew out my bundled cloak and placed it delicately beside the bag. I didn't need to look to know I had Synza's interest. Making my movements all the more deliberate, I peeled back the layers of cloak and clothing as though they were the skin of some impossibly delicate fruit.
I only looked up when the first glint of gold was revealed. Now I had his attention, all right.
"Is that what I think it is, Damasco?"
"If you think it's the royal crown of Altapasaeda," I said, "the one object that could consolidate Castilio Mounteban's authority over the city beyond doubt or question, then yes, it's what you think it is."
"How did you… no, that's a redundant question. You're a thief and, as I've observed more than once now, improbably lucky. Let that be explanation enough. Give it to me now."
I picked up the crown with my good left hand — but instead of passing it to Synza, I held my arm straight out behind me. "I could do that," I said. "Or I could just let go."
"Not before I got to you."
"Maybe."
"And not without abandoning your only hope of bargaining for your life."
"Is that what we're doing, then?" I asked. "Bargaining?"
"Perhaps we are." His tone was grudging.
I shifted closer to the edge. "I think I'm going to need something a little more definite than 'perhaps'."
"It's all you'll get with such transparent bluffing."
"You're really willing to chance it?"
"Perfectly so."
This wasn't going well. Then again, what had I expected? Synza was right. I was bluffing, it was obvious, and it was getting me nowhere. I was tempted to hurl the crown off the cliff, just to reclaim a shred of dignity before my inevitable demise.
The thought must have shown in my face — because unexpectedly, Synza said, "Since the advantage is in every way mine, however, why take chances? Bring it to me, and we'll discuss the possibility of your continuing existence."
"What guarantee do I have?"
Synza sighed with mock weariness. "None at all. I could make you a promise you'd have no reason to believe, if it would make you feel better. You have my word that we'll discuss the matter. It's all you'll get."
Fair enough. I had no intention of giving him the crown anyway. I just wanted to get closer, while anger and frustration were blunting his killer instincts. The crown might not be heavy, exactly, but it had some heft. Anyway, this was my one and only option. Synza would certainly spot an attack, probably faster than I could conceive it. His knife would be acquainting itself with my guts in a flash. It was a chance, though. If nothing else, it was a chance.
"With your right hand, please."
There went my chance.
"I hurt my arm," I said, sounding even more pathetic than I'd intended. "It's useless."
"Nonsense. You've suffered a slight fracture. If you should survive the next few minutes, and if you're careful, it will heal within a week. If you weren't such a coward in the face of pain, you could use it perfectly well."
I almost asked how he could possibly know such a thing. Then it struck me that if anyone would understand the intricacies of the human body, it was a man who'd spent a lifetime studying how to damage it in imaginative ways.
I tried to flex my fingers. Pain thundered up from them, nailing itself in my shoulder. But my fingers moved, if slightly. I tried again. The pain redoubled. So did the degree of movement. Synza was right, damn him. If I could only endure the excruciation, the arm was useable.
Gritting my teeth, I transferred the crown from my left hand to my right. That meant clasping my fingers all the way, and that meant a rush of liquid fire, as though every drop of blood from the tips of my fingers upwards had spontaneously combusted. I was determined not to give Synza the satisfaction of hearing me scream. However, the whimper I made instead was far from manly.
I kept my arm as outstretched as I could stand. Now the crown was suspended over thin air — and my threat was suddenly far less empty. In fact, it was all I could do not to drop it.
I took a short step forward. Synza put his free hand out. The knife was in his right, forcing him to use his left. One pace would bridge the gap between us.
"I give you the crown and we'll talk?" I asked.
"We'll talk."
"About you letting me live?"
"Absolutely." He made no effort to hide his impatience.
I edged forward. "You promise?"
Synza reached for the crown, still just barely out of his reach. "I promise."
I shuffled another short step. "On Mounteban's life?"
"On Mounteban's…? For the love of…"
I hit him in the face with the crown.
It might have been the weakest blow ever struck by one grown man upon another. It definitely hurt me a thousand times more than it did him. Still, Synza looked inordinately shocked. He licked a trickle of blood from his lower lip. "Did you really just…?"
I hit him with all my strength. This time, I used my good hand and aimed specifically for his jaw. I felt it crunch like a bag of grit.
"You did."
He lurched towards me, knife first — or rather, towards where I'd been the barest instant before. Synza wasn't the only one who could move fast when circumstances called for it. Now there was no Easie Damasco where he expected me to be. Now there was only my outstretched leg.
If he'd been even remotely calm, I'd never have got away with it. That made the bewildered anger contorting his face all the more satisfying.
I only got to enjoy it for a moment.
Synza spun into a crouch, in one long-practised defensive movement. It was graceful, elegant — and performed on the verge of a sheer drop. Further, it was a sheer drop that a body had been kicked off not so long ago. The ground was already loose and broken.
Synza realised it just before I did. But not in time to stop himself. A hunk of dirt and stone shuddered and sank. It happened to be the only thing supporting his left foot. The chunk of cliff edge tore free in an explosion of dirt, and disappeared.
Synza's foot followed. Then his leg. Then the rest of him.
The last I saw was his face. There was no fear in it, no anger even — just a look of the most profound frustration.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I couldn't pretend I'd felt the slightest affection for Synza. I certainly hadn't wanted him to kill me. Yet, as the last skittering of falling pebbles subsided, I couldn't but feel a little horrified by his abrupt vanishment from the world.
I fell back against the trampled grass. My struggle with Synza had drained what little strength I'd managed to recover. The possibility of staying conscious was as remote as the likelihood of my climbing onehanded back up to the forest edge above.
One thought, however, rattled in my brain, even as it sank into welcoming darkness. Synza had defeated Stone, reputedly one of the greatest killers in the land. I in turn had played a part, more by luck than intent, in Synza's demise. Perhaps I'd never been much of a thief, but my ranking as an assassin had just gone through the roof.
I almost wanted to laugh. Knowing how much it would hurt, I passed out instead.
I dreamed someone was shouting my name. Every time they called, they kicked my head — inside my head, somehow, with a boot covered in hot pins.
It didn't take much of that to make me open my eyes. The light had changed; it was softer, yellowed like new butter. The kicking, however, continued unabated.
"Damasco!"
I was curled over, feet towards the brim of the ledge. Alvantes's voice came from behind me and above.
Where was the crown?
If he saw it, it would mean more explaining than I could even begin to contemplate. My eyes flitted desperately across the narrow outcrop. There — a clump of tall grass close to the edge, and stripes of gold amidst the green. It must have rolled from my fingers when I blacked out. I made it to all fours, though the rush of pain through my hurt arm made me want
to weep. Now I could see Alvantes, peering down. He, too, was hurt. A gash in his forehead was bleeding liberally, staining the left side of his face a rich, moist crimson. Another cut on his arm had clotted but looked, if anything, deeper and more unpleasant.
"What are you doing down there?" he called.
I crawled forward, placing myself between Alvantes and the crown. "I used to be a thief. Now I mostly seem to fall off things. It's not a change I much planned."
Alvantes's gaze wandered further down the cliff face. His face showed faint surprise. "Is that Stone?"
"Yes."
"And…?"
"Next to him? That's Synza."
I might have expected admiration or at least approval, but Alvantes's tone was lifeless as his expression. "How?"
"Long story. I've lived through it, and you don't want to. Any chance of a rescue?"
His only response was to disappear from view.
Alvantes was gone for almost an hour — ample time for me to recover the crown, wrap it once more in my cloak and cram both into my pack. That done, I propped myself against the rock wall to try and recuperate a little. When he returned, it was with a bundle of knotted creepers, presumably gathered from the strip of forest. Tied together, they made a length of rope just long enough to reach me.
It was a sound enough plan in theory, utterly hopeless in practise. Between Alvantes's single-handedness and my recent injury, it wasn't long before his rescue attempt had come to seem like a particularly bad joke.
How did the one-armed man help the other one-armed man climb the cliff?
Very, very slowly.
Eventually, after colossal discomfort and much cursing, I caught hold of a tree perched on the ragged rim of the cliff and hauled myself up, to lie panting in the long grass before the woodland.
Once my head had stopped swimming and my eyes had uncrossed, I took a moment to consider Alvantes's latest injuries. The blood on his face had dried now, a grotesque half-mask of gore. He'd made no attempt to clean himself, which probably made the wounds appear worse than they were — but they certainly looked bad enough.
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