by Toby Bennett
You did so much to survive, are you going to give up now?
Akna slumped down onto the garbage-strewn cobbles, taking the men who held him by surprise.
“What the… ? Get up!” one of the men who had been holding him growled. He bent and tried to drag Akna back onto his feet.
“Forget it Daven,” one of his fellows chimed in, “just be thankful he walked this far. The state he’s in do you really expect him to just jump back to his feet?”
“It’ll be harder to do this clean if he’s all curled up like that. Lord Gilash said…”
“Like he’ll know or care if it was quick or slow.”
“I’m not going to make the mistake of questioning his Lordship, like Jucun did.”
“The hell with you!” Jucan growled, stirred from his own dark thoughts by the mention of his name, “I only said what all of us were thinking. I bet I’ve not heard the last of that. So I don’t care if the boy dies fast or slow.”
“You hear that, boy? Jucan’s prepared to make this hurt, so why don’t you just get up? You only have to kneel and we’ll make this fast and painless, like the Patriarch said.”
“You think he can even understand you? Look at him.”
Despite what his brothers thought, Akna understood everything that they were saying, he simply could not make himself believe that this was happening to him. He curled around the thing he held in his clenched fist. They had not found the stone, no one had thought that he had clutched anything real, as he lay shivering but for Akna, the stone was the only thing that was real, it had guided him through the darkness and it held a part of his soul.
“Enough, are we going to gank him or not?” One of the men lent down and grabbed a handful of Akna’s hair. He drew Akna’s head back with merciless strength, his fingers parted involuntarily and light spilled into the dim alcove.
The man holding his hair took a quick step backwards and allowed him to slump again. They all knew better than to dismiss stones such as the one Akna held. There was no telling what he might summon. Two of the men only knew him by reputation but he had been Gilash’s favourite, someone trusted to eliminate a cardinal. A few seconds ago he had seemed like an easy kill,now they were wary. The fear of the men around him partially revived Akna from his stupor. Their hesitation represented a slim chance at survival and Akna now realised that he wanted to take it. Not that this new resolution to renew his fight for life was likely to mean much, he was alone, used up and facing four trained opponents. If he couldn’t fight physically then all he had was the fear of the crystal in his hand. He did not know what Lothar had sealed in the yellow crystal but the power trapped within it was clear.
With a grunt of pain Akna drew himself up and tried to reach into the depths of the stone. To his horror he found that nothing happened. Perhaps the light swelled a bit but there was no salvation held within the stone, at least nothing he could summon. His failure must have been evident on his face. The two men in front of him stopped retreating and raised their daggers. The two behind him took their cue from their fellows and began to advance. Akna chuckled humourlessly to himself, it seemed ironic that his renewed interest in living should coincide with his certain death.
If his false levity gave any of his attackers pause, they didn’t show it. The first knife swept in, deadly and accurate, it should have pierced his heart but instead it drew a gout of crimson blood from his side as he twisted his body at the last moment. The pain was still blessedly distant, the true agony was knowing that the next time he would probably not be as lucky. With nowhere to run he let his legs buckle under him. Daggers followed him trying to catch him in his fall and then drew back to strike again. At that moment the door of the tavern opened and light spilt into the alcove revealing the bleeding youth. His attackers had melted away into the shadows the moment the door opened leaving their victim for dead. Jucan was sure that his dagger had penetrated the boy’s chest and it was inconceivable that anyone as broken as Akna had been could have survived their onslaught. Giliash had insisted on secrecy so the river would have to go wanting, good enough that their victim was dead, far away from the Asylum or Asemutt. None of them had noticed the yellow light of the stone dimming and flaring fitfully like the laboured beating of a heart.
*
Akna woke in a room that smelled of ale and smoke. To be more accurate it was the ceiling that smelled of ale and smoke since the boards above him were the floorboards of the Pickled Pike. Akna had no way to know this but it seemed significant that he had lost consciousness with the sounds of music and laughter and had now been awakened by the same sounds. If he had crossed over into Niskaan’s realm, it seemed strange that he had not apparently moved very far from the cul-de-sac where he had fallen. The pain in his side was another hint that what was left of his soul had still not been separated from his abused body. He struggled to find the part of him that cared about his new surroundings but in the end the same stupor that had held him since he found his way back to the compound descended and though his eyes were open, he did not register anything until he found himself looking up into the grizzled face of a stranger.
“Awake again at least.” The stranger muttered, “can you hear me?”
Akna groaned
“I’ll take that as a 'yes'. I assume you will develop the power of speech at some point in our acquaintance.”
The stranger’s head popped out of his vision. Akna sat up abruptly and struggled to focus his eyes on the man who had been speaking to him. He caught a glimpse of a short man, with wild hair and overgrown whiskers sprouting from the side of his face at wild angles. It would have been hard to tell where the hair on his head ended and the hair on his face began, had it not been for the large hat pulled down over his ears. The style of the wide- brimmed hat was not common in Niskar, since its inhabitants rarely needed protection from the sun. Akna was also sure that the man was wearing eye glasses with coloured glass in the lenses, another strange touch in the eternally dark city. He missed the chance to confirm the existence of his host’s eye wear when the wound in his side sent a sudden wave of nausea through his body and he collapsed back onto the palette he had been laid out on.
“I didn’t go to the trouble of stitching you up only to find out I’d wasted good pig gut on an idiot, stay still. The dagger was deep; I’d say it would have been fatal if you hadn’t rolled with it so well. An inch to the left and let’s just say I’d have been carrying something extra down to the river. Master Alanchi doesn’t like mess and he’s against having his back alley blocked up with dead bodies.”
Akna let the smaller man’s words wash over him. They meant no more than anything else that had happened to him; he hadn’t found it within himself to resist his brothers he was certainly not going to bother with someone who had fished him from the gutter. He was beginning to wish that he hadn’t flinched when the first knife had struck him, that was reflex too he thought to himself bitterly. There wasn’t anything left apart from….
Akna’s hands clenched and he cried out to find that they were empty. The crystal was all that he had managed to salvage from the room where they had stolen every other ambition he had ever possessed, it represented the only thing that mattered to him and it was gone. He tried to rise again but his body betrayed him and he only managed to half fall off the palette. The little man moved quickly and lifted him back onto his bed with surprising strength.
“Use your words, man. If you want the privy I wouldn’t be surprised, it has been four days. I got you to drink yesterday but I’ll bet you don’t remember, we’ve got Moonhorn addicts upstairs who are more in touch with reality.”
Akna tried to answer but he found that his voice only came out as a dry hiss. Even the mention of his natural bodily functions was enough to make Akna realise how long he had been lying in one place. The separation he felt with himself was rapidly overcome by the simplest of needs.
“Help me up.” He managed to gasp.
The smaller man obliged readily enough.
“Don’t even think of complaining about the facilities,” his host warned when Akna finally emerged from the privy, “we’re close enough to the river to have running water. It may not be hot like they’re used to on the top of the hill but it’s better than many are used to.”
“How do you know I come from the hill?”
“Been around a bit, you know, even been up there myself and escaped to tell the tale.”
“No one needs to escape from the Asylum, it is always open to all.”
The smaller man grunted again as he helped Akna lower himself back down.
“Always open true, but the first thing you notice about a trap is that more things go in than ever come out. You think I’ve not seen the robes of a supplicant before?”
The hairy little man peered down at him and Akna got a good look at the glasses, which covered his eyes. The lenses were indeed tinted but now that he got a closer look he realised that there were several lenses within the golden wire of the frames. An adjustment of the tiny levers at the side, changed the overall colour of the glasses from purple to green. The man gave a satisfied grunt and then withdrew, fiddling with his glasses to produce a yellow lens.
“Looks like in your case, escape might be an exaggeration. They really did a number on you, didn’t they?”
Akna made no response, what was there to say? He had slept for four days but he could not remember one dream. His body was mending and beginning to function again but his mind was no better.
“You might not feel you have much to say but I’ve put up with nothing but your snoring for four days. Now that you’re awake I’m going to need some answers.”
Akna kept his eyes on the ceiling.
“It gets better, you know. Any wound can heal and what they take can re-grow, though it might be very slow in your case.”
Akna heard footsteps cross the floor and the scraping as something was taken from the cluttered workbench that occupied one side of the room.
“Not overcome at the prospect of regaining what you lost eh? Why not? Were you that sick? Must have been bad if the brothers were prepared to give up and kill you,” the speaker paused and Akna heard the click as another lens slid into place, “but that’s not it is it?” The footsteps came closer. “How about we start as people should, when they meet each other for the first time? My name is Zenker, Rithal Zenker.”
“Akna,” Akna obliged in a leaden voice.
“Appropriate, I believe it means hidden or forgotten in old Narik.”
“It means nothing, my mother was raving when she named me.”
“The mad can make a certain sense. So, tell me, did you go there with your mother? Perhaps you are younger than I thought, I have never been terribly good at telling.” A look of concern crossed Zenker’s face and Akna did not think it was concern for his well being.
“No, my mother is long dead. I was taken into the house of Asemutt, where I was to be initated.”
“Good, good, I had hoped it was so,” Zenker seemed genuinely pleased, “training and from Asemutt no less.”
Though it was pointless, considering everything that had happened, Akna still felt a twinge at his House being named, it was unforgivable to admit his affiliation to this stranger. It would have been unthinkable a couple of days ago, now it was simply a reflex action. As he had recently discovered, reflexes were all that were left to him unless Zenker’s prediction that he would eventually heal were true.
“What do you know of Asemutt?”
“Do not concern yourself, I meant no insult. The order is well respected in certain circles. Call it professional interest.”
“What do you mean? Speak sense or leave me alone.”
Zenker chuckled.
“The whole world does not fit inside the walls of the Asylum.”
Akna made to respond then thought better of it; what did he care what Zenker thought of him?
“That’s good news, in case you hadn’t realised. Niskaan’s brotherhood may be the spider at the centre of a very elaborate web but they rarely move unless something is big enough to disturb them. You might not have noticed it but there is a very large city all around you. Life can go on without the things you have known up till now. You may think you have lost everything but…”
“I said speak sense, or don’t speak. I have no need for platitudes.”
Zenker drew himself up, “I have no need for scroungers who malinger in my rooms for days and then give me the rough side of their tongue.”
“So throw me out, if you can lift me up the stairs.”
“I managed to get you down, do you think it would be so hard for me to scare up some help from upstairs and have you dumped back out into the alley? How long do you think you’d last out there? The wound would go septic as sure as flies lay eggs.”
“You know I don’t care.”
“True, I know you mean that now but you’d do well to think that there are people older, considerably older and considerably wiser than you.”
Akna drew in a hissing breath as Zenker withdrew a yellow crystal from his robe.
“You think you have nothing to loose but there are fewer people who can make that claim than you would imagine. You’d do much to have this back I’m guessing.”
“It’s mine, Zenker and yes I want it back.” Akna tried and failed to keep the need from his voice.
“Yours? I found it lying in the street and as for getting it back… All in good time.”
“Zenker,” Akna snarled the name and tried to rise once more only to find himself falling backwards, his head spinning. Zenker’s high-pitched laughter at his helplessness did nothing to lighten his mood.
“There’s something there at least. That’s good news, man, no need to scowl. You are free to be angry but consider that, moments ago, you thought you were beyond feeling anything.”
There was truth in Zenker's words and on some level, Akna appreciated the relief from simply feeling empty, but to admit that might take the edge off the rage that filled him.
“You will give back my gem or you will see what someone trained by Asemutt is really capable of.”
“No doubt you plan to leap into action right this moment. I presume there is a distinct danger that if I do not do as you ask you intend to collapse onto me?”
“I will regain my strength soon enough, if you value your well being you will return to me what is mine.”
“How will you regain anything if I do not help you? You can’t even make it to the jakes without me. Threats are not in your best interest I think.”
“If you plan to harm me get it over with, I told you I no longer care,” Akna said turning his attention to the ceiling.
“But we should be beyond that now. It’s clear that the stone means something to you and you know as well as I that that it is no ordinary stone.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Only what you promised, I want to see what someone trained by the order of Asemutt is really capable of.”
“You want me to hurt you?”
“No, of course not. We’ll put that question down to your condition at the moment. Perhaps it will help if I explain that it is my employer who would like to make use of your training.”
“You and your master, Alanchi think I am a common thug?”
“Hardly common. Your promise was clear when I saw that they sent four men to kill you. They also left the Asylum to try to do it. That told me that you were worth the trouble of feeding but as you will find, everything in Niskar comes at a price. Myself, I am most interested in knowledge. Master Alanchi however has more tangible needs.”
“I kill someone and then I get the stone?” Akna asked
“Blunt, but no at least not just one person. I don’t know when Alanchi will consent to returning your stone but I doubt it will be so easily reacquired. No pouting now, it’ll be given back at market value, I’m sure and besides ask yourself this, ‘what else are you going to do?’ You clearly can’t go back to your
order. You could do worse than falling in with people who appreciate your skills.”
“Falling sounds like an appropriate term. I am not a tool to be cast aside and then picked up.”
“But you were trained to kill were you not?”
“For my Order and my brothers.”
“And were they treating you like brothers when I found you?”
“I had failed and brought danger to my Order, I doubt any of Alanchi’s employee’s could expect a better fate in similar circumstances.”
“Indeed not but all we have established is that your former state and your current situation have much in common.”
“Only if I wanted to join up with your master and under duress at that.” Akna chuckled bitterly, “only days ago I was to be initiated into one of the most feared Orders in the Asylum, an Order which even the inhabitants of this riverside doss house respect and you expect me to leap at the chance to work for a bunch of second rate cut throats?”
“No one asked you to be eager. Compliant will do and don’t forget you will be well paid.”
“With my own property.”
“Some people say that when you save a man’s life, all that was his becomes yours.”
