by John March
The trees they passed were huge — at least three or four yards across, with the upper reaches hidden by a dense mat of branches, and leaves over forty yards above his head. Orim followed his guide as he pushed a path through the ground foliage, dislodging swarms of insects which followed after them like a smoke trail. Without the muffling sound of the rain, the beating noise became louder, and clearer.
A short distance into the forest, the ground levelled off, and they came across a clear path. Orim followed Cuigulem until it sounded like they were very near the source of the sound.
“Armaseptur,” Cuigulem said, and stopped.
“Armaseptur is here?” Orim asked. He could hear other sounds that indicated a nearby settlement.
Cuigulem performed a bouncing motion with its lower body, the cheg equivalent of nodding, then reached out an arm, and pushed Orim insistently in the direction of the noises. “Armaseptur!”
With the weight of his wet clothing resisting his movements, the force of the shove nearly knocked Orim over. He nodded, turned in the direction of the noise, and set off along the path.
“Farewell, Cuigulem,” Orim called, but when he looked back the cheg was gone. As he'd suspected, it moved much faster on its own.
He found the source of the rhythmical hitting in a clearing near the edge of the woods. Two cheg stood, one on either side of a large tree trunk, with legs widely braced, taking turns to swing at it with a heavy broad-bladed axe.
A wide stretch of flat, open ground stretched between Armaseptur, and the edge of the trees. The settlement sprawled up the side of a steep hill, divided into clusters of buildings by rocky outcrops, each linked to the others by a network of broad paths.
A few dozen of the largest cheg he'd ever seen stood in a broad semi-circle outside the settlement, watching a fight. Two young cheg grappled with each other in the centre of the circle, hind legs gouging great furrows through the grass as they shoved each other back and forth, while arms gripped or delivered jarring blows to upper bodies and heads.
In the midst of the watchers Orim spotted a cheg with long silvery white fur, flanked by guards with pole-arms — one of the settlement elders. To have any chance of finding Spetimane, he needed to enlist help from the cheg, and that could only come from an elder.
Orim approached directly across the open ground, walking quickly towards the elder. As he neared the cheg, one of the fighters got the upper hand, sweeping away its opponents hind legs with a middle arm, sending it crashing onto its back with a resounding thump.
He felt the impact through his boots fifty paces away and slowed down, keeping his arms held away from his body, hands open, to show he held no weapon. Early in his service with Vittore he'd witnessed a cheg guard kill a man for stepping in the path of an elder, cutting the offender in half with a single blow. Protecting one of the respected, the highest ranking elders, was a privilege awarded to only the most skilled warriors in their society.
Orim walked past the downed fighter as it scrambled to its feet, the guards moving to intercept him as he drew nearer. He stopped and waited until the elder noticed him, then straightened his back and held his arms wide, palms facing upwards, in imitation of their most respectful salutation. He was careful to look the respected elder directly in the eye. Cheg, who were unfamiliar with other races, often found the whites of their eyes, and the ability to turn the pupils independently of the head, disturbing.
The ancient cheg scrutinised him with clouded eyes. It breathed noisily, and produced a low rumble from its belly.
“Ronyo … ?”
“Yes, I am Ronyon,” Orim said.
“You are emissary of the respected Vittore of Volane?”
“Yes,” Orim said.
“Be welcome Ronyo who is emissary of the respected Vittore,” the old cheg said and held its upper arms out, palms upwards.
A collective shiver ran through the gathered cheg and, like a flock of birds taking flight, they all reared up on their hind legs with arched backs and spread all four arms wide.
The respected watched him with its black eyes for a dozen heartbeats while the other cheg held their salute. “Ronyo will rest and share food?”
De'Argent plummeted through the between. In that limitless space, without distance or boundary, he experienced an endless acceleration as he moved with what the Volanians liked to call outflow. Moving against the outflow felt like pushing against a river current.
In his youth the early training had been entirely physical, emphasising skill and courage, and finished with nine tests. A third of the candidates died during training, and a full half of those remaining died during the tests. The least capable students were tested ahead of the most proficient.
Each of the tests were designed to test a facet of their training and each could be lethal. All nine tests were completed together, each following on immediately from the last, and at each he'd passed fellow students scrabbling to claw their intestines back into their bodies or with shattered limbs, or screaming in the grip of agonisingly slow poisons.
The seventh test involved a blind leap into a pool surrounded on all sides by sharp, jutting rocks. Three before him had missed the pool and lay broken, thrashing and crying out piteously near the edge. He'd been given no opportunity to practise the tests in advance, but despite the distractions he'd leaped perfectly, landing feet first in the centre of the pool.
Before the leap, he'd thought he understood the nature of the test. A true assassin must learn to complete tasks unencumbered by pity or remorse, focusing closely in the face of such distractions. The least proficient went first, not out of kindness, but to make the challenge for those who followed all the harder.
In a single ecstatic moment, as he'd hung suspended in the air, he'd been removed from himself, as if watching the curve of his flight through another's eyes, and he'd understood the true lesson of the test. His dedication to training had accomplished a form of art, performed with his body and mind working in perfect unity. He saw the tests and fallen students no longer as obstacles and distractions, but as symbols of a greater truth, where the forces of chaos sought always to resist the work of the true artist.
He'd plunged through the surface of the cold water like the quenching of the finest heated steel, shocked back into himself, and forever changed.
Behind the students, a veteran of the school followed them through the stages of the test, to finish off stragglers, killing the slow and cowardly and those who would not die of their injuries — but leaving the fallen to succumb in their own time.
In later years De'Argent had returned to teach new students. A dozen times he chose to follow behind them in this way, and each time he completed the course and the jump, but he never retrieved the experience of that first time. The closest he ever came was when he fell into the between.
As fortune would have it, his quarry had hidden in H'nChae, a distant bromal place, but not barren. Twice he'd been further along the outflow, to places where the torrent which lent caster potency ebbed to a thin trickle. Returning from those places had nearly defeated him, but he'd survived, and each marked a crowning achievement. To each he'd dedicated a special place in his collection.
De'Argent arrived abruptly. Features of H'nChae appeared around him, first isolated outline shapes of objects coloured in hues of blue and, within moments, a full landscape in lustrous shades of green and orange, with purple-blue sea and sand.
At the last instant he met a resistance, like a membranous web pushing him backwards, and away. He forced his way past, but it threatened to tumble him and he arrived on a beach crouching, resting on one knee and the palm of his hand. But he was satisfied — to an observer in H'nChae he would have appeared instantly, without the extended warning signs accompanying a more conservative passage.
His client had provided him with the petals of a plant found only on this island, and a fragment of clothing belonging to his assigned target. Together with his high risk approach, these should have ensured he would ar
rive very close to Spetimane. He'd been warned to expect Vittore's henchman, the Ronyon Orim.
An offshore breeze brought the scent of salty sea spume to his nostrils. Three hundred paces away, amongst rock pools he saw two hulking shapes, and a much smaller figure between them, stooping and pointing. De'Argent remained low and scanned the shoreline, the water and high-ground to his left.
Other than the three ahead of him he could see nothing larger than a handful of white four-winged fliers hovering over the surface of the sea. The beach was broad and long, capped at each end with dark grey-purple rocky headlands.
He checked the dart tube attached under his left wrist, and loosened his needle blade in its sheath as he rose smoothly to his feet. The greatest risk lay in the cheg spotting him early, and carrying Spetimane away. They would be able to move far faster over rocks and sand, even burdened by a man.
He stepped forward, moving slowly at first, fingers and lips forming the patterns to focus his mind. He could feel the ebb and flow across the world skin, weak like the placid wash of the nearby waves, as they petered out on the shore. Subtlety was impossible here in H'nChae; the resistance seemed to cling to every word and gesture. It felt like lifting his own weight above his head, but he drew in the elements around him. The sea breeze strengthened and rushed to lift him, a sudden gale that propelled him forward. He seized on the spray to form the shapes of a slow moving flock of fliers, a glamour to muffle and hide his approach from Spetimane.
In a dozen heartbeats he'd covered two hundred paces. At fifty paces the glamour stuttered and Spetimane looked up, drawn by the sound of the rushing wind. The nearest of the cheg grunted, and whipped round to face him. In the same moment De'Argent felt something sweep across him, a prickling sensation across his skin, a far-sensing from the rock-face of the headland, now no more than a few hundred paces away.
The cheg leapt with arms outstretched to catch him, and De'Argent reacted instinctively, releasing himself from the grip of his casting, sending it ploughing forward like a fast moving wall, throwing sand and water spray into the air.
He hit the ground hard and rolled, sliding under the cheg's reaching arms, using the sand to soften the impact. A dart found the underbelly of the first cheg as he skidded past, and another found the left eye of the second.
Peripherally, he saw Spetimane struggling away across the sand on the far side of the rock-pools. Beyond Spetimane, running towards them, came another man, much bigger, with red hair blowing back in the remnants of his casting.
Part of his mind observed dispassionately, even as he dived aside to avoid a stomping blow from the rear leg of the first cheg, powerful enough to crush him into the sand. The cheg in front had lurched backwards, already succumbing to the effects of his poison. The one behind him would take longer, as the venom worked upwards through it's body, but as he cartwheeled off one hand and landed smoothly on his feet, his focus was on the distance between Spetimane and the Ronyon. Too close, he realised as he leapt forward, vaulted onto the slippery rocks surrounding the pools, and sprinted towards them. He angled behind the dying cheg, now sitting back on its haunches, a shield against the other one.
The Ronyon would reach Spetimane before him. He sprinted towards them across the sand, quelling a sense of frustration — whatever he did now, he knew fighting past Orim would be messy, lacking the elegance of an immaculate kill.
Spetimane, who'd been running with his head down, looked up, saw Orim heading towards him, and stopped abruptly. Even as Spetimane turned, De'Argent knew he had him. He could see Orim shouting something, but the words were torn away by a sudden sea gust.
The air around Orim convulsed, and burst. Fine lines of fire, brighter than the sun, ripped outwards like burning lightning, forked, and forked again. De'Argent felt the heat as the uncontrolled streams passed overhead and slammed into the rocks behind him.
Beyond the outer range, he flicked a dart into the air, fingers working and mouthing the words to shape the raw power of casting. The dart flew on a high trajectory, and as it dipped, his casting seized it, flinging it towards Orim.
De'Argent ran at an angle to put Spetimane between him and Orim, and as he reached the outer range limit of the dart tube, he shot his last dart. A flash of flame burst the dart aimed at Orim, but De'Argent knew his final one would find Spetimane without waiting to see. He'd given himself enough time to escape, a few precious moments.
Ten long paces, and H'nChae disappeared as he tumbled away into the void.
Orim knelt down next to Spetimane, watching as the colour drained from the old man's face.
“Why?” Orim asked.
Spetimane sucked in a laboured breath, and something like a half smile formed on his lips. “The Cassadian could only kill me once—”
Orim leant close to Spetimane's face to hear his words. “I would have protected you, why turn back?”
“No … not you …” Spetimane's head rolled backwards, and Orim could see the muscles relaxing in his face.
“Tell me who,” Orim shouted, seizing Spetimane by the shoulder to keep him awake.
“… all for the boy …” Spetimane's pupils eased to barely visible points, and his body slackened.
After a few moments, Orim straightened up.
One of the cheg made grunting noises as it lay dying near the rocks, and steam from his flame-strikes hung in the air overhead. How many times had he stood in a place like this, surrounded by the dead? One day, he knew, another would stand in his place, over his body, but not this day.
The assassin escaped, but Orim had seen his face. Just above average height, slim, with plain features, and dressed in the style of the Cassadian guilds.
Orim rolled Spetimane's body over with his foot, and bent to retrieve the dart he saw there. He held it between thumb and forefinger, handling the deadly object with great delicacy, examining it with care, admiring the perfection of its craftsmanship, the simplicity of design. A weapon created to fly with unsurpassed accuracy. The needle-sharp steel point, stained dark with deadly venom, could easily penetrate thick fabric or even light armour.
And hidden within the heart of the metal he'd found a suggestion of a link, back to the place, the very workshop, where it had been made.
The Stilts Dance
PALONA WAITED until most of her guests had arrived before she entered the hall. She stopped at the top of the stairs, long enough to be sure all her guests would see her before she descended, looked over their heads to where the specially imported Ulpitorian players plucked out a traditional tune from the balcony above the main entrance. Her eyes found Jaquit concealed there, half in shadows, on the adjoining walkway.
Parties and other public events were just about the only thing Palona did without Jaquit. Palona loved them, and Jaquit hated them.
Jaquit hated being visible in a crowd, and so, after a miserable early attempt, had refused to attend any others. They had one of their rare proper fights over this, and eventually Jaquit compromised by agreeing to watch from some hidden place or another.
The festival of stilts was a festival Palona had made her own by hosting one of the most sought after social gatherings of the entire year. Hundreds of pairs of eyes watched her as she descended, women examining her dress, and hair, and details of jewellery, and young men vying to catch her eye.
Walking carefully down the steps Palona knew she'd made good choices. The midnight blue dress had been cut long enough to trail on the floor, and on her head she wore a fine mesh covered in dozens of the Magadigar pearls she'd received as a gift from Nepet.
Each pearl glowed with a silvery inner light. Not the work of one of those abominable curse-makers, she'd been assured, but rather a rare natural property of the pearls themselves.
As she stepped onto the main floor dozens of guests surrounded her, talking all at once, each eager to gain her attention first.
Palona drifted between knots of guests, a few of her closer acquaintances moving with her, laughing appreciatively at her w
ittier observations.
She took her time, putting names to faces, as she worked her way through the room. With every aspect of the dance carefully planned the last thing she wanted would be to create a disaster by saying the wrong thing to the wrong person.
With Scora attending, she'd spared no effort to make everything perfect, working through the arrangements in painstaking detail, checking everything from the flower arrangements to personally sampling every dish served that evening.
Staff had been specially hired, or loaned temporarily by friends — a dedicated steward, sklled servants, musicians imported directly from Ulpitor, and the best cooks the city had to offer.
She made a point to collect Dimancy as she passed, taking his arm insistently, and drawing him away from the men he'd been standing with.
“Why are you ignoring me, Dimancy? You promised you'd dance with me first.”
“I was waiting for you, my dear Palona,” he said, patting her hand reassuringly. “I stood there because I knew only you would have the courage to approach such severe company.”
Dimancy stood tall and slim, and had impeccable manners — the kind of man she'd consider, if it weren’t for his squint and mismatched eye colours. He also happened to be the best dancer she knew, and he always made her look that much better when they took to the floor together.
She dragged Dimancy with her as she completed her rounds, greeting all her favourite guests, and making a fuss of the diplomatically important ones.
Duty first, she reminded herself, as she struggled to overcome Sii-Tai's limited range of Volanian words. Sii-Tai wore a ridiculously exaggerated costume in mid-blue and red, with dozens of huge bows, a high collar, and a tiny black hat. She had an ugly, squashed face, and a stubby upturned nose which she might have borrowed from a dog.
