The Copper Assassin

by Madolyn Rogers

  Once past the point, the ferry wove cautiously among the multitude of islands that littered the sea. Many of the isles housed wharves, warehouses, and barracks. On the shore, which Gorgo could no longer see, they must be passing the Wall. This long finger of Yahsta’s Claws stretched from the mountains to the shore, two hundred feet high and dozens thick, and formed the southern border of Wyverna proper. Beyond it lay the southern city, the Sealord’s District. It came into sight now, as the ferry nosed into the main harbor. It was here that all truck with the outer world came. Here lay the source of Wyverna’s great wealth, here in this hubbub of sailors and pirates, barracks and bars, docks and quays, warehouses and markets, ships of every size and type, crates of booty and lines of shackled slaves, noise and bluster and drunkenness, duels and bartering and shrewd entrepreneurs. Like the rookery, it was a place of enormous vitality. And, Gorgo thought, amid the noise and bustle, plenty of cold-eyed jaegers waited to take advantage of any sign of weakness among the busy seals.

  While the sailors were tying up, Gorgo disembarked and strode across the slick wood of the wharf. It was late afternoon by now, the sun crawling close to the highest peaks of the dark mountains that fractured the western sky. Soon Yahsta’s Claws would bury the city in the sudden night; already long shadows stretched across the dock. Gorgo paused for a moment, alone in the bustle, considering his best course of action.

  His plan had been to go to Plunder House and inquire after the ship Harpy. He could pretend he had a cousin or a lover on it, and perhaps be allowed to see the crew list, or find out if it really had visited Black Mar’Kesh as Na•ar had claimed. If the officials seemed reluctant, he might seek out Harpy itself and bribe one of the sailors to tell him what he wanted to know. Someone on Harpy, if Na•ar had spoken true, had sold Cockatrice. He remembered Na•ar’s words, “It was more a matter of luck than anything else...” Ah, perhaps Na•ar had some friend or relative on Harpy. He might start with that. Whatever he did, though, it was too late to visit Plunder House today. Tonight he would wander the bars and see what stray gossip he could pick up.

  But the sense of how little time he had and how little he had accomplished pressed on him. Tomorrow would be the third day; Morbid would have Cockatrice. As yet, what did he know? What could he offer her, how could he stop her? As Six & Seven had said, his plan was madness. For a moment he allowed himself to consider cold-eyed the inequality of this contest. He was neither a wizard nor much of a warrior, nor gifted with great wealth or connections; Yahsta’s blood, he was eighteen. Yet he proposed to pit himself against Morbid, scion of Black Cat Kharvay, and against the golem Cockatrice, the doom of Madness. What did he bring to this fight? No bettor would have given him odds in this one, that was certain.

  Gorgo took a deep breath of the salty air, and reminded himself that he had never been a betting man. He remembered his words to Water: he played to win, not to gamble. He trusted his skill and cunning and ability to read others, not his luck. He was a Wyvernyr, and he had been taught that a Wyvernyr was a match for anything, able to surmount any challenge, wring advantage from any game. That was what it meant to be a Wyvernyr. They had been outcasts and rebels, exiled to the poorest lands of the world, clinging to barren rocks in the north sea. They had turned the game on the world, and become the terror of the continent, the predators of the seas. A Wyvernyr summoned strength out of a position of weakness, like that Greycowl monk sold as a shackled slave in the market many years ago, who had won her freedom by subverting the minds of her captors. She had proven herself a true Wyvernyr, one of them. In all his eighteen years, Gorgo reflected, he had never had the chance to prove himself like that. He wouldn’t have sought this out, but it had fallen on him, and he would see it through.

  The wave of fear and desire washed over him; as it burned away, it left him clear-headed, calm and cold. If he failed in this, he reflected with grim humor, there would always be Six & Seven’s ballad to remember him by, no matter how bad the poetry.

  The thirteenth tavern that Gorgo visited interested him. Since it was now near midnight, the crowd of mostly sailors had become enjoyably drunk. One big-boned woman was far drunker than all the rest, and in great good spirits, laughing uproariously and calling out to acquaintances across the din of the tavern. Gorgo noticed they seldom responded with much enthusiasm. Despite the fact that she had several times bought drinks for the whole room, an odd vacuum had formed about her, which she was too far gone to notice. No one wanted to be in close contact with her, but even as they avoided her, they watched her from the corners of their eyes as though waiting for something.

  Noticing all this, Gorgo decided he’d bide here a while. The evening’s gossip had been intriguing, but so far not particularly fruitful. Gorgo had found plenty of sailors fresh off the Harpy with cash in their pockets. The warship had indeed visited Black Mar’Kesh, he learned, but the sailors had little to say of it, as they were never given shore leave there. Black Mar’Kesh was one of the few cities of the continent that welcomed open trade with Wyverna, but it was an isolated and dangerous place. Mar’Kesh was ruled by the Panam Kell caste, an order of witches with the power to influence the minds of others. The Panam Kell treated Wyvernyrs with guarded respect, but still, Wyverna allowed only the Catsclaw to go ashore there, never the regular sailors.

  There had been some trouble this time in Mar’Kesh: some Catsclaw jailed for unknown reasons. A panicked Pirate had arrived at the ship in the middle of the night to tell of it; another Pirate had gone into Mar’Kesh and ransomed the lot of them out of jail, apparently, and there had been the end of it. At any rate, all the Catsclaw had returned unharmed. The sailors were full of amusing and ribald speculations as to what might have caused the offense in Mar’Kesh. Never having set foot in the city, all they knew of it was rumor and innuendo, and they were inventive in their guesses. Gorgo could get no more of the story than that, but it made him thoughtful. Theft of a relic like Cockatrice could have led to imprisonment, but how would the Wyvernyrs have been released still possessing it?

  Gorgo was recalled to the present by the voices of two sailors near him. They were glancing sideways at the sloshed sailor. One of them muttered, “How long do you think it’ll be?”

  How long before what? Gorgo wondered. Before she fell down drunk? According to gossip, she’d been imbibing heavily since rising that morning, and all yesterday as well. She had not come off Harpy; the talk said she’d been shorebound for the past several months. But by the tone and looks of the two sailors discussing her, Gorgo didn’t think they were speculating about anything as innocuous as her capacity for drink.

  “It can’t be long.” The voice of the other was thick with disgust. “By Yahsta himself, she’s been flashing it two days now. What an idiot. No more sense than a hunger-maddened shark.”

  “She’s never had much wit,” the first man said. “I don’t know how she stumbled into such a chance, but it’ll be the death of her.” The second grunted agreement, and they turned to other topics.

  The money. Of course. If she’d been spending in every tavern as freely as in this—how much had she gone through? Gorgo calculated the cost of drinks for the room. With that alone she must have gone through ten or twelve gryffons. Gorgo hadn’t thought about it; he wasn’t familiar with sailors’ normal salaries. But these sailors were. They knew that somehow she had come into more money than she ought to have. Gorgo felt a thrill, his breath quickening. Was this the clue he was seeking? He was looking for signs of the sale of a relic; a large amount of unexplained cash was a likely signpost. But it didn’t quite fit. Janna had been shorebound, not on Harpy. Perhaps her funds had some other explanation.

  Gorgo watched the two men, searching for hints. Did they know how she had gotten her money? Perhaps not. They seemed more focused on what would happen to her next. Gorgo measured their tense faces. They were expecting Janna’s death, but by whom? And why? If she’d gotten her money by theft, the rightful owner should be coming to reclaim it. But in suc
h a case could she possibly be stupid enough to flaunt it like this? Gorgo studied her.

  “I must be bidding you all good nights,” she boomed. “There be other taverns needin’ my patronage.” She plopped a fat purse on the bar. “For the house.” She waggled coyly at the bartender, swaggering about to leave.

  “You’d better not go home, Janna,” the bartender called after her, low-voiced. “Wouldn’t you rather sleep it off here?”

  A slight silence fell over the tavern at his words. Janna paid no heed. “No, me lovey, I’ve more merry-making to do!” She staggered slowly through the crowd and out the door alone. In the short space that followed no one said anything, until they all turned back to their drinks and conversations. Gorgo abandoned his own glass and slipped out after her, unnoticed by the tipsy patrons.

  The cold misty air was a welcome shock after the heat of the bar. Light spilled out of other taverns down the street, and Janna turned that way. As she passed the first dark alley, a shadow glided out and struck her on the head from behind. She crumpled at once; drunk as she was, her attacker must have struck her with something much harder than a fist. A second shadow grabbed her from the side before she could fall. The two assailants pulled her away between them into the darkness of the narrow alley. As quick as that, then, and as neatly. As Gorgo hesitated, cloaked in the shadows of the porch, a hulking dark shape detached itself from under the eaves of the next building. The looming figure slipped into the alley after them.

  “Devourer,” Gorgo breathed. He followed as soundlessly as he could, keeping well back. If they looked round and saw him, he would turn and flee. But none of them looked round, not the ruffians nor their huge pursuer.

  The thugs stayed to the dark alleys and back streets, meeting no one and never passing a streetlamp. Gorgo wondered how long they’d waited for Janna to be in a convenient position for this abduction. What was their game? Fear strummed through Gorgo’s nerves, but he had to know.

  In short order the thugs arrived at a two-story wooden house. It stood dark and silent, its walls splintering in places, its windows broken. The two abductors slipped through a back door with their unconscious burden between them. A few moments later their pursuer reached the door. The bulky figure’s head was level with the top of the doorframe; the stranger must be a good seven feet tall. Just then the clouds parted from the new-risen moon, and Gorgo got his first good look at the person. No, not a person. The hackles on Gorgo’s neck prickled, and his breath stopped in his chest.

  She wore armor; the weak moonlight caught golden gleams from helmet and breastplate, vambraces and greaves. Across her back was slung a huge diamond-shaped shield, while a small buckler was strapped to her right arm. She wore a longsword at her waist, situated for a right-handed draw. In her left hand she carried a huge double-bladed axe. The door before her seemed to be barred; she tapped the axe against it, and it fell open with a creak of rotten wood. The golem passed inside.

  Gorgo found himself preternaturally calm, his breathing steady. She had not looked round nor seen him. Silently he followed Cockatrice.

  Inside, a lantern bobbed up a long stairway. All else was dark, and the air was cold and damp. Furniture was missing or broken; the place seemed deserted. The lantern disappeared at the top of the stairs, vanishing down a hallway. Cockatrice padded up the stairs after it, with a silence astonishing for her size and weight. Gorgo followed well behind her, and hung back even further in the hall above. He moved as quietly as he could, placing every foot with care, and Cockatrice never looked round. At the end of the hallway an edge of light showed under a closed door, and a faint murmur of voices filtered through. Cockatrice paused before it.

  Gorgo stopped too, halfway down the hall. He could not afford to get too close to the golem, or she was sure to hear him and look around. His heart pounded heavily against his ribs. An open doorway lay to his left; Gorgo ducked inside, quiet as a cat in his soft leather boots. The room was large and bare, and Gorgo judged that its right-hand wall would abut the room Janna was in. He padded up to the wall and put his ear to it, and heard faint creaks, footsteps and rustling from the other side. The wood planks of the wall were warped and badly fitted; they had probably once been ship planking, reused as cheap building material. Gorgo crept along the wall and found a narrow crack between two boards; a gleam of light shone through it. He put his eye to the crack, and saw the small room clearly, lit by a single pool of lantern light.

  Janna had been tied to a chair, her legs and arms bound fast with rope. Her head lolled to one side, her face slack in unconscious stupor. Two men in dark, nondescript clothing had just stepped back from tying her. These were her abductors, presumably. A third individual, a woman, was laying out some knives and small, nasty instruments on a table. Gorgo saw no sign of the golem. She must still be waiting outside the door, perhaps listening as Gorgo was. Then Gorgo forgot the golem, his attention caught by the fifth occupant of the room, a lean, small man whose every movement held a coiled tension. The man’s clothes were dark and plain, his short hair dark as well. But it was his eyes that held Gorgo. Slitted eyes in a hard and pitiless face, they were cold pale ice, colder than any Gorgo had ever seen.

  The man approached Janna. He gazed down at her for a moment, and a slight smile twisted one side of his mouth. He seized a handful of her hair in his left hand and yanked her head upright, slapping her brutally with his right hand. She moaned and blinked her eyes, half-conscious. The man struck her again, several times in succession, until livid splotches stood out on her flaccid cheeks.

  She cried out. The man released her, stepping back. Blinking back tears of pain, she stared at him dumbly. She looked around with slow helpless movements, down at her bound arms and calves, and up at the silent strangers lounging against the table. Her eyes lingered on the little instruments; finally, unwillingly, they turned back to the man whose frosty, narrowed eyes still watched her.

  “Now, Janna, I think it’s time we had a little talk.” His voice was a slow drawl.

  She made a quick gesture of feeble protest, flopping one bound hand, then suddenly found her tongue. “I haven’t done nothing! You haven’t the right to be holding me like this. By Yahsta’s balls, who do you think you are? There’s laws, and I—”

  The man darted forward, his hands raised to the sides of Janna’s head. Gorgo couldn’t see what he did, but he heard her scream. Then silence, and her low gurgling, head drooping on her chest.

  “Our guest asks questions. I have never been called an uncivil host. Very well. Who do I think I am? Those who know me like to call me Angel Eyes.” The name meant nothing to Gorgo.

  Janna’s head jerked up. A white rim of terror showed all around her pupils.

  “I see I’m not unknown to you.” Angel Eyes’ level, uninflected voice nauseated Gorgo. “This can hardly be unexpected.” He reached out a hard hand to stroke the line of Janna’s cheek and jaw. A shudder ran through her. Her eyes lost focus. When she spoke again, it was in a changed, low voice.

  “Please, Angel Eyes, ya must understan’—I never meant no disrespect. I meant to bring you your cut—I never meant to offend you—”

  “But you have been, Janna. How long have you been getting a little pocket money off the Nameless Market, whenever it came your way? How many years? A little piece of business here, a little piece there. And you never told me.” His voice was still soft; his hand under her chin forced her head up to meet his gaze.

  She stared into his slitted eyes as though hypnotized. “I—I...didn’t know...”

  His hand moved too quickly to follow. She screamed again, her muscles spasming, and then went limp.

  “No lies.” His voice came as gentle as before. “You know who I am. You know that on the docks the Nameless Market is mine. You never came because you were greedy. As long as it was only a few wyrms it didn’t concern me. But this time, my dear girl, you found yourself a mother pearl.” He paused. “How many mountains did you sell it for?”

  Mountains agai
n. Those greenstone coins were the currency of nobility and merchants, one hundred gryffons each. You could buy a ship with a small pouch of them. Janna groaned. “Twenty mountains.”

  Angel Eyes’ voice cracked like a whip. “You think me a fool?” He gestured to the woman who stood guard over the small cruel instruments. “I have tried to be patient. But you want to play games.” He accepted the device his worker handed him. Janna was babbling, terrified, retracting her lie, spitting out answers. Angel Eyes paid no heed. One of his men came forward to muffle Janna’s screams with his cloak. Angel Eyes worked with dreamy precision. Blood pooled slowly on the stone floor. When he stepped back Janna sat slumped, shoulders falling in on herself. Blood stained her strong sailor’s hands. The ends of her fingers were raw and oozing, their nails gone. Tears tracked down her chin, along with blood from her bitten lip.

  “Let’s try again, shall we, Janna? How many mountains did you sell it for?”

  “Two hundred mountains.” Her voice was heavy, dull.

  “And to whom?”

  “Na•ar.”

  “And who sold it to you?”

  She was silent a moment, her mouth twisting.

  “Come, Janna.” A sharper edge in the flat voice.

  “Strace.”

  “And who is Strace?”

  “A Catsclaw Tiger. He was on Harpy their last voyage.” A shudder ran through her big-boned frame. For the friend she was betraying? Gorgo wondered.

  “What did you pay him for it?”

  “Eighty mountains.”

  “More than one hundred percent profit—with initiative like that, you could have worked for me, Janna.” He sounded regretful, but, unseen by the hangdog sailor, his mouth twisted in the same small smile as before. “You had two mountains on you when we picked you up, and you’ve spent nearly three more already. Where are you keeping the rest?”