by Barb Hendee
The fresh smells and scenery of his homeland were merely a painted canvas that hid a mass of power-hungry men who struggled for domination. Instead of being ruled by a king, the country was held by a warlord named Darmouth, who saw treason all around him. Warlords who rule need spies and other hidden servants, and Leesil was fifteen years old and nearly seven years into his training before realizing his father and mother did not simply work for Lord Darmouth. Darmouth owned them.
Leesil’s mother’s tan skin and golden hair, her exotic elven heritage, made her a useful weapon as she created the illusion of a tall but delicate girl or a rare foreign beauty. His father, for his part, could blend into the shadows as if made of dust in the air, and his passing left no mark and made no sound. They betrayed whomever they were told to betray and killed whomever they were told to assassinate. And they taught Leesil everything they knew. It was the family craft and art, and he was the family’s only inheritor.
“We have a tenuous position here, Lìsill,” his mother whispered to him late in the night. “Necessary, highly skilled—and expendable. If we refuse or hesitate, we will be the next ones to die unexplainably in our sleep or be exposed and executed for our crimes. Do you understand, my son? Always nod and do as you are bid.”
No matter what the monetary rewards, Leesil did not possess the temperament required for a life of isolated servitude. Spies and assassins make no friends. His mother must have felt his loneliness. On the day of his fifteenth birth celebration, she presented him with a large, silver-blue puppy that crawled all over him with uncontained wiggles and licked his face. It was the one moment of pure happiness that he could remember.
“This is a special hound,” she said, her graceful hands held outward. “His great-grandfather protected my people in frightening times long past. He will watch over you.”
That was all she’d ever told him—that he recalled—of Chap or of her homeland, wherever it might have been. And Leesil gave few thoughts to her words at the time. If he hadn’t been so happy in that one moment, he might have asked more questions, or even remembered to ask later, but he only cared that some part of his life seemed like other boys’. He had a dog.
When Leesil turned seventeen, his father declared his training finished, or perhaps did so at Lord Darmouth’s insistence. His mother presented him with the box filled with all the tools he would need for his duties.
“You are now anmaglâhk,” she said, her voice quiet and hollow—a statement of fact filled with no pride.
She seldom spoke her native tongue in all of his life that Leesil remembered. Though he’d learned several of the land’s dialects, she never taught him the elven language other than a few words he’d picked up on his own. Once, when he tried to beg her to teach him, she turned coldly angry.
“There will never be a need for you to speak it,” she said.
And as he left her, quick to exit her chamber, he was uncertain of what he saw. As she sat on the window bench, looking out, her face turned away from him, a shudder ran through her body as if she were sobbing silently.
Looking at the box in his hands she had given him as a birthday present, he did not need to ask what the word she had used meant. He knew what he’d become. The same day, he was ordered to assassinate a baron believed to be plotting against Darmouth. The command came from his father.
That night, Leesil scaled the walls of Baron Progae’s fortress, slipped past a dozen guards, and climbed down from the tower into the target’s bedroom window. He drove a stiletto into the base of the sleeping man’s skull, just as his father had shown him, and then slipped out again. No one found the body until nearly noon the next day. What servant would willingly disturb the late sleep of a nobleman?
Progae’s lands were confiscated. His wife and daughters were driven into the street. Leesil sought out information about the family later. One daughter was taken in as the fourth mistress of a loyal baron. The wife and two youngest daughters starved to death as everyone feared assisting them. Leesil never asked about the families of his victims again. He simply slipped through windows, picked what were often considered unpickable locks, carried out his orders, and never looked back.
At twenty-four, he still looked as young as a human in his late teens. One night Lord Darmouth summoned him personally. Leesil loathed being in his lord’s presence, but he never even considered refusing.
“I don’t want you to kill this time but gather information,” Darmouth told him through a thick, black beard. “One of my ministers has given me cause to doubt his true interests. He trains young scribes as a hobby. Your father tells me you speak and write several of our dialects?”
“Yes, my lord,” Leesil answered, despising the brutal hands and unwashed face of the creature who owned his entire family.
“Good. You will live as his student and report to me on his activities, his comments, his daily habits, and so forth.”
Leesil bowed and left.
He was allowed to bring Chap to his new residence, which was a comfort since the dog represented his only link to a life beyond his duties. But the first meeting with Minister Josiah was almost unsettling to him after years of plots, schemes, and silent deaths. A small, white-haired man with violet, laughing eyes, Josiah grasped Leesil’s hand in open warmth and friendship. Rather than armor or clothing designed for stealth, the man wore cream-colored robes.
“Come, come, my boy. Lord Darmouth tells me you’re a promising student. We’ll find you some supper and a warm bed.”
Leesil hesitated. He’d never met anyone like Josiah. The merry minister mistook his pause.
“Not to worry. Your dog is welcome, too. A handsome creature and a bit unusual, as I don’t think I’ve ever seen his kind before. Where did you get him?”
Chap’s back now reached a grown man’s thigh. His long, silver-blue fur, pale, near-blue eyes, and narrow muzzle often drew compliments from those who saw him. The dog trotted straight up to the old minister and sat, with a switching tail, waiting to be petted. It was the first time Leesil had ever seen Chap do such a thing with anyone but himself and his mother.
Leesil wasn’t sure how to answer and tried quickly to figure out what purpose the question served, what agenda might be hidden behind it.
“My mother,” he finally answered.
Josiah looked up from scratching Chap gently on the head.
“Your mother? Why, I would have thought him to be a father’s gift, but no matter”—he laughed softly and smiled—“a mother’s gift is even better.”
With that, the old minister ushered both Leesil and his dog into the house and into his life.
Josiah’s loyalties became clear in the days and weeks that followed. He had no intention of creating insurrection, but he had turned his large country estate into a haven for those displaced by Darmouth’s continuing civil wars and intrigues. Barracks and small cottages had been built to house refugees. Leesil spent part of his days in lessons with Josiah, and the other part helping to feed or care for the poor. He found the latter acts somewhat futile, since these tragic people would still be poor tomorrow. The poor were poor. The rich were rich. The intelligent and resourceful survived. That was the way of things.
His attitude toward Minister Josiah, however, was quite different. Never given the opportunity to admit or recognize admiration, he did not understand his feelings of protection for the old man. Indeed, he was foolish enough at first to believe he could save himself, save his family, and save Josiah by simply reporting nothing to Lord Darmouth. After all, he disobeyed no orders, refused no tasks, and there was nothing to tell.
“What do you mean, ‘he’s loyal’?” the bearded lord demanded when Leesil had returned once on a “visit home.”
Leesil stood rigid and attentive in Darmouth’s private chambers. Although tired and thirsty from his journey, he was offered neither a chair nor water.
“He bears you no ill will, speaks no treason,” he answered in confusion.
Anger clouded Darmouth’s eyes.
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br /> “And what of all these peasants flocking to his fields? No other minister gathers armies of the poor. Your father believes you are skilled. Is he wrong?”
Leesil never answered any question before thinking carefully, but now he felt adrift. How could Josiah’s act of feeding the poor possibly be construed as treason?
“Is this task beyond you?” Darmouth went on after taking a long drink, draining a pewter goblet filled with wine and then slamming it back on the table.
“No, my lord,” Leesil answered.
“I need evidence, and I need it quickly. His peasant hordes grow. If you can’t bring me simple information, I will assume your father is a fool as well and have you both replaced.”
Cold shock washed over Leesil as he realized Lord Darmouth didn’t want the truth. He simply wanted something with which to justify Josiah’s destruction. If Leesil refused, both he and his father would be replaced, and servants of their kind did not just leave service. At best, they disappeared one night never to be seen again—as the first task of their replacements.
He traveled back north to the warm embrace of his new teacher and ate a supper of roast lamb and fresh peaches while making up stories at the table when Josiah asked all about his visit home.
That night, he slipped downstairs into Josiah’s study, picked a simple lock on the old man’s desk, and began reading recent correspondence. He stopped going through the parchments when his gaze scanned a draft of a letter not yet sent.
My Dear Sister,
The situation grows worse with each month, and I fear a loss of both vision and reason in our highest places. I would resign my seat on the council were it not for my work here with those in most need. I pray each dusk for some sign of change with each dawn, for some legitimate change for the better in the command of this land, for a change is needed. These unending civil wars will destroy all of us. . . .
The letter went on, touching upon Josiah’s simple daily routine, queries of family and friends, and other personal topics. It even mentioned a young half-elf as a promising new student. Leesil ignored the rest of the letter. The first paragraph, though not clearly pointing to Lord Darmouth, would be enough for someone like him to justify charges of treason. Leesil shoved the parchment inside his shirt, found Chap, and headed out that night for Darmouth’s castle.
Three days later, soldiers swarmed Josiah’s estate and arrested him. They dispersed the refugees, killing a handful in the process. After a brief trial by Darmouth’s council, composed of ministers now staunchly loyal to their lord as they sat in judgment over one of their own, Josiah was hanged in the castle courtyard for treason. A letter to his sister proved his guilt.
Leesil was well paid for his services and lay in bed that night shivering, unable to get warm. He tried to focus on loyalty to his parents and not on his own tenuous grasp of Master Josiah’s lessons on ethics and morals. Ethics were for those who could afford such luxuries as time for philosophical thought, and morals should be left to clerics and their doctrines. But he had destroyed a man he admired—one who’d cherished a young half-blood stranger in his own house—on the orders of the one man Leesil despised the most.
No, that was no longer correct. He loathed himself even more than Darmouth.
He couldn’t stop shaking.
That night, Leesil left behind most of the blood money he’d earned for his parents, knowing they would have need of it once his own disappearance was discovered. He took a few silver coins, his everyday stilettos, his box of tools, and ran south for Stravina with Chap at his side.
For all his training and talent, Leesil found life on the road much harder than he’d imagined. He and Chap hunted for food together and slept outside. And each night, dreams of his past filled the dark behind his closed eyes until he woke before dawn soaked in sweat.
When they reached their first large city, a new possibility occurred to him as he saw a fat purse hanging from the belt of a nobleman.
Picking pockets would be as easy as breathing for him. He cut the purse in a heartbeat and disappeared into a crowd. Half-starved, he went directly to an inn and ordered food. Upon seeing the half-elf’s money, the innkeeper smiled.
“You’ll be wanting something to wash that down with,” he said.
“Tea will be fine,” Leesil answered.
The innkeeper laughed and brought him a large goblet of red wine. Neither of Leesil’s parents ever drank alcohol, so he’d never given it much thought. The path they walked required a keen mind fully alert at all times. The wine tasted good, so he drank it. He ordered another goblet and then another.
That same night he experienced his first wave of numbed forgetfulness, not stirring to a dream until nearly the whole night had passed. The sickness and headache the following morning were a small price to pay for one sound night’s sleep—and another, and another.
A new life began for Leesil the Pickpocket, who drank himself into numbed slumber each night. Frequenting taverns and inns and other similar places exposed him to cards and games of chance, and he learned to supplement his light-fingered livelihood with gambling. Of course, it was risky—especially if he were cheating and drinking at the same time. He was actually caught and arrested twice, but neither jail held him for long, even without the tools he’d stored away before going out for the evening’s business. Years passed.
He lived nowhere, claimed no one but Chap as a friend, and just as this life was beginning to seem as pointless as his previous one, he saw a tall, young woman with black hair that sparked red in the street lanterns. A strange desire to pick her pocket filled his mind.
It was a bad idea, but he wavered as he tried to walk away. Young women in leather armor who carried swords offered little wealth. And uncommon as they were, they would have to be skilled to survive and might prove more trouble than he wanted should something go wrong. This one’s armor was weatherworn and sun bleached, so she was likely not fresh off the farm looking for a life better than marriage and milking the cows. He never approached her type, but the voice in his mind became impossible to ignore, nagging at him over and over and over. . . .
It would be easy. It would be quick. And this one might actually have something worth taking. Silently, he moved up behind her.
She had no visible purse, but carried a large pouch over one shoulder. Carefully matching pace with her, he watched the oversize pouch swing slightly from side to side and out from her back. It was little trouble to time his move. He reached out, poised as the bag bounced quietly against her back, and when it left contact with her body, his hand slipped inside. He was careful not to disturb its swing and rhythm as he fished slowly and carefully about the inside. It bounced twice more against her back without her noticing he was there.
The woman whirled around, grabbing his wrist in the same movement.
“Hey, what are you . . . ?” she started to say.
He could have easily jerked away and run, but her dark eyes caught him. For a blink, she looked enraged, then stood there taking in the sight of him as well. He knew for a fact he’d never seen her before, but for some reason, he didn’t run, and she didn’t call for the guard. Neither spoke at first.
“You’re pretty good,” she said finally.
“Not good enough,” he answered.
That was how he met Magiere and began what he considered to be the third and best of his lives. He didn’t exactly remember at what point they came up with his involvement in the “hunter” game, but Magiere’s restrained approval after the first practice run gave him a strange feeling of satisfaction he’d never experienced. After that, he had few responsibilities beyond playing a vampire several times each moon and traveling in Magiere’s comfortable, capable company.
Memory ebbed away.
Leesil knelt on the floor of his room, staring at the metal remnants of his first life, the life no one present knew about. How many years had it been? He honestly couldn’t remember. And he realized that his once honed and hated skills would now be needed
again if he were to help Magiere at all, perhaps for her life’s sake.
He snapped the box closed and shoved it inside his shirt. A soft scratching and whining at the door caught his attention.
“Chap?” He walked over and opened the door. “Come on in, boy.”
Looking down, he saw the dog held a piece of the bloody shawl Caleb had removed from Beth-rae before dressing her for visitors and burial. Chap’s transparent blue eyes shone with misery. He whined again and pushed at Leesil’s foot with his paw.
Leesil crouched down, examining Chap in confusion. He knew dogs were capable of mourning in a fashion for people they had lost, but Chap had come to him with a specific piece of a dead woman’s clothing.
“What is it? What do you want?”
It seemed ridiculous to ask a question of an animal. Then he realized that he didn’t need to ask. He knew what the dog wanted. Chap wanted to hunt down Beth-rae’s killer.
Footsteps on the stairs made both dog and half-elf look up.
“What’s wrong with him?” Magiere asked, stepping off the stairs into the hallway, looking clean, calm, and in charge again.
Leesil ignored the question. “Where have you been?”
“Getting some answers.” Then she noticed the scrap of cloth in Chap’s jaws. Her brow wrinkled in confusion and revulsion. “Is that Beth-rae’s shawl?”
“Yes.” Leesil nodded. “He carried it up from the kitchen.”
“Did the creature that killed Beth-rae touch it?”
“I don’t know, but . . .”
Leesil hesitated. For whatever reason, Magiere was thinking along the same path that had occurred to him. Perhaps it was time to try what he’d had in the back of his mind since he’d first hidden away Ratboy’s dagger, deciding not to turn it over to Ellinwood. He returned to his chest and picked up the blade Beth-rae’s killer had left behind, careful not to touch the handle and foul any lingering scent.
“Here Chap, try this.”
“Where did you find that?” Magiere snapped at him, reaching out for the blade. “And why didn’t you show it to Ellinwood?”
