The Copper Assassin

by Madolyn Rogers

  “Devourer! Demon hells! Yahsta’s blighted balls!” Six & Seven spluttered out of curses. “I can’t let you out of my sight anymore, Gorgo my lad. It appears you’ve either gone fey, or you’re really trying to make me write that ballad.”

  Even in his foul mood, Gorgo laughed. “I’m determined to hear it, you know. It’s the only reason I stayed alive.”

  “Did you actually get to speak personally with the Warlord?” Rall asked, her eyes wide.

  Gorgo winced. “Yes, for rather longer than I wanted to.”

  “What’s she like?”

  “I don’t even know how to answer that, Rall.” Gorgo considered for a moment, but all he came up with was, “Not what I expected.”

  Six & Seven had just noticed the mark on Gorgo’s hand. He whistled. “The Fence sigil. You’ve gone respectable, boy! I don’t know that I can even associate with you anymore.”

  Gorgo gritted his teeth. The chatter was wearing on him. His cousins did not seem to realize that all these trifles came at the cost of his freedom. “Can we talk, Six & Seven?” Gorgo jerked his head down the riverbank.

  The girls took the hint. “I suppose you’ll tell Six & Seven all your secrets.” Rall sniffed. “We’ll get it out of him later, never fear.” They loped back to the enclave, no doubt to tell the others Gorgo was here.

  “We may not have long. Let’s sit.” Gorgo led the way to one of their favorite spots, a broad rock that overlooked the river.

  “What’s biting you, Gorgo? I’ve never seen anyone look so miserable after such a triumph.”

  Gorgo held out his hand, its blue sigil glowing even under the midday sun. “Do you really envy this? It’s a twelve-hour stamp, Six & Seven. It forces me to return to the Fence by midnight. It might as well be a slave mark.”

  Six & Seven scratched his head. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. You were the one who always said you wouldn’t join the Catsclaw because you don’t like obeying orders.”

  “I don’t think I quite said that.”

  “But that’s the truth.” Six & Seven grinned at him. “I think you’re as cursed independent as the Warlord herself.”

  Gorgo bristled. “You wouldn’t want this either. And I have only my own fool self to blame. If I hadn’t walked the Fence, I wouldn’t be stuck there now.”

  Six & Seven grew serious at last. “Demon hells, Gorgo, if you really want to leave, you’ll find a way. I didn’t think you could stop the assassin. I mean, Devourer, Gorgo, the Assassin of the Kahlrites! Unstoppable, invulnerable, all that. How’d you do it? And you don’t think you can figure a way out of the Fence?”

  Gorgo blew out his breath. “All right. Maybe you’re right.” Silence fell for a moment. “You’re right. I will get out. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “I expect you to bring back some stories, though. See if you can get into a few duels. Bed a few sorceresses. Something. Have some fun, Gorgo.”

  Gorgo laughed at last. Six & Seven had the power to bring him out of the glummest mood. He could never stay angry at his cousin for long. “I will try to get into some trouble just for you, Six & Seven.” Gorgo glanced back over his shoulder at the enclave. “I suppose I should go see my parents while I still have some time.”

  “Oh, aye, they’ll want to see you. You should have seen them when the Hands brought the news. Your mother said, afterward, that she always knew you had remarkable talents, if you would only apply them.”

  This was so typical of his mother that Gorgo grinned despite himself. “And I don’t need to ask about Father, I suppose.” Politics were his father’s passion, though his own career had been limited to matters of the Oribul family.

  “I thought he might burst.” Six & Seven sighed. “It will be dull around here without you. What are the odds that Rall will be my gambling partner?”

  Gorgo shook his head. “Poor. You might need to find a lover instead. Have some fun yourself.”

  “That’s a thought.” Six & Seven brightened. “I’ve got my eye on a Kharvay I met at the tables. She has a great laugh—and a body lithe as a river eel.”

  Gorgo pushed to his feet, shaking his head. “Devourer take you, I can see you’ll be like a seal at mating season here, while I’m slaving away in the Fence.” Gorgo turned to the enclave. “I’d better go see my parents now; I want to leave time to talk with Armida after.” He glanced back at his cousin, and then wasn’t sure what to say. They stared at each other wordlessly.

  Six & Seven broke the tableau, waving a hand in farewell and flashing a grin. “I’ll have that ballad finished by the next time I see you. I’ll make you listen to it all, too. All 32 stanzas. And if you don’t enjoy it, I’ll make it longer.”

  “I may not come back then,” Gorgo said, his lightning grin brightening his face. He sauntered off to the enclave without looking back.

  Gorgo awoke in the dark of his room in Mort Glave. Cadi stood by his bed. “The Warlord wishes to see you.”

  He rolled out of bed, dressed, and collected Honeylegs. He felt much better than yesterday, his headache nearly gone, the pain of his wounds subsided to a dull ache. He had dreamed of Wakár again, but he brushed away the fading fragments of the dream and focused on his surroundings. It was hard to tell time in Mort Glave, but it seemed to be still night; few people roamed the halls, and many of the glowglobes were masked. This time Cadi led him the other way down the Hall of the Sea. They walked for hundreds of feet through the blue-green underworld before the hall ended in another circular staircase leading down, this one rough-hewn from the rock. It was lit by pale white glowglobes, widely spaced. They marched down the stairs for many minutes.

  “Where are we going?” Gorgo asked at last.

  “Yahsta’s Belly.”

  It sounded like sarcasm, but Gorgo knew it was not. Yahsta’s Belly was the great natural cavern that underlay Mort Glave. It housed one of the relics of the Oribul family, the Throne of Sight. The Warlord had laid claim to it at the time of the Uprooting, and buried it below Mort Glave. Gorgo bit his lip, wondering what the Warlord could want with him now.

  Their descent ended at last. Gorgo could not tell how far they had come down—one hundred feet, two hundred—but he knew they were deep underground, buried in the rock. Shadows gathered thick about them. Fanged doors gaped open before them; their notched edges would interlock when they shut. Beyond the doors Gorgo saw only darkness.

  Cadi halted. “Go in. The Warlord awaits you.”

  He entered Yahsta’s Belly alone. In ages past, the huge cavern had been hollowed out by an underground lake; the walls hidden in the distance were worn smooth as polished metal by the water. Nothing filled the cave now but darkness and silence. Gorgo could not see the walls or ceiling. The vast void pressed weightless as dust against his skin. In the gloom a white spot danced before his eyes. Gorgo blinked, and it did not disappear. It was a real light, far away. As his eyes adjusted, the distant radiance greyed the air around him. He could vaguely see the black silhouettes of islets looming from the floor on either side. Before him the floor stretched smooth as sand away toward the cold pearl of light, a narrow man-made corridor through the ancient lake bed.

  Gorgo prowled forward, nerves on edge. No sound startled him, no shadow moved, yet the frozen deathliness of that place only frayed his nerves more. The view around him never changed. The icy glob of light never neared. Hairs prickled along the back of his neck, and sweat chilled his skin. Perhaps he had been around sorcerers and relics too much recently; he was learning to recognize the cold scent of magic. It grew stronger as he walked. Honeylegs brushed a palp against the skin of his neck, and he raised a hand to stroke her. She hid herself against his neck, scurrying under his hair.

  After perhaps twenty minutes, he could tell the light was growing closer. It looked like a globe now, a great ball of frost, misting the air around it with cold radiance. Gorgo continued walking for more uncounted time, and gradually realized that the light hung well above his path. Only a little later he could
see the wall behind it arching up into the vault of darkness. Then he saw what lay beneath the snowy star, and came to a halt. The Throne of Sight, the treasure of his family.

  It was carved of hematite, dark and gleaming as oiled steel in the shadows, but shining like rivers of white ice where the light hit it. Modeled after the Serpent Throne of Obrail, two thick pythons formed its arms, heads forward, forked tongues out. Their long bodies looped across the back of the throne, crossing each other. Between them loomed a giant cobra, reared up to strike, its flared hood forming the back of the throne, its long fangs gleaming white. The bodies of dozens more snakes writhed through the seat and base, curling in and out of shadow and light, their twisting forms conjoined. The throne looked beautiful yet barbaric, a relic from centuries past. In this limitless space, there was no telling how large it was. The white light above it leached all color from the scene, like a lightning flash. In the ivory and pewter shadows, everything seemed vast, stark, and simple, only the essential remaining.

  A moment later Gorgo saw the young warriors standing in its shadow, one on either side of the throne, dwarfed by its immensity. They looked like metaled stone themselves under the unearthly light, unmoving, each with one hand resting on the hilt of their sheathed sabre, the light shining off the hard planes of their faces, their unblinking eyes on him. They were the Auxars; they could be nothing else. They had been born to guard the Throne of Sight, the last children of a long line of guardians. They looked nearly identical; Gorgo could not even tell which was the man and which the woman. He knew they spent their lives here, never seeing the light of the sun.

  Something stirred in the shadows beyond the throne. The Warlord stepped forward. Here of all rooms, she did not seem a giant. She looked almost at home beside the colossal seat. “You wanted to know what had become of Cockatrice.” Her voice too seemed to fit here, rich and deep, echoing in the chamber like the voice of a goddess. “She is there within the light.” The Warlord gestured at the cobra.

  In the back of the beast’s wide mouth, a spot of gold gleamed. Stepping closer, Gorgo made out a ball of amber light, coruscating with its own radiance, lodged in the serpent’s throat. Its shimmering light was shot through with black veins; they tangled together in the heart of the globe, cupping a cloudy crystal orb. If his eyes were keener, Gorgo imagined, he might see a miniature golden warrior inside the orb, prisoned like a fly caught in amber.

  “Her egg is there, in the heart of the light,” the Warlord said. “She has been bound. The only way to free her would be to break the power latent in that light.”

  “What power is that?”

  “Do you know how a sorcerous binding works? It requires a bit of the caster’s own life essence, to wrap around the thing they bind. It is the only substance that does not perish or fade. It will endure there forever, unless broken by a greater power. The golem’s prison is made from a year or two of a sorcerer’s life.”

  Na•ar, Gorgo thought, but did not say. So that had been his service and his punishment. Na•ar had given a little of his own life to bind the golem, and his essence burned now inside the snake’s mouth. Yet Na•ar was already free, probably back in Ilkour and about his business. It’s only you and I, Cockatrice, who are trapped. Gorgo remembered the golem as he had first seen her, golden and splendid amid the grey stone of a Wyverna street. He recalled her piecing together the puzzle of his motives like unfamiliar equations, and the silken slither of the amphisbaena in her fist. He remembered her as a hunting animal in the cobalt fog of Blue Light, sniffing the air for any trace of her prey. She had been a splendid beast, and he was surprised to find he regretted her passing.

  “You’ve killed her,” he said.

  “Killed her? Certainly not. I doubt anything could. Merely made her more difficult to reach, and I hope it is enough. I can’t risk the golem getting loose in the city again. I will not see Wyverna fall as Madness did.”

  Gorgo studied the Warlord, hearing the echo of his own thoughts in her words. He realized belatedly what she’d meant yesterday, when she had said they had something in common. “Even though you know the incantations that control her? You could use her to further your own power.”

  “That would be foolishness. As you demonstrated, incantations can be learned and stolen, coerced and overheard. But it goes beyond that. When you rule by force, you create resistance, especially in a proud people. They will fight back. Further my own power? It was that kind of thinking that annihilated the Kahlrites. They died to a man, Gorgo, with the greatest weapon of their city in their control.”

  “Don’t you rule by force, Warlord?” Even as he spoke, Gorgo wondered how he’d let himself be drawn into another debate with her.

  She tilted her head to one side. It was hard to tell in the dark, but Gorgo thought she was amused. “I will let you make up your own mind about that.”

  Gorgo fell silent, reminding himself that he need draw no more attention from the Warlord.

  She waited for half a minute before she prompted him. “And my question? Have you an answer for me?”

  Gorgo hesitated. He had talked about it at length with Armida last night, but had found no new solutions. As he saw it, he had no option but to take the post in the Fence, at least for the moment. He had no money; the Warlord had seen to that when she’d sent the reward to his parents. He needed food and lodging. And here in Mort Glave he would be close to power. Here he would have the best chance of finding another way out of the Fence. Finding things out was his specialty, after all. Six & Seven’s words of yesterday warmed him. His cousin was right; Gorgo would find a way to conquer the Fence. But it would take time, and he must have patience. Nonetheless it took a moment before Gorgo could make himself say the words. “I accept the post in the Fence.”

  “Good. Your wages will be garnished for a time — there’s a fine for assaulting a police officer.”

  Devourer, he thought she’d forgotten about that. Gorgo closed his teeth on protests.

  “Cadi will show you the way to your new office,” the Warlord said, and turned and strode away down the long clear path that striped Yahsta’s Belly, vanishing in the darkness.

  Gorgo took a deep breath of the clammy air, and looked back at Cockatrice, imprisoned in her fence of light. He gave her a small salute, hand over his heart. “If the assassin can be stopped, the Fence can be conquered,” he whispered, low enough that the Auxars would not hear. “I will be my own master again. I am Wyvernyr.” The cold light above winked his promise back to him. Gorgo put his feet on the path and retraced his steps back down Yahsta’s Belly, following the Warlord.

  Appendices

  Character List

  Character sex, age, and family noted in parentheses

  Angel Eyes (M, 38, Hologrim) – A smuggler in the Sealord’s District.

  Armida (F, 56, Oribul) – Gorgo’s aunt, a scholar and storyteller famous in the Oribul family.

  Babinsa (F, 39, Kharvay) – A wealthy noble and skilled duelist.

  Bakoshkry Oxfeen (F, golem) –Cockatrice’s name in her native language.

  Caarino (F, 42, Kharvay) – Owner of the Carousel, a bar in the Blue Light quarter of Ilkour.

  Cadi (F, 22, Hologrim) – Senior Page in the Warlord’s household.

  Chassi (F, 38, Kharvay) – A ship’s lieutenant in the fleet, and one of Morbid’s cabal.

  Ciano (F, 38, Slythe) – Treasury Master, one of the five Fence lords.

  Cockatrice (F, golem) – A relic created in the Old Empire city of Madness more than 1,600 years ago, a copper golem designed to be the ultimate assassin.

  Gaithorn (F, 39, Hologrim) – Sorceress on the Warlord’s staff, and one of the Warlord’s oldest and most loyal supporters.

  Gorgo (M, 18, Oribul) – Protagonist; young noble of the Pton Enclave.

  Hands of the Warlord (M, unknown) – The Warlord’s right-hand man, an inhuman, grey-skinned dwarf whose black eyes are filled with white lights like stars.

  Heizhen (F, 38, Mad Dream) –
Ambassador of the Fence, and one of the Warlord’s earliest supporters and oldest friends.

  Honeylegs (F, spider) – A golden spider with strange powers, psychically linked to Gorgo.

  Janna (F, 32, Hologrim) – A sailor in the Sealord’s District; she sold Cockatrice to Na•ar.

  Jonlan (M, 37, Mad Dream) – Campaign Master, one of the five Fence lords; he heads foreign affairs.

  Korl (M, 30, Hologrim) – Na•ar’s secretary.

  Lisgard (M, 25, Hologrim) – Talisman Officer of the police; impersonated by Gorgo.

  Luoxjarn (M, 42, Tryjan) – A Jaguar, third in command of the Catsclaw. He was born in the country of Tryjan, near Black Mar’Kesh, and came to the ice islands as a lad.

  Mayden (M, 41, D’Rast) – The District Master, also called the Implementer, one of the five Fence lords.

  M’Chay (M, 65, Hollow Eye) – Tea Master, one of the five Fence lords; a monk and old friend of the Warlord’s.

  Morbid (F, 42, Kharvay) – A leading Kharvay noble who desires to rule Wyverna.

  Na•ar (M, 37, Hologrim) – Wealthy merchant, owner of The Tricked Eel casino as well as the Green Market.

  Orinc (F, 27, Kharvay) - A Catsclaw Panther.

  Qweekess (M, 45, unknown) – Seller at the Hunger Market in the Blue Light quarter of Ilkour.

  Radice (M, 29, Kharvay) – A noble who frequents the casinos and bars of Ilkour.

  Rall (F, 19, Oribul) – One of Gorgo’s cousins in the Pton Enclave.

  Rampion (F, 37, Slythe) – A Slythe mind witch; her official title is Chatelaine of the Inquisition, but she is informally known as the Mind-Bender and is greatly feared.

  Rashin (M, 18, Oribul) – A pseudonym that Gorgo uses; supposedly a sailor on the warship Harpy.

  Shaoti (F, 33, Hologrim) – Agriculture Director of the Fence and a sorceress who lives in the Stone Hearth District.

  Six & Seven (M, 18, Oribul) – Gorgo’s third cousin and his best friend.