by DAVID B. COE
“My apologies, my lord. But it seems someone wants you dead.”
He’s an assassin then, Chago thought, not a brigand.
Not that it mattered. He was going to die here in the wood, not even a league from his castle.
Where in Bian’s name was Peshkal?
The realization came to him so suddenly, with such force, that his knees actually gave way, forcing the man to hold him up. He had been hearing the rumors for nearly a year now, long enough and from so many different sources that he no longer doubted their truth. But though he had little trouble believing in the existence of a Qirsi conspiracy, it had never occurred to him to question Peshkal’s loyalty.
The sorcerer had been with him for eight years now, the first several as an underminister, the last five as his first minister. Chago would never go so far as to call the Qirsi his friend, but he had paid the man handsomely, relied on his counsel without hesitation, and trusted him with the well-being of his dukedom, the safety of his family, and his own life. Until this day, Peshkal had given him no reason to do otherwise.
The hunt had been his idea. So had Silbron’s ride for that matter. He had contrived every circumstance so that the duke would be hunting alone. And then he had made certain that Chago would be at this very spot at precisely this time. He could hear the minister’s words once more—he could see the man’s smile. “I have business in the city, but I’ll meet you on the edge of the wood just after midday.” Indeed. The Qirsi had killed him, and Chago had made it far too easy for him.
All of this occurred to the duke in a single instant. The assassin still held him fast, and now he pried Chago’s fingers off the hilt of his sword and drew the weapon himself.
“A pretty blade, my lord,” he said, tossing it aside as if it were a trifle. “Where is your dagger?”
Chago said nothing, and the man began to crush his throat.
“Tell me.”
“My belt,” the duke rasped.
The man ran his hand along Chago’s belt until he found the blade. This, too, he threw to the side. Both of Chago’s hands were free, and he straightened, bearing his own weight again. If he moved fast enough…
Before he even formed the thought, the point of a dagger was resting against the corner of his eye.
“This can be done quickly or slowly, my lord. Painlessly or not. It’s your choice.”
“I’ll do whatever you say,” Chago whispered. “Please, not my eyes.”
The man said nothing, though he did remove the blade.
“You don’t have to do this,” the duke said. “Just tell me what you want.”
The man shook his head. “I’ve already told you, someone wants you dead. It’s not my choice.”
“No, it’s your profession.”
The singer offered no response, though it seemed to Chago that he pulled something from his pocket.
“Were you hired by the Qirsi? Can you tell me that much?”
The man stopped what he was doing. After a moment he turned the duke around and looked him in the eye. Chago and the assassin were almost the same height, and looking at him again, knowing now that he was more than a mere singer, the duke saw much that he had missed before. The man had a small scar high on his cheek, and there was something cold and uncompromising in those pale eyes. Without the smile he had worn as he sang, he had the look of a killer.
Their eyes remained locked for another moment, and then the assassin raised his hands. He held a garrote, the cord wound around his fists and pulled taut between them. For centuries, the garrote had been the weapon of choice for assassins sent by Solkaran kings.
“Is it Carden then?” the duke asked. “Is that who sent you?”
The assassin said nothing, and Chago backed away. He stumbled, fell backward to the ground, tears running down his face.
“Please,” he said again, as the man came toward him, pulling the garrote taut once more so that it thrummed like a hunter’s bow. “I have gold. I can pay you more than whoever it was that hired you.”
Incredibly, the man seemed to waver.
“Just tell me how much you want,” the duke went on, feeling bolder now. “My treasury is yours.”
Cadel had never considered such a thing before. People paid him to kill, and he killed. In his profession, failure meant death. If by some chance he had forgotten this over the years, the loss just a few turns before of Jedrek, his partner, had served as a bitter reminder. But what if he refused to kill? What if he chose to let this man live?
Would the Qirsi try to kill him? A part of him wished that they would try. He had been working for them for too long, and had grown far too dependent on their gold. He longed to strike back at them. It was far more likely, however, that they would try to destroy him while stopping short of killing him. Somehow they knew his true name. They knew of the circumstances that had driven him from the court of his father in southern Caerisse when he was little more than a boy. And, of course, they knew of every murder he had committed on their behalf. They could keep him from ever working again. With a mere word uttered to the right person, they could turn him into a fugitive.
All of which made the gold offered by this duke cowering before him that much more attractive. Before they died, many of his victims tried to buy his mercy—his employers were wealthy and powerful, and, not surprisingly, so were those they wanted dead. Always in the past he had refused. But something in the duke of Bistari’s plea stopped him, probably the fact that he knew who had paid for his death. It had come to that: he so hated working for the Qirsi that he saw in their newest enemy a possible ally, or at least a way to break free of the white-hairs and their gold.
In any case, the duke had Cadel’s attention.
“You don’t want to do this,” the man said, still sitting on the ground, his cheeks still damp with the tears he had shed.
Cadel opened his mouth, then closed it again. Some things were best left unspoken. “You offered me gold,” he said instead. “How much?”
“More than you can imagine. My dukedom is the wealthiest in Aneira. Only the king has more gold than I.”
“I wasn’t asking how much you have, I was asking how much you’d give me.”
“As much as you want. All of it, if that’s what it takes.” He faltered. “I’m not a brave man, and I fear dying more than anything else.”
Cadel closed his eyes for just an instant, cursing his own stupidity. Jedrek would never have allowed him even to begin this conversation. What had he been thinking? No duke would offer all of his gold, even out of fear. Bistari had no intention of actually paying him.
“And I suppose after you give me all this gold, you’ll send your soldiers to ride me down, cut out my heart, and retrieve your money.”
“No, I’ll let you go. You have my word.”
But Cadel felt his hope slipping away. Perhaps there was still a way for him to regain his freedom, but this was not it. Not with this man and his promise of gold. He should have realized it from the start. Jedrek was dead, killed by an enemy of the Qirsi men and women who had been paying him. That his friend’s killer was Qirsi as well struck Cadel as ironic, perhaps even funny in a way Jed himself would have appreciated, but it changed nothing. If Cadel wanted to find this man, he would need the help of the white-hairs. Even if the duke of Bistari’s offer had been sincere, he was in no position to accept it.
He smiled, extending a hand to the duke. The cord of the garrote was still wound around his fist, but the duke didn’t seem to care. Chago took Cadel’s hand and let the assassin help him to his feet, smiling broadly, as if they were old friends. He started to say something, but Cadel, still gripping his hand, spun him around and in one powerful, fluid motion wrapped the cord around the duke’s neck and pulled it tight. The man’s neck snapped like a dry twig, and Cadel felt the duke’s body go limp.
He laid the duke down on the forest floor, pulling the garrote free as he did. Then he reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a small strap of
leather that was frayed at one end and adorned at the other with golden trim and a carving of the Solkaran panther. It had been given to him, along with half of his payment, by an older man, a Qirsi merchant in Dantrielle. Cadel had not bothered to ask how the white-hairs had gotten it, though he wondered. There was little chance that the man knew, and less still that he would answer the question if he did.
He placed the strap in the duke’s hand, with the golden edging facing up so that it gleamed brightly, despite the grey shadows of the wood. Cadel even went so far as to break off one of the duke’s fingernails and bruise the man’s hand by squeezing his palm closed with the strap and its trim pressed awkwardly within.
They had said to make it look convincing, and given what they were paying him, he could hardly do less.
He stepped back, looking down on the body and the surrounding area to make certain that he hadn’t forgotten anything or left something foolish for one of the duke’s men to find. Satisfied that all appeared as it should, he started walking back toward the east, away from Bistari and the Scabbard Inlet. He had only walked a few strides, however, when he heard someone approaching. Concealing himself behind a broad tree, Cadel watched as a Qirsi rode into view on a small grey mount.
The man wore his hair shorter than did most Qirsi and the yellow of his eyes was so bright that they almost seemed to glow. He had on ministerial robes and his riding cloak bore the blazon of House Bistari. The first minister.
Cadel was so confident of this that he stepped out from behind the tree trunk. The man’s horse snorted and the minister’s eyes fell upon him. The Qirsi reined the mount to a halt and stared at Cadel for several moments. Then he glanced toward the duke’s body, faced the assassin again, and nodded.
Offering a nod of his own, Cadel turned and started walking eastward once more, resuming his song as he strode swiftly among the silver trees. He had three days to reach Solkara, and though the distance wasn’t great, he could ill afford to be late.
Chapter Two
Solkara, Aneira
Yoli crossed her arms over her chest and stepped as close to the hearth as she dared. She was wearing the heaviest of her black robes and soft woolen undergarments beneath it. But they weren’t enough to keep the frigid air from chilling her frail bones, nor, she soon realized, was the fine fire built for her by the clerics.
She would have given nearly anything to be able to close the doors to the sanctuary. But this was Pitch Night in the turn of Bian, god of the Underrealm, and she presided in the Deceiver’s temple. She could no more close the doors than she could extinguish the candles that burned on the god’s altar.
It was early yet—the sun had been down for but an hour or two—and already she longed for this night to end. The cold, the constant stream of worshipers, the repeated offerings; it was too much. Yoli had never been a proud woman, and she wasn’t above admitting that she had grown too old for this. It was time to pass the robe to one of her clerics. Several of them had been with her for the requisite twelve years, and of those, at least two or three seemed ready to lead the sanctuary. Perhaps when the snows ended and the warm winds returned, she would step aside.
But that did her little good tonight. She had barely managed to warm her hands before she heard the next group of suppliants approaching the shrine, their footsteps and hushed voices echoing off the domed ceiling.
Visitors came to the sanctuary every Pitch Night of the year, for in Bian’s shrine, no matter which turn, one could always meet his or her beloved dead when both moons were dark. In the same way, on the Night of Two Moons in Bian’s Turn, one could encounter lost loved ones anywhere in the land. Pitch Night in the Deceiver’s turn, however, was unique. On this one night, the wronged dead roamed the land. This was not a time when young widows came to cry for their dead husbands, or bereft parents offered blood and shed tears for children taken from them too soon. This was a night of fear, rather than grief, a night when the dead sought vengeance rather than solace. Tonight, the sanctuary opened its doors to mercenaries, executioners, and brigands, healers whose errors had cost lives, and lovers whose passion inflamed their tempers to deadly violence. As prioress of the god’s sanctuary Yoli could turn none of them away, no matter how justified the wrath of their dead. On this one night she thanked the gods for her failing eyesight. For though she could sense the darkness in their hearts, she had no desire to see their faces.
She met them at the altar, raised her knife to spill their blood into the stone bowl, and gave them leave to pass the night within the walls of the shrine. Their dead could still reach them here, but many of them found comfort in the offerings and the presence of Bian’s prioress and the shared company of others who had killed.
The newest to arrive were mercenaries, broad-shouldered men with Caerissan or Sanbiri accents—Yoli had never learned to distinguish the two. They had white hair and their arms, once thick with muscle, had grown flaccid with the years. Still, they endured the edge of her blade stoically before moving off to a distant corner of the shrine to cry like babes at the sight of those they had cut down in some long-forgotten battle.
Yoli watched them walk away from the altar, dark, blurred shapes in the candlelight that vanished into the shadows beyond the flickering flames. She swirled each bowl so that the blood covered the entire surface, then left the altar once more for the warmth of her hearth. She hadn’t gotten very far when she heard another footfall in the shrine.
“Mother Prioress,” a man called to her gently, his voice accented as well.
She turned wearily and forced a smile as she watched him approach. He was tall and lean, with long dark hair. Her eyes were too weak to see more than that. He stopped a few paces from where she stood and bowed to her.
“You wish to offer blood?” she asked.
“I do.”
Something about him—the accent, the gentle voice…
“You’ve been here before.”
He hesitated then nodded. “Yes, several times.”
“Come,” she said, returning to the altar. The bowls were already empty; the god had a mighty thirst tonight.
The man pulled up his sleeve and turned his arm up to her blade.
“Is it my skill with the knife that brings you back?”
“You have a deft touch, Mother Prioress. But it’s your beauty that draws me here.”
Yoli laughed out loud. “Serves me right for asking.”
She thought she saw him smile.
“Is there anyone in particular for whom you would like to make this offering?” she asked.
Once more he faltered, and in that moment she understood the true reason why he returned to her shrine. She shivered again, though not from the cold.
“No, Mother Prioress.”
She nodded, but would not look at him again. Instead she raised the stone knife.
“Hear me, Bian!” she said, closing her eyes. “A man comes to you offering his life’s blood. Deem him worthy and accept his gift.”
She dragged the blade across his arm, catching his blood in one of the bowls. When the bleeding slowed, she placed the bowl on the altar and bound his arm in a clean cloth.
“Thank you,” he said, flexing his arm and examining the bandage.
“You’re free to remain here through the night,” Yoli told him, her eyes fixed on the bowl of blood. “Whatever comfort there is to be found within these walls is yours.”
“Again, my thanks.” He started to turn away, then stopped. “Have I given offense, Mother Prioress?”
She shook her head. “No.”
He stood there another moment, before giving a small shrug and turning again to leave her.
“I know why you come here,” she said, surprising herself.
He halted, appearing to stiffen, but he kept his back to her.
“Shall I leave then?”
The prioress wasn’t afraid, though perhaps she should have been. She was too old and had served the Deceiver for too long to fear death. Besides, this m
an came to her sanctuary precisely because he didn’t have to harm her.
“I accepted your offering.” She glanced down at the bowl and saw that his blood had vanished. “And so has Bian. You’re free to remain or leave as you choose.”
“Do I have reason to fear you?” he asked.
“You know you don’t.”
After a brief pause, he nodded once. “Then I’ll stay.”
“As you wish.”
Still, he didn’t move. “Mother Prioress,” he said at last, facing her once again. “There is someone for whom I’d like to give blood. Will the god accept two offerings from one man?”
“Of course. Come forward, the knife and bowl await.”
The man returned to the altar, pushing up his sleeve again.
Yoli began to repeat the invocation, then paused. “What is this person’s name?”
“Is that necessary?”
“It’s customary, when offering blood for someone.”
He lowered his arm. “Isn’t there any other way?”
“I suppose if you have this person foremost in your heart and your mind, Bian will know.”
“Thank you, Mother Prioress. That would be…easier.”
She finished the invocation and cut him a second time. Afterward, when she had wrapped the wound, and swirled the blood in the bowl, she looked the man in the eye as best she could.
“You’ve been kind to me,” he said. “Perhaps kinder than I deserve. I won’t forget it.”
“I’ve done no more or less than the god would expect of those who serve him.”
He dropped his gaze. “Of course.”
“If you return here next year, you’ll probably find someone else wearing the robe.”
He looked up again. “Are you ill, Mother Prioress?”
“No, just old.”
“I see. And why are you telling me this?”
She shrugged. “I just thought you should know that there will be a new prior or prioress. I don’t know yet who I’ll choose, but whoever it is will be far younger than I.”
