by D. P. Prior
But the Archon had mentioned the creature—Thanatosian, he’d called it. Not something Sektis Gandaw had cooked up, then. That had been real enough. Shadrak still had an ache in his shoulder to prove it.
He pushed through the stage door exit onto the street.
The road was packed with legionaries decked out in bronze galeas with horsehair plumes. They should have been stationed round the gleaming black carriage stood waiting by the front entrance, but they’d been drawn by the clutch of goons hovering over Koort Morrow’s twitching body. There was a frantic flurry of activity as a man knelt by Morrow’s head, rummaging through a surgeon’s bag. Froth spilled from the guildmaster’s mouth. His eyes were white and vacant.
The crowds leaving by the main entrance were ushered to one side as Vatès emerged, a gray-robed aide on either side. They made a beeline for the carriage, and the door was held open for them by a big bald bloke in a leather jerkin. Hired muscle, no doubt, to keep well-wishers and the other sort at bay. Probably, he did a good job of it, normally, but with the commotion caused by Morrow’s poisoning, his eyes weren’t everywhere, like they should have been.
Shadrak slipped past Morrow’s goons and strode for the carriage as Vatès and his aides climbed inside. Without pausing, he slid out a punch dagger and rammed it into the hired-muscle’s kidney, dropping him like a stone. He rapped on the carriage as he stepped inside. The driver was as distracted as the rest of them, and sent the horses into a trot.
Four pairs of startled eyes met Shadrak’s entrance.
He stabbed an aide in the chest, flung a razor star at the second, catching him in the throat. As the man bubbled and foamed at the mouth, Shadrak snapped his kneecap with a kick, then, in one fluid motion, whipped out a dagger and stuck it in his eye.
Vatès raised his hands and babbled a stream of pleading. Could have been a bribe in there, for all the good it did him.
Shadrak wrenched his punch dagger from the aide’s chest and stabbed Vatès in the guts. As the senator doubled up, Shadrak ripped his dagger free from the other aide. The eyeball came away with it, skewered like a kebab. Had to wonder if it saw anything as it plunged down into the bald patch atop Vatès’ head and lodged in his brain.
The carriage rattled and rolled along the street, causing Shadrak to throw out an arm to steady himself. His fingers were slick with blood, none of it his.
A girl whimpered.
The fourth set of eyes.
She was staring up at him from the far side of the seat Vatès was slumped on. Must’ve been four, maybe five. Vatès’ granddaughter, no doubt.
“Daddy,” she said on the crest of a sob.
Daughter, then, the lusty old dog.
He yanked his dagger free from Vatès’ head, and blood gushed out like water from a whale’s blowhole. The girl screamed and buried her face in her hands.
“Shut the shog up,” Shadrak said, grabbing her hair and exposing her throat.
“Shadrak…”
“Not now, Kadee,” he growled. “I’m working.”
“Shadrak!”
This time, her plea cut him dead. He stood glaring at the girl for a long moment, then he let go her hair.
“Fine. Shog it. Just keep your mouth shut, got it?”
The girl’s face was whiter than his was. Her lips quivered, and then she managed a nod.
Sheathing his blades and reclaiming his razor star, Shadrak booted open the door and leapt out. As he hit the road and tumbled to his feet, the girl screamed.
“Shogging little scut!” Shadrak muttered.
The driver cried, “Whoa!” and the horses pulled up. As he climbed down from his seat to see what the noise was about, Shadrak took off for an unlit alleyway.
“Oh, my bleedin’…” the driver said. Then, in a voice like a trumpet blast, he hollered, “Guards! Guards! Over here!”
Dozens of legionaries broke off from the theater crowd and pelted toward the carriage. Worse still, another unit that must have been stationed further along the road came pounding from the other direction.
“That way!” Shadrak heard the girl shouting. “It was a gnome or a goblin. It stabbed my daddy.”
Shog. She’d got a good look at him. Only person to have done so during a job that he’d not silenced. Damn Kadee. Why’d she have to go and prick his conscience?
No, not damn Kadee. Damn the Archon for forcing him to take Vatès out with no preparation. Doing it at all was bad enough. The truce between the Night Hawks and the Senate would be well and truly over now. But like this, with so much left to chance… That was the last he was gonna have to do with that fiery-faced shogger, threat or no threat. Kadee or no Kadee.
He reached the end of the alley and cursed.
Dead shogging end.
He started to climb the rear wall, but the footfalls of the soldiers were too near. He’d never make it. Dropping back to the ground, he spun round and flung himself into a pile of garbage, just as the first soldier entered the alleyway.
It stank like a Dreamer’s crotch, but it was the best he could do. Rats gamboled in and out of the refuse, but Shadrak tried not to notice. He lay face down, cloak pulled tight about him. They’d not see him until they were right on top of him, and if they were stupid enough to get that close, they’d never know what hit them.
Muffled voices came from the mouth of the alley. Shadrak peered out from beneath his hood. Two more soldiers had joined the first. They stood hesitantly, casting looks behind at the cordon of legionaries now encircling the carriage. He could hear the girl sobbing, the driver’s attempts at explaining what had happened.
Shadrak stiffened as the three legionaries edged deeper into the alley. One of them looked toward the rubbish heap and prodded its base with his spear.
“Shog, that’s rank,” he said.
“Shogging disgrace, is what it is,” another said. “If I was First Senator, cleaning the shite off the streets would be the first thing I did, I tell you.”
“Yeah?” the third said. “Well, now maybe you’ll get your chance.”
“I’ll vote for you,” the first said, though his voice was riddled with sarcasm, and something else.
Fear, Shadrak realized.
He couldn’t blame the man. Whatever the Senate paid them, it wasn’t enough to get your throat slit. He let out a sigh of relief. These were his kind of soldiers, the kind that made a show of doing all the right things but then put down failure to factors beyond their control.
“Come on, lads,” the wannabe senator said. “Nothing here. Reckon he’s long gone.”
“Yeah,” the first said. “Bloody driver took his sweet time calling us. Either he crapped his pants, or he’s in league with the killer.”
“You have to wonder,” the third man said. “It ain’t like Vatès didn’t have enemies.”
As they retreated back toward the carriage, a brilliant white orb flared into life above the theater and began to scour the streets.
Shadrak gritted his teeth. Magwitch the Meddler. He’d recognize the mad mage’s handiwork anywhere. It was no secret the Senate employed a raft of his security measures. The rate the orb was moving, he had fifteen, maybe twenty seconds before he was lit up bright as day.
He slid from the refuse pile and found a foothold on the rear wall again. When he reached the top, he turned for a last look as the orb’s light spilled across the mouth of the alley.
A figure stepped into its radiance: a silhouette, tall and slender, long arms drooping almost to its feet.
Something tugged at Shadrak’s mind, slipped in between his thoughts, latched on.
A psycher!
Creatures of Sektis Gandaw the Senate held on to; used only in the most serious crimes. Unleash a psycher, and it would never give up, never let go. Once it had a taste of your mind, it was relentless.
Shadrak dropped to the street on the other side of the wall. The pressure in his mind eased as he ran. Maybe the stories were wrong. Maybe you could shake a psycher, after all.
>
“You have done well,” the Archon whispered in his head. “And the balance has tilted once more in our favor. The secularist agenda has been stillborn. Already, Vatès and his supporters were looking to back to Gandaw’s reign as some sort of golden era.”
“Shog you,” Shadrak managed as he found a drainpipe to shimmy up. “You pushed me into this one too fast.” He paused for breath as he reached the roof. “Need time to plan. This’ll cost me. Cost the guilds.”
“That is no loss,” the Archon said.
“No shogging loss?”
Something tickled beneath his scalp, and once more the pressure began to rise. He set off across the rooftop at a sprint, launched himself across the gap between buildings.
“I allowed it,” the Archon said. “So long as you did my work.”
“Did your murdering, you mean. What is it, afraid to get your hands dirty?”
“I cannot act directly. You know this.”
“Yeah, well you’re gonna have to find someone else, because I’ve had it with you.”
“The contract, remember?” the Archon said. He shimmered into existence and glowered down at Shadrak from the depths of his cowl.
“Shog the contract. You wanna kill me for not sticking to it, go ahead. I’m right here.”
Shadrak’s fingers twitched above the handles of his flintlocks. It was probably futile. The Archon had already said guns could not harm him, but he was willing to give it a try. He’d had about enough of being controlled and manipulated. And besides, the faux flintlocks might have looked older than his original pistol—his Thundershot—but when the planeship had first given them up to him, he’d seen right away they were better: more powerful, and held more bullets.
The white fire beneath the Archon’s cowl flickered. He was rankled, undecided. It wasn’t much, but it was another clue. Sooner or later, Shadrak would know enough about him to take him down. It was just a matter of time.
“What about Kadee?” the Archon said.
Needles of pain stabbed at Shadrak’s brain.
“It is close,” the Archon said. “The psycher. Hurry. You must survive this.”
“Tell me,” Shadrak said as he lurched toward the far end of the roof. “Kadee. Tell me how to find her.”
“One more kill,” the Archon said. “Then I will free you. Then I will lead you to her.”
“That a promise?”
The Archon glided closer and loomed over him. “That is a promise.”
Shadrak put his hands to his head, winced against the pain. Fighting back a growing wave of nausea, he gauged the distance to the next roof, took a few steps back, and prepared to jump.
“Fine. One more kill. Who is it?”
He ran for the edge and threw himself across the gap.
As he caught hold of the guttering on the other side, the Archon’s voice was strong and clear in his mind.
“A tool of the Demiurgos. The single greatest threat to Aethir and Urddynoor.”
Shadrak swung himself up onto the roof and glared out over the city. “Thought Shader already took Gandaw out,” he said, more interested in saving his skin than in the Archon’s next victim.
Queenie’s was two blocks away. If he could get there ahead of the psycher, grab his things…
“You mustn’t leave yet,” the Archon said, as if he could read Shadrak’s thoughts. “He’s already coming to you. He will ask of you a favor, and whatever happens, you must not grant it. There is no other way, Shadrak, you must kill him.”
“Whatever,” Shadrak said. “So, you gonna tell me who it is, or is that some big shogging secret, like the rest of your scheming?”
The Archon reappeared in front of him, a reddish hue to the flames bleeding from his cowl.
“The Nameless Dwarf.”
END OF THE TRUCE
Time he got to Queenie’s, the pressure in Shadrak’s head had all but gone. Either he’d slipped beyond the psycher’s reach in his mad dash across the rooftops, or it was playing with him, lulling him into a false sense of security.
—The Nameless Dwarf.
He clamped down on the thought as soon as it reared its head.
No way. Not after what they’d been through together. Not after Sektis Gandaw and his shogging Unweaving.
—One more kill.
And then it would be over. No more doing what he was told. No more Archon’s assassin.
And then there was Kadee. Would he really see her again? Could he?
Nameless.
Closest he’d had to a friend all these years. A real friend, that is. Someone who had his back. Not at all like Albert.
Far as Shadrak was concerned, the Archon could go shog himself, only, he wasn’t ready to tell him just yet. He didn’t know enough; hadn’t worked out a way to stick it to him. How did you kill a god? He wasn’t even sure there was a way.
But the Archon claimed he wasn’t a god, didn’t he? So, however you looked at it, that increased the chances. It was just a matter of how long it would take.
Thing was, did he really give a shit about Nameless? Was he kidding himself that the dwarf gave a damn about him? They’d shared a few jokes—most of them made by Nameless. They’d faced danger together, more than once. But so shogging what? If it was a choice between Nameless and freedom, between him and Kadee…
It wasn’t like he’d chosen the situation. He was under contract. It was a job like any other. Just had to be professional. Just had to be pragmatic.
He slipped in through the back door, not even bothering to remove his cloak before going into the restaurant. What was the point? The game was up. He’d been seen, but more than that, he’d been “scented” by a psycher. So much for taking out Morrow and finally bringing the last of the guilds to heel. It was like the Archon was shogging with him, one minute giving him a long enough leash to get a stranglehold on New Londdyr’s underworld, and the next snapping it back and leaving him with nothing. Because that’s what it amounted to. While there was a truce with the Senate—we won’t touch you, if you keep out of our business—the Night Hawks had been a nice little earner. But with the slaying of Mal Vatès, that truce was over. If Shadrak had been on the Senate, he’d have thrown everything he had at bringing the Night Hawks down, and he’d start with their leader, especially now he had a face.
“Shadrak.” Big Jake acknowledged him with a grunt. He was locked in an arm wrestle with Albert’s adopted savage, Ekyls.
Both men were red-faced, veins popping out on their necks. Ekyls was naked from the waist up, his wiry body a map of tattoos, most of them snakes coiling about each other. His lips were curled back in effort, yellow teeth bared and dangerous. His filed incisors looked like they could puncture all the way to the bone and inject more venom than even Albert could dream of.
There was a single customer seated at a table with nothing but a cup of water in front of him. He was no bigger than Shadrak. Was it a child? He was dressed in a cloak of feathers, the hood low over his face.
Ekyls let out a gurgling growl that grew more insistent, until it ended in a shrill whine. At that point, Big Jake rolled his wrist and slammed Ekyls’ hand into the table. The savage roared, and his whole body tensed, as if he were getting ready to pounce.
“No shame in losing,” Big Jake said. There was warmth in his voice but steel in his eyes.
Shadrak knew what was coming if Ekyls tried something. And Big Jake was right: there was no shame in losing an arm wrestle to him. Hundreds had come to test their strength, and all had failed.
“Not lose,” Ekyls said, pushing his chair back and rubbing his wrist as he stood. “You speak Shadrak. Me think wrestle finish.”
Big Jake stood, too, and leaned over the table. “So, my old mate, what you’re saying is, you want a rematch.” He cracked his knuckles and made as to sit down again.
Ekyls glared at him for a second, then lowered his eyes. “Boss here now. Me work to do.”
With that, he stalked off into the kitchen.
; Why Albert thought a grime-covered savage should be in charge of washing the dishes had never sat right with Shadrak. Last he’d looked, the kitchens were awash with fresh blood, from where Ekyls ate his food without cooking it. Word is, he caught it himself—rats, mice, or any bird stupid enough to get too close to the open window.
“Scut,” Big Jake said, frowning at Ekyls’ retreating back. Then he shrugged at Shadrak. “Can’t stand a sore loser.”
“Pack up, Jake,” Shadrak said. “We’re clearing out.”
The little man in the feathered cloak looked up at that.
Big Jake saw Shadrak noticing. “Sorry, matey. I was gonna tell you, your dad’s here.”
“Shog off, scut-breath,” Shadrak said.
With his head lifted, the man’s face came into view. It was creased with wrinkles, and unhealthily gray. He had a wisp of white beard, and beneath curling white brows there were beady eyes. When they turned on Shadrak, he felt exposed somehow, as if they saw too much.
Something about the man unsettled him. It was like that sensation he got when he thought he’d been somewhere before. He narrowed his eyes and tried not to look away. Finally, he broke off, feeling like his perfect memory had cheated him.
“Thought I knew you from somewhere,” he said. “But that ain’t likely. I never forget a face.”
“Memory can be trained,” the little man said.
He was right there. Shadrak’s was no accident, no freak of nature. He’d realized the need for a sharp mind and recall of faces, facts, places early on in his career.
“But from before the time a mind is trained,” the man said, “it is like the murk of a swamp.”
Big Jake cast a long shadow over Shadrak. “’Scuse me interrupting, Boss. Clearing out?”
Shadrak lowered himself into the chair opposite the little man. “Grab your things, Jake. And tell Ekyls to do the same.” Though shog knew what the savage had to bring with him, save for his knives and a bloody carcass or two.
