The Copper Assassin

by Madolyn Rogers

  “You may need me with you. You can’t handle all this yourself. I say we go together from now on.”

  “I say no. I need you to pay Water for me—and to keep making more money. I can’t afford to be seen anywhere I normally go. Besides, there’s something very useful you can do for me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You can keep working on that ballad.”

  Gorgo took the ferry from Storm Point north to the Catsclaw District. Disembarking, he walked up the hill to the Claw, the district headquarters. Here they kept the Catsclaw records. It was a quiet building of pale white stone, filled with sober warriors, low voices, and an air of discipline and efficiency. Gorgo presented himself at the main office, inquiring after the dwelling place of the Tiger Strace on what he said was a “matter of honor.” A little to Gorgo’s surprise, the official gave him the information without questions. Strace lived in the north wing of Hotbed Arena, the home of many high-ranking Pirates. The building lay only a short walk away.

  In the late morning sun, Hotbed Arena bulked up before Gorgo like a fortress, massive but plain, its high walls of undressed stone. Gates stood open around the huge circular building, and hard-muscled fighters strolled in and out, most wearing swords. Gorgo strode through as though he belonged, though he felt acutely conscious that he carried only a long knife. The gate guard glanced disdainfully at him, but let him pass without comment.

  Once inside the thick stone walls, the sounds of the outer world disappeared, but the noise around him increased threefold: laughter, shouts, slamming doors, scuffles, clanging metal, the pound of footsteps, curses and threats. There were no windows, but oil lamps burned brightly along the walls. Groups of fighters passed by him in the wide hallways, not sparing him a glance. Gorgo smelled sweat and oil, and the occasional coppery bite of fresh blood.

  It seemed that Hotbed Arena was to the Catsclaw District what Passionflower Court was to River: the social hub of the community. Around him swirled the casual daily life of Pirates. He passed a room where stripped-down, sweaty warriors dueled with dull-edged practice blades while an older woman yelled instructions. Other warriors stood by, sipping from steaming mugs, glancing at the fight and throwing out comments, encouragement, or rude jokes. A few oiled their weapons and inspected them for nicks. Further down the hallway, Gorgo passed an infirmary where the strong smell of herbs tickled his nostrils; a patient lay in one of the beds, and another sat half-stripped and bloody on a table, swearing occasionally as a muscular healer bound up his wound. Through a half-closed door just past the infirmary, Gorgo glimpsed a lounge full of leather chairs, and a couple kissing.

  At the next fork, Gorgo turned north. Daylight streamed across the floor from a side passage; he judged it must lead out into one of the small arenas or even the main one itself. Voices and jingling metal floated near and then a small crowd of warriors swept by him from the sunlit passage, sweat-soaked and tall. A few pairs of hard eyes flicked his way. The Kharvay woman who came last, laughing with a companion as she cleaned blood from her broad-bladed sabre, stirred his mind like a primal memory. Black Cat Kharvay herself would have looked like this: sable-haired, easy-mannered, with a free-swinging stride. Gorgo had seen this woman from a distance before, when he went with his family to Red Paw Arena to watch the duels; she was one of the leading Catsclaw warriors, a Panther named Orinc. She was more impressive up close. She towered over him, well over six feet tall, sweat gleaming on her rippling muscles, her dark eyes electric. He wondered what Morbid looked like, that other Kharvay woman who had been compared to Black Cat. Was she a warrior like this, someone who could lead troops into battle?

  The sounds from the pack of warriors faded away behind him as he passed through a large bronze door into the residential wing. His thoughts turned to Strace, the man who sold priceless relics as carelessly as Gorgo might have disposed of an old pair of boots. Did he have any idea of the trouble headed for him? Both Angel Eyes and Cockatrice now knew of his existence, and each might have their own reasons for hunting him down, yet apparently the man was not trying to hide. Was Strace too trusting, or simply foolish? The fact that he chose to live in Hotbed Arena, out of all the residences in the district, told Gorgo something about him. This was not a place for anyone who sought solitude or quiet.

  Many doors stood half-open along the north hall, and people strolled from room to room, some half-dressed and disheveled. Gorgo heard laughter and clinking glasses from one doorway, and low moans behind the half-closed door of another. The closed doors were silent, the thick stone muffling sound.

  Every door had a name scratched on it. Gorgo knocked loudly on the one that bore Strace’s name. After a moment it swung open. A young man leaned one bare muscular arm against the doorframe and regarded him quizzically. The fellow was probably in his mid-twenties, with a relaxed face of easy good looks. His curly brown hair was a little tousled; his eyes, likewise brown, were warm and genial. He was barefoot and wearing only loose trousers and an undershirt which showed his lithe and splendid soldier’s physique. He looked at Gorgo curiously, his self-confidence evident in his nonchalant manner.

  “Strace? I’m Gorgo of the Oribul family. May I come in?”

  Strace smiled, straightened up from the doorframe, and held the door open for Gorgo. He shut it behind him. The stone room was small, but comfortably furnished with a couple of overstuffed chairs. The bed was unmade and the clothes chest half-open, trailing rumpled garments. A clutter of books and papers and curiosities spilled across the desk and shelves, with an empty wine glass here and there. A well-polished sword hung by the bed; gleaming boots and scabbard lay beside it.

  As Gorgo entered, Strace asked, “And what can I do for you, Gorgo? Care for a seat?” He gestured to one of the chairs as he sauntered across the room to dig up a wine bottle and pour a glass. He offered it to Gorgo, but Gorgo declined both chair and wine. Strace started to raise the glass to his own lips, but stopped abruptly. A fleeting frown twisted his face, and he set the glass aside. Immediately he recovered his easy expression. Lounging against the desk, he studied Gorgo.

  “I’m here on account of a mutual acquaintance. A sailor named Janna.”

  “Oh yes, Janna. I’ve sailed with her a couple of times. She’s all right at sea but a terror on dry land.” He chuckled.

  “Indeed she is. That has something to do with why I’m here.” Gorgo dropped his voice, kept it slow and pleasant. “There’s been a problem with the merchandise. It’s not performing quite as promised. My employer is very unhappy about it.”

  Strace stared at him blankly.

  “Don’t insult my intelligence with these pretensions.” Gorgo let his voice snap. “The merchandise you sold for eighty mountains; the assassin that came out of Madness. I represent the final purchaser of this device.”

  Strace looked amused. “Well, Gorgo,” he said with a yawn, “I don’t know why you’re here. A purchase is a purchase, as anyone knows. You’ve sealed the deal. It’s your problem now.”

  “It could become yours as well. Morbid is not a patient woman.”

  Strace could not quite hide a look of surprise. “Morbid or not, the merchandise is good. It performs exactly as you instruct it. Any problems are on the user’s part.”

  “There’s quite a significant problem that I’m sure you could shed some light on.”

  “How did you come across my name? Did Janna babble?” A slight edge lurked behind the easy voice.

  Gorgo made a dismissing gesture. “Immaterial. I’m not here to discuss Janna; that’s not my end of the operation. At any rate, she seems to have known only one incantation by which to control the beast. I assume you held the others back for later profit.” Gorgo had no proof that other incantations existed, but he was convinced they must. He did not believe that even fanatics would create a weapon of such power without more controls. He had tracked down Strace for the sole purpose of learning them, gambling that it was not a futile effort.

  Strace’s mouth quirked d
own. “Poor wretch. I hope she didn’t suffer too much.” It seemed he assumed Morbid’s people had tortured Janna for information. Genuine regret laced his voice. Gorgo found him likable and distrusted the feeling. Once again Strace reached for the wine glass, and in mid-gesture pulled his hand back as though in an aimless wave. A slight frown furrowed his face again.

  “Drinking problem?” Gorgo inquired blandly.

  “It’s this cursed—” Strace began hotly, then stopped. His face altered. His expression seemed heavier; gone was the relaxed good cheer. “Define your problem. I haven’t all day.”

  “Notably lacking when the device was sold to us was any incantation by which to call off the golem.”

  Strace laughed aloud. “Yeah—those Kahlrites were something, weren’t they?” His face had lightened again into good humor and charm.

  “No one builds such a device without a control.”

  Strace shrugged. “Take it up with the Kahlrites. I’m not responsible for what fanatics do.”

  “All right; let’s not discuss the Kahlrites. Let’s discuss you. You would not sell such a device without a means of self-protection.” Gorgo scrutinized Strace for any reaction. “You’d do well to be accommodating. Morbid is not a patient woman. And Cockatrice can be aimed against anyone.”

  “Not a wise move if I have a controlling incantation as you think.”

  Gorgo smiled. “No, but it needn’t be Cockatrice, after all. Morbid has many assassins. And she does want that incantation.”

  There was a long pause. “Morbid is fishing for what doesn’t exist,” Strace said at last. “If there was another incantation, I never learned it.”

  “How did you get the relic out of Mar’Kesh, Tiger?” Gorgo changed tactics, seeking a weak spot that might startle the man into revealing something. “Obviously you were with the group of Pirates who were imprisoned—”

  “Oh no.” Strace shook his head. “I was the one who went to ransom them out.”

  “And how did you make the Panam Kell think you’d returned their treasure?”

  Strace regarded him, smiling, head to one side. His face was an odd mixture now: features blithe, but his eyes the dark forbidding ones Gorgo had seen when he’d snapped out ‘Define your problem.’ “You’re only guessing, little agent.”

  “And did the Panam realize,” Gorgo said, “that one of their own number had taken over your mind?” It was a stab in the dark, pure intuition and guesswork.

  Sudden force smashed at Gorgo’s thoughts like a springing beast. Dark claws scrabbled for a hold. A rush of vertigo threatened to rip his senses and will from him, sending him spiraling into a vortex of darkness. Even as Gorgo felt the terror of it, the claws slipped, unable to gain a toehold in his mind. The darkness slid away, leaving him no more than shaken, his heart hammering hard against his ribs. For a moment he was too confused to understand what had saved him, and then it dawned upon him: Water’s protection. She’d said it was proof against mind probes. He’d pay her double, he thought dimly, breathless. If he lived through this, that was.

  Strace stood motionless, all traces of the sociable young man stripped from his features. The lines of his face seemed etched deeper, incongruous with his youthful body. His lips curled. Haughtiness gleamed from his dark eyes. In a silken voice, he murmured, “Morbid is very good. My compliments.”

  Gorgo knew he would never walk out of this room alive if the entity even suspected his knowledge stopped with him. “She is. Thank you, Panam. That is your title, I presume?”

  Heavy eyelids drooped over those burning eyes, giving the being a lazy, contemptuous look. “My name is Wakár. What do you know of the Panam Kell?”

  “More than you know of Wyverna, I suspect. It was obvious to us how something managed to be stolen from the Panam Kell; it was not. Only a Panam himself could manage such a thing.”

  The lip curled further. “Herself.”

  “Your pardon.” Gorgo had once before, years ago, seen a case of possession in a child. He remembered the struggle for dominance tracking across the child’s face, one voice and expression giving way to another, eerily, without reason. A shiver ran down his spine as he watched the woman from Mar’Kesh standing arrogantly, unmoving, in the husk of the handsome young man she had pirated. “Strace is still alive, I take it?”

  “Yes.” Contempt edged the thick voice. “I needed him. Soft-minded creature that he is; indolent, useless piece of trash. No Panam would be tolerated so.”

  Gorgo felt an inward shudder for the likable Pirate he had seen in flashes. It was without doubt Strace who had reached for the wine, and Wakár who had stopped him. Muffling his feelings, he continued, “You see your position is rather bad. However easy prey one warrior may be, the Fence is neither indolent nor soft-minded. And they do have their own mind powers. You have not yet met the Slythe inquisitors. Dealing with Morbid is far preferable. She has no interest in how many warriors you cannibalize as long as you give her what she wants.”

  Wakár was silent a long time, eyes deadened. Picking Strace’s mind, Gorgo realized. “Morbid has ambitions of her own. How high do you rank in her hierarchy?”

  “High enough.”

  “Are you sure? What has she promised you from this gambit? As much as you could have without her?” The Panam smiled slightly, giving her a disturbing, predatory look. “Probably not. I can be more generous. Have you considered the advantages of working for me instead of against me?”

  Clever, Gorgo thought. If you can’t defeat them, hire them. “An appealing proposition. But I find it bad tactics to betray one master for another. How could you ever trust me? My word would have no value. And in Wyverna, you’ll find, one frequently lives on one’s word.”

  Her nostrils flared. “Indeed. I doubt I need have any fears of the Fence. Morbid must avoid them even more than I. Your threats are useless.”

  “Not at all. We could arrange for word to come round to the Fence anonymously. But if you only give us what we want, we will forget your very name.”

  Once again he felt that grappling force on his mind. Once again it slipped off Water’s shield. Getting desperate, eh, Wakár?

  She strode across the room as though to vent her frustration, biting out, “His mind affects mine even now with its weakness. There is a certain... melding... inevitable when one mind must use another’s. Influence doesn’t only flow from the strong to the weak. Already this undisciplined comfort-loving sloth has infected me, destroying the perfect balance a Panam maintains.”

  Perhaps it was time to offer some bait. The idea came to Gorgo in a flash of inspiration. “Pity the only tool at hand was such a poor one,” he murmured. “How it must limit your ambitions here. What you could accomplish with a more suitable vessel would truly be remarkable.”

  She stopped in her pacing to give him a full stare. “Offering yourself?” Her lips curled upward, showing teeth.

  He definitely didn’t like her smile. Feigning nonchalance, he shook his head. “Impractical, really. You wouldn’t gain by it. And the male form you must find so confining. How much more comfortable you would be in the body of a woman, a woman of ruthless character and considerable position: a woman similar to yourself, placed with advantage in Wyverna society.”

  She paced toward him with a slight sashay, a woman’s walk in a man’s lithe body. “What happened to your vaunted loyalty?”

  He let his eyes widen a little. “Where lies my disloyalty? I serve Morbid without question. I could occasionally wish to see a stronger will in her—but that’s as may be. She’s strong enough for Wyverna.” Wakár continued to near, and he backed up, keeping his distance. “It would be a pleasure if we could meet again on the same side of the issue.” He was sure the idea must intrigue her. To take over Morbid’s body and position would be tempting. Gorgo kept his manner calm and thoughtful, as if he discussed something abstract. “Morbid insists on having that incantation, Wakár. But you could regard it as still being kept in the family, if you choose to follow my sug
gestion. To me it’s all the same. My loyalty lies with Morbid, and I serve her as long as she’s strong enough to command my respect. The stronger she is, the better.”

  Wakár stopped advancing. “You are sincere. Fascinating.” Arms folded across Strace’s chest, she looked away, pensive.

  “The incantation, Wakár.”

  He hadn’t seen the knife before she whipped it out of her pants leg with a Tiger’s speed. He leapt away, but in her slow earlier advance she had driven him back until he was pinned between the wall behind him and a chair to his side. His jump sent him crashing into the heavy chair; he rolled across it and into open floor, and the glittering arc of her knife missed his chest to lay open his arm in a long hot streak of pain. He found his own knife in his hand by that time, but Strace/Wakár had already hurled the chair aside and was driving toward him, knife dark with his blood. Gorgo knew his fighting skills were no match for a Tiger’s, possessed or not. He wouldn’t last five minutes. Luckily he had another weapon.

  He yelled, “Possessed! The man’s possessed! To me, Pirates!”

  For just a split second she was shocked still, and he used it to dive past her and hurtle to the door. He wheeled round, hand on the doorknob, and paused. The advantage was all his now. He could be in the hallway before she could reach him.

  The body that had been Strace stood still. Not even a drop of sweat gleamed on his hard-muscled physique. Casually he reached for a rag from the nearby desk and wiped his knife clean. His handsome face showed nothing. Only the eyes seemed wrong: heavy, older somehow than that youthful frame, and infinitely colder. When he spoke at last his voice was flat. “If these walls were any less thick than they are, your life would be forfeit to me now, as price for betraying my existence.”

  “I was merely demonstrating the possibility to you. I don’t believe you were thinking clearly when you attacked me. If I disappear, Morbid will report you to the Fence, and they will be here quickly. You are in rather a bad position to go on the offensive, as I believe I made clear.” He paused. “The incantation, Wakár.”