by Anthony Huso
Bookcases lined the walls. Several stuffed chairs and a potted plant occupied space on a tapestry rug before the windows. It was sparse like the outer rooms, lacking a certain believable quality, as though it had been staged.
“Just hurry up, will you? Ol’ Zane’s dust-bugger is probably getting antsy. Southern piece of gorabi shit!”
“Hey, shut up!”
Sena’s heart skipped a beat as he said it, thinking he might have heard the sudden fit of tiny scratching in her pouch. The additional light and voices were agitating the chick. “You obviously haven’t been around long enough to know Mr. Silent’s just like Vhorty. They both like to catch you off guard.”
Sena saw the man’s eyes pause and scrutinize the room. When he seemed satisfied that the study was indeed empty he continued.
“If you’re smart, which you’re not, you won’t say anything derogatory . . . ever.”
“There you go again with the words. Didn’t you just call the boss a cheese curd?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
The outer door opened and a third voice, a smoother voice with a southern accent, curled into the room.
“What’s taking?”
The man in the doorway found a new sense of urgency despite his nonchalant reply. “I’m hurrying. I’m hurrying. Sheesh. It ain’t like we’re going to meet her holiness at Hullmallow.” He walked into the room and headed for the desk.
Sena edged quickly backward, making very little sound. Rather than crawling underneath and cornering herself under a piece of furniture she kept the desk between herself and the man.
The outer door clunked again.
“Is he gone?”
Sena heard the other man’s smile. “No.”
The man in the study took the chair from behind the desk and rolled it across the floor to the bookshelves. He then used it as a stepladder to one of the shelves and from there stretched out and opened a square in the paneled ceiling.
Sena saw him fumble with some items before he took what he wanted from his pocket and stashed it in the ceiling. He closed the panel, jumped to the floor and brushed off the seat of the chair before rolling it back behind the desk.
Good. Now hurry along, thought Sena.
But the man did not hurry. When he reached the doorway he stopped. There was a click from the outer chamber. A strange thunk and he slumped face-first into the doorway between the rooms.
The same click and subtle hiss preceded the sound of a second body falling to the floor—one that Sena could hear but not see. Then she heard the smooth voice with the southern accent speak in sardonic soliloquy, “Good night boys.”
Sena crept from the desk, realizing she had to get a glimpse of the unseen speaker in order to make sense of what had happened. She peeked out despite her instinct to remain hidden and locked eyes with a brown-skinned blond-haired Pandragon that she had seen once before in Mr. Vhortghast’s company.
Bad luck alone had allowed them to see each other across a landscape of murder. Sena hardly noticed the bodies.
Ngyumuh held a gas-powered crossbow in his hands. He aimed and fired in an instant. The quarrel burst through the corner of the desk creating a blossom of splintered wood, the tip of the bolt looking like a deadly metal pistil. Sena wheeled across the floor.
Ngyumuh’s bow auto-loaded from a clip into the gentle magnet of the groove; its tank of pressurized gas drew the string automatically on an internal gear beneath the lock plate. He leapt over one of the men he had killed and burst into the study, keen on Sena’s trail.
The light from the wall fixture flickered over the wooden floor. His eyes took in the body of an infant bird, fresh blood spattered across the boards. Something hazy blurred the bookshelf for an instant. Something out of focus slipped along the wall. Ngyumuh pivoted and fired.
The bolt lodged itself in the spine of a book, riving a dozen chapters of some classical tome. Then the trademark grip of the Shrdnae Sisters encircled his neck from behind.
The sickle knife, sticky with birds’ blood, lightly scored his throat. Sena’s whisper sounded almost inside his ear.
“I’ll kill you with a twist.”
It had a strange sexual connotation that must have scared Ngyumuh. He set the bow on Mr. Vhortghast’s desk at her request and tried to keep from swallowing—an action that would certainly deepen his already oozing cut.
“Why did you kill those men?” she whispered.
Trained as the spymaster’s personal bodyguard, Ngyumuh must have also known what she was capable of. He tried to buy some time with words.
“What’s it to you?”
Sena pushed the handle of her sickle knife counterclockwise so the razor tip of the crescent made a sudden puncture wound beneath his left ear.
“I don’t ask questions twice and you don’t ask questions at all. Clear?”
Ngyumuh, despite his best efforts, swallowed and worsened the gradual filleting of his skin.
“Yes. Eh’ajyo ogwôg.22”
“I speak Gnah Lug Lam, ngôd ilôm.23” She cut him again.
Ngyumuh winced but finally gave himself completely to her fatal embrace. Even an elbow or sudden kick to her groin wouldn’t guarantee the encircling blade didn’t open his jugular as it left his throat. He had no choice but to capitulate.
“Yehw ikeslud ninglas-dey?24” she hissed into his ear. “If I have to ask again—”
“I’m cleaning Mr. Vhortghast’s house,” Ngyumuh said in the Pandragonian Tongue.
Looks more like you’re making a mess, thought Sena. “Under Vhortghast’s orders?”
“Of course.”
Sena nodded toward the bodies. “Who are the curs?”
“Operatives with memories.”
“You’re talking a lot without saying anything.”
Ngyumuh smiled despite his pain. “We both know I’m not going to talk.”
“We all make choices,” Sena said.
That was it. She ended it with a ratcheting of the crescent. He gasped once and clutched at his throat before dropping to the floor. Sena suppressed her morbid fascination. She stuffed her feelings and rummaged through Ngyumuh’s clothes.
In his vest there was a pouch of coins and a cruestone for a pigeon’s head. Hurriedly she cast another charm with Ngyumuh’s gushing blood, cloaking herself in a powerful hex of bent shadows and distorted light.
The sight of battle in the gas-lit windows had drawn soldiers from the lawn. She could hear the heavy double tramp of armored boots coming up the stairs.
In one smooth motion, the distortion that was Sena floated up the bookcase, opened the panel in the ceiling, drew out the contents and curled like a draft of chilly air, slipping out between the sentries that were filling up the room.
22 G.L.L.: “You lost little girl.”
23 G.L.L.: Shit head.
24 G.L.L.: “Why did you murder those curs?”
CHAPTER 27
Across town, Mr. Vhortghast was making preparations. He had guessed that his plot had been discovered.
He had not gone to Growl Mort but to a tidy apartment he kept in Winter Fen. A two-room flat with a tiny closet in between, the apartment maintained a northern view of the symmetrical slums of Gorbür Dyn.
Zane was too practical to be upset. It hadn’t been his plan to lose his position or to cause the High King direct harm. Now he realized Caliph’s reign was coming apart. He was flailing at his enemies, hoping by luck to connect with one.
Good luck, thought Zane. I have other business opportunities in the south. He had gathered all his critical paraphernalia to this final stronghold, his most secret of several lairs.
I’m actually glad not to have to spend another winter in this fucking deep freeze, he thought. The almanac had promised there would be an early frost.
He sorted through a stack of papers on a side table near the hearth. With the installation of the boiler in the basement the chimney had been sealed, but Zane had renovated it once again for use. As he sorted, he tossed
various pages on the fire.
A cage by the window held a hooded hawk: his return carrier of a message from the south. Against all odds, the mangled pigeon he had released had crossed a thousand miles to its destination—intact. The reply was sitting on the table, waiting to be burned.
Mr. Prüntergast,
Messieurs Vôlk, Kranston and Croft are quite impressed with your offer. No doubt you have sent similar propositions to every government within flying distance—judging a lack of adequate carriers from the disposition of this recent bird.
Be that as it may, we are prepared to go ahead, despite obvious reservations associated with lying closely as we do, just across the gap of Eh’Muhrk Muht.
I will arrange for a coffer of scythes to be registered under your name in the Capital Depository on the Avenue of Lights.
As I’m sure you’re aware, there are several different empires tangled up in this debacle and maintaining transparency has become a matter of the highest concern.
Should secrecy be compromised, there will be other metals waiting for you.
Once again, our desire has always been for nonwritten communication in this matter. Please accept our apology in asserting our inability to reply to further correspondence of this nature.
Sincerely,
Msgr. Pratt
Vhortghast tossed it on the flames just as the sound of rapping echoed through the room. He pulled a knife and went to answer the door.
The chain allowed him to snatch a glimpse of the corridor. He expected the landlady with an envelope for the rent.
Instead two small children met his gaze. One was licking a sweet from a stick, his face blackened with gooey grime. His (presumably) sister also held a treat but she was slightly older than he, less focused on the yellow-green confection dripping down her hand.
They stared up at him from a hallway strewn with papers, dirty mattresses and junk.
“Mister,” said the girl. “Are you 4-A?”
“Yes. I don’t want the paper.”
“I’m not selling papers.” She blinked at him, doe-like and matter-of-fact. “There’s a mister in the lobby wants to talk with you.”
Zane scowled and motioned at their treats.
“And he gave you those if you delivered the message?”
“Yes. He’s nice.”
Her brother nodded his head and grinned ridiculously, showing little rotten teeth.
“It’s a little past your bedtime, isn’t it? What does this nice man look like?”
“He’s uhm . . . don’t have no hair,” said the boy suddenly, patting his head with the treat. Little gobs of goo clung like lice nits to his wispy scalp, making it stand up in places like bundled thatch.
“He’s bald?” Zane looked to the girl for confirmation.
She made the hand sign that it was so, giving away that she had ties to the south.
Zane knew no one by that description. He didn’t unlock the door. “What are your names?”
“I’m Dotty and he’s Moo.”
“Those are pretty names. I tell you what. I have some treats right here in my flat. I’ll give them to you if you do something for me. Okay?”
“Okay,” they said in unison.
“Moo, go downstairs and tell the man I’ll be right there. Go now. Hurry along.” The boy took off on stubby legs. “Dotty, I want you to stand outside the door and if the man comes up the stairs, I want you to knock as hard as you can. Then I’ll give you some treats. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Vhortghast smiled and closed the door. He had no idea who could have found him here. One thing was certain. He had to get out—fast. He turned to finish destroying his documents and noticed suddenly that one of his windows was open.
He spun with his knife.
“Ah-ah-ah.” Another voice in the room warned him against trying anything daring.
A man in dark simple clothing stood across the room holding a strange southern weapon aimed generally at his chest.
“Who are you?” asked Mr. Vhortghast, quickly mastering his fear.
“Just an old man passing through.” The voice was a raspy haggard tenor. He looked a year or two past fifty. He had bright steel-gray eyes that never left the spymaster’s face and a shaven head that revealed early liver spots and wrinkles behind his ears. A thick, exquisitely trimmed goatee of powder gray bunched around his mouth and when he talked, the man with the weapon moved his face in an almost kindly way . . . as though speaking to grandchildren seated on his knee.
Mr. Vhortghast said nothing. Already he was bored.
“Name’s Alani.”
Zane became un-bored again. His eyes grew wide for an instant as the name registered against the brief list of those he feared.
“Alani out of Ironwall?”
The old man shrugged. “I’m not from Ironwall. Like I said, just passing through.”
Zane’s mind slid the pieces into place. “Are you working for Saergaeth?”
Alani smiled. “Nonsense. Saergaeth Brindlestrm is a fool.”
Zane slowly set his knife down and reached for a chair. “Mind if I sit down?”
“Yes. Yes I do.”
Zane stopped and turned ever so carefully. “What’s that you’ve got there? A nidus?”
The weapon’s mouth was like a box without a lid. Inside, a honeycomb of tubules housed several hundred darts fashioned from surgical steel. Like a hive of metal wasps, waiting to take flight.
The stock was made of wood and cradled a canister filled with compressed gas. Several switches determined whether pulling the trigger released one, ten, twenty or all the darts at a time. Vhortghast knew from the casual way Alani aimed the box that they were set to unload en masse.
“I heard you were in business for yourself these days,” said Alani, ignoring the other man’s question.
Zane shrugged. “You know how it goes. Catch as catch can.”
“Catching quite a bit from what these old ears can hear.”
“I’m not a traitor,” said Zane.
Alani almost seemed to snicker. He made a symbol briefly with the hand that held the stock, something only men of their profession would understand. “That’s like saying there’s only one shade of blue. What did you do? Set that kid up with a buyer?”
“Why? Can’t you figure it out?” Zane was growing tense. “Or did you just decide you wanted a cut? You’re like a fucking sarchal hound stealing a carcass from a pack of poor defenseless wolves.”
“Actually, since you’ve effectively put yourself out of business up here I thought I might give my résumé to the High King.”
Zane Vhortghast couldn’t help but laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding. If you came back to this town—” His laughter dribbled off. The possibilities, the real possibilities formed moving pictures in his mind. “Mother of Emolus, it’d be like a god walking into town—wouldn’t it? Former grandmaster of the Long Nine playing spymaster to the most controversial High King in the history of the Duchy? But I still can’t see it. From the stories they tell, you were never one to get so comfortable. What’s in it for you?”
“I’m an old man now. I’d like to settle down I suppose.”
There was knocking at the door.
“It’s the kids,” said Zane. “They can’t find you in the lobby. I promised them treats.”
Alani nodded toward the door. “Unchain it and you die.” His voice was so matter-of-fact the meaning of the words seemed hard to recognize—a threat like poison dissolved in wine.
Zane understood.
This was someone on par with his level of thinking, his level of planning. A peer. He almost felt flattered to be entertaining a guest like this. He opened the door and looked down into Dotty’s face.
“Mister—”
“Get out of here,” said Zane. “If you knock again, I’ll take a kitchen knife and cut your little hand off.” He shut the door. When he turned around he saw Alani going through the stack of papers on his table, nidus still aimed in his dir
ection.
In the same instant, several things happened all at once.
Zane dove and grabbed a chair. He lifted it like a body shield and charged his adversary. The nidus went off with a concussive hiss and multiple popping sounds.
Heavy pointed pins of steel filled the air, tearing through wood and fabric and plaster.
Zane Vhortghast screamed.
The nidus fell to the floor.
One of the chair legs caught Alani in the chest.
Knives flashed.
The older man moved with astonishing speed. Though aching and winded from the blow to his ribs, he quickly divested Mr. Vhortghast of his knife.
The spymaster was in no condition to fight. Already torn where the nidus’s scores of missiles had caught him in the shins and elbows and shoulders, perforating his flesh wherever the chair had been unable to protect him, Zane hurled himself toward the open window. He rolled out onto the fire escape and slid down the metal steps, fumbling in his own blood.
Alani winced the moment he tried to follow. The chair had bruised something inside. He stopped and watched the former spymaster stumble into an alley and peal away through the slums of Gorbür Dyn.
The old assassin paused to catch his breath. He had suffered many similar injuries during his long career. He knew how to wrap his ribs. He picked up the papers on the table and left the stolen nidus behind.
Now, he thought, we’ll see if Caliph Howl was worth all this trouble.
CHAPTER 28
Two days later the hot weather broke suddenly with a crack of thunder. Lightning stumbled over rooftops, through revolving voluted gears while the gutters slithered with mating things.
Alani told Caliph almost everything. He found that he was well remembered from the train platform in Crow’s Eye and gained an immediate audience. He made it clear that Peter Lark and Zane Vhortghast were interchangeable names, watched carefully as Caliph paged through the notes he had salvaged from Zane’s apartment. The papers Sena had taken from Zane’s office rested in a second pile. Together it was enough to be useful.
