by Andre Norton
Her bright black eyes crinkled with rueful amusement at his grimace. “Sorry to be the bearer of unpleasant tidings. But unlike you, ‘tis the easy job I’ll have this night, for the captain of the fair-wards has hired my time to go afairin’ with him. By the time the second wicks in the torches are lit, he’ll be happily drunk, and I’ll not have had to give him more than a kiss or three!” She tossed a small pouch expertly, her eyes gleaming at the audible clink. “I wish they were all earned so easy, m’dear. If they were, I’d change this silver skirt for a golden one before two more years had passed.”
Alven sighed. “You certainly deserve the best of things, Jeni, the pick of rich merchant husbands. If I had any money, I’d—”
“If you had any change to jingle, you’d probably turn out just like all the others, with their beery kisses and sticky-hot hands. I’d rather you remained poor, so we could continue friends,” she said, her usually lively expression softening, becoming grave. “You’re a good fellow, honest and loyal even to that mother of yours. I wouldn’t want your head put awry in some crazy scrabbling after gold. You’re a nice, kind lad—”
“Nice!” he burst out, turning away from her, waving long arms whose wrists poked out of the patched sleeves of his overjerkin like bones from a half-eaten drumstick. “Nice! By the Three, I get so sick of that word!” His voice rose to a mocking squeak. “ ‘Be a nice boy, Alven, and iron these shirts for Mistress Vell. Be sweet, Alven, and starch these collars. Watch what you say, Alven my son, or I’ll do a little private conjuring that’ll give you a taste of life as a water roach.’ “ He slammed a bony fist into his palm, grinding it there like a pestle into a mortar. “Sometimes I—”
“I know,” Jenilyn sympathized. “I know. Most lads would have gone off awandering long since. No wonder they call you Alven the Amiable. You have the patience of a klessen.”
“More likely the stupidity,” growled the young man, straightening his collar, then finger-combing his hair with stabbing motions. “Any man—any man worthy of the name, that is—would’ve stood up and dared her to try her nasty little spells long since. If I were a man, I wouldn’t be buried here at Ithkar the livelong year, scrubbing the sacramental robes for the temple priests; I’d be here only for the fair, then gone the other eleven months, off roving, seeing the world. I’ve never been farther than a spit beyond the twice-cursed gates!”
Grabbing up his cap, Alven jammed it onto his head, turning away from the weapons house. His strides came long and angry, and since he was a tall youth, Jenilyn was gasping for breath by the time she caught up to her friend. “Alven, wait! This is the wrong way—”
“No, it’s not,” he growled, skipping adroitly around one of the brass-helmed fair-wards, armed with his long, bronze-sheathed staff. “I’ve been working since dawn, and by the Three Lordly Ones, I deserve a bite to eat before I start in again! I’m for the Joyous Goblet. Can I buy you a drink, Jeni?”
“No, thanks,” she said, stopping to smooth her mahogany curls, tumbled from her rush after Alven. “Kenyon Treegirth is expecting me, and he’s a man I like to keep on my side.” She giggled. “Or on my back, as the case may be. Enjoy your dinner, Alven. I’ll stop by tomorrow, to make sure you’re still in your proper shaping.”
“That’s kind of you, fair lady.” He swept his cap off his head and bent his knee in an ironic bow. “If I am indeed a frog, promise me you’ll carry me down to the canal and let me live out my life on the reed banks. Who knows but that I might find a green-skinned, bulgy-eyed damsel to ease my plight?”
Jenilyn was still laughing as she disappeared into the jostling, festive crowd of fairgoers. Alven entered the Joyous Goblet, standing in the doorway a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimness. As it was still early, the ancient dark-timbered common room was sparsely populated, with only a thin bluish haze of smoke to sting the eyes. He waved at Qazia, the tavern-keeper, and she waved back cheerfully, automatically drawing a mug of Alven’s favorite ale, plunking it down on the oaken bar.
As he made his way over to claim his brew, he spotted a familiar bulk sitting at a nearby table. “Master Renkath! Enjoying your fairing, sir?”
The heavyset gem master and his spare-shanked assistant turned at the hail, then the merchant waved Alven and his drink to the seat opposite him. “Why, it’s young Alven! How goes it with you tonight, lad?”
“Fine, master,” the younger man replied, taking a quick swig from his mug as he sat down.
The three men exchanged a few pleasantries as Alven sipped his ale. The merchant had shed his concealing cloak in the warmth from the hearth, and suddenly Alven caught sight of a tantalizingly familiar shape swinging against the velvet overtunic covering his barrel chest. The youth frowned, his eyes narrowing as he strove to make out the shape of the pendant the gem master was wearing. It was a six-pointed star with green—
“Master Renkath!” Alven gasped. “Where in the name of the holy Three did you get that pendant? Who sold it to you? And, most importantly, how long have you been wearing the thing?”
“This?” The gem master’s thick fingers moved toward the heavy silver-plated star with its six points, each containing a bright green drop of some glassy substance.
“Don’t touch it!” Without thinking, Alven seized the merchant’s hand, dragging it away from the pendant.
“Impudent fool! Let go my master!” Pryden, the assistant, made a lunge for the younger man. Alven used his other hand to pin the skinny wrist against the table in a wrestling hold that made the man halt, gasping.
“On your peril do not touch the pendant, I beg of you, sir! Please, answer my questions!”
“Why, I bought it three days ago from a man who passed my wains on the Main Trade Road. He had a paltry few gems he was coming to sell, but this was the only thing with any appeal for me,” the gem master said, obviously puzzled and beginning to be a little alarmed. “Why, what is it?”
“Thank the Three!” Alven whispered, nearly limp with relief. He released Pryden, who sat rubbing his wrist sulkily but not daring now to speak. “Unless you have scratched yourself with it—you haven’t, have you sir? . . . Then it hasn’t been on your person long enough to cause harm. That is a Killstar, a very exotic and deadly weapon. I’ve only seen one other come through Ithkar in the time I’ve been working as weapons clerk.”
With infinite care, Alven lifted the pendant from around the man’s thick neck. “See these stones? They’re the danger. Green glass, mined, they say, from the bottom of the Death Swamp. If you’d worn this around your neck for several weeks, you’d soon begin to vomit, then bleed beneath your skin, and your hair would fall out. Finally death would come, and from what I’ve heard, it would have been none too soon for you.”
Master Renkath was looking pale beneath his beard. Alven lowered his whisper even further. “If scratched by one of the points, the victim’s fate is the same, though it may take a little longer. Six weeks, at the outside.” The passion of a scholar lecturing on a subject he knows intimately colored Alven’s voice. “Truly the perfect assassin’s tool—deadly and untraceable. And disguised as a piece of jewelry, a man or woman could wear it almost anywhere, then use it to slay outright, if that became necessary.”
“This bauble—a weapon?” Pryden was plainly skeptical of this last claim.
“For an expert, yes. Watch.”
Detaching the pendant from its chain with infinite care, Alven stood up, turning toward the hand-knife target hanging on the wall across the half-empty room. His fingers flicked so fast they seemed naught but a blur of silver and green, then the Killstar thudded hard into the scarred board and sank deep, quivering.
“That, of course,” Alven said quietly, “is the direct way to use it.” Carefully he went to the target, pried the deadly bauble out, then wrapped it in one of the red homespun napkins off the nearest table. When it was swathed to his satisfaction, he lifted the target off the wall. “Not safe to leave it there,” he explained to the stunned gem master. “So
meone might brush the spot where it landed with his fingers, and if he had an open sore or cut . . .” He shrugged eloquently.
“I’ll make you a new target, Qazia,” he called to the tavern-keeper. “I’m afraid I split your old one.”
“You never miss, lad,” the woman called back, “but this is the first time you’ve halved my target. Your aim is getting deadlier by the moment.”
Alven grinned, flattered. Picking up the mug of ale that Master Renkath had motioned the tavern-mistress to refill, he gulped its bitter coolness gratefully. “Thanks for the drink, sir.”
“ ‘Tis little enough, lad. I’m still shaky thinking what might have happened if you hadn’t been so alert.”
Alven smiled. “I’m just glad our paths happened to cross tonight. I’ll just turn your little bauble over to the captain of the fair-wards on the morrow, with my report. You should stop by to speak with Kenyon Treegirth yourself. He’ll probably want a description of the rogue who sold you the thing. Perhaps he can be traced, and your money recovered.”
The gem master made a brushing-away gesture. “A few coins are nothing compared to my life, lad! I’m eternally in your debt.”
Alven modestly shook his head and, still carrying the Killstar and the contaminated target, made for the door.
Ithkar Fair roared and screeched and jostled around him as he emerged, the sounds, smells, and crowds as sudden and tangible as a slap across the face. He paused outside, feeling the effects of the ale he’d gulped. He’d best buy himself something to eat at one of the vendor’s stalls, or he’d be tipsy, and nothing escaped Mother.
As he hesitated, trying to decide between a barbecued klessen leg and a venison pasty, something tugged at the edge of his jerkin. Alven started, turning, to find a dark-cloaked figure beside him.
The Joyous Goblet’s eaves overhung the stranger, casting his features into flickering, bright-edged shadows in the torchlight. The youth’s hand went immediately to his coin purse, but it was still there. The figure chuckled. “Wise youth. But I’m no cutpurse. I saw you in the Joyous Goblet, lad, and I’ve some dirty linen that won’t stand a public laundering, so I need the services of someone like you.” The man paused, peering upward into Alven’s face, brightly lit by the torches snapping in the night wind. “Is it true you never miss?”
“Well . . .” Alven shrugged modestly, stepping closer, trying to make out the features hidden beneath the rough-woven hood. Absently, he thrust the cloth-wrapped Killstar into the breast pocket beneath his overjerkin. “Let’s just say I don’t miss nearly as much as I used to.”
“And humble, too.” The man chuckled again. “Do you work the fairgrounds regularly? I’ve not seen you before.” yes,” Alven said. “We’ve been doing a brisk business for the temple priests for years now. And, of course, when the fair comes each year, we’ve more than we can handle.”
“Well, well, who would have thought the priests of the Three Lordly Ones would soil themselves so?” The stranger snickered.
Alven thought of the mounds of temple robes, sacramental hangings, surplices, and body linen he and Mother toiled over, washing, bleaching, and pressing. “The priests are no cleaner than anyone else,” he assured the hooded man. “You’d be surprised some of the things they get into. But you mentioned that you have work for us? We do the best, quickest job in all of Ithkar.”
The man nodded. “Aye, well, I hope for your sake your claim is true, for I have a job to challenge the toughest. But who is this ‘we,’ lad? Do you have a partner?”
“My mother and I are in business together,” Alven explained. “She’s has far more experience than I . . . after all, it’s been her life’s work.”
“Your mother?” The stranger sounded a bit taken aback. “Well, they say some of the best have been women. . . .”
Alven was beginning to feel a little muddled and wondered if he’d missed something. The ale was singing in his veins, making his head feel as though he’d held his breath underwater too long.
“But no mind,” the man continued. “Do you guarantee your work?”
“Of course,” Alven said a little indignantly. “We specialize in the cleanest—”
“Shhhh! Keep your voice down!” the man hissed, and Alven closed his mouth, his cheeks hot as the torchlight over his head. He peered down again at the man, trying to see his face, but caught only the narrow-bridged sheen of a jutting nose beneath the hood. He couldn’t make out anything of the man’s eyes and abandoned the effort with a shiver.
“Sorry,” Alven muttered. “When can I pick up—”
“Nay, lad. I’ll bring the work to you. But we’ve yet to settle on a price. Standard wages acceptable?”
“Well . . .” Alven was beginning to feel very dizzy indeed, but his mind cleared a trifle as he heard the clink of coin in the stranger’s purse. “If you need the work done quickly, this is our busiest time. It will cost you more. Twice standard,” he said, feeling somewhat audacious but justified. They really did have a huge workload due to all the pilgrim ceremonies at the temple.
“Sounds reasonable.” The man pressed the coin purse into Alven’s hand, then glided back farther into the shadows. “I’ll bring your target by this spot tomorrow, just at sunset. You’ll know the high priest by his height, and by this sign. . . .” A perfectly featured but leering countenance molded from dull, beaten gold glimmered faintly on the breast of the man’s robe for a second. “Remember, you guaranteed your work. . . .” This last sentence came but faintly to Alven’s ears. The youth blinked, and in the space of that tiny motion, both the amulet and the stranger were gone, melting into the darkness as though they’d never been there at all. Not even a scrape of sandaled foot against hard ground betrayed the man’s passage.
“No, wait!” Alven called, plunging into the alley—only to trip and fall headlong over the remains of a small woodpile. The fall made the ale slosh sourly in his belly, and for long moments he thought he and it might part company. When his dizziness finally abated, he found that he was still clutching the purse of coins. It was heavy. Too heavy.
Cautiously, Alven climbed back to his feet, staggered out into the torchlight, then peered into the purse. He almost dropped it, so great was his shock when he saw the gleam within.
Gold! There was enough gold in the leathern sack to raise two copper skirts to gold skirts in the space of a single night!
Oh, no! Alven thought, considerably sobered. His ale-muddled suspicions congealed into a hard, cold certainty that he had gotten himself into terrible trouble. Nobody paid this kind of money to get his laundry done.
The man must have watched the little byplay in the Joyous Goblet and drawn the wrong conclusions about Alven’s line of work from his knowledge of exotic weapons like the Killstar. The cloaked stranger’s reference to “dirty laundry” was naught but a slang term for a man he wanted dead—a man he’d just paid Alven a year’s wages to kill.
And he was supposed to come by this spot tomorrow at sunset to see whom it was he was supposed to—what was the correct term used by assassins nowaways? “Dispatch?” “Relieve of all ills?” “Assist in shedding his mortal guise?” Alven found that he was giggling shrilly and managed to gain control of himself only by mentally listing all the types of weapons he knew that could be used for bludgeoning.
What else had the stranger said? “You will know him by his height and by this sign. . . .” and then he’d given Alven a glimpse of an evilly smiling, chiseled face. The youth had seen those golden features before . . . but where?
As Alven concentrated, frowning so furiously that some of the passing fairgoers glanced at him askance, he finally remembered—and, remembering, nearly burst into hysterical sobs instead of laughter.
Thotharn, the forbidden god! The lord of evil! Oh, fine, Alven, not only do you unknowingly accept a job to murder someone, you can’t even pick an ordinary person; you have to choose a priest of Thotharn! Stupid, stupid, stupid! Mother had had the right of it all these years. He, Alven th
e so-called Amiable, deserved nothing better than life as a water roach. . . .
Still cursing himself in half a dozen tongues as well as thieves’ argot, Alven finally summoned enough presence of mind to smooth down his clothing and hair, then begin walking. His lagging steps automatically took him in the direction of home—the tiny shack adjoining the temple’s massive laundry. He concentrated on looking as normal as possible when he ducked his head to enter the living and eating area.
“Where have you been, you worthless lad?” His mother cuffed him sharply even as she set a plate of klessen stew before him. “You come dragging in, filthy and sour-faced, smelling of cheap ale, while I’ve been here trying to keep food in our bellies and a roof over our heads! Don’t just sit there like a mooncalf—eat, eat!”
Alven picked up his spoon.
She began gathering up her palm cards, her bone needles, and her skin herbs, still fussing. “I hate to think of all the coppers I’ve missed while I stayed on, minding the fires beneath the soaking vats, mixing the lemon rub for the white acolyte robes! I ought to give you a taste of life as a barnacle!”
“Right now, that sounds very peaceful,” Alven mumbled around a mouthful of the hot, flavorful stew.
“What did you say?” she demanded suspiciously.
“Nothing, Ma.” He sighed, tearing a chunk of bread off the barley loaf she pushed toward him.
He barely noticed when she gathered up her brightly fringed shawl and went out, still scolding. His mind was too busy turning over the possible alternatives.
I could go to the fair-wards, make a clean breast of every-thing, he thought. But they’d surely take the gold, and Treegirth would likely dismiss me for trafficking with one of Thotharn’s chosen.
He could also keep his mouth shut, hide the gold, and hope the short priest was too wary to seek him out when he didn’t appear tomorrow evening. Somehow, he doubted that he’d live long enough to spend any of his unearned “fee,” though. Thotharn’s chosen weren’t noted for their forbearance and forgiving natures—especially toward someone who’d had the misfortune to become privy to knowledge of their internal power struggles. The dark god’s priests were rumored to possess awesome and uncanny powers. Life as a water roach would probably be a boon by comparison.
