A Lady in Crystal

by Toby Bennett

  The almost preternatural stench of the alleyway assaulted Akna’s senses as he stood, waiting for Zenker to climb out of the trapdoor. He surreptitiously flexed his hands, trying to get the blood flowing through his tired muscles. However unfortunate Alanchi’s betrayal, the few hours of rest that the Pike had afforded him had been invaluable.

  “Get on with it, Zenker, unless you want a first-hand acquaintance with my last meal,” Alanchi rumbled.

  “I’m moving as fast as I can.”

  “Well don’t worry about aiming that thing, I’ll deal with these two you just climb.”

  “Spent too long away from your own stink?” Ilsar asked

  “You want to get hurt, trollop? My hospitality only goes so far.”

  “That’s a relief, at least, I couldn’t take much more of this kind of welcome.”

  Alanchi raised a thick fingered hand, then thought better of his first impulse.

  “We have an agreement, but I advise you to keep her quiet, Akna, my temper grows short.”

  “The stones are close by, our business can be concluded quickly.”

  ‘And then I shoot her.’ Alanchi thought to himself.

  Akna obviously cared what happened to the woman so she made a good goad but Alanchi knew Akna well enough to know that, if the girl were dead, he would not waste time mourning her or seeking a difficult revenge; with Gilash on his heals the assassin would run and the Patriarch of Asemutt would follow. Alanchi meant to have his revenge just as soon as the stone was in his hand. Akna intuited his old employer’s intent as soon as he failed to hit Ilsar for her mockery. His awareness flowed through to Ilsar, warning her that they would soon have to act.

  Akna took the lead as they slunk along the alley, with Zenker bringing up the rear. “Here.” Akna said, crouching at the corner of the building.

  “In the wall?”

  “Yes, if you will lend me a dagger I’ll pry out the bricks.”

  “Oh, very good, I give you my dagger and then you use it to carve me a new navel? I think not. Zenker get up here.”

  Akna saw the beginnings of doubt on Zenker’s face, but Alanchi was too close to his prize to see Zenker’s hesitation as anything but obstinacy.

  “Hurry up, damn your whiskers, I’ll keep them covered.”

  Zenker stepped forward to comply with his lord’s command and the moment that he was between Ilsar and Alanchi, both assassins sprung into action. There was no word or signal but the two acted in perfect unison, Akna caught Alanchi’s wrist and threw all his weight into slamming his opponent's weapon hand into the wall. Zenker had no time to react to Akna’s sudden move, as Ilsar’s leg snaked out tipping him off balance. A needle sized blot flew out rebounding off the wall and disappearing into the darkness. Before the needle had stopped moving, Ilsar was on top of Zenker, her knee stabbing into the small of his back. The pain was enough to make the little man lose his grip on his crossbow.

  Alanchi was not so quick to release his weapon, the old thief may have become softer than he once was but there was a hard core at the centre of the man, untouched by years of luxury. They might be pudgier but his fingers had once wrung the life from ‘one hit’ Harik; pain was nothing new even if it was less familiar than it once had been. Akna’s grip was fierce and his timing had been flawless but he was also exhausted, once the surprise of his rush had worn off, the battle for possession of the undersized crossbow began in earnest.

  Alanchi gave a grunt and began to force his arm away; Akna redoubled his efforts but he was unable to slam Alanchi’s hand back into the wall with anything like enough force.

  “You’re kudging dead, you whoreson.”

  Akna ignored the older man’s roaring, Alanchi might find strength in his rage but for Akna it was the lack of emotion that served him best. A heavy strike, most of its force blunted by the position of Alanchi’s body forced him to duck and the crossbow moved further from the wall, almost in line with Ilsar and her prone victim.Akna thrust as hard as he could forcing Alanchi’s hand back, to the wall again. The thief gave a wild roar and lunged back with a force that would have sent Akna flying, had he tried to keep his grip. Without the expected resistance Alanchi’s thick arm swept out, the master of thieves pulled the trigger too late and the needle thin bolt flew into the alley. As Alanchi flailed, Akna set his shoulder and charged into the big man’s hip, using his momentum to throw him to the floor. Even then Alanchi’s long experience of street brawling might have won out, if Akna’s hand hadn’t closed over a loose stone that had fallen from the wall. Before Alanchi could right himself, Akna was on him, his hand rising and falling until Alanchi’s face was an unrecognisable mess and his breath came in frothing gasps. Alanchi was still feebly reaching for his dagger, when Akna slapped his hand aside, drew the weapon from his side and opened his throat.

  Zenker went still at the sound of his boss’s last gurgle and Ilsar was able to retrieve his crossbow from the debris of the alley. She grunted in approval as a pull on the string summoned up another thin bolt from within the handle.

  “Up!” Ilsar said softly and then with more force but Zenker didn’t move, instead the sound of soft sobbing filled the air. Akna ignored the uncharacteristic crying and reached into Alanchi’s bloodied tunic for his stone. His heart froze when he withdrew two crystals; the glowing yellow stone was familiar but the dull green crystal was unknown to him.

  “What is this?” Akna asked softly.

  “You need to ask?” the reply was distorted, the voice laden with sorrow.

  “Why do you mourn him, when he kept you bound in such a fashion?”

  “I was safe. Do you know how long it took to find a place I could be my own… mostly my own, master?”

  “What do you mean? You let him trap you with this?” Akna said holding up the dull green stone.

  Laughter broke through the tears, “Even now you do not know what you are, Akna. You fight so hard to deny what I am, because you don’t want to hear the truth but as you hold our two stones together in your own hands, it must have occurred to you that you and I are alike and by now, you must guess what I am.”

  “Alanchi did not have the lore or talent to do what was done to me.”

  “No he didn’t, so what does that mean? You know the Ghosts is not the only place that phantoms seek freedom and some don’t even know enough to know what they are running from.”

  “I am not like them, like you if you are one of them.” Akna said in a low voice. “I know what happened to me and how this came to be.” He held up his hand and light leaked from between his straining fingers, the knuckles were white with pressure.

  “You think you remember, but are you really clear about what happened? I do not remember when I was first brought into this world or what my purpose was. I’m sure I once did. Now? After existing for so long? I know not if I was ever anything more or simply shaped to serve a master… I have forgotten so much over the years, been traded like a jinn in a green bottle,” Zenker stole another glance at Alanchi’s corpse, “he almost never used the stone… I’d almost lost track of the fact that he had it, till I came back from our last meeting and he made me tell him everything.”

  “But…”

  “You’re full of buts, Akna, full of explanations for complexity. You imagine that you are real and perhaps you were once, perhaps I was but now? Now you are the dream of a boy, who knew he was going to die or the shell of the boy, who did die. Is one really better or worse than the other? Perhaps there is some justice in the fact that you managed to kill the one who did this to you, take comfort in that, but stop lying to yourself. You need that stone to be whole and that makes you like me, however you slice it.”

  “I’m not like you, I escaped, I was torn apart not made or conjured up.”

  “Can you even feel the outrage you are looking for? Let me ask you, how is it that you feel so tied to that gem? How many men have their souls held in dream crystal?”

  “You know what was done to me.”

  “
How could I, when I suspect you don’t know yourself? For three years you served as a mindless killer, doing the bidding of the man who held your stone, have you ever felt anything since you began here? Anything more than what you were given to feel when you were made, I mean. Have you yet begun to heal, as you hoped you would?”

  Akna looked to Ilsar, “I have.”

  Zenker laughed, “I hope you are right, for your sake. You are going to do something I’ve never dared do. Do you think you can brave the sun? Are you so sure your flesh will not melt from you? I’ve never seen it but I’m told a summoning lasts less than a second under the sun and then it is burned away like morning fog, like smoke from a dying candle.”

  “Why do you seek to frighten me?”

  “Why not? I’m afraid and alone, thanks to you. It’s only a matter of time before someone else, someone with true power, finds that stone; your old master in all likelihood, an adept who will reshape me with his demands. I will become nothing more than an extension of his will.”

  “So run, don’t let him find you.”

  “Where can I run? To the Ghosts? Stay there till I am mad? Or should I join you in your pitiful suicide beyond the clouds of Niskar? There is no escape for me or you, if I want to exist, and yes there is just enough spirit left into me to want to do that, I must stay here and be of use to a master who will keep me safe from a true adept, such as the one who seeks you. I know what I am, Akna and there is some freedom in that, to understand that you are little more than a shadow one of Niskaar’s true children, there is a freedom in that.”

  “You sound like you have been trapped, as surely as if you were the property of some priest or conjurer.” Ilsar said thoughtfully.

  “What would you know of it, woman? Have you ever been subject to another’s will? Your whole nature subverted by their thoughts, their needs. It took so long for me to become something more than just a puppet, to even begin to feel like I was something in myself.”

  “And that’s why you resent Akna, he’s never had to fight to feel that he was real.”

  “You think I envy the fool for his foolishness? I weep for him as I weep for myself. If anything, he should be pitied more for his delusions.”

  “It could be you that is mistaken.”

  “Think what you like.”

  Zenker was right in at least one regard, there was no point in debating the truth. Akna felt the warmth leaking from the stone in his hand and he couldn’t help but feel sick at the prospect that the stone didn’t simply hold a piece of him but his whole essence. If it were true, a practitioner of Niskaan’s arts could draw him into that stone even reshape and enslave him. Akna felt a sudden twinge of empathy for Takiaza and his refusal to be drawn back into the daemon stone; Akna had no fear of death but the horror of being an undying slave for another was different. It was one thing to hunt a dream or shape the energies from beyond the veil but to trap a soul and warp someone, till they did not know if they even truly existed, that was dark sorcery indeed. Zenker was right to say that he should think what he liked because, as Akna realised in those few moments of introspection, he would rather be destroyed by the sun and lost on the wind than live in desperation and darkness, as Zenker proposed to do.

  Akna raised the green stone and threw it across the alley so that it landed clattering on the cobbles at Zenker’s feet. “This is yours.” Akna said in a low voice, “what you do with it is your choice. I have made my choice and I will not live in terror as you do.”

  Bitterness crossed Zenker’s face, as he retrieved the stone from the alley, he appeared to be about to make some retort, when his face froze.

  “They are here.”

  Akna did not question how the hairy thief knew that they had been found, he simply took to his heals, Ilsar behind him in the instant he made the decision to run. It seemed Zenker was right again, there was nowhere to hide. The only way open to the two fugitives was to leave the city, to hope that there was such a thing as ‘far enough’. A part of Akna knew that Gilash would spare no effort to find a prize like the Hierophant’s stone but he’d deal with that if he survived the next dawn.

  Chapter 23:

  “Now the breath is staggered, short and those yet awake shall think they dream

  For freedom from flesh is cheaply bought, with a single strangled scream

  And you, who hide behind your eyelids, pulling flimsy covers close,

  Will see horrors that mere light forbids and not wake from nightmare’s poisoned dose.”

  Varkuz choked on the stench of the alley, try as she might she couldn’t shift her senses to block out the choking smell. She growled deep in her throat in frustration, only sorcery could obscure the assassin’s scent from her and that meant only one thing, someone was helping Akna to escape. That wretch would pay almost as dearly as Akna would. A distant memory of thrusting claws into Akna’s soul filled Varkuz’s thoughts, a shake on the chains that bound her brought the daemon back to reality.

  “Speak, imp, are they close?”

  “Closer than they would like to be, I’d guess, priest, but I also guess that they are not alone.”

  “My thoughts exactly, this place has been designed to be ignored.” The Patriarch brought a handkerchief up to his nose. “There is no way that such a stench developed naturally, someone doesn’t want us to go any further. A common enough trick for street rats to use, but this may mean that we have brought our quarry to heel, all we need to do is tear them from wherever they are hiding. With any luck the vermin aiding them will be ready to sell them for far less than they are worth.”

  “Let me free and I shall tear them from any bolt hole they have found.”

  “Fear not, imp, you will be freed soon enough, when I have the daemon stone you will serve me, just as you suggest, you’ll understand if our relationship has to be kept on its current terms until then.”

  The four acolytes, holding Varkuz aloft, strained to contain the thrashing of the daemon, as she made a profanity strewn reply.

  “You don’t inspire much confidence, I’m used to a much higher degree of subtly from those who work for me.”

  Seemingly on cue, four of Gilash’s guard stalked from the alley ahead of them. Two of the men held a prone body between them and the other two prodded a smaller figure forward with their swords.

  “The fat one looks like Akna’s work. So presumably the little one might have the motivation to tell us where the traitor has gone.” Gilash said, giving voice the thoughts of his men. The Patriarch crossed over to examine the bludgeoned corpse that had once been Alanchi Gorepike. “It appears Akna’s ultimately unhealthy for anyone he works with. You saw him do this?”

  Zenker nodded and avoided eye contact with the priest, it was inevitable that Gilash would learn what he was at some point but he needed to hide it, just long enough to get back to his workshop.

  “Yet you did nothing to save him?”

  Zenker reached into his coat and brought out a hand rolled cigarette, a lit match appeared as if by magic in his other hand.

  “Couldn’t,” Zenker said and heaved smoke into his lungs, “he had a whore with him and she had me covered.”

  “But you weren’t strangers were you?”

  “No, we knew Akna all right, he used to do” Zenker paused for what he judged to be the right amount of time, “jobs, he did jobs for us a while back, so we didn’t think much of it when he came round asking for help.”

  “You gave him the kind of help that necessitated him caving in this man’s head and then slitting his throat?”

  “I wouldn’t know much about that.” A ruddy light bloomed beneath Zenker’s thick whiskers.

  “I know Akna, he would not kill in such away for no reason.”

  “All right, so the boss realised that he had some stone or something and he wanted it.”

  “Did he get it?”

  “Not a chance, your boy was on him quick as a white snapper.” Zenker took another drag,

  “He wouldn’t have foun
d nothing, anyway, they already hid the stones somewhere else.”

  “Where? Tell me if you value your miserable life.”

  “As it happens I do value my life and with that in mind I was going to suggest that we made a deal.”

  “You’re in no position to bargain.”

  “ I’ve no way of stopping your men from aerating my bladder once you have what you want either, still I’d feel better if you at least told me that I’ll get to keep my skin, if I give you what you want.”

  “I guarantee that, if you waste any more of my time, I’ll personally have you flayed and quartered.”

  “Persuasive. Okay, I saw them stashing the stones down in the basement of the Pike.”

  “The Pike?”

  “The Pickled Pike, it’s the tavern just down there, I know the back way in.”

  “Then hurry up and show us, you idiot.” Gilash grabbed Zenker by his collar and marched him forward. “Is there any chance that they could have gone back for the stones already?”

  “Anything’s possible, but I don’t think it likely. They ran the moment they sensed you were close, don’t know how they knew but they did, they were hot footing it just before your men arrived. If you know Akna, you know he wouldn’t be stupid enough to stick around and get caught.”

  “We’ll see won’t we? Now hurry up and get down there.”

  Zenker managed to keep his balance, despite Gilash’s impatient kick and a few moments later, he was standing in the familiar half-light of his laboratory.

  “The stones?”

  “Over here.” Zenker said, crossing to the counter set into the wall nearest the stairs. “Wouldn’t worry about it, they had no time to recover what they hid.”

  “For your sake I hope that’s true.”

  There was something about the thief that bothered Gilash but the relief at getting out of the stench of the alley momentarily distracted him from pursuing his nagging doubt. A growl from the door, through which he had entered, told him that they had finally got the daemon down the stairs.