Changes v(cc-3

by Mercedes Lackey

  Wunner whut happened t’ Selna . . .

  Further talking with her had uncovered the rather disconcerting information that she’d gone into the “profession” with Mistress Peg because she’d come up from the country to be a serving maid and hadn’t liked all the hard work. Now, Mags knew that not all households were like that of Master Soren, where the servants were treated fairly, and if she’d been treated as a slavey, well, he could sympathize. But she’d come up from the country in the first place because she’d been under the delusion that being a maid in the city meant huge wages (compared to the country) and a life of ease... after all, there could be dozens of servants in a household, and with that many hands, she had told herself that no single one would have to work very hard.

  Guess’t musta come pretty shockin’ when she was put i’ scullery, he thought ruefully, arranging himself in the shadows above the door and watching for movement up and down the street. He himself had firsthand experience of what working as a scullery drudge was like. And just because there were dozens of servants in a household, it didn’t follow that this was going to make for leisure. Not when the master and mistress would entertain thirty or forty guests at a time, when they constantly had houseguests, and when the houses themselves were so big. Only when the highborn and wealthy were away from their town manors, off in the country on their estates, did things slow down, and the skeleton staff left behind could expect some of that leisure.

  Well, he just hoped that the poor old fellow in charge of such things managed to find her someplace where she would be content. He rather dreaded to think that it might be another establishment like Mistress Peg’s.

  But he didn’t have any time to think about it now, not when the two men he had been told to watch for had just come around the corner. One of them was holding something.

  He went very still. ::They’re ’ere,:: he warned Nikolas.

  He did not like the way they moved; they were aware of everything around them and prepared to attack at the first sign of trouble. But at the same time, they held themselves with an unconscious arrogance, as if the assumption that they would prevail in any fight was something so ingrained in them that it was unconscious. Their walk said all of that. It was... it was the walk of a predator. It was the way the man who had nearly slaughtered a stableful of Companions had walked.

  That alarmed him. If they even suspected that Nikolas was not what he seemed—the previous lot had proved they would kill without thinking twice about it. Quickly he passed that information on to Nikolas. ::Amily’d never f’rgive me if—::

  ::And she would equally never forgive me if anything happened to you,:: Nikolas replied somberly. ::I have a knife on me and I’ve bolted the door. There’s a shutter I can slam down over the pay-window if I need to, and that will give me time to come up the hatch and join you.::

  The men had reached the shop. Mags froze, not even breathing. Unlike Selna, they were making a quick scan of everywhere, including up, before either of them even touched the door. Mags knew he was in full shadow. He knew that at most, only the top of his head showed from where he was crouched. But he felt a cold chill spread over him as their gaze raked the roof, and he didn’t relax at all when they finally opened the door and entered the shop.

  Assuming all went well in there... he was going to have to be very, very careful when they came out.

  Carefully, he opened his awareness some. Not like dropping shields at all, but enough to see if he could just read something on their surface.

  He couldn’t, not like he could with ordinary folk. There was something in the way, and he pulled back. This was not the point at which to make them wary, because men like these two reacted swiftly and decisively when something made them wary.

  At least he had not felt that bewildering kinship with either of these men, the way he had with the rage-filled assassin. Nor did there seem to be any inexplicable link with them. He still had no idea what could have caused such a link. It had almost been as if—

  —no, that was utterly ridiculous. And he had better not let his thoughts wander, not now, not at this juncture.

  He didn’t move, not a muscle, as he concentrated on sensing what he could, passively, without letting his shields down too far, and without impinging on Nikolas. The last thing the King’s Own needed right now was to get his metaphorical “elbow” jiggled.

  Well... they were talking. Small things leaked past those shields-that-were-not-shields. There was no sense of animosity... a bit of contempt for the lowly creature who was purchasing their information. Information... they wanted to be known? They were planting this information?

  He couldn’t shake that impression. Whatever it was these men were here for, they wanted what they were selling to be generally known. Generally? No... no they wanted it to be known to the people who were interested in it. Now, since “it” was the whereabouts of the foreign assassins, it followed that they wanted the people who were trying to track them down—the Heralds, the Guards—to know this deceptive information. Of course. They were trying to throw the Heralds and Guards off the trail. That, at least, made sense.

  Now they were amused, as Nikolas reacted to a bit of intimidation with fear he tried to cover with bluster. The bargaining concluded quickly after that. They pushed something through under the bars. Nikolas pushed a great deal of silver back, and he added the Shin’a’in brooch that had told them nothing on top.

  They didn’t react to the brooch. They gathered it up and left. The emerged into the street, examined the entire area for anyone who might be following, and turned and walked away, going in the opposite direction from which they had come.

  Mags watched them. He was going to keep as far back from them as he could.

  ::What’d they say?:: he asked Nikolas, as the two strode off, positioning themselves in such a way as to cover each others’ blind spots.

  ::That the spies left Haven,:: came the reluctant reply. ::They say they arranged passage with a traders’ caravan going into the East, into Hardorn. They said that the foreigners had paid them with almost everything they had, and they sold me another one of those poetry books and a few odds and ends.:: Nikolas hesitated. ::It’s a very plausible story. Why don’t I believe them?::

  ::’Cause yer smart.::

  ::Or I have good instincts.::

  ::Wut I think I got from ’em is thet this’s tryin’ t’throw us offen th’ trail. They got that funny shield t’other one had, so I cain’t be sure. I got little bits, ’cause whatever thet shield is, I dun want it pickin’ up on me. So I cain’t be certain-sure.::

  Now Mags left his perch and followed the men. He had the “flavor” of their thoughts, even if he had not probed deeply enough to read anything. With that, unless they worked their way into a crowd, he would be able to find them.

  ::Oh, I think you’re right. These men were better prepared than the first lot—they speak Valdemaran extremely well, and they’re dressed like locals in old clothes—but they can’t hide what they are, and they are too well-trained to be local thugs.::

  Mags continued to gather what he could from them, passively. Whatever else these men were, they were not insane—or at least they were not as full of rage as the other assassins had been. Cold, definitely. Calculating. Purposeful. And literally nothing meant anything to them, not even each other, except the job. The first two assassins had been the flawed copies of which these two were the perfect originals. Mags didn’t want to get too close to their minds, though, because he sensed that they were very much like the second assassin in another aspect. They were not Mindspeakers—but they could be. They were not shielded—but that something was protecting them. So long as he hovered passively, that “thing” wouldn’t notice him, and he could pick up bits of what they were thinking. Images, feelings, mostly. Unlike the first and second assassins, they did not hate Valdemar. Nor did they like it. They were entirely indifferent to the place. For them, it was just another place that held a job, and it was always the job, not the sur
roundings, that mattered.

  He followed on the roofs; he wished he could have gone down to the ground, but he didn’t dare. These men were too good. They just might spot him.

  There was a definite purpose in them, not just whatever the long-term job they had come for. They had an immediate task, one that had to be performed very, very soon. He balanced on a rooftree and scuttled down the slates while his mind oozed around them like a weasel circling something very dangerous, but asleep. The task was to take care of something unfinished. There was contempt. Contempt for the task? No. He crossed between two roofs as he followed that faint wisp of contempt. Not contempt for the task. Contempt for... for . . .

  There was a flash of an image, but because he had seen this man with his own eyes, and more than once, he knew it immediately. The supposed “head” of the phony “trading envoys!”

  The contempt came strongly with the image. Contempt for him—contempt, presumably, for the rest of the men who had been with him. Disgust... .

  Mags negotiated a drop to a lower roofline, then scrambled up it to reach a higher one. Disgust. They had... they had . . .

  Well, he already guessed at that. These men were disgusted with their predecessors because of their performance—or more correctly, lack of performance. They’d failed at the task, the greater task that these two had taken over, and failed at it twice.

  Oh, but there was anger as well. Why anger? It was cold and distant. It wasn’t for the failed agents. It wasn’t for anyone in Valdemar. Someone else. Someone had—no, he couldn’t make it out, it was too abstract.

  But now they had stopped; he couldn’t hear their footsteps on the street ahead, and he felt himself getting nearer to their “presence.” He slowed his own pace and slipped up on them at a crawl, careful to remain below the roofline on the opposite side of where they were. When he was as close as he dared get, he hugged the slates, his chin pressed into the roof, and closed his eyes. He let go of everything except the need to listen, with his ears, with his mind. Like a sponge, he soaked up everything around him.

  He could hear them talking, but not clearly. He didn’t think they were speaking Valdemaran now; the cadence, the accents were wrong.

  What were they doing besides talking? Why had they stopped? Did they realize they were being followed?

  No.

  It was this place, this building that he was on. It wasn’t much, one of those narrow two-story houses that was a scant two rooms up, two rooms down, and an attic. There was no one in it. But this was where they had to take care of that... unfinished business that was smaller than the greater task the other assassins had left undone.

  . . . an image of a broken trail.

  . . . a little cruel pleasure. The sense that punishment had been meted out.

  One went to the front door and unlocked it. The other stood guard in the street. The strange not-shield tightened over both of them, letting nothing out now.

  Whatever it was that he went in to do, he was done quickly. He came out, conferred with the other, and then, the two—

  Burst into a run from a standing start, with absolutely no warning.

  They ran like deerhounds; Mags could scarcely believe how fast they were. They ran so quietly that he actually hadn’t realized they were moving at all until their “presence” shot away.

  They were already at the end of the block before he had gotten to the edge of the roof. He gazed after them in disbelief and crushing disappointment; he couldn’t hope to catch them or even keep up—already the mind-traces were fading with distance, and in a moment—

  While he tried desperately to keep hold, the faint traces slipped from him and were gone.

  ::Nikolas—:: he said with despair.

  ::I was following,:: came the reply. ::Dallen let me “ride” his link with you. It can’t be helped. See what they were doing in that house, if you can.::

  Well, one thing for sure, he was absolutely not going in the front door. If he’d been in the shoes of these men, he would have left a trap on the door. But they might not be aware that most of the buildings in this part of town had rooftop hatches; that was what he would look for first.

  It was easier to find than he had thought. The owner must have had reason to be up here more frequently than most, for he had installed a real hatch with a solid door, the kind that was in Nikolas’ shop, rather than a makeshift thing you had to move tiles to find. It was locked, but only by a sliding bolt; working by feel, Mags got it open and felt around the edges for any sort of triggering mechanism for a possible trap. It was risky, brushing his fingers around the edges like that, but he kept his body out of direct range of anything that might shoot him as best he could.

  There was nothing. He gave the frame of the hatch a more thorough examination and still saw nothing.

  All right, he was safe so far; holding onto the edge as long as he could, he lowered himself down as far as his arms would reach, then dropped the remaining distance onto the attic floor. There he crouched, listening.

  Nothing. The house was absolutely silent. He couldn’t even hear any vermin.

  . . . light would have been nice.

  Then again, he was used to working in the dark.

  On hands and knees, he felt his way along the attic floor, searching for the hatch that would lead down into the house itself, using the dim patch of sky and stars where the roof hatch was open as his guide in the search, crawling in an ever-widening circle until his hands encountered something raised off the surface of the floor. A hatch identical to the first, also locked.

  He listened with mind and ears, then pressed his ear to the hatch. Still nothing.

  Odd. No rats. No mice. Wunner why?

  It could be that they were extraordinarily vigilant about vermin. It could be that they’d actually had a ratcatcher in recently; once a ratcatcher had gone over a place with his ferrets, it usually took the surviving rats and mice a fortnight or two to work up the courage to come back.

  He worked the second latch open as he had the first. This hatch opened downward, and he peered into the darkness—and this time, he saw a glimmer, a faint shimmer, of light, at the farther end of the house. He thought it would be coming the ground floor, at the back of the house.

  He dropped down onto the floor and made his way toward that faint glow, confident now that the house was empty. He thought these might be bedrooms; there were large, bulky objects on the floor, and a musty, bitter smell. It was nothing he could identify. Not exactly a perfume, but not exactly a stink, either. The closest he could come was some sort of bitter herb.

  The light was coming up a staircase at the back of the house.

  Damn. I hate this.

  There was no good way to get up or down a staircase when you didn’t know what was waiting for you on the next floor. All he could do was lie down flat on his belly and scoot himself awkwardly down the stairs a little at a time, hoping that if there was someone there after all, and his Gift had gone completely unreliable, he would see them before they saw him.

  But he saw the source of the light first.

  It was a candle, left burning atop what looked like a heap of clothing and bedding. This was where the smell was coming from. It looked as if the cloth had been drenched in some sort of oil, it was stained and dark, and there was a sort of dull sheen on it.

  Once the candle burned down—which would not even take a candlemark—the clothing would catch fire. With all that oil the place would be ablaze in no time. Was this what the assassin had come into the house to set up?

  ::Probably,:: Nikolas confirmed. ::It’s a good way to ensure that you are long gone when the fire starts.::

  And that candle was awfully slim and short—

  Mags didn’t bother with getting to his feet; tumbling down the stairs was faster. At the bottom he bounced up and ran over to the pile of clothing and snatched the candle out of it.

  This looked like the kitchen: fireplace with some pots, the table on which all the clothing had been heap
ed, some chairs, implements on the counters. He wrinkled his nose; the smell of the oil had covered up the stink of spoiled food. But it was old; he went to look at the pots, and they were half full of mold and spoiled food, all of it dried and cracking.

  No one had been here in a while. Why bother to burn it down?

  Then he recognized another smell.

  He knew that smell . . .

  Absolute dread rolled over him, and he shuddered. He remembered that smell from the mines, when Col Pieters and his boys had hidden things they didn’t want anyone to ever find, knocked out the supports of the tunnels their secrets had been left in, and buried them in the waste rock that held no gems. But the rock never stopped the rot, and the smell would permeate through the mine and get into everything, and all you could do was tie rags around your mouth and nose and try to breathe through them until time and vermin took care of the problem. And try not to think too hard about what was making the smell, because if you did . . .