When Swords Fall Silent

An Assassination Anthology

When Swords Fall Silent

An Assassination Anthology

Copyright © 2023. All rights reserved.

“May Luck Be with You” by Michael J. Sullivan. © 2023 by Michael J. Sullivan.

“War Powers” by Jonathan French. © 2023 by Jonathan French.

“Mortopia” by M. L. Wang. © 2023 by M. L. Wang.

“The Twists of Fate” by Peter Flannery. © 2023 by Peter Flannery.

“Tabula Rasa: Training Day” by Luke Chmilenko. © 2023 by Luke Chmilenko.

“Dead Run” by RJ Barker. © 2023 by RJ Barker.

“Pearl’s Price” by Marie Brennan. © 2023 by Marie Brennan.

“Sons of Nightfall” by Philip C. Quaintrell. © 2023 by Philip C. Quaintrell.

“Why I’m Tired of Stones and Symphonies” by Andrew Rowe. © 2023 by Andrew Rowe.

“Sword in the Shadows” by Jay Boyce. © 2023 by Jay Boyce.

“The Ax of Lahareed” by David Dalglish. © 2023 by David Dalglish.

“Ghost of the White Wood” by JA Andrews. © 2023 by JA Andrews.

“A Simple Thing” by Bryce O’Connor. © 2023 by Bryce O’Connor.

“Mission of Mercy” by Terry Mancour. © 2023 by Terry Mancour.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product

of the author’s imagination or used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, locals,

or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this

publication can be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

without expressed permission from the author.

Cover Artist: YAM

Cover Design and Interior Layout: STK•Kreations

Art Direction: Bryce O'Connor

Editor: Bryce O’Connor

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-955252-42-3

Worldwide Rights

1st Edition

Published by Wraithmarked Creative, LLC

www.wraithmarked.com

For Brent Weeks.

For opening the door.

- Bryce O’Connor, Editor

May Luck Be with You

War Powers

Mortopia

The Twists of Fate

Tabula Rasa: Training Day

Dead Run

Pearl’s Price

Why I’m Tired of Stones and Symphonies

Sons of Nightfall

Sword in the Shadows

The Ax of Lahareed

Ghost of the White Wood

A Simple Thing

Mission of Mercy

May Luck Be with You

Michael J. Sullivan

The body hit the floor with a loud thud, the third mistake Royce Melborn had made in less than an hour. The first two were minor; this one wasn’t, and he didn’t like the direction of increased ineptitude that his errors were taking. He waited in the dark, barely breathing and listening for the telltale sounds of footfalls coming in his direction. All he heard was the distant snap of the fire in the downstairs hearth, the wind against the house, and the rattle of carriage wheels on the street outside.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

Sloppy as I am tonight, I can’t believe that Luck is with me.

This possibility didn’t provide Royce with a sense of security. He knew all too well how fickle Luck could be, and it had never truly been Royce’s friend. More than a year ago, he and it had had a nasty breakup. Since then, the two hadn’t been on speaking, or any other kind of, terms. Royce might even go so far as to say that Luck was his enemy—not a huge leap given he had quite a few. But tonight’s good fortune made him wonder why Luck had suddenly decided to tag along.

Royce glanced down at the awkwardly twisted body; a surprisingly small puddle of blood had pooled on the floor. When the pump stopped, so had the flow. Most of the initial spray decorated the bedspread. Not a drop landed on Royce. He’d learned how to avoid the gush through repeated blunders back in the days when he and Luck were at the height of their war.

Royce knew who the man was, by name at least: Jedidiah Thornton was one of the five royal magistrates of Rhenydd. He had a wife, two mistresses, and eight children—two of which were legitimate. Other than that, Royce didn’t know anything about the guy, and they had never met. He wasn’t a bad-looking fellow, which accounted for the two mistresses and the large number of children. The dead man wasn’t nearly as old as Royce had expected. Magistrates always seemed ancient, but maybe that impression came from their powdered wigs. Jedidiah wasn’t wearing his hairpiece, nor his shoes, just a nightshirt. His eyes were still open, staring at the ceiling. Thornton appeared surprised, but he shouldn’t have been. An older, wiser man certainly would have known the danger of threatening a thieves guild that lived next door.

When he was certain that the house, and the city directly outside it, remained oblivious to the murder, Royce left the bedroom. The whole place remained quiet. No doubt everyone was still tucked snugly in their beds, so he went down the stairs and out the front door.

The home of the recently deceased magistrate was located on Lord’s Row, not more than a block from Central Square. Being after hours but not too late, the streets of Ratibor were depleted of pedestrians, though not completely empty. No one would find Royce’s presence the least bit odd as long as he walked like a person innocent of any wrongdoing.

The city couldn’t afford lanterns to illuminate the streets, so it got by with just torches, and precious few of those. This left nothing but moonlight during most of his trip back, which was fine by Royce—good even.

Realizing he should have worn his cloak after all, Royce pulled the collar of his shirt up around his neck. The night was chilly—not quite so cold as it was damp. Spring always seemed to arrive late in Ratibor. The season promised warmth, beauty, flowers, and rebirth, but it could be as vindictive as winter had always proven to be. If it weren’t for summer pushing for its chance to punish humanity with drought and suffocating heat, spring would continue its torturous tease.

As raw as the night was, it wasn’t bad enough to force Royce to seek shelter in an alley to escape the harsh wind. He didn’t stop until he reached Herald Street. From Lord’s Row he looked down the length of the road and could just make out the green roof of the old building at the end. Royce wasn’t in this part of town often, hadn’t been in years, but he remembered that roof and those walls. They enveloped his first home—at least the only one he had ever known. He stared at it, inviting the memories. He wanted to feel the sense of helplessness, the hurt, and the pain again. Then he held up a hand, presenting it to the night—the same hand that had just slit the throat of Ratibor’s East End royal magistrate, Jedidiah Thornton. “Not so helpless anymore.”

He wondered if Taft and Remy still worked there. And what about Ada Cross? Probably not. They were old even back then. But if they still lived, Royce thought he might stop by and do something about that—if only for old times’ sake. After all, a person who could assassinate a leading magistrate and casually walk out the front door ought to be able to butcher two orderlies and a headmistress.

I should burn the whole thing down, he thought.

Reaching into his purse, Royce felt for and found the little card. It was still there, the string long gone. He hadn’t thought about it in years. Now he pulled it out and studied the words written in faded ink. He’d been forced to wear it, punished each time he took it off. Royce removed the thing for good the night he escaped, but he’d kept it ever since—didn’t know why. It meant nothing to him because Royce couldn’t read.

#

“You did what?” Garnet asked.

This was the third time the Thief Master had repeated those exact three words. No matter how many different ways Royce tried to explain, the reply was always the same, so this time he spoke slowly. “I…killed…Jedidiah…Thornton. And stop asking me the same stupid question. You sound moronic.”

Garnet stared, his face crushed in confusion. “You killed a royal magistrate?”

“Yes,” Royce replied. Turning to the rest, he added, “Really wasn’t so hard. Didn’t have a single watchman.”

Royce was back in the Rat’s Nest—the room in the sewers just below Honor’s Way and Degan Street that served as the headquarters of the Ratibor faction of the Black Diamond Thieves Guild. Few members lived there. Most found better places around the city, but this was the guild’s heart—the place loot was stored and where they congregated for stories, news, and assignments. That night the nest was host to twelve rats. Most were sweepers, but there were a couple of picks along with Peridot—the mission architect, the brains of the outfit. Royce was pleased she was there. Peridot would be able to appreciate what Garnet obviously couldn’t.

“There’s a reason he’s not guarded,” Garnet said. “’Cuz no one is stupid enough to try to…I can’t believe it.” He shook his head. “C’mon, seriously. This has to be a joke. You’re not that barmy, are you? I mean, I know you’re insane—famous for it really—but not that demented, right?”

Royce raised his hands, then let them drop. “I don’t understand. Thornton declared war on us when he executed Cinnabar. He ordered the sewers to be scoured. Just last night you said we ought to kill him before he slaughters us.”

“That was just talk. I didn’t mean it, you stupid git!” Garnet shouted.

“Well, you should have made that clear.” Royce turned his back, searching for his cloak amid the clutter.

Rat’s Nest wasn’t so much a euphemism as an accurate portrait. The whole place was filled with all manner of odds and ends that had been scavenged or pilfered. These rats didn’t merely steal; they collected. Like actual rodents, the thieves cleaned the city of any and all refuse. Doing so produced haphazard piles of randomly accumulated clutter. With just a glance, Royce spied tangled wads of string; empty bottles, some broken; and dozens of candlesticks, most without candles but still coated in wax. They had hundreds of spoons because silverware was one of the primary targets in any robbery. The ones piled here, however, were all pewter. Any silver brought back was immediately melted down. Rope was everywhere, but as it was a trade tool, the coils were neatly hung. The same was true for the various locks that lived on the practice table in the corner. Then there was the inexplicable: half of a pink parasol, a pile of pigeon feathers stuffed into a coffee tin, a doll made of knotted handkerchiefs, and the filthy, decapitated porcelain statue of an orange-painted swan that had been collected before Royce had become a member.

He found his cloak in the clothes pile that was mounded with tattered blankets and a truly remarkable assortment of hats. The rats loved stealing them, but because the decorative garments were often unique and easily recognized, they only wore them in the Rat’s Nest. When the novelty wore off, they went on the heap. Finding his wrap covered in crumbs, Royce shook it clean. He was annoyed at himself for leaving it behind, but he’d expected the murder to be more challenging than it had been and worried that it might get in the way.

Another lesson learned.

“You really did it? You ain’t just screwin’ around? You actually killed Thornton?”

Royce nodded. “Why? Is that a problem?”

“Problem?” Garnet exploded with exasperation, addressing the question to the other rats as if everyone in the room knew the answer but Royce. “For one thing, you’re not a bucketman.”

“What’s that?” Still feeling the chill, Royce pulled on the cloak.

“An assassin. All bucketmen are sanctioned by the guild, and they work out of Colnora where the Jewel keeps them on a short leash. Only he can order the death of a duke or the like. And he also keeps his ear to the ground about any deaths because too many killings draw the attention of the royals. You can knock off a merchant or two, no problem. But if not kept in check, people complain, and retribution follows. See? So you ain’t just pissing on this city, you’re spraying the whole bloody guild with your mess.”

“Good thing I didn’t kill a duke, then.”

Garnet put his face in his palm. “You done the next best thing, kiddo. All people at certain levels are off limits, and a magistrate falls squarely into that box. There will be consequences, count on it. And the mass hangings that will be imposed won’t cover a fraction of the debt you took on.”

“So what are you saying? We’ll all have to leave?”

Garnet looked up, and his expression shifted from outraged disbelief to serious resolve. “No, just you,” he said with all the finality of a slamming door.

“What? Why?”

“Because tomorrow I’m going to the city guard and tell them you went insane and murdered the magistrate.”

Royce felt the air go out of the room, and what had been merely a chill turned frosty. His eyes shifted left and right checking everyone’s positions. He could kill a few of them but not enough.

Garnet saw Royce tense and raised his hands, palms out and fingers spread, a nonverbal hold on just a second. “I said I’m going to do that tomorrow. That’s when I’ll pretend to learn about this incredibly stupid murder and act like I just put two and two together. But tonight, I don’t know nothing about anything. If you came by here at all, it must have been to pick up your stuff before fleeing the city.” Garnet stroked the long strands of a beard that looked as ratty as anything in the nest. “Now, the way I figure it, you’d be smart to head north through the mountain pass into Warric. Not too far away but the moment you cross the border, King Urith won’t chase you no more. O’ course, I’m pretty sure you’re stupid—on account of how you murdered a ruddy magistrate and all—so you’ll most likely go south instead. Maybe head to Swanwick or Kilnar. At least that’s what I’ll tell the Rhenydd wardens tomorrow when I’m trying to save my life and the other rats are fleeing for distant woodpiles.”

Royce looked at the others. No one moved.

“Don’t take any of the petty cash,” Garnet told him. “You’re on your own now.”

Royce stared at the Thief Master for a moment more, just to intimidate him, but the act was pointless given the number of rats in the room. While not the most loyal of rodents, each was a professional survivor, and they would side with Garnet for their own good. Royce figured he would do the same if the situation were flipped. Realizing this, he also concluded that killing Thornton might not have been the smartest move.

He picked three bags from the pile. “Am I allowed food?”

Garnet nodded. “We’re rats, not monsters.” Then with a smile he added, “But if you attempt to take the good cheese, that’ll be the last thing you’ll try.”

Is that a joke? Maybe not.

“Royce,” Peridot said while handing him her own blanket—the only bit of cloth in the entire place that was folded—“don’t go alone. They’ll be looking for a lone traveler.”

“You expect the kid to make friends overnight?” Garnet asked. “He sees most people the way lions look at lambs. That’s always been his problem. He likes killing, and people can tell.”

“He doesn’t like killing,” Peridot protested. “Just doesn’t see anything wrong with it. But, Royce”—she looked at him, hard—“you can’t kill everyone.”

“No one is going to invite the likes of him,” Garnet said. “At least not anyone who can provide the sort of reputable cover he’ll need.”

“There are all sorts of people on the road,” Peridot explained. “It’s a dangerous world out there, and most people welcome company on the highway. They see safety in numbers. Try to be friendly, Royce. Smile from time to time. Be polite. Pretend to be nice.”

The advice sounded stupid. The plan he was hatching involved vanishing in the night after stealing a horse. He was going to race north and kill anyone who got in his way. But the suggestion had come from Peridot, so it was worth consideration. He liked her but not because of her looks. The woman was more than a decade older than he, and not blessed with beauty. Yet she was, by far, the smartest person he’d ever known. Giving him her blanket also spoke volumes. She loved that well-worn piece of cloth.

“If you make it out,” Garnet said, “try going to Colnora. You got a mean streak in you, boy. I swear you can make ice shiver. Might just make a good bucketman. Believe me when I say: If you were anyone else, I’d turn you over to the city guard. But honestly, I’m scared you’d escape, and I don’t want to be on your bad side.” He paused. “Although as I think about it, I’m not sure you have another side.”

“Just maintain a low profile,” Peridot told him. “And keep in mind that once you clear the mountain pass, you’ll be in Warric and out of Rhenydd’s jurisdiction.”

“What does that mean?” Royce asked.

“You’ll be safe. You’ll be free.”

#

By the time the sun came up, Royce was several miles north, walking the open road. He hadn’t seen another soul to join up with—or steal a horse from. He felt exposed while walking the muddy pair of tracks, which was cut through an open field of straw stubble. Patches of snow gathered in low areas, foreshadowing a future made obvious by the growing light that revealed snow-covered mountains.

He frequently glanced back, not that he feared pursuit—not yet at least. Thornton’s body was most likely undiscovered and would remain that way until some servant entered the magistrate’s suite with morning tea and breakfast. On his latest look, Royce noted how far he’d come. Ratibor, the city of his birth where he’d spent the totality of his life, appeared ridiculously small, nothing but a miserable cluster of wooden shacks, an ugly scar on the surrounding valley. He’d never been this far outside the city, and that realization came as a shock. His whole existence had been trapped in what he now saw as a disgusting, muddy pit.

The sun was barely a few inches above the horizon, and Royce had just lost sight of the only world he’d ever known. Returning his attention to the road ahead, he spotted a pair of women standing beside a horse and wagon—one of its wheels stuck in the mud. They were old, one more so than the other. And while they didn’t seem feeble, the two were far from stalwart. The thin one had gray in her hair, but the other’s head was as white as the mountains that rose behind them. Mud caked the hems of their plain skirts, and their heavy coats were threadbare, the sort gravediggers wore in winter.

The moment they spotted him, the two became animated. Running in his direction, they waved their arms and called out. Apparently, they wanted him to come closer and were too stupid to realize that would have happened even without their gesticulations.

Doesn’t get any easier than this, he thought. Luck had apparently decided to let bygones be bygones and delivered him a horse as a peace offering. Killing the women would be as easy as slicing soft bread. He let his hands reach for the handle of his curve-bladed kharolls. That’s when he noticed the contents of the wagon.

Children. At least half a dozen.

They were lying in the wagon bed, wrapped in blankets. Ranging in age from toddlers to ten or so, most of them were asleep, their heads lying one on another, mouths open, drool leaving wet marks on their companions’ backs and shoulders.

A gruesome comedy flashed through Royce’s mind’s eye where he chased a bunch of screaming children hither and yon with his blood-covered blades. He imagined the event spawning a cautionary bedtime story, and because such notoriety wasn’t a future he wanted to invite, he let his hands fall back to his sides.

“Oh, thank the Lord Novron for you, young man!” declared the white-haired lady while clapping her hands together in a single note of applause even before he’d reached them. “I’m Hildreth Denton, and this is my daughter Shawna. We’ve gotten ourselves in a bit of a hi-de-ho here and could use your help.”

“A what?” Royce asked.

“A pickle, a fix, a quandary if you will.”

Royce looked at the wagon. “Your wheel is stuck.”

“Exactly.” She placed her hands to either side of her face as if to emphasize the precarious nature of her situation. A fate that she obviously thought was tantamount to the worst kind of disaster—like, running over the king or getting caught for murdering a magistrate. “We can’t seem to free it.”

In the back of the wagon, heavy heads lifted slowly and groggily as the children looked over. Cheeks were red from the cold wind, eyes teary, noses running.

Don’t go alone…most people welcome company on the highway. They see safety in numbers.

“Let me take a look,” he said.

Royce had never sat on a horse, but he had ridden in a wagon on occasion. He’d studied the drivers, and while he didn’t think he could properly tack a wagon, he was confident he could direct the animal if he could get the wheel free. The problem wasn’t the mud. The wheel in question hadn’t sunk too low.

“What’s going on?” one child called out.

“Who’s that?” another asked.

“Everything will be fine,” Hildreth soothed. “Go back to sleep if you can. Everything will be roses and sunshine soon.”

Royce crawled under the wagon on the drier side and found the axle wedged against a good-sized rock.

“Can’t go forward,” he reported, crawling back out and wiping some brittle straw from his cloak. “Need to go back first, then pull it around.”

“We figured that out for ourselves.” Shawna spoke this time. Her tone was crisp and a tad irritated. “Problem is we haven’t been able to do so.”

“We simply aren’t that handy,” Hildreth explained. “Never been around horses, you see. This is the first time we’ve ever driven a wagon. Well, not we so much as Shawna. I personally wouldn’t have a clue, but Shawna heroically took the reins and did swimmingly in the city, though the trip was harrowing in the narrow streets. Still, Shawna navigated them like a sea captain. But out here—”

“These really aren’t roads at all,” Shawna interrupted while sporting a disgusted expression. “Just muddy bogs. How’s a person supposed to drive a wagon through so many sinkholes. I tried going around—”

“And that’s when you hit the rock,” Royce speculated.

“Yeah.”

Royce moved to the front of the wagon and pointed to the bench seat. “May I?”

“Absolutely!” Hildreth declared.

“Why not,” Shawna grumbled.

He climbed up. The black horse out front looked back at him.

Try to be friendly, Royce. Smile from time to time. Be polite. Pretend to be nice.

Royce wasn’t good at being friendly or polite, and he had next to no experience with children, horses, or wagons. But he knew how to pretend. It was a ploy often used by the rats to distract a potential target. He decided to try some small talk. “So when you’re not exploring the backcountry with a wagonload of children, what do you do?”

The silence that followed surprised him, and he looked over to make sure they were still there. Shawna and Hildreth hadn’t moved, but each looked uncomfortable.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.” He tried to look embarrassed, but that wasn’t an expression he had much experience with.

An exchange of looks preceded Hildreth clearing her throat. “No, it’s all right. It’s just that…well…it’s difficult to explain. We work at the Herald Street Orphanage. Or did until last night. I doubt we’ll ever be able to return.”

Despite the wagonload of children—none of whom appeared to be siblings—Royce hadn’t expected that. Perhaps Luck had taken a vacation so that Irony could tag along instead. “Are you saying you’ve abducted them? Why?”

Royce didn’t care about the safety of the children; he had contemplated slaughtering them just moments ago. His curiosity came from the fact that he couldn’t determine any way to profit from taking a bunch of kids. Profit, potential threat elimination, and revenge were his only motivations for doing anything. And of the three, profit was the only logical choice. If he was going to continue his being-friendly charade, maybe he could get some coin for his trouble.

“I can assure you our intentions are pure,” Hildreth said, and waved a frail hand at him. “Times have been hard, and there has been a flood of knocks at our door. The orphanage is overcrowded, and those in charge are behaving reprehensively. Life is a gift from Novron, and it should be treated as such. Our superiors feel differently, so we are taking these poor darlings to Aquesta in the hope of providing them with a better future.”

Royce was dumbfounded. He knew how to read people, another trait learned from years of practice, and this woman was telling the truth. Still, she made absolutely no sense. What’s in it for them? Why upend your life for urchins that you’ve only recently met? The enormity of the stupidity was too vast to comprehend, so he decided to continue with his nice-guy persona.

“Well then, we’d best see what we can do, so you can continue on your way.” Royce spotted the reins tied to a metal lever and knew how to use them at least. He loosed the pair of leather straps, and thought about asking whether the brake was on or off. Since the inquiry probably wouldn’t have instilled much confidence, he kept silent. Part of his pretense was to appear handy and, as such, useful. He was pretty sure that the current placement of the metal lever, which was in the forward position, meant that the brake was off. That made sense given their problem was an inability to move, so it would have been unlikely for Shawna to engage it.

As it so happened, the guy he’d ridden with that one time had backed up his wagon into a warehouse. He made it look easy, too, even in the crowded stockyard. Royce suspected the maneuver required a fair amount of skill that wasn’t immediately obvious, but he planned to do his best to mimic the man’s actions and hope that would work. Just like the wagoneer had done, Royce pulled back on the reins, but nothing happened. He tried again with a similar result. Then Royce wrapped the reins around his hands and pulled until the leather was taut. He kept pulling, leaning against the seat rest as he did. The reins that passed through the harness rings pulled down on the horse’s head, and to Royce’s amazement, the animal took a step back. He kept applying pressure, and the horse moved farther. The pole-shaft pushed against the girth and shoved the wagon backward. Shawna was quick to help, putting her hands on the corner of the wagon and pushing till her shoes disappeared into the mud. The effort wasn’t needed, as the wagon wasn’t truly stuck—not in the reverse direction, at least.

Royce continued until the horse had pushed the cart clear of both the rock and the mud, then he got down. “Shawna, go up and drive forward,” he said as he moved out in front. There he took hold of the horse by the bit and forcibly turned the animal’s head. As hoped, the animal went where he pointed her, and the wheels missed the rock.

“Thank you so much, young man!” Hildreth applauded him again, this time with several claps. “What do we say, children?”

“Thank you, sir,” came the discordant reply of gratitude.

Looking out toward the mountains, Royce said, “As it seems that we’re going the same way, can I impose upon you for a ride? My feet would surely appreciate the rest.”

Hildreth beamed. “But of course. It’s the least we can do, especially given how kind you’ve been. Hop in the back with the children.”

“Are you sure?” Shawna said. She sounded suspicious, but Royce thought everyone did.

“Absolutely,” her mother replied enthusiastically.

The younger woman shrugged. “Okay. It’ll be easier to avoid rocks now that the sun is up, but if we get stuck again it might be good to have him along.”

#

Wrapped in Peridot’s blanket, Royce was able to get some sleep, or at least rest his eyes. He never understood the self-induced coma that other people indulged in when sleeping. They lay sprawled out and oblivious, wide mouths emitting deafening snores. Such careless behavior was beyond unthinkable. He preferred to do his best to emulate birds.

For years, he’d watched all manner of feathered fauna perch on clotheslines and rooftops. He knew they were sleeping by the rhythm of their breathing and the fact that their feathers were fluffed. Some tucked their heads under their wings and pulled one leg up. But each one remained upright, and the slightest sound brought them fully awake. The ones Royce admired the most were the species that dozed with open eyes. Being like them was his goal, an aspiration he saw as an absolute necessity because sleeping unaware in a world of deadly predators was an open-door invitation for death.

As much as he hated to do so, Royce knew he had to doze a bit after having stayed up all night. Now that the old ladies were back in the driver’s seat, and the children had returned to their slumbers, he took the opportunity for a short nap. Or at least that had been his intention. When Royce woke, he found the sun well past midday. One of the kids, a soft, round-faced child who looked to have more in common with a pig than a human, stared at him. Forgetting his pretense as a polite and helpful humanitarian, Royce glared viciously. The boy cowered. His quick retreat made him stumble over his fellow urchins as if he’d discovered that the seemingly harmless ball of cloth curled near them was actually a wolf. None of the others seemed to notice.

Snow was everywhere except in the wagon, which indicated it hadn’t fallen while he slept. Shawna had made good time given the massive cliffs that now rose to either side of the road. The sheer stone was slick with ice, and icicle stalactites hundreds of feet in length hung from ledges. In many ways, the view from the rear of the wagon was both beautiful and terrifying.

Peridot’s words returned to him: And keep in mind that once you clear the mountain pass, you’ll be in Warric and out of Rhenydd’s jurisdiction…You’ll be safe. You’ll be free.

The snow on the road wasn’t deep, and the passage of previous travelers had made a well-worn path. The ease of the trip made Royce ponder whether Luck was making an honest attempt at reconciliation. He concluded it was too early to tell. While he might be on the verge of freedom, he was far from safe. He’d still have to navigate surviving in a foreign city and do so without the support of his fellow rats. But that was a concern for another time. This day was nearly over, and for all of its ominous portents, the trip had turned out to be surprisingly pleasant.

Royce had been using one of his food bags as a pillow, and he tugged open its mouth and took out a carrot. This caught the attention of the children, who nudged one another out of the way to get closer. The wagon was filled with hay, the pile of kids, and not much else. Not a single box, barrel, or sack that might contain food was anywhere to be seen. There were a fair number of tools, though: hay rakes, a hammer, a pry bar, a scythe, and a pair of sickles. Some of the children didn’t even have blankets. Almost everyone shared, which accounted for the puppy-like pile when he first came upon them.

Why bring field tools but no food?

This was a mystery without an easy answer, and one that Royce didn’t actually care about.

The children continued to stare at the food he ate. Royce didn’t care about that, either. He was a survivor who had spent his whole life with at least a little something to consume while those around him starved. That was the way of the world. It didn’t matter if you were a rat, a bird, or an orphan: If you had food, you didn’t share.

Royce’s first memory was fighting a dog for a scrap of meat. In that hazy borderline of his memory, the size of the dog remained nebulous. He didn’t remember it as overly large, although it must have been because the dog had won. Ever since then, Royce had hated dogs.

Hunger had also played a role when Royce took his first life. After unsuccessfully trying to snatch an apple from a cart vendor, he’d run down an alley and wiggled his way into a small opening. Inside, he found a small, sickly-looking boy sleeping, a half loaf of bread clutched in his hands. Royce used the boy’s pillow to smother him, then finished off the bread. He wouldn’t have been able to pilfer the loaf without waking the child, and sick or not, there was no guarantee how the battle would end. Eliminating the competition first seemed like the obvious choice.

After following the carrot with an onion, which the children also took great interest in, Royce repositioned himself with his back to the front wall and his legs stretched out over the farming tools. The sun was already dipping and the shadows growing long. When his eyes noticed movement in an otherwise still landscape, he sat up straighter. Apparently, Luck had been busy taking lessons from spring: It had raised Royce’s hopes so they could be more completely dashed from a greater height.

Riders were coming, and coming fast.

#

Royce considered shouting to the ladies to whip the horse, but they must have seen the pursuit for themselves. The wagon accelerated to a dangerous speed given the ice, snow, and curves. Even so, they had no chance of outrunning the horsemen.

But if we can reach the border…

He abandoned the thought the moment it surfaced.

Anyone who has followed me this far won’t honor an arbitrary line. They’ll kill me, then claim I was still on the Rhenydd side.

The wagon rounded a corner and gave Royce another view of their pursuers, who were closing fast. He counted six men—each had swords.

The precariousness of his predicament landed with the full force of a pile of bricks. Royce was caught in a narrow mountain pass. Ice on both cliffs prohibited even an attempt to escape by climbing. He was trapped in the canyon, and the surrounding snow promised to expose his every move with unavoidable footprints. His only hope lay with the ladies. If they vouched for him, he might yet escape. Who would question the word of a mother and daughter trying to help a group of orphans?

The riders caught up.

Royce forced himself to not reach for his blades. Instead, he slipped lower into the bed of the wagon, wrapping himself tighter in Peridot’s blanket.

Men came alongside, shouting. Before long, the wagon stopped. Royce remained where he was, listening to the panting of the horses, the wagon tack jangling, and the howl of the wintry wind sweeping through the pass.

“You two are in an awful hurry,” a rough voice said.

“Let go of our horse!” Hildreth shouted. “You have no right to stop us.”

The wagon rocked, and a man in a hood jumped in. “Six kids,” he shouted after scanning the interior. “And…” He spotted Royce. “Hello…what do we got here? Hey, Mr. Bradshaw, there’s an older boy back here. He’s too long in the tooth to be an orphan.”

Another man climbed up the other side and stood on the wheel of the wagon. He was stocky, with scars on his bearded face and an angry look in his eyes. Royce had seen the sort before. Usually, his kind wore a uniform.

“Who are you?” the ugly guy asked, giving Royce a shake.

“He’s just a young man who helped us when we got stuck on the road,” Hildreth declared, her voice suggesting she was still on the driver’s bench. “We’re rewarding him with a ride. He’s a kind and polite young man, so don’t hurt him.”

What a nice old lady. I almost regret my thoughts about killing her.

“Is that true?”

Royce nodded, trying to avoid eye contact.

“Then get out and be on your way,” said the man, whom Royce concluded was Mr. Bradshaw. “This wagon and everything in it is now mine,” he added while stepping down.

Be on my way? Royce thought in amazement. Peridot, you’re a genius!

“You can’t do that!” Shawna yelled.

“Of course we can. These kids don’t belong to you and neither does the wagon. You’re in a lot of trouble, Hildreth.”

“You have no right to these children. They are human beings!”

“They’re paupers, and I bought them fair and outright. Got the papers with me. They’re my property, and they’ll be working in the mines by tomorrow. As for you two, you’re kidnappers and horse thieves.” Mr. Bradshaw remounted his horse. “I’ll see that you’re hanged side by side. Won’t that be nice? A real mother-daughter day, eh, Hildreth?”

Royce climbed out of the wagon and looked hesitantly toward Bradshaw.

“Go on. I don’t give a damn about you. You’re scrawny, and yet too big to be of any use. I need little ones to go deep. Keep heading wherever it was you were going.” Bradshaw fussed with a stirrup. “Harvey, you drive the wagon. Tie your horse to the back, secure the women, and toss ’em in with the kids. Then let’s roll.”

Royce stepped away, watching as three men dismounted. They began binding Shawna’s arms behind her back. She put up a fight, and one of the men hit her across the face. She was crying, as were all the children, when they shoved her into the wagon.

“So you’re going back through the pass, then?” Royce asked as they grabbed Hildreth and began the process on her.

“Yep,” Bradshaw replied.

“Right now?”

“You got a problem with that?”

Royce shook his head. “No. I just…oh never mind.”

“What?” the big man asked, tilting his head down and glaring.

“Oh, it’s just that, well, you’re awfully brave.”

“You want to start something with me? ’Cuz that’d be a big mistake.”

“Oh no. Not at all, sir. I was just thinking about the Hawkins Company. You’ve heard about them, right? The group of migrants that were heading south and got trapped in this pass by an early snow. The group consisted of three brothers, their wives, and twelve children.”

“So?”

Royce raised his brows doing his best to imitate shock. “They all died.”

“Too bad for them,” Bradshaw said and chuckled. Turning to his men, he added, “Tie the old woman tightly. Don’t give her any slack. She don’t deserve it.”

“I don’t think you understand,” Royce said, and he gave a glance to make sure the others were listening. They were. “When the Hawkins group got stuck in a blizzard and ran out of food, they resorted to eating one another.”

“Lucky for us it ain’t snowing,” said one of the others who had remained mounted.

Royce ignored him. “Didn’t work, though. All of them, the entire Hawkins party, died of starvation.”

“And that matters why?” Bradshaw asked.

“Well, because they’re still here.”

“So? I wouldn’t bother dragging the bodies down out of this pass, either.” Bradshaw said.

Royce shook his head. “I’m not talking about their bones. It’s their spirits I’m referring to. Their ghosts hide up in those rocks.” He pointed at a large outcropping behind them. “When travelers enter the pass at night, they come down because they’re still hungry. Rumor has it, they ate the kids first. So it’s especially dangerous when children are along. That’s why we were going so fast. We wanted to put plenty of room between them and us before it got late.”

Royce could spin a good tale when he needed to, and all of the men were listening intently. He lowered his voice for dramatic effect. “You see, whenever they hear the cries of a child, they think it’s one of their own.” He nodded toward the wagon filled with distraught orphans. “Given how you’ve treated the women, and what the kids have heard about their future, I doubt you’ll be able to quiet them down. They’re sure to awaken the Hawkins ghosts and draw them in. With night falling, traveling through the pass takes…courage.”

“That’s a whale of a tale, son. Are you a bard in training?” Bradshaw laughed. “I think we’ll just have to take our chances. It’s cold and I’d rather be home. But thanks for the entertainment.”

Royce shrugged. “Suit yourself. Just thought I should let you know. May Luck be with you, Mr. Bradshaw.”

In the tight space, the men had difficulty turning the wagon around, and by the time they had finished, it was dark. Bradshaw looked around for the creepy storytelling guy, but there was no sign of him.

#

The ride back was taking a long time. The wagon was slowing them down.

“Mr. Bradshaw?”

“What is it, Benjamin?” Bradshaw asked as he rode at the head of the party.

Because of the cliffs, the light of day had faded fast. With no moon out, it looked like they were traveling through a tunnel. They didn’t have lanterns or wood for torches. Bradshaw hadn’t expected to be out so long. Didn’t think two old biddies could travel so fast.

Benjamin rode up alongside. “I don’t know where Cooper is, sir.”

“What are you talking about? He’s with Stuart at the rear.”

Benjamin shook his head. “He may well be with Stuart, sir, but I can’t find him, either.”

Bradshaw looked back but could only see one horseman and the wagon that Harvey was driving. He looked half asleep with his feet up on the runner.

“Hey, Ira!” he called, getting the mounted man’s attention. “You see Cooper or Stuart?”

“No, sir. Damn dark in this pass, though. I’m sure they aren’t too far away.”

Bradshaw had ordered Stuart and Cooper to the rear. They were supposed to grab any of the little mongrels who were stupid enough to make a run for it. Bradshaw figured kids would do something dumb like that.

“Kids still in the wagon, Ira?”

Ira dropped back, then said, “Yes, sir. Not a single one missing. Although…”

“What?”

“They are crying.”

“So?” Bradshaw said, but he knew what Ira was thinking. Looking over at Benjamin, he saw the man looking up at the cliffs with concern. “Oh, you can’t be serious.”

Benjamin rolled his shoulders. “It’s just…well, the wind howls, you know, and it does sound sorta like—”

“Like what? Evil spirits, maybe? You know what a cannibal ghost sounds like, do you, Ben? ’Cuz I don’t. You know why? Because there ain’t no such thing. You’re a moron!”

“It’s just eerie, sir; that’s all. And now Stuart and Cooper have vanished.”

“They haven’t vanished. More than likely, they hung back to crack a bottle of something. You go find them. And if they do have liquor, bring it up here. They should share; it’s gettin’ cold.”

Benjamin made that stupid salute he always did as if they were in an army or something and then trotted back.

“The Lord Novron will wreak vengeance upon you, Bradshaw!” Hildreth shouted from the wagon.

“He’s gonna need to wait in line, Hildreth. Didn’t you hear? We’re all gonna be eaten by evil spirits tonight.” He grinned at Harvey and Ira, whom he could barely see, but he had no trouble hearing Ira’s chuckle.

It had been a long day, and Bradshaw had to admit he wasn’t the young man he’d used to be. After coming by the orphanage that afternoon to get his next batch of deep-tunnel scrapers, he was enraged to find them, and Ferguson’s hay wagon, gone. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened. Hildreth was always going on and on about protecting the children and the sanctity of life. It was only a matter of time before she tried something stupid. Still, he didn’t think that “something” would include running off. Complaining was one thing, but stealing what was rightfully his came with consequences. Dire ones.

He figured she’d make a run for it. Where else could she go? No one in Ratibor would take them in, so the only logical choice was to head for somewhere else.

By the time Bradshaw had enough men gathered for two groups, it was getting late, and he wanted to catch his wagon of stolen property before sunset. He had a fifty-fifty chance, and luck had been with him. Although now that he thought about it, the southern party was probably back in town after coming up empty, so maybe being in the other group would have been the better choice. That hard ride had been, well, hard, and when they finally closed in, he was tired and not just because of his age. Bradshaw had let success turn him soft. By this time of day, he would normally have his slippered feet propped up on a cushioned stool in front of a blazing fire while a servant brought him coffee and dessert. He had a good life, better than most.

Even better than a magistrate, he mused. Especially the one murdered in his own bed last night.

Why his mind had gone there was puzzling—a dark thought, even for him. Probably all that talk about ghosts and crying children.

That’s when he noticed there weren’t any. Crying children that is. The night was eerily quiet. The only sound came from Benjamin’s horse as it came alongside.

Bradshaw asked, “Well, did they have a bottle?” Looking over, he was shocked to see the horse’s saddle was empty. He raised a hand to call a halt to the party but then realized the gesture wouldn’t be seen in the dark. He wheeled around to yell for them to stop, but the words died in his throat.

He was alone.

No Ira. No Harvey. No wagon.

“Ira? Harvey?” he called.

No answer.

Then he saw movement. It looked like nothing more than a shadow within a shadow. He saw it dart, and Bradshaw drew his sword. “Come out where I can see you.”

Even as he said it, he realized how stupid it sounded. No one, least of all a child-eating ghost, was going to listen to him. It only served to demonstrate his fear.

To his surprise, a figure did emerge. He heard the crunch of snow and watched as the bard wannabe stepped forward.

“Looks like Luck is with you, Mr. Bradshaw. Unfortunately, it treats you as badly as it does me,” the young man said. He had a creepy tone: the words cold, his voice low.

Bradshaw stared baffled for a moment. “What’s going on. I don’t understand.”

“No, I don’t suppose you do. I’m not sure I do, either. Not entirely. Freakish how things turn out sometimes. If I hadn’t wanted to prove myself on such a big target, if Garnet hadn’t exaggerated the threat, and if Peridot hadn’t told me to join up with someone—anyone—I never would have been in that wagon. Strange.”

The young man came closer. The wind howled through the pass and blew his cloak back. That’s when Bradshaw saw the pair of curved blades.

“You’re the one that killed the magistrate. The guy the city guards are looking for.”

The young man nodded. “Weird thing is that just last night, I was thinking about the old orphanage on Herald Street. I was actually considering burning it down. I hate it. It’s a miserable place that has only gotten worse over the years. Looks like they’ve shifted from abuse to slavery. To you, it’s a means of acquiring cheap labor, and it doesn’t matter that the children you use, the ones that have already lost so much, must surrender their freedom. I also suspect more than a few have lost the only thing that is truly theirs—their lives. They can’t return the favor, so I guess I’ll have to do it for them.”

#

Royce returned to Hildreth, Shawna, and the children with the last of the horses. After tying up Benjamin’s, he joined the others who were huddled around a fire.

“How’d you manage that?” he asked, pointing at the flames.

“Harvey had a sparker pad in his pocket, and we had a lot of dry hay,” Shawna explained with a smile.

“Where’d you get the wood?” Looking around, he saw what was left of the wagon near the hammer and pry bar. “Oh.”

Hildreth stood up and walked to him. “It’s a short trip to Aquesta from here, and the children can ride double. The horses are worth more than the wagon, and after selling them, we should have a good nest egg to work with. I want to thank you.”

“We all do,” Shawna said.

“But I want to thank you properly,” Hildreth said. “Tell me, son, what is your name?”

Royce took a breath. “I’m not actually sure, but maybe you can tell me.”

“Huh?” They both looked over; even a few of the children did as well.

“As far back as I can remember, people have called me Royce Melborn, but I don’t know if that’s my real name.” He fished out the well-worn card from his purse and held it out to Hildreth. “I can’t read, but I imagine you do. Can you tell me what it says?”

Hildreth took it and moved closer to the fire in order to see better. “This is an HSO child’s identification card. It’s quite old.”

“It’s mine,” Royce said. “What does it say?”

Hildreth looked down at the card again and read:

Roy: C. E. Male, born 2952.

Abandoned. Parents unknown.

Royce considered this for a moment, then asked, “What’s the C. E. for?”

“It stands for Ward C, Section E. That indicates where you were found. At least that’s what the person who brought you to the orphanage reported. I believe that would be…” She looked at Shawna.

“Near East End Square, around Ingersol’s Leather and that silversmith shop that I can never remember the name of.”

“Ferguson’s,” Royce said.

“That’s right.”

“So my name is Roy?”

Hildreth shook her head and handed the card back. “No, that’s the name of the person who dropped you off. No last name, which is kinda odd. Maybe he didn’t want anyone looking for him.”

Royce took the card and rubbed the stock with his fingers. After so many years, it had been worn down and was now soft as cloth.

“So I still don’t know my real name. I always thought this would solve that mystery. Maybe my mother didn’t even bother to give me one. Just as well, I guess. I like Royce and wouldn’t likely change it after all these years.”

“It’s a good name,” Hildreth agreed, and her daughter nodded as well.

Royce held out the card and dropped it into the fire. “This isn’t me anymore. Not sure it ever was.”

“What will you do now?” Shawna asked. “Someone will find the bodies and come looking.”

He chuckled. “With my luck, they won’t find me.”

“You can’t trust your fate to such tenuous happenstance.” Hildreth thought a moment and then smiled. “I know what to do. We’ll pray to Novron that you won’t be found. Preservation of life is something we hold dear, and surely our Lord will honor such a noble request.” She spoke with the absolute conviction of a woman on a mission. Waving toward Shawna and the children, she added, “We’ll all pray. You saved us tonight, and asking for your protection is the least we can do.”

Royce shook his head. “Oh, that’s not necessary. You misunderstood what I was saying.”

Confusion crossed Hildreth’s brow. “But that makes no sense. Are you suggesting you want to be found?”

“Not exactly. But I appreciate the offer.”

Royce put no faith in Novron, or any god, but the fact that Hildreth would go to the trouble was surprising. After thinking a bit, he added, “If you feel compelled to pray, I suggest praying for someone who really needs it.”

“Who do you have in mind?”

“Anyone unfortunate enough to actually find me.”

He smiled, offered a wink, then drew up his hood. Taking Bradshaw’s horse, he walked into the shadows.

War Powers

Jonathan French 

Hitler knows he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted by the lights of perverted science.

—Winston Churchill

Killed during the Battle for London, 6 September 1940

The city’s children learned to sleep through the laving intrusion of searchlights. Their caregivers—the various mums and aunts, grandmothers and governesses, nuns and headmistresses—had not yet mastered the trick. Some employed heavy drapery against the lights, some the soporific of strong spirits (when rationing allowed), but most, no matter how shielded or befuddled, were pulled from anxious dreams when the harsh reminder of the zeppelins above swept through their cold rooms.

The view from the Nazi airships was of a city in pieces. Not even the efficiency of German army engineers could rebuild all that was shattered. The rockets had done their job too well, followed by the bombs, next the shelling, then the tanks, mortars, and soldiers by the thousands. Air raids could be endured, tanks destroyed, soldiers killed. Every night of falling explosives survived, every wave of men repulsed, granted a reason to hope. Yet the worst was saved for last.

The Iron Chancellor.

Against the dreaded war engine, however, there was only one hope, and that had been lost at Dunkirk.

After fourteen months of occupation, the skies were now clear of smoke. The fires were out. Most of the streets were cleared, save in the East End where all was rubble. The Port of London and Surrey Docks, destroyed during the battle, were first to be rebuilt. Leicester Square was beginning to recover, but Liverpool still resembled a quarry. Many leveled districts had risen again as unrecognizable bastions of poured concrete, bristling with gun turrets. St. Paul’s stood unscathed, though its lofty edifice was festooned with vulgar red banners, shackled with Iron Crosses, weighted down by Imperial Eagles. Such conquering ornament should have been reserved for the Houses of Parliament, but they were a pile of slag, the destruction ordered after the fighting ceased, a deliberate display of contempt for a defeated enemy. There would be no puppet government. The Reich ruled from Oxford.

London. Scorched, broken London, was reduced to a reminder of what was lost.

The first anniversary of the battle had come and gone. Christmas was near, the air of the holiday, if not the trappings, impervious to war. Had the locals wished it they could not have escaped the festive swell, for their occupiers were in high spirits. London was not home to the soldiers of the garrison, but neither was it the Eastern Front or even the continued fighting up in Scotland.

It was the knowledge of this good fortune that drew merriment from the night patrol passing beneath the lantern tower of St. Dunstan-in-the-West. Of the six men hunkered in their greatcoats, it only took one to suggest they smash a window at the Ye Olde Cock just ahead and provision themselves well in preparation for Christmas Eve. Looting was forbidden, but since it was the feldwebel that offered the idea, the men felt the chances of being reported were small. Eager to see if their officer merely joked or would make good, the men quickened their pace, lips pouring steam and laughter and a language that still sounded wrong on Fleet Street.

The pair of dogs attached to the patrol was even more eager, pulling at their handlers and soliciting a fresh bout of chuckles. The mirth soon turned to commands and curses when the shepherds erupted with barking, surging forward with such eagerness they were hauled back on their hind legs by the taut leads. It wasn’t the impending provender of the public house that stirred them.

It was a girl.

The soldiers saw her just ahead, standing in the mouth of a side street on the left. Perhaps eight years old, her dark hair was cut short, a peacoat worn over her little dress. Beneath the hem, her knees were bare, and there was no cap or bonnet upon her head despite the cold. In truth, she appeared no different from the thousands of other children that walked to school every morning. She was remarkable only because she was out at night alone holding a large lolly in her hand.

“What are you doing here?” one of the soldiers called out. “It is after curfew. Go home!”

He spoke in German, for all the city’s children were now instructed in the tongue of the Fatherland. When she did not answer, or react in any way, the man repeated himself in frustrated English. Still the child did not respond. The dogs may have had her spooked, though her face betrayed no fear. It betrayed…nothing. Her gaze, however, was not blank or witless. It was fixed upon the soldiers, watchful but not wary. Rather, it was distantly intrigued, as if she studied a pack of wild animals in a cage, certain in the knowledge that they could not harm her.

She took a deliberate, joyless lick of her lolly.

The dogs were quieted, but the feldwebel continued to bark. “Get indoors! Or you will be punished!”

The girl remained heedless.

One of the men had a favorite niece in Bavaria. He’d received a photograph in last month’s mail. Knowing the temper of the feldwebel, he stepped forward, slinging his rifle. He extended a gloved hand toward the girl, leaning over with gentle invitation.

“Come, liebchen. Let us see you home.”

His kinder tone did not affect the child’s expression in the least, but she did turn and begin walking away down the side street.

The feldwebel swatted at the air, dismissing her, and motioned his men to continue on Fleet.

“Should we not see she gets home?” said the homesick uncle. When he saw the officer’s annoyance he added, “She may be running messages for the Resistance.” He didn’t believe so, hoped not, but the feldwebel was not a man to do anything out of kindness.

“Very well. Let us follow.”

The patrol dogged the child down the lane, their officer’s lazy caution keeping them lagging in case of ambush. The girl continued on without ever looking back.

The section south of Fleet Street had been hit hard during the bombardment. The lane was choked with the blasted remnants of the close-set buildings. The child turned right and navigated a swath of debris on short legs, leading the patrol into the devastated court containing what was left of Temple Church.

Without slowing, the girl vanished into the shell of the old round sanctuary.

The patrol halted. They were in a bombed-out district that had hosted few residences even when it was standing. There was certainly no orphanage nearby. Yanking the bolt of his gun back, the feldwebel signaled his men to spread out as they approached the gutted church. The dogs began to growl.

“Check the perimeter,” the feldwebel ordered the handlers.

Going in opposite directions, the two soldiers proceeded to lead the shepherds in a circuit of the church. The feldwebel sent the rest into the building. He took the rear. Despite the lack of roof, they were forced to switch on the torches hanging from their coat buttons. One man swore as he tripped on the charred wood strewn about the floor. The beams of their torches converged on the large yellow-and-orange swirl of the little girl’s lolly.

They found her standing amid a swamp of blackened, rain-soaked detritus. The effigies of the knights in the floor lay drowned beneath. Her dispassionately held candy was the only color in the place. The feldwebel sent two of his men to check the rectangular chancel connected to the round chapel where they stood. As they went, their lights made merry with the shadows cast by a forest of sagging beams.

“Why have you come here?” the feldwebel demanded of the child. “You will explain yourself!”

The girl regarded him with the same open, calm expression.

“Answer me!”

Nothing.

“Perhaps she is touched, sir,” offered the uncle, the lone trooper that remained close.

Both soldiers had seen enough men lose their minds to the horrors of war to know it was possible. Only one of them cared.

The feldwebel stomped toward the child. “She will answer!”

He reached down, intent on seizing her arm, but a dimming at the edge of his vision made him stop. He looked into the chancel and could see only one torch beam where a moment ago there had been two. The man who held the remaining light was nearly lost to distance and the haphazard obstruction of the collapsed roof, but his voice could be heard speaking the name of his comrade.

“Fedor? Did your lamp die? Fedor.”

The feldwebel startled as the man cried out, a yelp of terror cut short. His light went flying, went out. Darkness reclaimed the chancel. The feldwebel straightened, held his breath, strained to listen. He motioned for the man behind him to fan out left. A large hunk of masonry cannoned from the black, punishing the air as it sped past the feldwebel. He flinched as his remaining trooper was knocked off his feet by the stone and crushed. The moist impact was gut churning.

A hulking shape pounded out of the shadowed chancel. A scream caught in the feldwebel’s throat, but he managed to pull the trigger. The rapid flashes from the MP 40’s muzzle gave him a score of horrid glimpses of the primal, black-haired beast in a single heartbeat. His last heartbeat.

The gorilla grabbed the man’s entire head, helmet and all, in one gray hand, jerked him forward into a crushing hug, and turned so the girl could not see. There followed a rapid series of grinding, muffled pops.

The massive ape deposited the body on the ground and turned, coming to rest on its knuckles. It stared down at the child. She had seen gorillas in the London Zoo, though never one wearing an olive-drab breastplate made from the armor of a Sherman tank complete with a single white star in the center. The gorilla stood straight now and crossed its arms.

“You should skedaddle, little miss ma’am,” said the ape. “All this has just been a bad dream.”

“Most of her life has been a bad dream,” came a voice from the church door. A man stepped into the weak light of the dead feldwebel’s fallen torch. “And she belongs here. Not so certain about you.”

His accent was English, as were the riding boots, but the slouched Stetson on his head and the Bowie knife in his belt were decidedly not. His other blade, worn in a bandolier across the chest, was a Gurkha khukuri. The black sherwani coat also pointed to time in Nepal. His face was fair and might have been aristocratic were it not for the uncut hair and last week’s shave. He’d seen more hardships than birthdays and looked older than his thirty-six years.

“You Trespasser Wil?” grunted the ape.

The man’s eyes narrowed with disapproval. “Ep-pe, pep-pe, kak-ke.”

“Good Gawd Almighty. You really need a code to confirm? How many talking gorillas you seen around here?”

“The Ape Soldier Project began with the Russians,” came the pointed reply.

“Yeah, and all them are berserk, believe me. We wouldn’t be jawing now if I were a Red.”

The man only cocked his head.

The ape threw up a hand. “All right, fine! Hil-lo, hol-lo, hel-lo.”

“Hello,” said the girl.

The ape shot her a glance before looking back at the man. “Happy?”

The man nodded once, extended his hand. “Trespasser Wil. Welcome to London, US Ape.”

The gorilla groaned as he eclipsed the hand with his own. “Gunnery Sergeant Myron Simms. You can call me Gunny. You will call me Gunny.”

“Very well, Gunny. I expected two of you.”

“I got a head start. The captain didn’t have to sneak through tunnels from the damn Dark Ages to avoid being seen.” The air within the chapel began to stir, swirling ash and lighter debris as it grew in strength. Gunny looked up. “That would be her now.”

Through the razed ceiling a woman descended, flying without aid, the wind surrounding her forcing the others to squint. Her boots touched down and the air settled. She had a pair of .45s holstered beneath the arms of her leather flight jacket and a Thompson slung across her back, almost completely covering a faded patch that read queen bess. Removing her goggles and skullcap, she revealed a face weathered by wind and fifty-odd years.

“Sorry I’m tardy,” she said, peeling a glove off with her teeth. “Luftwaffe balloons are thick up there. Captain Coleman. They call me Barnstormer.”

Trespasser Wil took her extended hand, but his expression tightened.

“Something wrong?” Barnstormer asked.

“Forgive me, Captain. Nothing wrong, no. It is simply that I was unaware you were black.”

“You don’t strike me as the type bothered by color.”

“Not in the least. The Germans, however…should you be caught—”

“Well, they’ll have to catch me first,” said Barnstormer with a smile. “And I’m faster than Jesse Owens.”

“Got more medals, too,” Gunny said.

Barnstormer ignored that. “Besides. I imagine it won’t go well for any of us if we’re caught.”

Trespasser Wil dipped his chin. “True.”

“Speaking of getting caught…” Gunny eyed the feldwebel’s corpse. “Jerry here got some shots off. And I smelled dogs following the squirt.”

“I dealt with the dogs and their minders,” Trespasser Wil said. “As for the shots, the Temple is scantly patrolled. We’ll be gone before anyone comes this way.”

Barnstormer brightened. She fixed Gunny with an amused look. “You do the code?”

The ape didn’t answer. He fished a cigar—more like a cigarette to him—out of a pocket on the rolled-up sleeve of his fatigues and stuck it in the corner of his mouth unlit.

“I missed it. Shoot!” Barnstormer clicked her tongue and wagged a finger at Trespasser Wil. “You got some cheek. The spell for the King of the Winged Monkeys’ Golden Cap. I caught that.”

“It seemed appropriate,” the Englishman said with a glimmer in his eyes.

Gunny scowled. “King of the what?”

“It’s from The Wizard of Oz,” Barnstormer told him.

“Don’t remember that part.”

“Wasn’t in the picture. Just the book.”

“Book, huh?” Gunny gave the Brit a look only a Marine drill instructor could give, whether he had the face of a man or a gorilla. “Oz. Trespasser Wil like Trespasser’s William from Winnie-the-Pooh. You like kid’s books there, do ya, Willie?”

“I find them…cheering,” the scrutinized man replied. “And Wil is short for Wilhelm in my case.”

That alarmed both Americans.

Trespasser Wil smiled at their discomfort. “Named after my mother who was, I can assure you, very British. We Harkers are well traveled, but we love our country. Which is why you’re here, to help give it back to its people.”

Barnstormer grew serious. “You have the target’s location?”

“Horse Guards Parade. Or rather what it’s become.”

“Is that far?” Gunny asked.

“A mile southwest,” Barnstormer said.

“You know London,” Trespasser Wil observed.

“Spent some time here after the war. The other war. I know Paris better, but still, yeah.”

“A mile ain’t much of a hump unless you’re in hostile territory and big as a gorilla,” said Gunny.

“Bigger than,” Barnstormer said, thumping his arm with a fist. “Take it you got a way in, Trespasser?”

“I do. And we should go.”

Gunny tilted his head at the girl. “You wanna explain the squirt?”

“Oh, right. Sorry. Yes. This is Wee Bonnie Blitz. And she’s the key to the whole mission.”

Without further explanation, Trespasser Wil left the church. The girl looked at the Americans for a moment longer, gave her lolly a joyless lick, and followed after him.

Barnstormer and Gunny eyed each other quizzically.

“You read Winnie-the-Pooh?” she asked.

The big ape shrugged. “To my kids.”

#

A fog settled over the streets. Rather, it settled over the streets traversed by Trespasser Wil. The world shrank to the man and the patch of moist pavement beneath his confident steps. Bonnie held his hand as they went along, though she was untroubled by the dense cloak of roiling vapor. The same couldn’t be said for Gunny. Knuckle-walking in Trespasser’s wake, he shot displeased looks at the fog. He appreciated good cover as much as any soldier, but hated not knowing where he was or where he was going. His discomfort made Barnstormer grin and she held out her hand, made a coaxing gesture that said, Pay up. Gunny’s mouth turned down. He shook his head, unwilling to concede.

They’d made the bet on the plane to Iceland.

“Captain, you believe that malarkey?” Gunny had groused. He was in the cargo bay looking out a small window offering nothing but dark sky.

“During the briefing? Which part?” Barnstormer replied through the radio. She’d insisted on piloting the aircraft herself. In truth, she had wanted to fly over without a plane, but with no way to carry nine hundred pounds of ape-soldier she’d settled for the C-87.

“That our contact killed Dracula?” Gunny answered, good and surly.

“Well, his daddy did, but yeah.”

Gunny groaned. “This is why everyone jokes about military intelligence.”

“You don’t believe it?”

“You kidding? Dracula?”

“Calling the kettle black there, ain’tcha, King Kong?”

“Says the lady that can fly and knock a house down with wind, yeah, yeah, I hear ya! But…they expect us to buy we’re working with a vampire?”

“He’s not. Just inherited the knives that killed one. Sounds like he got a lot more in the bargain.”

“And I’m a monkey’s uncle.”

A snort of laughter came through the radio.

Gunny’s face scrunched at his slip. “You know what I mean! Anyway, I don’t buy it.”

“That Honus Wagner card you carry everywhere says you’re wrong.”

“That pistol you got from Wyatt Earp says I’m not.”

“Deal.”

Now Barnstormer’s hand motioned again for the wager to be met. Gunny shook his head. No need to settle up just yet. London was known for fog. And this one was lifting.

Aldwych Station stood before them, the entrance gated and boarded.

Trespasser Wil produced a key from his coat and opened the lock. He slid the gate back and proceeded to pry the boards away from the doors with his Bowie knife, ignoring the pasted eintritt verboten signs.

“Got a way to cover that we been through here?” Barnstormer asked, scanning the street. No sooner had she spoken than a pair of figures came out of an alley: Boy Scouts in uniform and air raid helmets, neither older than fourteen. They bore a toolbox, a bucket of paste, a brush, and fresh signs.

“I’d say they’re prepared,” Gunny said, smirking.

“Well done, lads,” Trespasser whispered, handing one of the youths the key to the gate in exchange for a rucksack before slipping into the station with Bonnie. Barnstormer went next, leaving Gunny alone with the Scouts.

“Good luck, Yankee Ape,” one of the boys said, saluting.

Gunny winked at him. “You, too, fellas.”

Inside the ticket lobby, Barnstormer’s lighter snapped to life, casting a feeble orange glow over the cream and green tiles along the walls.

“Once we are below, it is vital that we move swiftly and silently,” Trespasser Wil said. “If I give an order, obey it without question or hesitation. There’s no place for rank or ego in the Underground. Questions? Now is the time, but be swift. We are on a timetable.”

The Americans shook their heads. They hadn’t been told about the girl, but the mission briefing did say the Brits had “a weapon” that would be employed against the target. Neither the Army Air Corps Captain nor the Marine gunnery sergeant were all that thrilled to find said weapon was a child, but both knew any objections were pointless now. Either the Brits had withheld the information or their own people had. The who and the why were meaningless. They had to stay on mission.

“You’ll need light down there,” Trespasser went on. “You have torches?”

“Americans call them flashlights,” Wee Bonnie Blitz said, still holding his hand and not looking at anyone in particular.

The Americans nodded.

“Onward, then.”

Halfway down the stairs to the concourse, Barnstormer pulled a flashlight from an inner pocket of her flight jacket, switched it on, and flipped her lighter closed. Gunny didn’t bother. He often broke the damn things when he held them now.

Man, woman, child, and ape reached the platform and crossed to the far end before hopping down onto the tracks. Together, they entered the gullet of the rail tunnel. Trespasser Wil, with Bonnie in tow, led. He had no light but moved without hesitation. Barnstormer suspected the beam of her light was doing nothing to aid him. Behind her, Gunny held the rear.

They remained in the tunnel for some time, but took a branch before reaching another station. This one appeared either unfinished or long abandoned. Eventually, the track ceased altogether and they trod on rough stone. Twice, Trespasser Wil halted and signaled for Barnstormer to kill her light. They stood in the dark, waiting, listening. The second time, they heard echoes in the tunnel. Voices. But not words. Distorted by distance, the sound came to the ear as the overlapping pulses of moaning throats melded into a faint, tidal hum.

When Barnstormer’s light ignited again, Trespasser Wil gestured the way they’d come. His face, for the first time, was drawn with concern. Backtracking, he quickened their pace. Once again at the junction, they took the main line, but the lowing sound filled the tunnel ahead along with the distinct scrape and shuffle of many feet.

“Damn,” Trespasser Wil hissed. “We’ll have to return to Aldwych. Find another wa—”

“Think again, Willie-the-Pooh,” Gunny said, turning to face the same swelling noise behind them.

Barnstormer unslung her Thompson. “What we got here, English?”

The answer emerged from the tunnel behind Trespasser before it could leave the man’s lips. A clump of men shambled forward, cramped and bumping one another. Some were dressed in the coveralls of workmen, others in suits. The flashlight beam swept across the uniforms of two soldiers, a policeman, an air raid warden. All were filthy and slack-jawed, their eyes glassy. Groans blossomed among the gaggle, an arrhythmic chorus of moronic, stillborn words. Hanging in their grips were shovels, mattocks, batons, hammers, pipes, spars of wood. Witless as their faces appeared, merciless violence was written in the clutch of those crude weapons. Gunny and Barnstormer could sense their intent, knew it was only a few dozen, unhurried steps away from being unleashed. The first rank drew farther into the flashlight’s nimbus, revealing…something writhing above the men. It was a mass of rubber tubes, jiggling and rubbing obscenely as the mob advanced. The tubes were implanted in the men’s heads, running up and away, suspended by something hanging in the air behind them.

Barnstormer jerked her light up. “Jesus wept…”

A small bald man in the long black leather coat of the Waffen SS floated in the space between the men and the curved ceiling of the tunnel. The horrid tangle of tubing led directly to the dome of his pale skull protruding above the pitiless face of a gas mask.

Tethered to the plodding horde, the levitating Nazi was pulled along, a grim charioteer.

“Got another Kraut Geppetto coming from this way,” Gunny said, looking in the direction of Aldwych.

Barnstormer raised her Thompson at the closer group, took aim at the Nazi.

Trespasser slapped the barrel down. “Kill him and the men he controls die. They’re innocent prisoners.”

Barnstormer gnashed her teeth in frustration. “What then?”

“I can handle it if you can hold them off.”

“Then we best get our butts down there,” Barnstormer said, swinging her light into the unfinished tunnel. “Rather fight on two fronts instead of three.”

“Agreed.”

They fled the junction. Fifty yards in they were stopped by the sounds of the third puppet mob ahead, still unseen, but closing.

“Gunny, you must protect Bonnie at all costs,” Trespasser Wil said, shepherding the girl toward the ape before releasing her hand.

“What are you gonna do?”

“Call in some reinforcements.” The Englishman drew his great knives as his eyes rolled to white.

The men from the junction had pursued at the same inexorable pace. One mob filled the tunnel, the other just behind, though all that could be seen of them was their lofted controller a few yards beyond the first.

Barnstormer put her flashlight away and drew a flare from her boot. Igniting it, she tossed it to the ground, the sputtering phosphorus carving the shadows away with harsh white light.

“Stay behind me, Gunny,” she said, extending splayed hands toward the mindless men.

The tunnel howled, but not with the wail of an approaching train. A gale ripped outward from the captain’s arms, knocking the first rank of enthralled men onto their backs. The rubber tubes went taut as the floating puppet masters were blown back, but the weight of their numerous minions kept them anchored. Barnstormer tensed, lips curling into a silent snarl, and the wind intensified.

As the captain continued her warding onslaught, Gunny turned to Trespasser Wil only to find the man still in his unnerving trance. The mob in front of him crossed the flickering ring of the flare’s light, towing another of the Nazi psychics.

“Time to wake up, Christopher Robin!” Gunny called, waving his broad hand in front of Trespasser Wil’s milky, unblinking eyes. “C’mon!”

Bonnie, undisturbed by the encroaching danger, recited in a hushed tone,

“They fought the dogs, and killed the cats,

And bit the babies in the cradles,

And ate the cheeses out of the vats,

And licked the soup from the cooks’ own ladles.”

A swarm of rats burst into the tunnel, spilling from cracks in the walls, crawling from crannies in the floor. Trespasser Wil inhaled sharply, reeling as his eyes cleared. The flood of vermin rose, backs shiny from the flare’s light.

“And even spoiled the women’s chats

By drowning their speaking

With shrieking and squeaking

In fifty different sharps and flats.”

The chittering, undulating wave rushed the puppet men. Faces blank, the men swung their weapons, scattering rats, sweeping them away with wild strokes. The rodents were crushed, dashed against the walls, stomped, but they kept coming, leaping upon the men, climbing their bodies to reach the rubber tubes in the backs of their heads. The tubes became avenues to the floating puppet master and soon he was awash in a clinging, biting cloak of glistening fur and dangling tails. The gas mask stuck out from the loathsome mass, stark and accusing. A hollow, muffled cry of agony pushed through the apparatus.

“You said not to kill them!” Gunny said.

“Only breaking its concentration,” Trespasser Wil replied. “Be ready to move!”

As if invisible strings were severed, the Nazi dropped from the air and was lost from sight behind the wall of its enslaved drones. Several of the men collapsed; many dropped their weapons and clutched at their heads, fingers hooked and rigid with torment. One man, in a grocer’s apron, stumbled but did not fall. He looked up, his face full of confusion, fear, rapid glances taking in the horrors of the returned world. Trespasser Wil darted forward and sliced through the grocer’s tube with his khukuri. Stinking, sticky fluid ejaculated from the severed hose. The man fell to his knees, sobbing and quivering. Rubber snapped and thrashed as Trespasser continued cutting, releasing men with flashes from both blades. Yet not all were freed from their thrall. A workman lurched to his feet and swung a mattock, the pick head whistling for Trespasser Wil’s back.

Gunny shouted a warning and choked on it as he watched the Englishman in the Stetson turn to mist, faster than an eyeblink. The pick cut harmlessly through the vapor and Trespasser rematerialized, felling the workman with the pommel of his Bowie. He did not slice his tube, for severing the physical connection before the mental was cut would be dire for the prisoners.

“Bring Bonnie!” he called, proceeding to free men where he could, subdue them where he could not. The rats were dispersing, slinking away into the same pits that delivered them.

“Time to scram, little miss ma’am,” the ape said, scooping the child up in the crook of an arm. “Captain! We’re leaving!”

Barnstormer was sweating, teeth clenched so hard against the strain of her focused whirlwind they felt ready to crack. “I’m on your ass! Go!”

She gave Gunny a ten-second head start and relinquished the gale. Spinning around, she took off, flying through the tunnel after the others.

The fallen puppet master sprang into the air in front of her, rats shedding from its leather coat.

Barnstormer twisted, tried to cut around, but she got tangled in the web of rubber hoses still attached to the men Trespasser could not release. Her ankle was seized. More grasping hands slapped onto her legs, dragging her down. Barnstormer gathered to blast them back with wind, but a pipe struck her in the head. Her flight goggles took the brunt of the blow, but she was still dizzied. She snatched her pistols free. The .45s flashed and bucked, planting slugs in legs, feet, knees. The poor victims might end up crippled, but she’d be damned if she was going to be torn apart by a mob of white men, puppets or no. The bullets slowed them but did not stop them. Pain could not penetrate the torpor of their dominated minds.

There was no choice.

“God forgive me,” she muttered.

Adjusting her aim, she shot the puppet master in the head. The gas mask snapped back; the body dropped from the air. Twenty men fell the same instant, their lives extinguished as if by a switch. Their limp corpses hit the tunnel floor and were immediately swallowed by the trampling steps of the second mob, recovered from Barnstormer’s buffeting winds. Still entangled in the hoses, there was no chance to run. Without hesitation, she lifted her .45s at their floating wrangler and fired. The Nazi psychic made no motion yet the bullets were deflected before they struck, ricocheting to slam into the tunnel walls. Barnstormer unloaded both clips uselessly. Her rounds were kept from flesh by the powerful mind. She attempted to wrest her Thompson around, but the snarled rubber web trammeled all efforts. Raising her arms, she gathered the wind, determined to give the others as much time as she could.

Gunny rushed in from overhead, speed defying his bulk. He ran halfway up the curved wall of the tunnel and vaulted into the air, slamming into the puppet master, driving him to the ground. His fist came up. Down. The mob dropped as he spattered the psychic’s head against the tunnel floor.

A silver mist streaked toward the last hovering Nazi, forming into Trespasser Wil in flight. His Bowie plunged into the third puppet master’s chest an instant before his khukuri cleaved its head off. He landed on his feet amid a pile of hosing and fresh, blameless dead.

Barnstormer freed herself from the tubes and stood. Like Gunny and Trespasser Wil, she could only stare for a long time at the sprawled men. Death had cleansed them of all that was sinister. They were nothing now but filthy prisoners, used up and discarded in a mass grave.

“This is my fault,” Trespasser Wil said at last. “I sought to avoid this and, in the doing, tripled the tragedy. We could have dispatched one and moved on. In trying to save them all, I doomed even more.”

“You can’t shoulder this,” Barnstormer told him.

Gunny grunted. “She’s right. You wanna point fingers, how about right here at this evil string-pulling shitbird.” He shoved the body of the psychic he’d killed with a foot.

Sheathing his knives, the Englishman stepped over to the corpse. He squatted and pulled the Nazi coat open. Beneath was the wasted, naked body of a woman. On her belly was tattooed an inverted brown triangle.

The Americans frowned at the corpse for a moment, then Barnstormer turned a perplexed stare on Trespasser Wil while Gunny looked to little Bonnie, disturbed that the child should see this. She was a dozen yards removed from the grisly scene, but did not shrink from it, merely stood where she’d been left. From her expression, she may as well have been looking at pigeons in the park.

“The SS garb is a ruse,” Trespasser said, voice flat. “Cruel theatrics to hide the truth of their experiments. London held its share of the Reich’s undesirables. This is what they did to the Romani. Broke their minds and turned them into weapons, those that survived the process. Placed them down here in the Underground to sweep the tunnels for Resistance fighters.” Covering the body once more, he stood. “So, you see, there are only victims here.”

Barnstormer went to place a hand on the man’s shoulder, but he walked away.

“We must go. There will be others.”

#

The whir of sirens charged the air. A stream of German buzzed from the loudspeakers on every corner, honking orders for troops and threats for citizens. Neither was present on Whitehall. It was the dead of night. No civilians dared come here after curfew. They eschewed the entire district even in the light of day. As for the soldiers, those stationed in the area were all assigned to the bloated bulwark of pillboxes and bunkers connected by concrete walls thirty feet high that encased Horse Guards Parade. It was a pointless duty within a pointless construction. Just another set piece in the Führer’s stage play of subjugation. The fortress garrison knew the army’s greatest weapon could protect itself far better than they.

A trio of such redundant men hunkered in one of the pillboxes flanking the massive gate. The machine gun they manned pointed across Whitehall at the ruins of the War Office. Normally their long nights were spent smoking, griping. The only enemy they fought was the cold. Tonight, however, the Resistance had provided a break in the tedium. One soldier sat at the radio, headset pressed tight to his ears, dictating events to the men at the gun.

“They have set off nail bombs at guard posts across the city. Set fires at the vehicle depots. There is open fighting outside the Gruppenführer’s canteen, at Wehrmacht headquarters, and at the docks.”

“All far from here,” one man at the gun muttered to the other.

“They are also moving on the Reichsmarschall’s residence.” The soldier at the radio turned on his stool looking a bit nervous. “It sounds as if they are trying to retake the city.”

The others didn’t bother to look his way as they loosed breathy, derisive laughs. “What can they accomplish? It won’t be enough to send the Chancellor. And if it is…” The man made a gigging sound in his throat.

“Desperate,” his fellow gunner agreed. “Are they saying anything about the airfield?”

There was no answer.

“Oskar? The airfield?”

Annoyed, the gunners craned around to find the radioman slumped forward on the desk in a spreading pool of blood. Their startled curses were cut short by Trespasser Wil, coalescing before their eyes and slitting their throats in tandem.

From the rubble of the War Office, the others watched him drift back across the street as mist. As he did, Bonnie spoke out, small and clear.

“He throws no shadow, he make in the mirror no reflect. He has the strength of many in his hand. He can transform himself to wolf, he can be as bat. He can come in mist which he create. He come on moonlight rays as elemental dust. He can, when once he find his way, come out from anything or into anything, no matter how close it be bound or even fused up with fire. He can see in the dark, in a world which is one half shut from the light.”

Gunny fished into a pocket beneath his chest armor and produced a baseball card. Silently, he handed the Honus Wagner over to Barnstormer. She took it with a smirk.

Trespasser Wil re-formed. “The eastern wall is completely blind, including the towers. That’s my part.” Slowly, he knelt down, placed gentle hands on Bonnie’s shoulders. “Are you ready for yours?”

The girl nodded.

“Certain and sure?”

“Certain and sure.”

Trespasser Wil smiled, but there was a sadness, a regret, he couldn’t hide.

Bonnie handed him her lolly. On little legs she made her way out of the ruined building and into the broad, deserted street. She stopped in the middle, facing the Nazi fortress, insignificant before its imperious weight. She reached into the pocket of her coat and removed the photograph. For a long time, she did not look at it. Finally, its bottom edges pinched by the thumbs of both hands, she did. There was her mother and her sisters. Her baby brother. Margaret had not wanted her picture taken and so was pouting. This had only made Audrey’s smile wider. Bonnie wasn’t smiling. She couldn’t do that in photographs, found it difficult to look at the lens. That always frustrated Mummy after the fact when the photos were developed. You couldn’t see it in the picture, though. She was happy, proud, both of little Ronald’s hands clasped in hers so he could stand. Daddy had told them all to switch knickers before he took the picture, tried to make them merry. It hadn’t really worked. Never did, but he always said it anyway. It made Bonnie smile now. Her lifted cheeks pushed the tears out of her welled eyes. One fell on the picture, magnifying Maggie’s pout. Bonnie wiped the water away before it could pucker the paper.

The sirens were still having a tantrum. The German ones sounded different. Bonnie could still hear the others in her head. The warnings of the air raid. They’d all made it to the shelter, tucked in like sardines with neighbors and strangers. The falling bombs began as a rumble. Bonnie could feel the concussions in her feet. Her parents had encircled them all in their arms, their embrace tightening as the bombardment grew louder, nearer. The whimpers in the shelter became outbursts of panic. The little room quaked. Bonnie’s mother had been raining kisses on Ronald’s head, trying to calm his wails. He wasn’t the only one screaming. The blasts tore the sanity from the tiny room, ripped it from gaping mouths and clenched, streaming eyes. It was deafening yet Bonnie had added her voice.

She screamed, then as now. Wept, as now. And, as now, the world exploded.

Fire and hunks of concrete erupted from the walls of the fortress. The shock waves caused Gunny and Barnstormer to curse, duck lower into the cover of the ruins. Trespasser Wil remained motionless, forcing himself to stand witness as Bonnie unleashed a ballistic rage upon the walls. She was facing away, so he couldn’t see her tears, couldn’t hear her pure, grief-stricken cries over the ceaseless barrage born from her mind. The walls buckled, the bunkers burst, the towers shattered and fell. The fortress was reduced to a burning, smoking pile by the time Wee Bonnie Blitz screamed herself hoarse and wilted to her tiny knees in the cold, remorseless street.

Hundreds of soldiers died in the bombardment. Forty-eight frightened people had died in that communal shelter on Vauxhall Road. Bonnie was the only survivor dug from the rubble. A miracle, the papers said. The shelter had suffered a direct hit.

She couldn’t see the photograph through her burning tears. The sky groaned with the echoes of her vengeance as she sat sobbing upon the pavement, rocking. Trespasser Wil dropped down behind her, hugged her close, and rocked with her.

“Go,” he said, looking up at Gunny and Barnstormer. “The target will be within. Doubtful she’s destroyed it, but if we are fortunate, you will find it down and damaged.”

The Americans gave the girl a pitying parting look and hurried toward the shattered gate.

The smoke was thick and choking, as was the dust. Everywhere fires decorated the destruction. The expansive court of Horse Guards Parade lay beyond the devastated defenses, its grounds strewn with smoldering concrete. Gunny and Barnstormer found the target. It wasn’t down. It wasn’t damaged.

The Iron Chancellor stood as if waiting for them.

The massive war machine was fashioned into an armor-plated perversion of a man. Twenty feet tall and fifteen across at the shoulders, it was a hulking monster of piston-driven might. One arm ended in a clawed fist gauntleted with machine guns, the other in the yawning bore of a field cannon. Its head did not sit atop its body so much as protrude from high in the chest, wrought to resemble the spiked helmet of the old Prussian army. A pair of flamethrowers revolved in ball turrets on either side of the armored mask.

Gunny and Barnstormer approached at a steady pace, the ape knuckle-walking as the woman sauntered.

“Bigger than I figured,” Gunny said.

“People say that about you,” Barnstormer replied, and yanked the bolt back on her Thompson.

Metal moaned as the Nazi war machine took a stomping step forward. A voice like gears grinding molten rock growled from the vents in the mask.

“Eisen und Blut.”

“You catch that?” Gunny asked out the side of his mouth.

“He said, ‘Iron and Blood,’” Barnstormer replied, unimpressed.

Gunny huffed a laugh. “Aces. Well, Captain, should we play this record?”

“I didn’t make this trip for biscuits.”

“Same plan as always?”

Barnstormer clicked her tongue. “High road.”

“Low.”

Gunny broke left as Barnstormer took to the air. She fired on the Chancellor as she gained altitude, but the slugs pattered on its armor like rain on a tin roof.

“Eisen und Blut!”

The Chancellor lifted its arm and the guns ringing its fist opened up, spitting tracers and tossing shells with horrible speed. Barnstormer spun, banked hard, slipped through the hail of bullets unharmed as she continued to climb.

While the war machine’s attention was on the captain, Gunny darted around behind and leapt on the behemoth’s back. Swiftly he clambered up to perch on the thick plating above its head. Reaching down, he seized it beneath the chin, tried to rip its head off. The Chancellor snapped forward at the waist, pistons hissing. Gunny was thrown off but kept his hold on the head, twisting as he fell, planting his feet in the monster’s chest. He got his other hand on the head, tensed to haul back with all the strength in his limbs. The flamethrowers angled toward him and he heard the popping rush of the fuel.

“Aw, nuts.”

He dropped, narrowly avoiding the lethal gouts, landed at the Chancellor’s feet, and rolled, instincts screaming at him to keep moving. A fist the size of a wrecking ball smote the ground he vacated, but he wasn’t quick enough to avoid the other arm, swinging in from the side. He was hit in the torso, lifted by an uppercut, doubled over the yawning mouth of the cannon barrel. Eyes wide with alarm, Gunny slapped his palms down on the curved surface of the gun and vaulted out of the way just as the artillery piece thundered. The recoil sent the ape tumbling in the air. He landed hard and ugly, looked up to see the cannon taking aim.

Barnstormer swooped in, hit Gunny with a blast of wind that sent him careening away an instant before the shell struck. The Chancellor pivoted to track her, machine guns hammering at the sky. Taking cover behind a pile of rubble, Gunny watched the captain dodge a thousand deaths. She was drawing the war machine’s fire again, and he wouldn’t waste the chance. Taking hold of a length of rebar still embedded in a sizable chunk of concrete, Gunny rushed out of cover. He came at the Chancellor on its right flank. Its left arm was still raised, trying to cut Barnstormer out of the air, but the right arm—the cannon—lowered. Covering the distance, Gunny jumped onto the barrel of the cannon, used it to boost his leap. Hands gripping the concrete club high over his head, Gunny chopped down on one of the flamethrowers, sundering the concrete and warping the nozzle. Clinging to the behemoth’s torso with one hand and both feet, Gunny went to work with the bar. He bashed the Chancellor’s head, held firm as it tried to dislodge him with violent torsion. The remaining flamethrower flung streams of hell, but the angle was wrong, allowing Gunny to use the Chancellor’s head to shield himself as he pummeled away. The claw snatched at him. The agile ape scrambled away, up and over the shoulder to again reach the summit of the monster. He stabbed the bar into an eye socket, breaking through steel mesh and thick glass.

“GUNNY!”

Barnstormer dove, her hand opening, tossing him something. A grenade.

He never carried them anymore. His fingers were too big to pull the pins. The captain had pulled this one for him. He’d have a second. Maybe two…

Gunny caught the steel pineapple, rammed it through the socket. He could have jumped clear, but instead he took hold of the spike atop the Chancellor’s helm and pulled. The grenade detonated, blasting the head and Gunny off the war machine’s body.

Barnstormer landed next to the coughing ape. Relief softened her face when she saw he wasn’t injured. She helped him stand as the Iron Chancellor toppled, impacting the ground with an earsplitting clangor.

Barnstormer thumped the ape on the back. “Nice catch, Gunnery Sergeant Simms.”

They gave each other that knowing look of old soldiers, that look that recognized it could have gone another way and they were damn fortunate it hadn’t. Gunny ambled over to the fallen head and picked it up, needing both hands for it was the size of an engine block. Sparking wires and leaking tubes hung like the tendrils of a jellyfish from the neck. One in particular caught Barnstormer’s eye.

“Is that…?” She came forward, ducking a bit to see.

Gunny raised the head higher so they could both get a better look.

“…a spine?”

Gunny’s mouth wrinkled with distaste. “What kind of sick Kraut invention is th—”

He was cut short by a green, eldritch glow appearing around the slack, segmented bone.

“Gunny, put it down,” Barnstormer warned.

He didn’t have to be told twice. Gunny dropped the head. But it didn’t hit the ground. The Americans watched in horror as the body of the Iron Chancellor began to stir, its head floating to rejoin it on a licking cloud of that ghostly glow. Sinking back into the gaping depression, the head resettled, metal knitting as the behemoth pushed itself upright.

“Eisen. Und Blut.”

The arm rose. Gunny and Barnstormer stared down the barrels of a dozen MG 42s.

An explosion hit the Iron Chancellor, rocked it sideways, its machine guns firing wide. Another fiery burst struck, and another, driving the huge monster back.

Wee Bonnie Blitz walked determinedly across the parade ground, lolly in hand, implacable gaze fixed on the Chancellor. Her assault was unrelenting, as ferocious as the child was calm.

Trespasser Wil solidified next to the Americans.

“You got some explaining to do, Willie!” Gunny shouted over the explosions.

Trespasser Wil kept his worried eyes on Bonnie as he spoke. “It’s as I feared! The Iron Chancellor isn’t just named for Otto von Bismarck. It is him!”

“Hasn’t he been dead for fifty years?” Barnstormer said.

“Very nearly.”

“Then how?”

Trespasser Wil thrust a finger at the war machine. “That thing is mechanic and necromantic!”

“How do you kill something that’s already dead?” Gunny demanded.

Trespasser Wil looked at his knives. “It’s been done before. But I will need to get through its armor.”

“Whatever we’re doing, it needs to be fast,” Gunny said. “Kid can’t hold it off forever.”

“It’s gonna take all of us,” Barnstormer said.

Gunny peered at her. “What are you thinking? Trip to Munchkinland?”

Barnstormer nodded.

Trespasser Wil shot a glance between them. “I don’t follow.”

“Captain will fill you in,” Gunny said. “I’ll get the squirt!”

Bonnie’s mental bombards were still ringing the Iron Chancellor’s bell when the ape scooped her up and slung her on his back.

“Hold tight, little miss ma’am!”

Knuckles pounding the ground, Gunny bulled across the parade ground.

Spared Bonnie’s rage, the Chancellor regained its balance and fired its cannon at the ape. Gunny dove to safety behind the bulk of a bombed-out bunker.

He craned his neck toward Bonnie. “Can you hit him with one blast, everything you’ve got, when I tell you?”

“Yes.”

“Get ready, then.”

“Can you hold this, please?”

A lolly drifted into the ape’s view.

“Sure.” Gunny took the candy and popped it into his mouth. “Okay, here goes nothin’.”

The Chancellor fired on them as soon as Gunny sped from behind cover, but the ape was too fast. He ran in a wide arc, forcing the war machine to constantly turn to track him, outpacing its shots. Choosing his moment, Gunny changed course and charged directly at the behemoth. Watching from above, Barnstormer was ready. She landed behind the ape and unleashed all she could muster, channeling a horizontal whirlwind.

Gunny leapt as the tempest struck, throwing him forward like a living bullet. A living bullet with a living bomb on its back.

“NOW, KID!”

Wee Bonnie Blitz focused on the head of the Iron Chancellor and blasted it apart.

The next instant, Gunny flew through the smoke and fire of the explosion, slammed into the Chancellor. He bent the barrel of its remaining flamethrower and thrust his fingers into the fissure of the mask. Peeling the metal aside, he exposed a grinning, green-glowing skull, enwombed in pulsing tubes and rune-etched chains. Job done, the gorilla dropped, just in time for a mist to come spiraling through the maelstrom.

The skull hissed.

“Eisen. Un—”

Trespasser Wil solidified and rammed his blades into the gaping sockets. The skull burst into dissolving fragments that were scattered on the last of the fading wind.

The Iron Chancellor slumped to lifelessness.

Barnstormer ran to join the others in its defeated shadow. “Everyone okay?”

“Aces,” Gunny replied, taking the lolly out of his mouth and handing it down to Bonnie.

The girl stared at the candy with perplexed revulsion. Slowly, she handed it up to Trespasser Wil.

Grinning, the man placed a gentle touch on her head and tossed the lolly aside. “I’ll find you another.”

“Now what?” Gunny asked.

“Now…” Trespasser Wil turned to the Iron Chancellor and peered up at the midriff, studying the surface. “…we hope for one more bout of good fortune. Gunny, if you would?”

The Englishman pointed at an embossed plate in the gut of the war machine. Gunny climbed a leg and leaned to discover that the plate covered a small hatch. He muscled it off. A heavy five-spoked handle was beneath.

The ape gave Trespasser Wil a puzzled look.

“Go on,” the man said.

Gunny turned the handle. Hisses issued from sudden cracks in the Chancellor’s hull. They widened slowly on their own. Gunny jumped down as the Iron Chancellor’s body opened like the petals of some grotesque metal flower. Trapped within its core was a heavily muscled man, naked and spread-eagled, all four limbs ensconced in cylindrical vises. His silver-haired head was bowed, chin resting on his prodigious chest.

Barnstormer took a step closer, marveling. “Is that…?”

“General Sir Roland Leslie Harrow,” Trespasser Wil said, wearing a relieved smile.

Gunny’s mouth was half open. “Warhorse? We heard he died.”

Trespasser Wil gave a hum. “Fighting the Iron Chancellor, yes. Nazi propaganda. Defeated at Dunkirk while giving our boys time to get off the beach, but not killed. They kept him in the only place strong enough to hold him. In the belly of the beast, quite literally.”

Barnstormer huffed. “This was never just an assassination mission. It was a jailbreak.”

“Quite.”

“So how do we get him out?” Gunny asked, eyeing the imprisoned man. “I’m not strong enough to break those clamps, tell you that right now.”

“Just give him a moment, I think,” Trespasser Wil replied.

Warhorse began to stir. His head rose. The face was drawn, the careful grooming of a cavalryman’s mustache marred by heavy stubble, the same silver as his hair. He gave a discomfited groan and began to squirm, though his eyes remained clenched. Flexing corded muscles, he strained. The metal holding him creaked with defiance, then screeched as the clamp holding his left hand was rent open. The right arm burst out next. Warhorse’s eyes snapped open. Reaching down, he tore open the leg restraints. He dropped from his strange prison, but his knees buckled when he hit the ground. Crouching there, he reached and tore a cloth band from his arm decorated with a pink triangle.

Trespasser Wil knelt beside him. “It’s Harker, General.”

A gravelly, cultured voice forced a question. “The prime minister?”

“Dead, sir. He went down shooting.”

“Winston, good man.” Warhorse’s head came up, stared hard at Trespasser Wil. “And the royal family?”

“The king’s in Scotland. Still fighting. The rest are safe in Canada.”

Warhorse took the news with a single nod. “What…what is the date?”

“Twelve, seven, forty-one, sir,” Gunny answered.

The older man’s brow crinkled. “Feels cold for July.”

“Bass-ackwards Brits,” Gunny groused, shaking his head.

“It’s December, Roland,” Barnstormer put in quickly, shooting the ape a perturbed look. “Seventh December 1941.”

Warhorse’s eyes lit with recognition. “Bess. Damn good to see you again.”

“Been too long, General.”

Warhorse’s chuckle was ragged. “We are still fighting the Huns, Bess. How much has truly changed?”

Barnstormer raised her eyebrows in somber acknowledgment.

“I trust you brought my uniform, Harker.”

“Here, sir,” Trespasser Wil said, handing over the rucksack.

They all turned their backs while the general dressed. In quick order he was clad in the red jacket of the Household Cavalry, white gloves and trousers, and knee-length black horseman’s boots. The arms of the Order of the Garter took over the entire left breast of his jacket; a white charger shield emblazoned with the cross of St. George.

As he was adjusting the fit of his gloves, a Panzer rolled through the blasted gates, treads screeching on the debris.

“Looks like the Jerrys aren’t happy about us breaking their windup toy,” Gunny said.

Barnstormer and Trespasser tensed as the tank’s main turret began to swivel their way.

Warhorse held up a staying hand. “Allow me.”

He dashed forward, covering seventy yards in seconds. His fist came down on front of the tank’s chassis, staving in the armor and popping the back end of the vehicle into the air. The tank arced and was caught by Warhorse upside down. Hoisting twenty-five tons of armor over his head, he tossed it into a troop carrier coming through the breach. The soldiers inside the transport issued horrified cries, cut short by the crushing weight.

Warhorse dusted his hands as the others joined him. He swept them all with steely eyes. “What do you say we show these Nazi dogs they have no place in London?”

Barnstormer shoved a fresh clip into her Thompson. “Begging your pardon, General, but I say we show the Nazis they got no place on God’s green earth.”

Gunny pulled a cigar from his pocket, placed it in his mouth. Next he produced a Hershey’s bar, gave it to Bonnie, and helped her up onto his back. “Damn right.”

From her perch, the girl gave a determined nod as she unwrapped the chocolate. “Damn right.”

Trespasser Wil checked the edge on his Bowie. “‘So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings.’”

Mortopia

M. L. Wang

Fortress Drakoni, Mars, 2401

The laughter was inappropriate and a little unhinged.

Amadou recognized that. But this infiltration was the most fun he’d had since… well, since before his wife died. Siata was with him in the dark of that chamber, guiding his fingers as they flew across the touchscreen, picking through the intricate layers of Bida’s security system. There were breadcrumb clues in each line of code and input prompt. Those tiny specks fell into patterns as Amadou went. Mandalas in sand. Masterpieces.

“At heart, Bida loves humanity as much as he hates it,” Siata had said once.

Amadou hadn’t understood what she meant until now, on his way to assassinate Earth’s last enemy. Caught in the intricacy of Drakoni’s security system, he finally saw how his wife could have held such respect for the man who had ultimately killed her. The whole of humanity was here in Bida’s code. Riddles atop numbers. Love alongside hate. And, like a human, each puzzle wanted to be solved; with an immortal ache, it wanted to be understood.

The touchscreen went black except for the words laser security disabled, showing Amadou his own grin in the glass. 

Breathing down from the high of epiphany, he backed away from the screen—right into the stainless-steel chassis of a security bot.

A soldering iron burst from the bot’s body like a viper from its hole to strike at Amadou, and his decades of training snapped into action. Twisting at the hip, he slammed his forearm into a critical joint, breaking the implement off its arm and sending it spinning off in a corkscrew of bright smoke. To ensure maximum mobility, his team had allowed him one weapon with one shot, and that shot was not meant for a nosy maintenance bot. This, Amadou was supposed to handle with his bare hands.

Whirling out of the first blow, he plunged a hand beneath the robot’s front plate. Military bases on Earth employed dedicated security bots with heavy armor and weaponry, but resources were limited on a Mars base. Here, maintenance bots had to double as security, and maintenance bots had weaknesses. On a twenty-fourth-century Octobot like this one, the hinges should have been breakable over the control panel. However, when Amadou yanked, the panel locked in place and a ping signaled that an access code was required. That was Bida, always one step ahead of the rest of humanity. 

But that’s why you’re here, Amadou. Because you can make up that lost ground. Think! 

The access code had to be rooted in some reference or riddle he had cracked earlier. The breadcrumbs all led somewhere. Drakoni’s laser and retina security access codes had both started with etymology. Laser, originating from a seven-word acronym had been the toughest to wrangle, but the word robot was of simpler origin, deriving from the Czech word robota, meaning servitude, which derived from the Slavic verb работать: to work. Aligning with Bida’s matrices, that would make the access code—

Before Amadou could finish the thought, the bot swiveled on its base. A welding torch swung for his head, and he dropped. The flame hit the touchscreen in a hiss of melting glass and metal. Dodging the robot’s hammer, he seized the blowtorch arm for leverage and drove a heel into one of the Octobot’s wheels. Weighing as much as four grown men, bots this size were difficult to throw, but Amadou had this particular application of leverage and momentum down to a science. As the bot succumbed to gravity, five more arms burst from their sockets—a torque wrench, a screwdriver, a drill, and two laser cutters.

Amadou pushed from the bot’s chassis, repelling himself out of range of the wrench and screwdriver as the drill glanced, sparking, off his smartsuit. One laser beam sizzled dangerously close. A moment of terrifying heat on Amadou’s scalp and a black braid smacked to the floor, smoking where the laser had cut it from his head. 

As the bot crashed in a fit of fritzing circuits, the blowtorch arm snapped off while the slender screwdriver and drill arms crumpled beneath the heavy chassis. Unfortunately, the fall seemed to have jammed both laser cutters into “on” mode, sending green lines of death blazing in all directions. An imprecise thrust of the drill might bounce off Amadou’s smartsuit with only a few sparks, but the lasers would kill him if he vocalized. Drakoni’s security system detected intruders by their thermal signatures and the human frequencies of their voices. Amadou’s thermal signature wasn’t an issue, masked by his suit, but there was no filter on his voice. The Octobot had probably been drawn to the chamber in the first place by his laughter. A careless slip he could not afford to repeat.

Coiling low to make himself a small target, he finished processing in silence:

работать started with an /ɽ/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet, meaning the access code aligned with the fifty-fourth matrix Amadou had solved on his way into the base. The first number in that matrix was a 6, which meant the clue lay in one of Shakespeare’s plays. The second number was another 6; Shakespeare’s sixth play, sorted first by known chronology and then by alphabetical order, had been Titus Andronicus. The third number was yet another 6; the sixth character to speak in Titus Andronicus was… Amadou clawed back through his memory… 

Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths,

That we may hew his limbs, and on a pile 

Ad manes fratrum sacrifice his flesh, 

Before this earthy prison of their bones…

Lucius.

The access code was Lucius.

Now Amadou just had to deal with the two laser cutters between him and the access panel. One deep breath. Then he surged forward, sliding in between the beams. A stomping kick broke off the drill bit as he grabbed hold of the two remaining arms and forced them inward toward the robot’s body.

With his full weight on the Octobot’s laser limbs, his smartboots adjusting their texture for maximum traction, he struggled against an unprecedented level of resistance. On another maintenance bot, this would have been quick work, but Bida had clearly taken the last thirty years to improve his bots’ combat abilities. As Amadou’s raw strength failed, his smartsuit engaged, hardening to an indestructible shell and pushing with him, finally overpowering the robot in a groan of protesting metal. Before the lasers reached the bot’s body, however, Amadou hit a jolt.

You’re kidding me, he just avoided saying aloud.

Both limbs had tripped some kind of locking mechanism—a fail-safe to keep the bot’s flexible arms from turning on its own body—and even Amadou’s tech-enhanced strength could push no further.

Clenching his teeth hard to keep from roaring with the effort, he changed tactics and direction, wrenching those laser arms upward to cut into the chamber ceiling. With the support of his smartsuit, he drew the laser beams in two arcs, shearing a circle out of the gleaming black rock. As the slab came loose, Amadou sprang back and rolled clear, leaving the circular ton of basalt to crash onto his assailant. Debris exploded outward on impact, jagged chunks bouncing painfully off Amadou’s forearms when he raised them to shield his head. At last, green lasers flickered out as the robot went offline.

Standing back from the rubble and ruined machinery, Amadou took a moment to bring his heart rate down—and berate himself a bit. He might have avoided injury in this scuffle, but the commotion would almost certainly have alerted Bida to a foreign presence in the base. If Amadou was going to reach his target now, he would have to move at double speed—all because of a thoughtless giggle.

Scrambling into the next ventilation shaft on his mental map of the base, he refocused. For all the playful brilliance in Drakoni’s security, this was not a game. This was for Siata.

No, her voice reminded him gently, and he corrected himself: for humanity.

Amadou was the fourth human operative to attempt this mission.

In 2345, following Bida’s obliteration of Mecca and Jerusalem, the United Nations had sent Agent Heracles to Drakoni. By that point, every piece of Mars-based tech Earth could still access had failed to penetrate the fortress, so sneaking in an intelligent human operative had seemed like the next logical step. Heracles had been a man of incredible strength, able to tear a standard security bot apart with his bare hands. Amadou was even stronger, although his run-in with the Octobot suggested that Bida’s machines had gotten stronger too.

In 2358, the year after Bida had devastated half the islands of Asia, the New Republic of China had sent Agent Li-chi. She had been smaller than Heracles, a contortionist, capable of navigating any building through its ventilation shafts instead of facing the open danger that had claimed Earth’s first agent. Amadou was not as small as Li-chi, but he was nearly as flexible and just as rigorously trained in stealth. He scaled walls and slipped in and out of the ventilation shafts with ease, following the shimmering emerald threads of energy that snaked along the pipes and ceilings to form Drakoni’s self-reliant power system. By that eerie light, he traced the safe paths that Susanowo had mapped on his ill-fated journey into Drakoni.

Agent Susanowo had been Earth’s last operative before Amadou, deployed by the infant East Asian Alliance months after Bida’s war satellites had scorched snow and life off a swath of land from Siberia to Hokkaido in 2371. Agent Susanowo had possessed neither Heracles’s physical strength nor Li-chi’s stealth but, at the time, he had been the best hacker in the world. The Alliance military had hoped that, where the other agents had failed to fight or sneak their way through Bida’s security, Susanowo would outsmart it. With his multiple degrees in language, computer science, robotics, and engineering, Susanowo had indeed made it further than his two predecessors, advancing more than halfway to the base’s core, but his vital signs had still cut out far from the central command chamber. Amadou was a better hacker than Susanowo, but that was no guarantee of success.

The last words Agent Li-chi’s shoddy equipment had sent back to Earth were immortalized in the history files:

谜. 普通话… 拉丁语? 希伯来语?

Riddles. Mandarin… Latin? Hebrew?

At the time, Li-chi’s team hadn’t been sure what to make of the transmission; in retrospect, it had been the first clue to the deeper complexities of Bida’s labyrinth. Fourteen years on, Agent Susanowo had managed to elaborate a little further:

There are word problems in this code. Complex ones. I recognize some proverbs and literary references. There are many languages here—maybe ten. But the threads are all connected, all reference one another. Given time, I could—

Amadou had built his earliest ambitions on that last “I could—” Agent Susanowo might not have been able to conquer Drakoni, but he had believed it could be done. And Amadou wanted to be the one who finished the job. The map he had committed to memory ended here, where Agent Susanowo had breathed his last. With the laser security and retina-scanning locks disabled, Amadou could pass most doors in the fortress but, where possible, it was safest to stick to the vents, where larger maintenance bots wouldn’t chance across him.

Crawling on, Amadou clicked his tongue into the recording device on his shoulder, scrambling to explain everything he had found. He had helped create this language, a fusion of Morse code and multiple Khoisan languages, for stealth operatives to send messages without the use of their detectable human voices. Maintaining a communication signal while inside the base would have put Amadou at risk of discovery, but the moment his smartsuit lost his vitals—when he either died or shed the garment—the recording device would transmit all his intel to Director Varma, Dr. Norway, and the rest of the team on Earth.

The tech here is fascinating, Norway, Amadou clicked. It’s all circa 2320 but repurposed and improved. Genius engineering. It’s no wonder no one’s ever made it through this layer. I still have no idea how Susanowo got this far with only eight languages.

Amadou spoke eleven—a figure Siata had laughed at when they first met at the 2388 Pan-African Intelligence Conference.

“What?” he had said, a little defensive. “How many do you speak?”

A smile had turned the corner of her mouth and she had answered in his native Maninka, “All of them.”

Amadou remembered going still in wonder. The rest of the lavish hall, all the dignitaries and generals, seemed to vanish as he beheld a being beyond his highest aspirations. “Then, you… you’re one of the immortals.” The only humans ever granted regenerative treatment, rendering them immune to aging. “You don’t grow old.”

Her smile widened in amusement. “Do I not look a bit young to have headed the team that got Agent Susanowo into Drakoni—and Agent Li-chi before him?”

“I thought you must be a descendant,” Amadou confessed, “a daughter or granddaughter of the original Dr. Siata.” Allah, she didn’t look a day older than twenty-four! “Director Varma didn’t say anything when he introduced you.”

“Call me an old-fashioned woman. I’m private about my age.”

“Why?” Amadou asked before his manners could catch up with his awe. “I mean—you have more PhDs than classes I’ve taken in my life!”

“That’s why.” She nodded to his stunned expression. “Just look at you, so fascinated with the eternity I represent that you don’t even see the woman before you. In a moment, I’m an oddity.”

“Not an oddity!” Amadou protested. “A goddess.”

“Ah.” She held up a finger as something in her smile turned lonely. “Still not a human being.”

“I just meant…” but Amadou wasn’t sure what he had meant. More than a human being? That was a compliment… wasn’t it?

“People are so eager to demonize or romanticize immortality—one or the other—when it’s just a natural extension of human ambition.”

“Is it natural?” Amadou asked.

“I think so.” Siata didn’t appear offended. “I know that some insist that there’s nothing more human than dying. I say there’s nothing more human than curiosity. When I heard that indefinite regeneration was in testing back in the late 2100s, it was pure curiosity that made me volunteer for it. I’ve always been a person to see rather than wonder, to do rather than wait. Immortality didn’t take any of those human qualities from me. It only amplified them, gave them space to evolve.”

“Even now?” Amadou asked, skeptical that a person could sustain curiosity that long.

“Especially now,” Siata said. “We have a planet to save, after all.”

“You don’t get tired?”

“Do I look tired?”

She didn’t. She looked as vibrantly alive as anyone Amadou had ever met, skin glowing, eyes insatiably intent on the world around her. In her sharp suit, fiery red head-wrap, and redder lipstick, she seemed more a force of energy than a woman.

“You seem like a curious soul, Amadou. Tell me, given a chance to witness eternity, would you turn it down?”

“I…” Amadou faltered, caught on the red curve of those lips like Adam in the garden. “I don’t know, Doctor. God created us with an expiration date. Does He not intend for us to die?”

“God created us with Earthbound bodies and oxygen-breathing lungs. Did He not intend us to fly planes and take spacecraft to the stars?” 

Amadou didn’t have an answer for that.

“If God knew what He was doing, then He knew the potential He put into the universe. The way I see it, we insult Him by not using everything He gave us for good—including fire, electricity, genetic science, nanotech, all of it.”

Amadou nodded slowly as he chewed on her words. “I suppose that makes sense, Doctor…” On an intellectual level, anyway. On an emotional level, it was still hard to grasp the idea of a centuries-long life that didn’t sour. How could such tantalizing fruit not go bad? “You don’t miss the people you grew up with? Aren’t you lonely for them?”

“From time to time.” Siata shrugged. “But all humans are lonely in their experiences sometimes. All the interesting ones anyway.” There was that smile again, knowing and sweet, as though the two of them were sharing not only a secret but a particularly succulent one. “Yes, you outgrow some of the things you loved as a child… but you also grow beyond them. It’s not that everything behind you has lost meaning; it’s that meaning evolves and keeps evolving with each lifetime. Most humans don’t get the chance to discover those dimensions of truth or realize their true potential. They don’t have the time.”

“In other words, you’re the pinnacle of humanity.”

“Allah, no!” Siata laughed. “I’d be terribly depressed if I thought that.”

“And you’re not?” Amadou said, bemused.

“Not what?”

“Depressed.”

“I have my bad moments but, in general, no.”

Perhaps her casual optimism shouldn’t have surprised Amadou the way it did. But Bida was the only immortal widely discussed in Amadou’s circles, and most assumed that his extended life had driven him mad—at least, madder than he had been during those first seventy years he had reigned as Supreme Dictator of the United States of America. The idea that one could live two hundred years as a well-adjusted, happy person was strange… and beautiful.

She was beautiful.

This warm thought was followed by a colder stab of pain. “But there are barely any immortals left. Since Bida’s last biological attack, you must be one of the last.”

Another shrug. “For now.”

“What do you mean, ‘for now’?” Bida’s infectious disease capsules had released a strain that targeted immortals, turning their regenerative cells against them. “I… forgive me for being insensitive, but I thought the Achilles Virus had infected all the immortals by now.” Siata would not be an exception—though she didn’t look sick. “I thought you were all dying.”

“We are,” Siata said calmly, “but Bida was never one to discard his scientific work. Somewhere in that dingy little Mars base is every cure his scientists ever conceived, including the cure for the Achilles Virus.”

“Are you sure?” Through all his years of training, Amadou had thought of the quest to kill Bida as a matter of vengeance. The idea that humanity might reclaim Bida’s life-changing technologies was new… and it lit a primal, electrical thrill inside Amadou. Was it really possible for humanity to reclaim immortality? Did he dare to hope?

“Take it from someone who spoke to the man and lived through his rule on Earth,” Siata said, “Bida may have an ego literally too big for one planet to contain, but he was always more than a self-absorbed psychopath.”

“Every historian I’ve read says his reign was the darkest time in history.”

“They say that now because hindsight is twenty-fifteen.” Siata waved a hand. “The academics who compose our history like to come down on the right side of it. But Bida had a lot of support before he turned genocidal—and not just from inside the former United States of America. From the places he colonized too.”

“Why? Who would support a man who subjugated his own people and violently took over whole continents?”

Instead of answering, Siata came back with her own question: “When and where were you born, Amadou?”

“In 2365”—mercifully just before naming children after nations of the past had become a global fad—“here in the Pan-African Union, in Kamsar.” Of course, there was no more Pan-African Union now. Just the United World, many peoples sworn to the common goal of destroying Bida.

“Kamsar, mm? Then, I assume, as a promising youngster with agent aspirations, you attended Kamsar Tech and toured the Space Museum regularly, maybe even did an internship there. Maybe, when you were a little older, you completed courses at the Institut Informatique de Conakry.”

“Yes,” Amadou said, unsure what that had to do with Bida.

“All those institutions were built during Bida’s time. I grew up here in—well, it was called Niger back then—and I can say, based solely on what we can see from this window… Bida’s programs built that”—she pointed to a nearby water treatment facility— “that”—the towering hospital—“and that”—the shining center for infectious disease research—“and the Aerospace Exploration Center way off in the distance that way. Oh, and all this greenery that holds back the Sahara…” She indicated the entire scene with a sweeping gesture. “An ancient initiative, but it was completed under Bida’s government.”

Amadou looked out over the vibrant development, wanting to believe it all would have been possible without Earth’s worst enemy. But Siata would know better than he would… and, thinking back through his history courses, it was only during Bida’s reign that all nations had reached a similar level of technological development, leveling a playing field that had been skewed for centuries.

“Historically, it’s rare that colonial infrastructure remains useful in the colonizer’s absence,” Siata said, “but Bida’s projects are still in use all across the globe.”

“Except his proprietary medical research,” Amadou said, “and his satellites.”

Late in his reign, Bida had put a battalion of military satellites into orbit—allegedly to protect Earth from invaders. When he had fled to Mars, he had taken the access codes to all those satellites and, in the ensuing century, used them to terrorize the same planet he had once claimed to protect. Still, after decades of development, Earth’s military could only play catch-up to his satellite army.

“Yes,” Siata agreed, “which suggests an element of forethought. If he’d wanted, Bida could have rigged all this to collapse or turn against us, like his satellites. But he left most of this development to continue benefiting the local population.”

“I don’t understand. If that’s true—if some part of him cared about what he created—why would he wage war on us?”

“I have my theories,” Siata said, “but they’re just that: theories. He was a hard person to read, and I only met him a few times. All I know is that he always had a vision beyond simple power. However inscrutable his methods or faulty his reasoning, he had a vision for humanity.”

“It sounds like you admire him,” Amadou said, too intrigued to be appropriately disgusted. No one in his life had ever spoken of Bida with anything but hatred.

“I do admire him.” 

“But you’ve devoted most of your two hundred years to bringing him down.”

“We have a fundamental difference of opinion on what makes a human… and what makes greatness. Bida believes that the hallmark of humanity is death, and its primary engine is fear.”

And what do you believe? Amadou wanted to ask but, just as he opened his mouth, someone called to Siata from across the chamber, wanting her to meet one of the attending dignitaries.

“Ah,” she said with an acknowledging wave at the beckoning engineer. “It looks like my team needs me.”

“Of course,” Amadou said, suddenly self-conscious. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I’ve kept you a long time. And I just—I suppose you get tired of excitable students asking you stupid questions. With your intellect…” He trailed off, but she seemed to read the anxiety on his face.

“You’re afraid you bore me.”

Amadou pressed his lips together and looked at his feet.

“Boredom is for the boring, Amadou.”

“Then…” He risked a glance up at her brilliance. “I hope we can talk again sometime?”

“I hope so too,” she said and moved to join her team.

“Dr. Siata?” he blurted before he could stop himself.

She turned back. “Amadou?”

“You were wrong earlier.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“It wasn’t just eternity—or Bida—I was interested in when I approached you.”

“Oh?” She looked intrigued, and it was that—the knowledge that he had given pause to a two-hundred-year-old genius—that gave Amadou the courage to ask the question on his tongue.

“Can I buy you dinner?”

She blinked and Amadou held his breath. The universe hung on her smile.

“No,” she said and, before Amadou’s being could implode with the force of a dying star, “but maybe at the Security Conference in Beijing.”

“But—only the top contenders will go to Beijing,” Amadou stuttered. The selection process had barely begun. Amadou was still just one of a hundred hopefuls.

“Yes.” Siata tilted her head meaningfully. “I look forward to dinner.”

Amadou had wanted to become Earth’s final agent since learning about Susanowo’s exploits in grade school. But competition had been ferocious at every level, and that conversation with Siata had been the final push that put him ahead of the other contenders. Curiosity. He had needed that dinner. He had needed to know what kept a person alive and thriving for two hundred years.

Nearing his goal of decades, Amadou adjusted the load on his back for the hundredth time. Even for him, the gun was getting heavy. It was more a cannon than a gun, really, a formidable meter-long weapon containing a single projectile, a steel capsule that would release an explosion of acid, shrapnel, and poison gas upon impact. No matter how enhanced or armored Bida was, this gun would be the end of him. Amadou would have done right by Siata, even if she wasn’t here to see it.

Dropping out of a ventilation shaft, he straightened up to face the last serpentine hallway leading to his destination. And, as he had suspected, Drakoni was ready for him. He heard the telltale shift of metal before a dozen blowtorches flared to life, lighting the corridor a blazing cyan.

Great, Amadou refrained from saying aloud—because their audio sensors clearly hadn’t zeroed in on him yet—more robots.

Too many to fight barehanded, but that was all right.

Darting forward, Amadou hugged the nearest robot tight, cold metal edges digging into his cheek. As he had suspected, the same protocol that prevented the Octobots from firing on themselves also prevented them from firing on one another. Lasers ignited, drills whirred, and saws buzzed in his direction, but none touched Amadou while he was flush to the robot’s chassis. As his dance partner’s blowtorch burned painfully close to his shoulder, he punched in the access code: Lucius.

The panel sprang open and within another heartbeat, Amadou’s lightning fingers entered his next command: detach all arms intact.

In a shudder of metal, eight mechanical appendages popped free of their sockets in Amadou’s periphery and his own arm shot out to catch the nearest one. With a dozen robots closing in, there was no time to be choosy about his weapon.

He whirled to face his attackers with a circular saw. Unwieldy but workable.

Octobot arms were made to be interchangeable among machines of similar size, meaning that their inner workings were self-contained; like true octopus tentacles, each had its own “brain,” allowing it to operate independently of the central body. Side-stepping a laser beam, Amadou stuck the socket end of the saw arm into its trajectory, letting the light shear through the outlet casing, exposing the wire beneath. A split-second twist of those wires closed the circuit and the saw roared to life.

Conscious thought had gotten Amadou this far, but some things—like fighting several tons of antique machinery—were the province of practice and passion. Amadou let rage take over as he held hard to his weapon, remembering the last time Siata’s hands had touched his.

“Hold on,” he had begged as she lay in the Niamey hospital, attacked by her own cells. “Just one more month.” They were so close. “One more month and I’ll kill Bida. I’ll bring back the cure, and we can have a hundred years together, and a thousand, and a thousand more.”

“Killing death,” Siata murmured, her once resonant voice reduced to a paper-thin rasp. “Beautiful notion, isn’t it? I suppose if anyone could do it…”

“I will, Siata. For you.”

Her mouth curved into a ghost of her old smile. “I believe you will, but Amadou… it doesn’t have to be me for it to be meaningful. It can be your eternity… something new.”

“I don’t want something new.”

She was laughing with what little breath she had left. “Don’t be ridiculous—”

“I want eternity with you.”

“Amadou, come on. You’re too interesting to be hung up on one woman for one lifetime, let alone many.”

The Achilles Virus had infected Siata before she even met Amadou, but its deadliest symptoms had all caught up with her here at the last hour, leaching the color from her and carving horrible hollows into her cheeks.

“You are the most extraordinary person I have ever loved,” she said, “and bear in mind that I’ve been around a while, known all Earth’s agents… never went and fell for one of them.”

“Then hold on a little longer to see me come back from Mars, give me something to come back to. Live, Siata!”

“I have, my love,” she whispered, and Amadou hated the resigned serenity that had settled on his wife. It was so at odds with everything he knew of her, it frightened him more than anything in the world. “It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not! It’s not, Siata. Don’t give up!”

“I haven’t.” She gripped his hand—too weakly. “I never did, but I understood my diagnosis back in 2385. I knew I wouldn’t live to see you come back from Mars—if I lived to meet Earth’s fourth agent at all. I’m blessed that I knew you and I’m thankful—”

“Don’t talk like that, Siata. Don’t talk like it ends here. How can you be satisfied with that?”

“Because of you, Amadou. If these had to be my last years, I wanted to spend them making sure that a new generation of humanity would have what I couldn’t. True immortality. Having met you, I know that they will have it, that Bida won’t succeed in holding the world back forever. That gives me peace.” 

“But Siata, I… When I see a life beyond Bida, it is a life with you. I don’t want to do this without you…” Her wisdom, her energy, her insatiable enthusiasm for the future…

“Now, don’t you talk like that. It makes me sick.” As if to prove her point, she fell into a fit of coughing and Amadou rushed to support her. “I love you, Amadou, but we didn’t start down this path for each other, did we? This was always bigger than the two of us. It was always about humanity. Promise me…” Her voice was almost gone. “I said humanity hadn’t reached its apex yet… Promise me, you’ll give yourself to the climb.”

“I promise,” Amadou said frantically. “Just stay with me one more moment here. Please!” 

But even as he clutched at her hand, she had slipped from his grasp.

Now, just a few layers of metal away from his promise, there was no force of God, man, or machine that would stop him fulfilling it. The saw in his hands became a disk of concentrated destruction, screaming through armor, wire, and cables faster than the maintenance bots could get a lock on Amadou’s grunts and labored breathing. When the saw stuck in the chassis of the sixth bot, jerking and jamming, he ripped a drilling arm free and bodily rammed it through the next robot before the bit stopped spinning.

Within a minute, all thirteen Octobots lay at his feet fizzing and sparking. Amadou wasn’t entirely sure how he had taken out the last five—just that it had been a rough affair, leaving his fists and elbows throbbing even through the protection of his smartsuit.

Chest heaving, he looked toward the steel doors at the end of the corridor, which stood eerily untouched. As Octobot lasers had spasmed through the space, carving snakelike lines in the walls and ceiling, not one had touched those doors, which was a good sign that something important lay on the other side. There was no touchpad in sight to demand a code or present a new riddle, so he picked up a bot’s arm to saw his way through. He had just taken a step toward the doors—when they slid open.

Amadou froze, peering through the doorway as something moved in the dark beyond. 

How many more Octobots are in this fortress? he wondered, holding his breath to elude the audio sensors. But the machine that emerged from the dark was not an Octobot. It walked on two legs, mechanical components clicking with each step.

An automaton.

Amadou’s brow furrowed in confusion.

Bida shouldn’t have had tech that advanced… It was conceivable that he had found a way to steal a military automaton from Earth, but Amadou had never seen an automaton quite like this one. Its armor appeared to be made of steel instead of the white polycarbonates of Earth’s modern fighting machines. Amadou tilted his head to study the thing as it stepped through the doors. It walked with the mechanical precision of a robot, but something in the way it eyed him seemed too aware. Which was odd, as it didn’t have eyes, just a dark horizontal strip bisecting its faceplate.

The thing tilted its head in turn—then exploded forward.

Whatever it was, it needed neither thermals nor sound waves to find its target and Amadou reeled back, realizing he wouldn’t be able to match that speed with a heavy Octobot arm in his hands and a heavier gun on his back. A katana blade extended from the automaton’s left arm as it sprinted for Amadou. Instinct drew Amadou’s attention to the weapon, but experience reminded him that automatons were ambidextrous; that blade was a distraction from the inevitable attack from the thing’s right hand.

To buy a precious second, Amadou threw the Octobot arm at his attacker, who reacted with disturbing fluidity, dropping into a slide beneath it. As the heavy appendage crashed to the floor, the automaton rolled to its feet and Amadou, still retreating, tore a cable from the sawed-open body of the nearest Octobot. A steel cable wasn’t the ideal weapon against a long blade, but it was the only Octobot component light enough for Amadou to wield against such a fast-moving opponent.

As the automaton reached him, Amadou found his ground and lashed out with the cable. Steel rang on steel, deflecting the sword. As Amadou had predicted, a second blade burst from the right arm, driving for his solar plexus as the automaton turned with the momentum of the clash. Fortunately, the cable was long, giving Amadou two ends to work with. He brought the left end crashing down on the automaton’s second blade before it reached his body—just before.

Interesting. The thing’s right hand was minutely faster than its left. Like a human’s.

Launching his body forward with a raised knee, Amadou threw a kick into the automaton’s middle, knocking it backward. It got its feet back under its center with robotic finesse and a series of mechanical sounds, but Amadou could have sworn he felt give against the sole of his smartboot—like breath leaving a pair of lungs.

All the automatons Amadou had faced in training were dangerously quick to learn an opponent’s movements and start predicting them. Not wanting to give this one the chance, he whipped the socket end of the cable out so it wound around that quick right sword. The socket stuck on the automaton’s fingers and Amadou yanked the thing toward him.

The machine reacted predictably, slashing at Amadou with its free left sword. Here, Amadou turned the cumbersome gun on his back to his advantage, angling his body to put the barrel between himself and the blade. As the sword screeched against the titanium alloy of the gun, Amadou braced a foot on a fallen Octobot and shoved off hard, slamming himself back into the corridor wall. There was a ringing snap as the blade broke off between the gun barrel and solid basalt. That was one sword out of commission.

But Amadou wasn’t the only one who had made use of the momentum. Cable gone slack around its right hand, the automaton went for another stab, this time aiming for the face. Amadou jerked his head to the side just in time to miss a mouthful of steel. The blade clipped his ear, drawing blood, and Amadou brought his left forearm up to guard his head—in case the attacker followed through with a slice inward—but instead of trying to cut through his arm, the automaton seized it in a crushing grip. A steely heel shoved against the side of Amadou’s foot in a strangely familiar motion, pitching him off balance. The automaton hauled hard on his arm—

And it was only as the robot threw him that Amadou realized why this dance felt so familiar and, subsequently, why it had taken him this extra moment to catch on: The roles were the wrong way around. This throw was one of the first maneuvers agent trainees learned to use against Octobots. And it really did work better against a tippy robot than a man; Amadou twisted in the air and sprang out of the throw with a hand on the floor.

The throw had put several paces between the two combatants, and Amadou took a breath to study his opponent with new fascination. This machine must have trained on footage of Earth’s agents… or—a chill crawled up Amadou’s spine—the previous agents themselves.

No more time to theorize, as the automaton came at him again. Amadou wrapped the cable around his forearm and used it to deflect the next swing of the sword—too easily. Was the robot getting tired? In the next swing, Amadou pivoted past the blade straight into the automaton’s arms.

It was a gamble; a military-grade robot could crush a man—smartsuit or none—in its arms. This one tried. With Amadou’s hand around its sword arm, it locked its left arm around his neck and tightened with impressive force. Serpentine. Superhuman… but not robotic. Amadou didn’t black out, and this time, he was sure he heard it: breath behind the metal.

“What are you?” Amadou grunted.

In answer the automaton—or whatever it was—just jerked hard on his windpipe, sending the two of them to the ground together. Amadou’s opponent should have had the upper hand, but it had gone around the gun to get that arm around his throat. It was too far a reach to lock in securely. Amadou threw an elbow into his assailant as they hit the floor, breaking the hold.

Rolling on top of his attacker, Amadou pinned the remaining blade to the floor beneath his smartboot, wrapped a loop of cable around his right knuckles, and slammed his fist into the bot’s head. He expected to have to rain punches before the automaton started breaking but the very first blow broke something along the edge of that featureless face and the second knocked it loose. As the faceplate—the mask—clattered away, Amadou stilled in shock.

A human looked up at him. Black eyes dazed and blinking from the impact, both nostrils oozing blood.

“I know you…” Amadou lowered his fist. “Why do I know you?”

At the sound of new footsteps, Amadou’s head jerked up. 

In a single motion, he had slung the gun into position to stare through its sights—right into the face of his real target.

Bida.

The last enemy of the United World.

“Don’t move!” Amadou shouted, his finger on the trigger that would save humanity. “I’ll shoot!”

He didn’t, though. Not immediately.

Fear would have him shoot first and marvel later, but curiosity was as much a part of Amadou as fear and, since it was that part of him that Siata had loved best, he didn’t pull the trigger. He needed to see the man who had taken his wife away, to look into his eyes.

They were green eyes—a striking emerald not done justice by old video. And it wasn’t until he stood here that Amadou understood how this face had once swayed crowds and won elections in a long-gone nation. There was a magnetic quality to those sharply defined brows and cheekbones, colored an Edenic green by the lines of light along the corridor. A pretty mask over poisonous cunning.

Amadou was supposed to shoot now. Striking anywhere on Bida’s body—or even near it—would do.

Then the monster stretched out his arms as if greeting a crowd. “Welcome!” 

Welcome?

Amadou had played this deciding encounter a thousand times in his head, but in none of his imagined scenarios was Bida pleased to see him.

“We’ve been waiting for you!” Bida clapped his hands and rubbed them together in what looked like genuine joy. “Oh, just look at you! Look at you!”

As the dictator-turned-world-conqueror stood in that doorway, crisp in his tailored suit, beaming, some of Amadou’s better judgment caught up with him and he hoisted the gun back to shooting position. His eyes darted around the space. No additional robots. No lasers or cameras. Just the not-automaton, still lying half dazed under Amadou’s foot. So, why was Bida so calm? So happy? Maybe he really had descended into madness after all this time.

“I don’t think you understand,” Amadou said evenly. “I am an agent of the United World”—his finger crooked around the trigger—“and you have seconds to live.”

At that, Bida laughed and shook his head, fondly. “No.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I have no more time to live, child. You are not going to shoot me.” It had the cadence of one of Bida’s riddles, but Amadou was done playing this game, however engaging. Humanity was done playing this game.

“I am going to shoot you,” he said icily, “so, if you have any last words to relay to your… I suppose your family is long gone, thanks to your Achilles Virus, so… any last words for the people of Earth?”

“Last words? No. I am going to talk, and you are going to come with me.”

Amadou scoffed. “What makes you think—”

“Because you asked.” There was a gleam in Bida’s eyes that held Amadou captive by its sheer intensity. “You had to. Only a genius can get into my fortress, let alone make it as far as you have. That’s the thing about geniuses… we need to know. And once you know, my friend, you won’t be needing that beautiful gun.”

“What—” Amadou started, but at that moment, something shuffled behind Bida and he tensed. His eyes strained into the darkness, expecting Octobots or other attackers to emerge out of it. What appeared instead was a wheelchair, pushed by a waifish woman with graying hair and joy crinkling the corners of her eyes. The wheelchair’s occupant was an old man with sightless eyes, white wisps of hair clinging to his scalp and skin hanging loose off his massive frame. He was smiling too, though he didn’t appear entirely lucid.

Amadou recognized the woman first. Even aged four decades, he knew that face from the history files, from so many memorials to Earth’s martyred heroes.

“Oh, Allah… you’re…”

“My child,” Bida smiled, “meet Agents Li-chi and Heracles, your brave predecessors.” 

“Welcome!” Li-chi exclaimed in a voice warm and wobbly with age. “And wonderful work!”

“Wh-what…?” The machine of Amadou’s mind, which rarely stopped moving, had sputtered to a complete halt, stymied.

“Susanowo there was just testing you”—Bida nodded to the man beneath Amadou’s smartboot—“so if you’d be so kind as to let him up.”

Blank with shock and something like reverence, Amadou reacted like an automaton himself and did as the tyrant said, stepping back off his attacker—Agent Susanowo. Amadou’s childhood hero rolled to his knees, flexed mechanical fingers, and gingerly examined the broken blade on his left arm.

“He suffered serious injuries when my robots caught him,” Bida explained as the steel-armored third agent climbed to his feet, “spent years putting together a suit to restore his eyesight and mobility.”

Gears faltering back into motion, Amadou processed the scene before him—then ran it through again, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. “But… how—”

“I still can’t believe how far you got,” Li-chi said. “Susanowo only just detected you five minutes ago and you’re much closer than he was.”

Susanowo grumbled something malevolent and touched the blood under his nose with armored fingers. The mechanized shell made sense, a part of Amadou’s brain noted, even as the rest of it reeled with all the things that didn’t. Susanowo had worked on automaton development in his youth. Of course, if it came to rebuilding his own body, he would model himself after his best creations, aesthetic and all.

“That’s the beauty of humanity, isn’t it?” Bida said. “Always improving.” He touched Heracles’s shoulder. “Our daring pioneer here finagled his way through two layers of security before I discovered him—and then made scrap metal out of a small army of security-bots before I calmed him down.” He laughed fondly. “Li-chi made it farther than that; Susanowo, a little farther still. And now here you are, just a few doors from my headquarters. We’ll have to restructure the whole system on your account, you brilliant boy.”

“What is this?” Amadou demanded. “What have you done to them?”

“Nothing,” Bida replied. “Just talked, as I will talk with you… for as long as you like.”

“What is there to talk about?”

“All of this.” Bida gestured around him. “Everything we do here.”

“You plot the destruction of humanity.”

“Oh no, child,” Bida said as Li-chi let out a light-hearted laugh. “Quite the opposite. The only plotting we do here concerns progress and life.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You say you represent the United World,” Bida said. “United world. Now, that’s something we never would have seen a century ago, when nations, companies, and religious factions were all busy vying for supremacy, trapping one another in a fruitless cycle of destruction.”

“And you think you’ve fixed that?”

“It was always my dream to do so. I’m the first to admit that my initial approach was misguided and naïve. I thought that by ruling the world, by imposing my will on it, I could force an end to ignorance and division. But the more I tried to realize my vision, the more I struggled with opposition. Those who banded together to resist me were Muslim, they were Christian, Buddhist, agnostic. They were all races—”

“I’m versed in the histories,” Amadou said shortly. “Your point?”

“This was my revelation!” Bida held a finger up dramatically. “The driver of human greatness was never an emperor. It was an adversary. Those rebels—my own detractors—helped me realize that my reign was not what the Earth needed. The age of Caesars is ended. What humanity needs now is an enemy… a common enemy. So that’s what I became, for the good of humankind.”

“For the good of humankind?” Amadou would have laughed had he not been choking on incredulity.

“Yes.” Bida held his gaze in that serene green. “Has it not been good? In the time since I established my operation on Mars, what has taken place?” 

“A lot of war,” Amadou said flatly.

“There was war before I left, and before I came to power, and in every era before that. Do you know the current worldwide life expectancy? The happiness index? The quality of life by any measurable metric?”

“Yes…” It was all higher, but that was true of almost every era as compared with the last…

“Since I became an enemy on which all humans could agree, they have ended hunger, ended homelessness, ended wars between nations, ended nations altogether. It was all I ever wanted,” Bida said earnestly, “to see what the human race could achieve once released from its self-destructive tendencies. And you’re welcome for the fluid infrastructure that made that possible, by the way.”

Amadou had spent his entire life hating Bida. He had believed that hatred had reached its height the moment Siata slipped away. But he had been wrong. Learning that Bida wasn’t just a spiteful madman, that he thought himself a savior… this was the height. Amadou had never been dizzy with rage. It had never squeezed his chest this way, making him short of breath.

“Humans are fearful and warlike by nature,” Bida continued, “so eager to resist an enemy that they will always cannibalize each other in the absence of a larger evil. This is my role. Only perfect unity could save the world from me… well, from itself, really. I’m just the anti-idol, a focal point for otherwise poisonous hatred.”

Amadou finally hauled enough breath into his lungs to form words. “I’m aware that you built a lot of good things during your reign,” he said, measuring each breath to keep his voice steady. “I didn’t realize your ego was big enough to claim credit for all the good that came after.”

“Oh no.” Bida looked affronted. “No! I would never presume to take credit for that much. Humanity made the world you’ve enjoyed. I just made it possible. And you can help me continue that work for many years to come.” 

“What?”

“Join us, child. Bring your passion, your skills, and ideas to Drakoni, as your three predecessors have. Heracles, when he joined me, greatly improved my Octobots—as I believe you had the pleasure of experiencing firsthand. After that, he spent many happy years programming the ground operations until he grew too old. Li-chi designed the beautifully efficient energy system you see all around you.” He gestured to the green lines running the length of the corridor. “Susanowo keeps my satellites unhackable, but it’s been a long time since we’ve had a newcomer. Staying one step ahead of Earth’s military is a constant challenge. I tend to stagnate and—well, as you saw—even Susanowo isn’t quite as quick as he once was.”

“You want me to help you make war on Earth?” Amadou said, incredulous.

“We know how it sounds,” Susanowo spoke up, his presence still utterly surreal to Amadou, “but think about it, Agent. Without these constant attacks from Mars, where would humanity be? Still fragmented, fighting one another over petty things.”

“We could use a fresh mind like yours.” Bida extended a hand to Amadou as Li-chi nodded in encouragement. “Help us drive humanity to new greatness and, I assure you, you will never be bored again.”

Never be bored again… Amadou ached beneath the weight of the gun, caught in this terrible, breathless place between fascination and rage.

“Let’s witness the heights humanity can reach when you and I push it forward!” Bida pressed in his silky voice. “All they can achieve, all they can create… don’t you want to see it?”

“I do,” Amadou said as his smartsuit engaged to take the strain off his burning arms. “That’s what I don’t understand: If you wanted us to thrive, why did you send the Achilles Virus? Why eliminate the only people who had the time to reach higher levels of enlightenment than anyone? Why take the immortality formulas away from Earth in the first place?”

“My dear boy,” Bida sighed, “have you understood nothing of what I’ve said? My most grievous mistake was making immortality available to the world. Humanity needs an enemy to resist and, while I do my best, there is no enemy like death.”

“Just not for you?” Amadou said. “Everyone else has to die but you’re the exception?”

“I am the martyr,” Bida returned. “I have sacrificed my life as a mortal to give humanity something to run from and something to progress toward.” 

“You call that a sacrifice?”

“Immortality is the ultimate sacrifice. This is why I don’t ask these three to endure it with me.” Bida nodded to the agents at his side. “Vibrant minds like theirs—and yours—understand that human paradise lies in progress and action. Peace and eternity only constitute paradise at a distance. Once achieved, they quickly lose all significance. Do away with me, and you lose the wonderful civilization the human race has achieved in the last century, but do away with death, and you doom life forever.”

“That’s not true!”

Bida favored Amadou with a patient, pitying look. “Easy for a mortal boy to make that claim. Speak to someone who has lived over two hundred years.”

In the next breath, Amadou had Bida slammed back against the wall, the nose of the gun jammed under his chin. 

“I have,” Amadou snarled. “Her name was Siata.”

Neither Susanowo nor Li-chi had made any move to stop Amadou, though Li-chi’s face lit in recognition.

“Oh, Dr. Siata!” she said. “How is she?”

“She’s dead,” Amadou growled, “thanks to this man you’re holding up as a visionary.”

“Then she is free,” Bida breathed, somehow relaxed even with the barrel’s edge digging into his windpipe. “When you’ve existed for over a century and seen infinity stretch before you, the world as the living human experiences it slips away. And you become something else. Not living. Not human.”

“You’re lying!” Amadou’s voice had risen. “I don’t care if you’ve styled yourself as a god—or a devil, or whatever the hell you think you are. Under your theatrics, you’re just a man. And she…” Emotion contracted on Amadou’s throat, momentarily choking off speech. “She was—”

“Oh, I see.” A knowing smile twisted Bida’s mouth. His green eyes beheld Amadou with the gemstone stillness of a snake in wait for its prey. “You were in love with one of them. Understandable that someone like you would bond with a being old enough to match your natural intellect.”

“She was more than a match for my intellect.” Amadou’s voice shook. “She was more than any of us. And she’s gone because of you!”

“Yes,” Bida said softly, “but, tell me, child, had you had eternity together, would one moment of it have been as powerful as the last you spent with her?”

“I… Why would—”

“You were her greatest love, I assume.”

Yes… or so she had always told him. Two hundred thirty years and she had never experienced anything like the few she had shared with him. Statistically, Amadou had always found this claim suspect—much as he wanted to believe it. “What makes you assume that?”

“Because she knew it would end.”

Amadou stilled, the thinking part of him trying to digest Bida’s words as the emotional part of him said no, no, no…

“You would have been her only lover after she contracted the Achilles Virus, yes?” Bida’s voice had gone unbearably gentle. “I remember your Siata. She was a magnificent woman, intelligent beyond her years, even when they were so many. And you…” He put a hand on Amadou’s shoulder, eyes glittering enthusiasm. “Just look at you, my brilliant child, man of men, mind of minds. Now tell me, would either of you have become what you did had she not faced mortality?”

No. The honest answer was no. But… “That wasn’t for you to decide.”

This seemed to throw Bida momentarily. “Pardon?”

“You can’t even maintain a healthy level of optimism for three lifetimes. Why should I—why should any of us—accept your judgment, your vision for humanity, or your notion of progress? Siata found fulfillment in immortality—”

“In fighting to keep it. It’s as I said, death is the ultimate enemy.”

“Then we deserve the right to see what’s beyond it,” Amadou said, “bad or good. You are not God. That is not yours to keep from us!”

“This is not a fruit you want to taste, child. The suffering is too much.”

“You don’t have grounds to claim that. Just because you’re too weak to make something great from your eternity doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be stuck on your limitations.”

“The world needs limitations, boy,” Li-chi said, her voice colder than before. “Not every human is of the same quality. Not every human can be trusted with unfettered agency.” And Amadou was reminded with a chill that she had departed Earth in an age when elitism and authoritarian rule were still commonplace. “An exceptional few are made to set parameters and others are made to move within them. You will come to understand—”

“Respectfully, ma’am, I think I understand perfectly. You want to keep humanity in a state of disease, war, and death because you could never grow beyond it, because he could never grow beyond it”—Amadou jerked his head at Bida—“and you can’t stand the thought of not being the pinnacle of humanity. That’s not innovation, Agent Li-chi. It’s stagnation. It’s selfishness. Furthermore, it’s bad science. A sample size of one—of him—is not definitive evidence of how immortality will affect everyone.”

“Nor is Dr. Siata,” Li-chi pointed out as Heracles murmured half-coherent ascent.

“You can hold your pseudo-immortal lover up as a shield,” Bida said, “but you know that death was the thing that ultimately gave her meaning, that gives humanity meaning for all of history.”

“All right…” Amadou released Bida and stepped back, the gun still raised. “I cede that point.” With those words, a latch came loose in Amadou’s mind, releasing a constraint he hadn’t known was there. Siata smiled at him, even as she faded away. “It changes nothing.”

“I’m sorry?” Bida sounded genuinely surprised.

It doesn’t have to be me to be meaningful, Siata had said with one of her precious final breaths. And Amadou finally understood those words in their entirety. Siata didn’t have to be his proof that immortality worked or didn’t. He didn’t know for sure—and didn’t need to. Ironically, Bida had said it himself: That’s the thing about geniuses. We need to know.

For a curious soul, not knowing was reason enough to move forward.

“You say I’d never be bored if I joined you,” Amadou laughed, “but if all you do here is maintain humanity’s mortal state of two hundred thousand years, I can’t think of anything less interesting. I’d rather see what’s next.”

“You will see what comes next for humanity. You will inspire it. You just won’t overstay your capacity for inspiration.”

“You don’t know my capacity for inspiration,” Amadou snapped. “You say the age of Caesars is over, the age of empires and their colonies is over? Then what the hell does Earth need with a narcissist out in space hoarding knowledge and deciding the fate of the planet? Do millions of people really have to die every year just so you can play out the fantasy that you still matter?”

“It’s not a fantasy, boy,” Bida said and Amadou caught the first trace of anger in his voice, the monster on the defensive. “It is the natural order. I am merely enforcing it.” 

“Is it nature if you have to force it?”

“The hallmark of humanity is death.”

“You’re wrong.” Amadou’s finger shifted on the trigger, the memory of Siata’s hand still warm beneath his, her smile still as bright as the day they had gone for that dinner in Beijing. “The hallmark of humanity is curiosity and its engine is passion.”

At that moment, a patter of fingers drew Amadou’s attention and his gaze snapped to Li-chi. Her hands were mostly concealed behind Heracles’s vast shoulders but she was tapping at something. A touchscreen, Amadou realized, built into the back of the wheelchair.

“Agent Li-chi?” Bida said.

“It’s done.” She lifted both hands in a flourish.

Only then did it occur to Amadou—and what an amateurish oversight!—that she must have been taking countermeasures this entire time. He had to shoot now, before it was too late—if it wasn’t already. He flicked a nervous glance from Susanowo, to Bida, to Li-chi and Heracles, feeling surrounded for the first time, though all four of his enemies stood in front of him.

“This is your last chance to make a mortal difference, Agent,” Bida said. “Shoot now and Li-chi has ensured that you will die.”

Amadou didn’t doubt it. If Li-chi had designed the base’s energy system, she could easily have built in emergency explosives wherever she chose. His heart beat too hard against his ribs, as if inviting him to count the beats and guess how many he had left.

“My offer to join us still stands,” Bida said. “You can live out your natural life here with us, driving humanity to greatness… or, if you still insist on your delusions, go ahead and martyr yourself. Save everyone, give them the eternity I have denied them. And then what will be left worth dying for?”

“I don’t know,” Amadou said honestly.

Bida lifted his chin, a picture of self-assurance. “Then you know what you need to do.”

“Yes… I do.” 

Amadou squeezed the trigger.

The blast was instantaneous, throwing Amadou backward. He hit the floor and rolled several times before getting his feet under him. Clutching the gun—only a fraction of its weight now that the main projectile had launched—he curled in on himself, braced for impact that didn’t come. The black bowels of Drakoni quaked around him and his eardrums rang to the point of pain—yet nothing touched him. His smartsuit, which should have produced a helmet and gas mask to shield him, hadn’t even twitched in reaction. Nothing had triggered it. After a breath had passed and no burning gas rushed to fill his lungs, Amadou risked a look up…

A thick glass wall stood before him. It must have dropped from the ceiling the moment the gun fired, separating Amadou from the projectile. Beyond the barrier, clouds of gas cleared slowly to reveal the damage. Amadou’s three predecessors had been killed instantly. Heracles and Li-chi, who had been closest to the blast, were not more than flaming lumps of black flesh. What remained of the wheelchair dripped molten metal onto the floor. Susanowo, who had stood farther back, slumped against the wall with spears of shrapnel protruding from his face.

Bida lay nearest the glass, his chest still moving with shallow, shaky breaths that wouldn’t sustain him for long, even if the air around him were not full of poison. Armor beneath his clothing must have shielded him from the shrapnel strewn around him, but he was still badly burned and only had minutes to live—if that.

His last direction to Li-chi hadn’t been to ensure that Amadou died; it had been to ensure that he survived. Why?

“What was that for?” Amadou demanded, unsure if his voice registered through the thick glass.

It must have—or perhaps Bida was as adept at reading lips as Amadou was—because he turned his head and grinned at the words. This wasn’t his politician’s smile. It was bare teeth, spiteful and triumphant. His lips moved but there wasn’t enough breath in his dying lungs to carry through the glass. Like any thorough assassin, Amadou stood patiently to watch the target breathe his last. 

Earth’s greatest enemy died with that smile on his face.

The gruesome work done, Amadou didn’t take long to work out an alternate route to the command center. There, he found everything he could have hoped: access to all Bida’s satellites and the stolen research of centuries, including the keys to immortality. Before touching any of the satellite controls, he used the communications equipment to report back to his team on Earth.

There was only one face Amadou really wanted to see when the camera connected, but he would never see her again—and never had just gotten a lot longer. His eyelids flickered against a sudden threat of tears, but he mustered a smile as the monitor came online to a familiar sight: Dr. Norway, looking as though he hadn’t slept in days, hair in disarray, empty coffee cups scattered about his desk.

“You killed him?” were the first words out of the high-strung scientist.

“After we talked for a while.”

“Wow…” A shudder ran visibly up Norway’s spine. “How did that go?”

“He bored me.” Amadou rested his palms on Susanowo’s desk and leaned into them, feeling uncharacteristically exhausted. “Get the rest of the team in here, would you? We have satellites to reprogram.”

“Of course!” Norway bolted to his office door before tripping to a halt and turning back to Amadou. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, thanks. I’m not hurt.”

“The command center seems secure? No booby traps?”

“No,” Amadou said. “I’m safe.”

“How do you know? I mean, I trust you, but I’d imagine that Bida likes to have the last word.”

“That’s how I know.” Bida still had a point to prove to Amadou—about immortality and humanity. “Nothing in this base is going to kill me.”

The tyrant’s dying smile had told him that much. But even centuries from that day, a little part of Amadou wished he hadn’t looked in that last moment and read the words on Bida’s lips:

“Enjoy eternity without her.”

The Twists of Fate

Peter A. Flannery

1

The First-Circle Gate

It takes a certain kind of person to become an assassin, and it takes a certain kind of assassin to attempt the life of a queen. But only the boldest and most dangerous assassin would attempt the life of a queen who rules in the land of Faerie. And so, the man in the charcoal-grey robes moved slowly as he approached the sentinel guarding the first-circle entrance to the queen’s royal sanctum.

The queen’s name was Lonrúil Croí, and the man who had just broken into her personal domain was a feral mage, meaning a sorcerer who can perform magic without the use of words, gestures, or props. He was a tall man with dark hair and strong, almost hawkish features. His ebony eyes were shot through with streaks of gold and his name was Decimus Fate.

To the sentinel on duty, Fate appeared invisible, but this was not the case. The sorcerer’s presence was simply out of phase with the sentinel’s frame of awareness. Just a few seconds separated their realities, but that was enough to allow Fate to remain undetected, so long as he moved slowly.

Controlling his breathing, the sorcerer closed on the sentinel, a white dragon-hilted dagger held ready in his hand.

To all intents and purposes, the faerie looked just like a man, a tall and slender man with bronze skin and hair the colour of a turquoise sea. The sentinel was dressed in white segmented armour shining with the lustre one finds on the inner surface of a shell. He stood in the early-evening light guarding the gate that looked out over the queen’s domain, a land of shimmering hills and enchanted forest stretching into the distance as far as the eye could see. Such was the power of Lonrúil Croí that her very presence could claim such a large expanse from the untamed Wilderlands of Faerie.

The first-circle was one of three walls enclosing a rising hill of sculpted gardens and flower-jewelled lawns, all leading up to the inner circle where the queen was currently in talks with Prince Candescent, lord of a neighbouring domain. The gardens were normally abuzz with voices, from the conversation of human-like faeries to the low grumble of gnomes and the tinkling laughter of sprites alighting in the trees. But today the gardens were empty and quiet.

To guard such a gate was an honour, but this particular sentinel appeared nervous.

Still concealing his presence, Fate watched as the sentinel scanned the open space between the elegant ivory-coloured gates. It was as if he was waiting for something and Fate knew he had no time to lose. Standing directly behind his target, he was amazed that the faerie could not sense him, but the sentinel was focused solely on the gate.

Slowly, Fate drew a breath, tensing his muscles and preparing himself for a strike that needed to be perfect. The point of his dagger was now poised barely a hand’s breadth from the back of the sentinel’s neck, just above the white iridescent lip of his armour. He waited until the faerie became entirely still and then he struck, the sharp blade sliding between the vertebrae of the faerie’s spine, snipping off his life and bringing their time-flows together before the sentinel had a chance to call out or raise the alarm.

Withdrawing his dagger, Fate caught the faerie’s body as it fell, lowering it to the polished stone floor as he looked around to make sure he remained undiscovered.

The coast was clear.

The first-circle entrance remained calm, but Fate’s work had only just begun. There were two more gates to breach before he could enter the inner circle of the queen.

With a final look around, he reached into a pouch at his waist and pulled out a handful of downy thistle seeds, which he proceeded to cast onto the ground beside the sentinel’s lifeless form. He needed to hide the body, but he could not risk using his own magic in the garden realm of a queen. Even the smallest flicker and his presence would be instantly revealed, so he employed the faerie magic in the thistle seeds of his accomplice. Then, even as he watched, the layer of thistledown began to sag down as if a depression had opened up in the stone surface of the floor.

As the hollow deepened, Fate took hold of the sentinel’s body and rolled into it, taking the body with him as he fell through the ground before landing with a thump on the earthy floor of a dark, forbidding forest.

2

Carduus

“You took your time,” said a voice and Fate looked up into the face of a faerie whose green robes appeared to be formed from smoke. “I was beginning to wonder if the great Decimus Fate had underestimated his opponent.”

With a disgruntled groan, Fate rolled away from the body of the sentinel, brushing thistle seeds from his dark clothing as he climbed to his feet.

“I learned long ago not to underestimate my opponent,” he said. “Now, do you have the strength to get me back into the sanctum or not? To be honest, you really don’t look too well.”

“That’s what ten years of exile in the Wilderlands will do to you,” said the faerie, and it was true…

A tall and broad-shouldered figure, the faerie had the look of a strong tree growing in poisoned soil or a huge wolf that was ailing from some malaise. His skin was blotched, his grey hair lank, and his eyes were a dull silver that was slowly fading to grey. The only thing of any vibrancy was the sword hanging at his waist, the hilt of which was wrought from green crystal in the design of a spike-leaved thistle.

Fate glanced at the enchanted sword before raising his gaze to look at the faerie more closely.

“Are you managing to sleep?”he asked, a surprising note of concern in his voice.

“Faeries don’t sleep,” said the green-robed figure with a smile.

“I know,” said Fate with a despairing shake of the head. “Every dream a life and every life a dream.”

“Exactly,” said the faerie.

“But if you’re getting no rest in this life…” ventured Fate and the faerie’s expression became grim.

“Well, that’s why I’m here isn’t it?” said the faerie. “Because you say you’ve found something that could help.”

“Correct,” said Fate and the faerie gave a nod as he dragged the sentinel’s body over to a black pond that smelled of rotting strawberries.

“Well then,” he said. “Let’s get you back into Lonrúil’s sanctum so you can reach the queen who banished me into the delights of these untamed lands.”

With a snort of contempt, the faerie turned his back on the pond where the sentinel’s body had now disappeared from view.He reached into the sleeve of his robes and drew forth a dandelion flower, the yellow petals of which suddenly withered, giving way to a large fluffy seedhead.

“Stand where you came through,” he told Fate. “I wouldn’t want to transport you into a marble statue or the trunk of some ornamental tree.”

Fate raised a dubious eyebrow. “Just so long as you can do it without alerting the queen’s defences.”

“Don’t worry, my friend,” said the faerie. “Our beloved queen won’t notice a thing.”

“We are not friends,” said Fate with annoyance. “Now quickly, Carduus…The other assassins will be coming through at any time.”

“Humans,” said the faerie with a shake of his head. “Always in such a hurry.”

Taking a deep breath he blew the dandelion seeds towards Fate then reached out his hands, conducting the seeds until Fate’s body was enclosed in a cloud of tiny parasols. The faerie’s brow creased with effort as the sorcerer was lifted from the ground and then the air beneath the overhanging trees began to dissolve, letting in the evening light from an entirely different part of the faerie realm.

“Shall I tell her you helped me?” asked Fate as he began to depart the dark forest.

“Do as you wish,” said the faerie. “She banished me once. There’s nothing more she can do to me now.”

“If that’s what you think, then you really don’t know Lonrúil Croí at all,” said Fate.

“Perhaps I never did,” said the faerie called Carduus and Fate could hear the pain in his voice. “And if Chamberlain Nark is there, tell him he’s the boil on the arse of a dew-melon warthog, although you don’t have to use those exact words.”

“Don’t worry,” said Fate. “I’ll make sure he gets the point.”

And with that, the sorcerer and the cloud of glowing seeds disappeared from the Wilderlands and emerged once more onto the polished stone terrace of the first-circle gate.

3

Shadows and Deceit

Now back in the light, Fate swayed with a wave of dizziness caused by the magical transition from one place to another. The cloud of dandelion seeds fizzed away in a shimmer of glowing sparks and Fate took a moment to think about the individual who was helping him…

Once a trusted member of Lonrúil’s court, the green-robed faerie had been tricked into betraying his queen. Now he would live out the rest of his life in the Wilderlands, slowly growing weaker until his body was claimed and consumed by the untamed realm. Only the weapon at his waist gave any hint of the famous warrior he had been, a warrior known throughout Faerie as Carduus Perennis, Lord of the Thistleblade Sword.

“Oh, how the mighty fall,” thought Fate, then he was brought back to the task at hand as three white shadows appeared on the polished stone floor between the gates.

“Bohr,” thought Fate as he witnessed the magic that the three other assassins were using to enter the faerie realm without being detected. Only a powerful sorcerer like Oruthian Bohr had the knowledge to use white shadows as a means of travel.

Both wary and curious, Fate watched the three pale shapes, like the patches of brightness one might see from a reflected window or mirror. Slowly the white areas took on human form, two men and one woman who was clearly the leader of the group. They were each armed with two daggers and clothed in the close-fitting robes of the Informis Umbra, the Order of the Formless Shadow.

The order was widely recognised as one of the most powerful and mysterious assassins’ guilds in the world, but these three individuals were not dressed in the normal inky black. Today they wore robes the colour of chalk, and none of them bore the signature pendant of the Informis Umbra, a tiny dagger wreathed in smoke. These powerful tokens could be gifted to individuals who had earned the favour of the guild, a promise of aid in a time of need.

However, in addition to their other weapons, Fate noticed that the leader of the assassins had an ornate throwing spike attached to her belt. About ten inches long, the spike had a crystal in the pommel with a trailing length of white ribbon to steady its flight. The enchanted crystal was not activated, but Fate could feel a faint glow of energy radiating from it, energy that resonated with the ambient magic of Faerie.

The sorcerer allowed himself an inner smile.

He knew that the crystal would inhibit the queen’s power, but it would also serve another purpose, a purpose that he needed to exploit. He concealed his satisfaction as the leader of the assassins spoke.

“Who are you?” she asked. “We were told that a member of the fair folk would lead us to the queen.”

“Things have changed,” said Fate. “The gate sentinels have been replaced so we need to dispatch them as we proceed. I have already killed one, but there are two more gates to breach before we can make our final move.”

Still, the three assassins hesitated then the female leader spoke.

“The sentinels cannot stop us,” she said with absolute confidence. “So, which way now?”

Fate indicated the serpentine route leading up the hill.

“Follow the path up to that stand of silver aspen trees, then be ready to kill the second guard as I dispatch the first.”

The leader gave her companions a nod and the three figures seemed to fade into brightness as they concealed their presence in pale shadows that rippled across the ground.

Impressed by the subtlety of this concealment, Fate turned away and looked up the sloping gardens to the silver aspen trees that overlooked the second-circle gate. Here there would be two sentinels on guard and both would need to be neutralised without raising the alarm before they could proceed.

Reaching down to a charm bracelet on his wrist, Fate selected a tiny hourglass that pivoted within a ring of dull, grey metal. He was mindful of the fact that the enchanted device was running low on charge, but he had no choice. In this bright faerie landscape, his charcoal-grey robes stood out strongly so it was the only way he could move through the gardens unseen.

Glancing around, he turned the hourglass over and felt a moment of nausea as his time-frame lurched forward just two short seconds. Then he followed the pale shadows of the other assassins up to the stand of silver aspen from where they could study the sentinels guarding the second open gate.

Walking slowly once more, Fate moved out from the trees to approach the sentinel on the right, and as he did so he saw a barely visible pale shadow close on the guard to the left. Like the first sentinel, these guards appeared tense as if they were waiting for something and yet, despite their watchfulness, they did not notice Fate and the other assassins moving into position.

Once again, Fate raised his dragon-hilted dagger and took a breath before he struck. At the same instant, one of the Informis Umbra assassins emerged from its white shadow to kill the other sentinel with a knife thrust that entered the faerie’s skull just below his right ear. Both fell with barely a sound and Fate reached into his pouch for another handful of thistledown.

“Bring him here,” he told the other assassins as the ground beneath the magic seeds began to sag, then…“Go on,” he told them. “I’ll meet you behind the griffon fountain just outside the final gate.”

Then, even as the Informis assassins faded back into their pale shadows, Fate threw himself onto the two dead sentinels as they plunged through the stone-paved floor. However, instead of dropping a few feet onto the dark leaf mould of the forest, he found himself falling through the branches of a tree before hitting the ground with a considerably harder thump.

#

“Gods and gorgons!” groaned the sorcerer as he hit the forest floor. “Is that really the best you can do?”

Picking himself up from the ground, he turned to see Carduus dragging the bodies of the two dead sentinels to the pool of ominously dark water.

“Opening a portal in the queen’s garden realm is no easy feat,” said the faerie as he heaved one of the bodies into the pool. “And lifting a clay-footed human back into that same protected realm is something that only a handful of faeries could do, especially when they’re in as poor a state as me.”

Fate’s irritation faded as the wolf-like faerie slumped onto a rock covered in black and purple moss. Even at full strength, the magic he was performing would be a challenge, and CarduusPerennis was a long way from being at full strength. Indeed, draining his power like this would leave him more vulnerable to the insatiable appetites of the Wilderlands, and Fate wondered if he had pushed the faerie too far.

“Can you get me back in?” he asked.

Carduus’s shoulders sagged as he rose, somewhat stiffly, to his feet.

“Yes, I can get you back in. But this will be the last time.”

“And close to the third gate?” pressed Fate, for the phase charm on his bracelet was almost drained of magical charge.

Carduus shook his head.

“Why don’t I just sit you on Lonrúil’s throne?” asked the faerie as he produced another dandelion flower from the sleeve of his robes.

“Royal faeries don’t have thrones,” said Fate, but Carduus merely raised a sardonic eyebrow.

“Are you ready?” he asked, and Fate braced himself as a cloud of dandelion seeds enveloped him once more.

4

Counting Down to Fate

This time, the sense of dislocation was considerably greater and Fate almost vomited as he stumbled onto the shining grass just thirty yards from the third and final gate. Fortunately, the griffon fountain and a line of pencil-thin gilden trees concealed his sudden appearance so he was able to approach the gate, searching the area for some sign of the pale shadows of the Informis Umbra.

In truth, he could see nothing, and he was surprised when two hands and the faint suggestion of a face appeared just an arm’s length away from where he was crouched. They were now too close to the sentinels to risk speaking, so the white-clad assassin used a version of thieves’ cant to communicate with the sorcerer.

“Guards watching other gate,” signed the female leader of the assassins. “Waiting for something.”

“Good,” signed Fate. “They watch…we kill.”

The female assassin circled a finger to indicate Fate’s dark robes.

“You seen,” she warned, but Fate pointed to the bracelet on his wrist.

“P-h-a-s-e charm,” he spelled out and the assassin’s spectral face gave a nod. “Twenty seconds,” added Fate.

“We kill, you wait,” she signed, but Fate stopped her.

“One alive. Open gate.”

The assassin’s ghostly face gave another nod as she sank back into the shadow that looked like a patch of sunlight on the white stone of the fountain.

“Twenty seconds to kill,” Fate signed, hoping that the invisible assassin could still see his hands.

One…

Fate calmed his heart rate and drew his white dragon-hilted dagger.

Two…three…

This would be the final moment of stealth before they burst into the queen’s inner sanctum and then it would all come down to who could act first. The assassins were efficient, but the queen was strong so he would need to time his moment perfectly. Too soon and the queen might just kill him, too late and the entire venture would be for nought. And his strike must not kill too quickly. He needed answers if he was going to leave the queen’s domain alive.

Six…seven…

Bringing his thoughts back to the moment, Fate watched as the faintest hint of three pale shadows edged towards the guards. The leader of the assassins had been right. Just like the other sentinels, these three also appeared on edge, glancing from the closed gate behind them towards the lower gates in the outer circles. They were clearly waiting for something, and the fact that it had not appeared seemed to have put them all on edge.

Nine…

The pale shadows were almost in position.

Ten…

Fate reached down to turn the hourglass charm at his wrist. He swayed with the lurch that comes from being out of step with time, then he emerged from cover and moved slowly towards the gate.

Fourteen…fifteen…

Still the distracted sentinels were unaware of the danger.

Eighteen…nineteen…

Fate stood beside the gate. The countdown to the kill was almost done, which would leave him just ten seconds of concealment in which to act.

Twenty…

Two sentinels lost their lives to Informis Umbra blades. The third was stunned by a sharp blow to her neck. The anatomy of humans and humanoid faeries is surprisingly similar, so many of the same fighting techniques work on both. The assassin’s attack had struck the neck in a precise spot, stunning a nerve and causing a crucial vein to momentarily collapse.

The sentinel’s legs wobbled as the blood flow to her brain was briefly curtailed. For a moment it looked like she might collapse, but before she could do anything at all, she was spun around by a pale shadowy figure and propelled towards the gate. Instinctively, the dazed sentinel reached out a hand to steady herself, which was just enough to dispel the magic on the doors.

And now the remaining seconds of charge on Fate’s charm began to pulse away.

Ten…

No longer of any use, the final sentinel was killed and the gates swung open to reveal three shocked figures frozen in mid-conversation beneath an arching bower of pearl wisteria.

Chamberlain Nark.

Prince Candescent.

And the faerie queen Lonrúil Croí.

Nine…

A stately figure, Nark was dressed in grey scholar’s robes with a shawl of silver gold. The prince wore abalone armour with a white cloak that contrasted strongly against his jet-black skin. His white eyes blazed with alarm, but that was nothing compared with the fury that burned in the gaze of Lonrúil Croí.

Eight…

Silver hair, emerald eyes, and dressed in a gown of snow tern feathers, the queen stared at the gate and the dead sentinels that lay beyond. She frowned as her sharp perception noted the three pale shadows now flowing across her lawn. It took less than a heartbeat for her to realise that she was under attack as the assassins swept into the inner sanctum of her domain. But even the queen did not notice the man in charcoal-grey robes, for he moved in a time-stream of his own.

Seven…

Fate advanced more slowly than the assassins, heading for a space between the queen and Chamberlain Nark. He watched as the Informis Umbra now became visible, the magic of their concealment broken by the sheer presence of Lonrúil Croí.

Six…

Two of the assassins went straight for the armoured figure of Prince Candescent, one dying instantly as the prince unleashed a pulse of energy that turned the white-robed assassin to ash. The second assassin succeeded in hurling a dagger that clanged off the prince’s armguard as he swept it aside. The attack allowed the assassin to get closer, raising his dagger to strike until the prince caught him with one hand around his wrist and the other around his throat. The assassin struggled and then died as faerie magic caused the blood in his veins to boil.

Five…

But all this was merely a distraction as the leader went directly for the queen. Even as the queen summoned her power, so the leader of the assassins struck. With one hand she lofted the crystal-mounted throwing spike into the air, the sharp barb of steel glinting in the evening light, the white ribbon trailing behind it in the breeze. With the other hand, the assassin threw one of her daggers straight at the heart of the tall faerie queen.

Four…

The blade spun with lethal accuracy, but the queen made a dismissive gesture and the blade of the assassin’s dagger turned instantly to water that splashed harmlessly at her feet. But now the leader of the assassins was dangerously close.

Three…

Remaining calm, the queen summoned her power to kill the assassin, but all that faerie magic was snuffed out as the throwing spike stabbed into the soft ground of the queen’s tended lawn.

Two…

The queen staggered as if from a blow, and the lifeless body of the other assassin fell from Prince Candescent’s grasp as the faerie lord’s power was also neutralised by the disruptive power in the throwing spike’s pommel. That crystal was enchanted to block and inhibit the magic of the faerie realm. And so the prince, the queen, and Chamberlain Nark were rendered helpless as the female assassin swept in, drawing her second dagger and slipping behind the queen to stab her in the…

One…

The assassin froze mid-strike as Fate appeared in the private garden of the queen.

The phase charm that concealed his presence had run out, but it was not this that set the queen’s defensive wards to blaring. What tripped her wards was the magical force that now held the female assassin in a fierce, unbreakable grip, the tip of her blade trembling just an inch from the pale skin of the queen’s unguarded neck.

Fate held the emerald gaze of Lonrúil Croí and his dark eyes shone with streaks of gold. He was a feral mage and the enchantment in the throwing spike had no effect on his entirely “human” power.

“You!” said a shocked voice and Fate glanced at Chamberlain Nark, who was standing just an arm’s length to his side.

And then the queen spoke, still surprisingly calm despite the proximity of an assassin’s blade, and the presence of a dark notorious sorcerer.

“You must be the one they call Fate,” said the queen as if, for the first time, she was seeing some exotic creature about which she had only ever been told.

“What are you doing?” cried the female assassin as she tried to break free of Fate’s magical grip. “What are you waiting for? Kill her now!”

But Fate just stared at the queen as Chamberlain Nark spoke up.

“Your Majesty!” he cried. “Call for your guards to kill this rogue.”

“The gate sentinels are dead,” said Fate. “And all the killing will be done before any more guards arrive.”

“But the sentinels are…” began Nark.

Fate cut him off.

“The sentinels are what?” said the sorcerer. “Working with the assassins?” he suggested. “In on the plot to kill the queen?”

“What?” cried Nark, spluttering as if the very idea was unthinkable. “Royal sentinels plotting to kill the queen!” He turned to face his sovereign. “Your Majesty,” he implored, “let me take this sorcerer and this assassin into custody. I will find out the truth of this outrage even if I have to rack their very…”

Schnik!

Fate’s blade flashed across the side of the chamberlain’s neck and the stately faerie collapsed to his knees, pink blood pulsing through his fingers as he tried to stem the flow.

5

A Dagger Wreathed in Smoke

“No!” cried the queen as she saw her chamberlain fall.

She would have started forward were it not for blade at her neck and the assassin’s arm across her chest. Her green eyes now blazed at Fate. “I will freeze you with the sap of ice flowers and feed you to the bone-worms of Gleann Tromluí.”

Fate arched an eyebrow. There were few punishments worse than being thrown into the “Nightmare Vale” of the Wilderlands. Fortunately, he was hoping to avoid such things.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” he began. “But I could not allow your chamberlain to regain control. He would only have twisted things to his own purpose until he was forced to try again.”

“What do you mean, try again?” asked the queen as some of the colour drained from her already pale cheeks.

Still holding the queen, the female assassin made a final attempt to drive her weapon home.

“I think not!” said Fate and the female assassin gave a cry of agony as he crushed her hand around the haft of her dagger. Using his mental force, he pulled the woman free of the queen and forced her body to the ground where she looked at him with hatred as realisation dawned in her eyes.

“You were not our contact,” she said with venom.

Fate met her eyes and she gave a snort of derision as she finally grasped the truth.

“You killed our contact and then told us we had to kill the other sentinels when they should have joined us here.”

The dark expression on Fate’s face was almost a smile.

“What did he pay you?” he asked as the assassin shook her head in disbelief. “What did Bohr promise you, that you would betray your order and break the assassin’s creed?”

“More than you can possibly dream,” said the woman, and now she smiled until Fate caught her pulped hand in his mental grasp and killed her with her own dagger.

The female assassin slumped to the floor and Fate turned his attention back to the queen.

“My sentinels?” she asked, her voice thick with the pain of betrayal.

“Six of them,” said Fate. “That’s all that Chamberlain Nark could turn.”

The queen turned to look at her chamberlain, who was now slumped to one side as the blood slowly drained from the cut on his neck. For the first time, the queen’s composure almost broke. Her face twisted with grief as she walked over to kneel beside the faerie whose eyes were growing heavy as he slipped towards the eternal sleep of death. “Caraell,” she said softly, her fingers becoming wet with blood as she placed a hand on her chamberlain’s face. “Caraell,” she repeated. “Tell me this isn’t true.”

“Forgive me, my queen,” gasped the chamberlain with tears running down his cheek. “He took my family…there was no other way.”

“But your family is in the garden realm of Queen Salise.”

“No, they’re not,” said Fate. “His family is currently being held in the cavern realm of Éadóchas, at the pleasure of Duke Scriosta.”

“No!” said the queen again. “I don’t believe it.” Her eyes were filled with tears as she looked up at Fate. “Caraell has served my family for a hundred years.”

“And he would have served you for a hundred more if powerful forces had not used him as a way to get to you.”

Even now, the queen refused to accept what Fate was saying so the sorcerer walked a few paces to retrieve the throwing spike from the grass. Pulling it from the ground, he brought it back and laid the crystal against the dying chamberlain’s forehead. The crystal flared with light as it resonated with the person who had enchanted it. Immediately, the queen’s shoulders sagged and a gout of blood surged through Nark’s fingers as the chamberlain gave a sob.

But still the queen took his face in her hands.

“You should have told me,” she said in a fierce and tearful voice.

“I…wanted…to…” managed Nark. “But I feared the duke’s wrath.”

Now the queen’s face became set with rage, but she reined it in as Nark’s eyes began to flutter and close.

“Rest well, old friend,” said the queen. “I will free your family from the dark caves of Éadóchas, I swear it.”

“Forgive me,” murmured Caraell and the queen leaned forward to kiss his brow.

“Sleep,” she told him. “Let your body fall into the Wilderlands so it can feed the terrors that keep us safe. And remember…every dream is a life, and every life is a dream.”

And with that, the chamberlain and the traitor were gone. The light in the throwing spike’s crystal went out and the queen had access to her magic once more. She rose to her feet and turned to Fate.

“Why did you kill him?” she asked, as Prince Candescent moved to stand beside her.

“To prevent him from doing further harm,” answered Fate. “And to save him from the punishment that your people would have demanded.”

For a moment the queen’s expression remained severe, but then she breathed a heavy sigh.

“That punishment would have been severe indeed,” she was forced to admit. “And what do you hope to gain from all this?”

“An ally, perhaps,” said Fate, and the queen arched a regal brow. “I became aware of this plot because it was instigated by Oruthian Bohr.”

“The emperor’s personal sorcerer?” said the queen.

Fate gave a nod.

“Bohr has forged some kind of pact with Duke Scriosta, some agreement from which they both hope to gain.”

“Do you know what this agreement entails?”

“I have my suspicions,” said Fate. “But what I do know is that they see you as a threat to their plans.”

The queen was about to answer when the prince stepped forward as if to protect her. Both of them seemed to have sensed some disturbance in the faerie realm, and now Fate could feel it too.

Looking first to his left, and then to his right, he saw two dark shadows take on human form as two black-robed assassins appeared in the queen’s garden. And then Fate tensed as he felt a third shadow directly behind him, so close that he might well have been killed if that had been the assassin’s goal.

Now the queen’s power flared in earnest until one of the assassins spoke.

“Peace, Lonrúil Croí,” said a woman’s voice. “We have no wish to intrude on your domain, but we have just learned that three of our members have broken their vows and chosen a target without the sanction of the guild.”

The assassin looked around at the two bodies that were formerly members of the Informis Umbra, and her eyes narrowed at the patch of white ash scattered on the grass.

“We came to stop their attempt,” said the assassin. “But I see that we’re too late.”

The queen raised her chin towards Fate.

“This man is responsible for thwarting their plans,” she said as Fate turned to look at the female assassin standing behind him.

“You are Fate,” she said.

“I am.”

“You have saved the Informis Umbra from ridicule and shame.”

Fate gave a shrug and pursed his lips.

“This attempt was also an attack on you,” he said.

“How so?” asked the assassin.

“Do you have the ability to breach the magic surrounding the emperor’s palace?”

“We do.”

“Then you are a potential threat to Bohr, and that he will not abide.”

The woman’s eyes held Fate for several seconds. Then she looked to her two companions as if she were gauging their thoughts.

“The Order of the Formless Shadow is in your debt,” she said, and with that, she reached up to remove the signature pendant from around her neck. Formed from dark metal, and wreathed in smoke, the tiny dagger did not glimmer, not even in the bright evening sunlight of Faerie.

“One kill to save a life,” she said as she placed the token of trust in Fate’s hand. “I assume you know how to use it.”

“I do,” said Fate.

“Then we shall take our leave,” said the assassin.

Turning to face the queen, the three assassins offered a bow. “Please forgive the intrusion,” said the leader as the three deadly individuals stepped backwards into darkness that slowly melted into the deepening shadows of the garden.

As the assassins departed, the queen turned back to Fate.

“The white assassins were able to breach our realm with the help of Chamberlain Nark,” she said with a distinct note of suspicion. “But how did a human sorcerer manage to enter my domain without being detected?”

For the first time, Fate’s expression betrayed a certain degree of guilt. Taking a breath, he reached into his pouch and drew out a handful of downy thistle seeds, and now the queen’s eyes burned with anger once more.

“So that’s how,” she snapped and Fate wondered if he might yet be killed before leaving the realm of Faerie. “If I’d known that he was helping you I would have…”

Fate cut her off.

“You were wrong about Chamberlain Nark,” he began. “Is it possible that you might have been wrong about other people, too?”

The queen’s eyes had turned to chips of emerald ice.

“We thank you for your service, Lord Fate,” she said in a tone that could not have sounded less grateful. “But now I think it’s time you took your leave.”

Beside the queen, Prince Candescent was trying to hide a smile. He gave Fate a small nod of acknowledgement as the sorcerer cast the thistle seeds on the grass. Fate waited until the lawn began to sag before jumping through, out of the twilight world of the queen’s inner sanctum and down into the darkening forest of the Wilderlands. Unfortunately, the disparity between the two locations was now so great that Fate fell almost the full height of the trees, and it was only the use of his magic that saved him from injury in the fall.

6

Faerie Friends and Demons

“I thought you weren’t using magic,” said Carduus as Fate crashed and tumbled onto the leaf-strewn ground beneath the trees.

“No point hiding my presence now,” said the sorcerer.

“So what happened?” asked the faerie lord.

“It went as planned, or close enough to damn it,” replied Fate.

“So you’re now in the good graces of Lonrúil Croí,” said Carduus, the corners of his mouth turning down as if he were impressed.

“Not exactly,” said a bad-tempered Fate.

“What happened?”

“She asked me how I got into her realm without being detected.”

“Ah,” said Carduus.

“Exactly,” said Fate.

“Does that mean you’re not going to help me after all?”

“No,” said Fate. “You kept your side of the bargain and I will keep mine.”

With that he led the faerie lord into the deepening night of the Wilderlands.

“Do you even know where you’re going?” asked Carduus when they had been walking for an hour.

“It’s just a little further,” said Fate.

“A little further to where?”

“To where I left them,” replied Fate and Carduus shook his head before asking the inevitable…

“Left what?”

“Not what…who,” said Fate.

Stopping suddenly, he pointed into the low branches of a twisted haven oak. And there they were, exactly where he had asked them to wait. Eleven orbs of pale, blue light and one faerie small enough to hold in two cupped hands, a female faerie; a warrior sprite with black armour, silver skin, and gossamer wings that shone like sapphires.

“Lannari,” breathed Carduus. “But how?”

“I heard about them over a year ago, said Fate. “Forty Lannari, exiled into the Wilderlands, like you.”

“But I count only twelve,” whispered Carduus.

Fate gave a grim nod.

“Like you, they are struggling to survive,” said the sorcerer. “They’re strong when fighting together, but they also need to sleep and one by one they are succumbing to the wilds.”

“I could watch over them while they sleep,” mused Carduus.

“And they could watch over you,” said Fate.

The Lannari on guard had now spotted them and she roused the rest of her sisters to investigate. They recognised Fate but drew their slender swords as they flew in to examine the stranger. They tried to intimidate the larger faerie with rapid cuts that missed his face by a whisker, but Carduus just laughed and Fate knew they would be just fine. Indeed, if they cared for each other, then the lord and the Lannari might even prosper and grow strong.

Slowly Fate backed away from the scene. He had no need of thanks. He had used Carduus’s magic to further his ends and repaid that favour with life. His charcoal-grey robes were just fading into the darkness when Carduus spoke.

“Decimus,” said the faerie. Fate turned. “I’m sorry if my involvement soured your chances with the queen.”

Fate shook his head.

“I’ll find another way,” he said. “The fate of the world may depend on her help.”

Carduus gave a slow nod. “And what will you do till then?”

“I thought I’d visit the Vale of Malum,” said Fate. “There’s talk of a demon trying to break free of the underworld.”

“Sounds dangerous,” said Carduus.

“It is,” said Fate. “But it’s good to remind such creatures that the human world is not as weak as it might seem.”

“Then farewell, my friend,” said Carduus.

“We are not friends,” said Fate, his form fading as he departed the faerie realm.

The twisted boughs of the Wilderlands dissolved until Fate was standing in the normal forest of the human world but still, the deep laughter of a faerie lord echoed among the trees.

Tabula Rasa: Training Day

By Luke Chmilenko

Chapter 1

Friday, February 4, 2067—8:01 a.m.

VirtuNet Cognition Handoff—Complete

Integration into Ingenuity—Complete

Creating Randomly Generated Feature—Complete

Loading Character Creation—Complete

The sound of my rapidly beating heart was the first thing that I noticed the moment my awareness suddenly returned to me, followed by the sensation of gentle weightlessness as if I were floating in water. Opening my eyes, I was met by a thick purple haze that prevented me from seeing anything, even my own body when I looked downward. Still disoriented from the abrupt awakening, I waved my arms and feet around experimentally, only to find them nearly impossible to move as whatever I was floating in offered a surprising amount of resistance.

Well, this is some start, I thought as I finished adjusting to my new surroundings, feeling a cool blast of air enter my nose and mouth from something covering my face. I don’t know what I was expecting but—

“Welcome to the ADVENTURER Project, candidate!” a loud and overly enthusiastic robotic voice suddenly announced into my unexpecting ears, causing me to flinch in surprise. “We are pleased to announce that you have successfully completed the enhancement trials and are in the process of being decanted. However, before we can release you, we must perform a series of tests to ensure that your mental faculties have remained intact. First, please confirm that you can hear and understand me.”

“Oh, I hear you all right,” I replied, having been wincing the entire time that the voice had been speaking. “You are really damn loud!”

“Excellent! Hearing and cognition levels are intact!” the robot replied, the volume of its voice instantly dropping to a manageable level. “Emotional response is also within tolerable ranges, if a bit acerbic. Moving on to the next question, can you recall your name?”

A prompt suddenly appeared in the center of my vision the moment that the robot finished speaking. It was a great reminder of exactly where I was and what I was doing.

Welcome, Leon Seifer, to Tabula Rasa! CTI wishes to extend our deepest gratitude for joining us on Launch Day of our exciting and brand-new Virtual Reality MMORPG! Please choose your character name before proceeding to character creation! This option cannot be changed once selected, so please be certain of your choice.

“My name is Velius Pyre,” I announced confidently as I finished reading the text, not needing any time to think, the prompt vanishing as soon as the words left my mouth.

“Correct!” the robot replied, the cheery excitement in its tone still present every time it spoke. “Early results show that candidates who can recall their names at this stage of the process are eighty-six percent more likely to have fully adjusted to the ADVENTURER Project’s enhancements and thus will not have to be recycled.”

“Wait, recycled? What does it mean to be recycled?”

“Self-preservation instincts also appear to be intact, excellent!” the voice stated, completely ignoring my question. “Moving on to self-image and general knowledge testing. Please view the following list and select the species you recall yourself belonging to.”

“Hang on, you’re not even going to answer my question?”

“Please hold all questions until decanting is complete, an ADVENTURER Project representative will be on hand to assist and answer any concerns you may have at that time,” the robot stated as several detailed pictures followed by descriptive text appeared in my vision. “For now, let us proceed with the next phase of testing.”

“God, I hope all the AIs in the game aren’t like this,” I said with a sigh as I turned my attention toward everything that had just appeared before me.

Choose your species and gender:

Human

Humans are a familiar presence throughout space, hailing from countless planets across the galaxy. As a result of this, their hair color, height, skin tone, and even culture vary drastically depending on their planet of origin, in addition to any genetic enhancements that they may have incorporated into their DNA. Humans are considered the baseline against which all other species are measured, though as a race they have no particular strengths or weaknesses.

Racial Modifiers: +5 to two Attributes of the player’s choice, +2 to the chosen Attributes per level.

Racial Trait: Determined—Driven by the need to make their mark on the universe, Humans are by far the most ambitious and tenacious species in the galaxy, relentlessly pursuing a goal until it is complete. Because of this singular focus, Humans tend to pick up and learn skills and abilities much faster than any other species. Effect: +5% Experience gain to all skills.

Estros

The only rivals to Humans in terms of sheer population, the Estros are an intensely curious species, focusing on all aspects of technology with a passion that no other species can match. With a distinctly saurian appearance, the Estros can be incredibly intimidating to those unaccustomed to their kind, their large teeth and clawed fingertips giving them a distinctly predatory air. Ranging from extremely large and brutish to smaller and more serpentine, the Estros have widely varied morphology at birth and continue to grow steadily throughout their lives. Given their technological focus, Estros are extremely intelligent and as such are some of the greatest scientists within the Alliance.

Racial Modifiers: +5 to Acuity & Mettle, +2 to Acuity & Mettle per level.

Racial Trait: Regeneration—Gifted with an unparalleled healing factor, wounded Estros can recover from almost anything. They can even regrow entire limbs. Effect: Natural regeneration is tripled, and limbs regrow over time without medical assistance.

Takark

The by-product of an unknown alien race’s experimentation, the Takark were created for a singular purpose: war. Intended to be used as shock troops, the Takark proved to be far too unwieldy to control and escaped their masters’ clutches, eventually settling on their own planet. Possessing intense canine features, Takark have a predatory nature barely restrained by the complex honor code that the species has developed as a necessity for their survival. In recent years the Takark have been more commonly spotted outside their homeworld. The majority tend to focus on roles that are more violent in nature and have become a common sight among mercenary companies.

Racial Modifiers: +5 to Vigor & Mettle, +2 to Vigor & Mettle per level.

Racial Trait: Relentless—Engineered to be the perfect soldiers, the Takark are near impossible to fatigue, capable of pursuing their prey until they collapse from sheer exhaustion. Effect: Immunity to all weakness or exhaustion effects.

Vox

The Vox are a unique race within the galaxy, even among those that make up the Alliance, for a singular reason: They are all naturally psionic, every member of their species is able to harness this mysterious power to some degree. Lithe and flexible, the Vox are of a similar build to Humans. Their skin tone varies from a bright purple to soft pink in color. There are small bony ridges on their faces, backs, arms, and legs.

Racial Modifiers: +5 to Finesse & Psyche, +2 to Finesse & Psyche per level.

Racial Trait: Latent psionics—Regardless of class, every Vox has access to the psionic ability: Telekinesis. Because of this innate skill, Vox Espers are particularly gifted in its use, enjoying a level of control and power that few members of other species can match. Effect: Non-Espers gain the Telekinesis ability while Espers gain the Enhanced Telekinesis ability.

Having reached the end of the list, I was relieved to find that nothing had changed since I’d reviewed the game’s primer, which made my choice much easier.

“I was a Vox male,” I declared, picking the choice that had appealed to me the most.

“That you were! Very good!” the voice replied, congratulating me as if I were some sort of pet that had done a trick. “Basic recollection functions appear to be intact and neurological activity is stable. Now, can you remember anything about how you looked physically?”

A basic wireframe sprang to life in front of me, then quickly resolved itself into what I assumed was an average Vox male. After I stared at the figure for a few seconds, my eyes drifted toward an “import” option hovering in the corner of the display. A thought brought up a menu containing several of the avatars that I had already created before the game’s launch.

Good thing too, I thought as I loaded one of my premade avatars into the display, immediately shaking my head at my choice. Else I’d be here for hours.

I went through my library of avatars quickly. It thankfully wasn’t long before I managed to settle on one that I liked, making only a handful of tiny tweaks before pausing to look at the result. Before me was a tall and lean figure with amethyst skin, messy white hair, and bright-gray eyes that stared back at me. Continuing to run a critical glance over what was to become my avatar, I inspected every inch of it, vanity occasionally whispering into my ear as I adjusted muscle definition until I was happy.

“I think that should do it,” I said after a few minutes, forcing myself not to get carried away. I took one last glance at my avatar’s face, admiring the exotic, roguish visage. I had to admit my avatar’s appearance was leaps and bounds more impressive than the plain brown hair and average face that nature had seen fit to bestow on me in reality.

“Good, self-identity appears to be intact,” the robot observed as the avatar vanished from sight. “Perhaps too intact. Flagging for follow-up by project lead.”

“Come on, man, why do you have to be that way?” I questioned, sensing more than a little judgment from the robot on how particular about my appearance I’d been.

“Moving on,” the voice stated, once again ignoring everything I’d said. “We will now be testing your memory regarding the details of your life prior to the project. Can you recall anything about your class and specialization?”

Once more a new prompt appeared in my vision, followed by a long list of information.

Choose your class and specialization:

Soldier

Tough and strong, Soldiers form the backbone of any squad and have experience in a wide array of weaponry. Suited for the front lines, these battle-hardened warriors can both take punishment and deal it out in kind.

Class Attribute Bonus: +5 Vigor & Mettle.

Class Attribute Progression: +2 Vigor & Mettle per level.

Engineer

The unrivaled masters of technology of all forms, Engineers are the glue that holds together any successful squad. They are able to utilize drones to scout the battlefield, jam enemy communications, and repair anything; there is little that an Engineer can’t accomplish if given sufficient time.

Class Attribute Bonus: +5 Acuity & Mettle.

Class Attribute Progression: +2 Acuity & Mettle per level.

Esper

Masters of the mind, Espers wield powerful psionic abilities both to harm their opponents and to aid their allies. Any enemy who leaves an Esper untended will find themselves in a world of agony as that Esper wreaks havoc among the lines, be it through mental blasts that attack the psyche or bolts of pure energy that sear the flesh.

Class Attribute Bonus: +5 Finesse & Psyche.

Class Attribute Progression: +2 Finesse & Psyche per level.

Operative

Preferring to work in the shadows, successful Operatives are never seen, their very existence in doubt until a sharp blade finds its mark. Armed with an array of technical gadgetry, Operatives are masters of infiltration and can turn the tide of a battle, whether up close and personal or at a distance.

Class Attribute Bonus: +5 Finesse & Acuity.

Class Attribute Progression: +2 Finesse & Acuity per level.

This is an easy one, I said to myself as I read over the choices before me, once again making sure that nothing had changed from the primer. Over the last week my friends and I had all had a chance to pick out classes that we thought would suit our playstyle and the matching specialization options that went with them.

“I was an Esper,” I told the monitoring machine, confident in my decision. I saw a second wave of text appear almost instantly.

Esper Class Specialization

Manifestation:

Eschewing the physical, Espers that haves specialized in Manifestation have trained their minds to reach into the Void and pull free powerful psionic creatures.

Abilities:

Call Voidspawn—Tear open a portal in reality and pull forth a Voidspawn under your control, using it to aid you in tasks and combat.

Ravage Psyche—Send a surge of raw psionic energy into your target’s mind, racking it with agony.

Focus:

Taking a middle route between physical and mental, Espers specialized in Focus are able to manifest psionic energy in the form of anything their minds can conceive, allowing them to deliver punishing strikes both at range or in close while retaining an array of psionic powers.

Abilities:

Psionic Accelerator—Shape psionic energy into useful tools, weapons, or concentrated blasts of power.

Mind Blast—Make a sharp psionic assault on a single target’s psyche, inflicting a burst of pain and interrupting their thoughts.

Now, this one is a bit tougher, I thought as I considered the choice. I hadn’t been able to make up my mind about which of the two specializations to pick before now.

Manifestation was the pet specialization of the Esper class, which allowed for the summoning of increasingly powerful minions. On top of that, the class came with a number of debilitating abilities to hinder enemies while my creature did its work. It wasn’t a bad choice all in all, but it was one that relied heavily on both others and my minions to win the day. Focus on the other hand was a bit more balanced; it would give me the flexibility to fill any role though it leaned more toward damage dealing, which I had to admit I personally preferred. It was designed to do damage yet remain self-supporting, so I wouldn’t be wholly dependent on others for help. It was perhaps a fine hair to split, considering that both relied on psionics, but when I really thought about what I wanted from my build, the ability to be self-reliant came out on top.

Focus specialization will only be better once I add a few gadgets and other bits of tech to my repertoire, I thought as I readied myself to make a choice. After all, what’s the point of playing a science-fiction game if you don’t make use of every fun gizmo or widget in existence?

“And my specialization was Focus,” I said, unsure if the robot would continue without me verbalizing my choice.

“So it was,” the voice agreed happily in its typically excited tone. “The memory-testing phase is nearly complete. There are only two questions remaining. At the beginning of the project, you were presented with a list of enhancements that were compatible with your genetic structure. Do you recall what you chose?”

As was now a familiar occurrence, my display shifted yet again, leaving me staring at what I hoped was one of the last steps of character creation.

Please assign your attribute points: (10 remaining)

Attributes: 

Vigor: 10 (Enhances physical conditioning in regard to strength and brute force. Useful for classes who find themselves in melee or wish to wear heavier armor.)

Finesse: 20 (Sharpens reflexes and accuracy; increases speed. Useful for any ranged or precision-based class, including psionics.)

Mettle: 10 (Increases Max Hit Points, Hit Point Regeneration, Physical Resistances, Lung Capacity, and Stamina.)

Acuity: 10 (Greatly increases the damage and effectiveness of Technological Abilities and Research Speed for Projects. Decreases the time needed to learn new skills and abilities.)

Psyche: 20 (Greatly Increases the damage and effectiveness of psionic and Mind-Affecting Abilities. Increases mental resistances against both technological and psionic attacks. Improves recollection of complicated information.)

“Ah, this old bit again,” I whispered to myself as I read over the attribute breakdown before me, refamiliarizing myself with what they each affected. Despite their different names, they were all similar to the typical attributes found in roleplaying games since the first character sheet was created. It was a paradigm unlikely to change anytime soon.

Reading through the list, I took in all the bonuses that my previous choices had granted me, effectively specializing me in both Finesse,—a must-have for anyone who wanted to wield a gun safely, let alone skillfully—and Psyche, the main attribute that governed the Esper class. Meanwhile, Vigor, Mettle, and Acuity were still at their base levels, leaving me with the option of boosting them to keep up or further enhancing my strengths.

Well, first and foremost, I’ve always been a huge fan of not dying. So I think Mettle deserves a bit of a boost, for the extra hit points. I allocated half of my available points to the attribute, bringing it to fifteen. After that…it doesn’t seem like Acuity is really a useful stat for me, at least not beyond general skill gain. That means a couple of points in Vigor is maybe my best bet. I’ll need to wear some sort of armor at some point, and that way I won’t end up overburdened and unable to move.

I thought about the decision for a few more seconds, then when I was certain, I put my remaining points into Vigor and confirmed my enhancement choices.

“I remember asking for enhancements to my strength and endurance,” I said aloud, seeing the attribute list fade away.

“Excellent! Results show that there appears to be little to no synaptic degradation over the course of the project,” my monitor said, still with that irritating level of cheeriness. “Tabulating responses into report format…please review the following information one last time for validity before we proceed with the final question.”

There was a pause of several seconds before a character sheet appeared in my vision, followed by a prompt.

Velius Pyre—Level 1 Esper

Vox Male

Statistics:

Hit Points: 170/170

Stamina: 170/170

Psi Energy: 260/260

Experience to Next Level: 0/300

Attributes: 

Vigor: 15

Finesse: 20

Mettle: 15

Acuity: 10

Psyche: 20

Abilities:

Enchanted Telekinesis

Psionic Accelerator

Mind Blast

Class Specialization: Focus

Confirm character choices (this cannot be undone): YES / NO

“That all looks right,” I said, mentally selecting YES at the bottom of my character sheet.

“Splendid!” the voice declared exuberantly. “Your odds of being a successful candidate of the ADVENTURER Project have now risen to ninety-nine percent. The final determination depends on this one last question.”

“Lay it on me then, Sparky,” I said impatiently, eager to be done with this and get out into the game world.

“Where did you join the ADVENTURER Project?” the robot asked, a large galactic map then appearing before me.

Staring at the map, I was overwhelmed at the sheer size of space that it covered. There were countless points of interest flashing before me, all vying for my attention at once. Blinking numbly at the sight, I shook my head. A smile spread across my face as a surge of anticipation shot through me.

A whole universe to explore. This game is going to be fun, I thought with a grin as I panned around the map, trying to get a sense of the new reality that awaited me. There’d been some basic information about various starting locations in the primer that we’d all looked at, but that was nothing compared with the map I saw now. Fortunately, though, my friends and I had planned ahead; we’d done enough research to select a starting location that we all felt we’d enjoy. Bringing up the search option that I saw was available on the map, I entered in the name of the system that we’d all picked. The map shifted and zoomed in on the desired location in response.

System: Arcadia

Stars: 1

Star Class: G2V

Planets: 12

Habitable Planets: 1 (Arcadia)

Controlling Faction: The Alliance (Human)

Slip Points: 4

Notes: Positioned at the far edge of Alliance space, Arcadia is a largely Human-dominated system that borders the Rim Worlds and frontier space, serving as a gateway for all those entering and leaving the stellar nation. As a result, this system sees a high rate of both military and commercial traffic, serving as both a transshipment hub and an industrial center for all its nearby neighbors.

“This is the place,” I announced, mostly for my own benefit after I carefully read the system information. The last thing that I wanted was to end up halfway across the galaxy from everyone else. “I joined the project in the Arcadia system.”

“That is correct! Congratulations! You are now a successful candidate of the ADVENTURER Project and will be fully decanted to begin phase two of the testing process,” the cheery robot exclaimed as a sudden whirring sound filled the gel around me, followed by the sudden lurch of movement. “Once decanted, you will receive further instructions from a Project Representative on what to do next. Until then, please keep your hands and legs as close to your body as possible. Decanting will commence in…ten seconds.”

“W-whoa, slow down!” I demanded. My body suddenly shifted backward as the gel surrounding me became less viscous, which combined with the movement caused me to flip head over tails. Flailing wildly, I reflexively tried to catch my balance, only to have one of my arms strike something metallic, followed by my toes doing the same on something else. “Ow! Damn it, wait a second! I’m upside dow—”

But before I could finish speaking, I saw a line of bright light appear before me, cutting through the purple haze that surrounded me. After I stared at it blankly for a heartbeat, I had just enough time to realize what was happening.

The next thing I knew I was falling.

Chapter 2

“Aaah!” A brief scream was all I managed as I fell out of the pod, the mask that had been covering my face detached, and I inhaled a lungful of the gel that I’d been floating in.

Landing heavily amid a rapidly spreading pool of slime, I slid across the now slick ground before coming to a stop. I coughed violently as I tried to expel the foreign substance from my body, sending a spray of purple gel through the air. I forced myself onto my side and continued to cough until I began to feel better. Finally I realized that I was far from the only one coughing.

Raising a hand to wipe the slime from my face, I slowly sat up and glanced around the area, seeing the prone shapes of four other people. They all looked as discomfited as I had been. Blinking numbly as I scanned over them, I realized that they all roughly matched the descriptions of what my friends had said they intended to play when we were planning our entry into the game. The sight of them immediately had me breathing a sigh of relief. We would be able to handle anything that came our way, so long as we were together. But as soon as I’d had the thought, another rather poignant realization struck me as my eyes came to rest on a lithe, purple-skinned body with wet white hair lying a short distance away from me.

Shit, we’re naked? The thought crossed my mind at the same moment as I glanced down at myself, seeing my bare skin with only a black set of plasticine boxers covering the important bits. Phew! Not quite…but this doesn’t really leave much to the imagination…

Sensing movement from beside me as I tried to make sense of what had just happened and where we’d all just been dropped in, I couldn’t help but shift my attention back in its direction, only to be greeted by a sharp and angry voice.

“Eyes up high, Pyre!” the purple-skinned figure hissed in annoyance as she forced herself into a seated position, her arm reflexively moving to pull down a black plasticine shirt covering her chest. “Where the hell are we?”

“S-sorry, Styx. No idea, I was just wondering the same thing,” I replied, trying to keep my voice steady. I forced my eyes up toward the woman’s face and saw a tag with her name appear. The sound of similar sentiments rapidly began to echo through the room as the rest of our group slowly gathered their senses. 

Looks like we’re in a…hangar or storage bay of some sort? I scanned the rather large room around us, seeing a handful of scattered metal crates nearby, with several heavy barricades spread out seemingly at random around the room. Glancing behind me, I saw a row of large metal cylinders hanging from the ceiling, no doubt the pods that we had just been unceremoniously dumped from. Looking upward, I noticed that the whole pod system was attached to a mechanism on the ceiling above that allowed it to move around freely. No doubt that had been the source of the movement that I’d felt while in the pod. Where is everyone, though? Shouldn’t we have people greeting us and getting us cleaned up if we just completed this ADVENTURER Project?

“Velius! Styx!” My brother’s familiar voice interrupted my thoughts, and I turned my head in his direction. There I spotted a slime-covered trio consisting of what could best be described as a wolf-man, lizard-man, and Human woman facing us. The situation almost felt like a bad joke that was missing the punch line. “What’s going on? Where is everyone? Shouldn’t there be people here to greet us? Or others spawning alongside us?”

“I don’t know, man,” I replied, carefully getting to my feet amid all the purple gel oozing across the floor and looking straight up at my brother’s now canine form. A tag appeared pointing to him with the name thule. “I was just thinking the same thing. Did the AI tell you that someone was going to be waiting for us?”

“Not specifically,” the lizard-man replied, a similar tag identifying him as daedalus. “Only that someone from the project would tell us what to do next.”

“Then where the hell are—” the redheaded woman, Ariel, began to ask, only to be cut off by a loud voice reverberating through the chamber.

“GREETINGS, CANDIDATES!” the authoritative voice boomed, causing everyone to flinch at the sudden volume. “Congratulations on successfully surviving the ADVENTURER Project! The Alliance appreciates the trust that you’ve placed into the project and the sacrifices that you’ve made along the way to see it through to the end.”

The voice paused for a moment, giving the five of us a chance to glance among one another blankly. Then it continued, this time much less formally.

“Now with that bullshit out of the way, I’m sure that you’re all wondering why you just woke up to an AI rambling in your ear, testing to see if you can remember your own names, what you did before the project, and all that fun stuff the lab coats are desperate to know about.” The voice got a bit growly at the mention of “the lab coats.” This was followed by some indistinct conversation; then, “In the interest of saving time, I’m going to tell you all two things. You all agreed before the project began that if there were any real problems with your psyche, you would have never woken up in the first place. The fact that you’ve all made it this far means you’ve been cleared for your first Scenario Trial, which I’m happy to say will start in…let’s say thirty seconds or so. If any of you are interested, I left some equipment in those crates closest to you all, unless of course you fancy taking on your attackers barehanded. Your choice. Oh, and by the way, this is a lethal force trial, so be sure to take it seriously. Good luck.”

The voice cut off with a loud click, which was immediately followed by a faint chime in my ear as a wall of text filled my vision.

New Mission! Training Day: Scenario Trial I—Survive & Assassinate the Target

Mission Brief:

Welcome to Arcadia Station, candidate! Your reading this message signifies your survival of the ADVENTURER Project and the beginning of your orientation. This training will begin to teach you everything you need to survive a hostile galaxy, giving you a base set of skills to draw on and eventually expand upon.

In this Scenario Trial, a pair of high-ranking executives have been kidnapped by a local pirate syndicate with the intention of exchanging them for ransom. However, thanks to a depressing fiscal quarter, the board is simply unwilling to pay for their release and has instead opted to hire your team at a notably cheaper price. You have been given express orders to kill the pirate leader by any means necessary, to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again. Your secondary objective is of course to rescue the executives, if it isn’t too much of an inconvenience. But just as you arrived to begin your mission, your transport was shot out of the sky, leaving you to crash-land in the middle of the warehouse the gang is using as a hideout, with each of them alerted to your presence.

Objectives:

Survive the Ambush: 0/1

Neutralize the Pirate Syndicate: 0/1

Kill the Pirate Syndicate Leader: 0/1

Rescue the Captive Executives: 0/2 (Optional)

Difficulty: Average

Reward: Experience

There was a long, pregnant pause as everyone absorbed what the voice had said, then went on to read over the mission description that had unexpectedly appeared in our vision. The shock hung in the air until I found myself shouting and moving forward.

“Okay! You heard him, guys!” I called out as I rushed toward a lone crate a short distance away, signaling for the rest of the group to follow me. “We have hostiles incoming in thirty! Let’s get ourselves some weapons!”

With my voice breaking the spell that had settled over everyone, a chorus of shouts broke out through the room as they surged forward to follow me, mindful of the deadline we’d been given.

“Shit, they really aren’t wasting time here, are they?” my brother growled from beside me. The two of us reached the crate at the same time and threw it open, taking in the array of weapons, equipment, and ammo stowed within. “Tossing us right into the fire.”

“I can’t complain, to be honest—ah, shit!” I’d started to say as I reached out for a rifle then was forced to duck under a spray of laser fire that splashed across the weapons crate between us, sending searing gobs of molten metal flying through the air. “We’re under attack!”

“Already? There’s no way that was thirty seconds!” Daedalus exclaimed from behind me. As the weapons fire intensified, all five of us scrambled to make ourselves as small as possible. “We’re not ready yet!”

“Something tells me they don’t care!” Thule reached into the smoldering crate and began tossing handfuls of weapons and ammunition toward us. “Grab something and start shooting back before we get roasted!”

“I got this one!” I said to Daedalus beside me as a pistol and two matching magazines of ammo slid across the ground in front of me. “Move up to that cover there soon as you have the chance!”

Making sure to heed my own advice as everyone scrambled to their feet, I glanced down at the pistol in my hand, checking that the safety was off as I slid in a fresh magazine. Satisfied, I then focused my attention on the gun just a bit more. A small tag pointing to the weapon appeared.

Basic Pistol

Damage: 15–35 (Kinetic)

Ammo: Tungsten Round: 12/12

Durability: 164/200

Twelve shots. I dismissed the well-used pistol’s stats. Better make them all count.

“Velius! This looks like it’s for you!” Ariel shouted just as a cufflike device rolled across the ground toward me.

“Yes, it is!” I shouted in gratitude. A helpful tag came into view.

Basic Psi Accelerator

Damage: 30–55 (psionic)

Durability: 94/140

“I suppose a shield generator would be too much to hope for?” I asked, despite my body already being in motion as I rushed away from the crate.

“No dice! We only have two working ones left in the crate! Those lasers fried the rest!” Thule replied from somewhere behind me as I took cover behind the closest metal combat barrier. “Ariel and I are taking them.”

“Shit, okay! That works!” I called back as I quickly strapped the Psionic Accelerator to my left wrist and turned it on, seeing a violet light on its side come to life. Feeling as prepared as I was going to get, I rose to look over the barricade, immediately spotting a cluster of three humanoid droids in the distance.

Made entirely from a dark-gray metal, these droids were thin and featureless save for a large red eye in the center of the head, along with a built-in laser in each arm. They unleashed a steady wave of fire in our direction, their weapons taking only a moment to recharge after each shot. A series of identifying labels appeared: mk1 training droid—level 1.

“We have three bots incoming!” I announced. The tags faded from my vision as quickly as they’d appeared.

“And six more of the same behind them!” Styx shouted over my shoulder. A hail of yellow-tinted lasers lanced out from her weapon as she finished speaking, the shots splashing across the lead drone. “Take them down before we get swarmed!”

I gripped my pistol tighter as my eyes flicked to the rear of the room and confirmed Styx’s warning. Quickly joining in on her attack, the two of us then sent a steady stream of fire toward the droid that she had just damaged. Our combined attacks bored through the robot like a hailstorm of death and sent it to the ground in a heap of sparking metal. Shifting my aim ever so slightly, I continued to fire at the still-standing droids, noting the soft triumphant chime in my ear as a brief set of notifications flashed in the corner of my eye.

You have destroyed a Mk1 Training Droid!

You have gained Experience!

Your skill in Kinetic Weapons has increased to Level 2!

Well, that skill-up didn’t take long. I cleared the text while maintaining my fire. Soon the two remaining droids had joined their companion on the ground as the rest of the group entered the fray, having rushed to take cover behind a matching barrier a short distance away from us. But before any of us had a chance to celebrate our victory, we were once again on the receiving end as the next wave of droids retaliated from a distance.

“Get down!” I shouted, largely out of reflex as both Styx and I dropped behind cover just before several red laser beams punched through the space we’d been occupying a moment earlier.

“Ah! Damn it!” Styx ducked her head away from the shower of sparks and debris kicked up by the lasers that struck the lip of the barrier directly over her. “Couldn’t they have given us something to wear for this stupid test? I’m getting cooked just being here!”

“They probably think that would make things too easy for us,” I replied with resignation, also wincing at the heat as I scanned the room around us. It was clear that the only cover available other than our current position was farther ahead. Clearly whoever designed this scenario wanted to encourage an aggressive rather than defensive response to the oncoming droids.

“Of course it would,” Styx exclaimed sarcastically as she crept toward the edge of our cover opposite me and fired a few quick shots around it before pulling back.

Fortunately, at that moment movement from the corner of my eye caught my attention as Thule, Daedalus, and Ariel popped up from behind the other barrier a short distance away and fired at the advancing droids, instantly drawing the laser fire away from us. Sensing the opportunity at hand, Styx and I wasted no time in joining in on the counteroffensive: We stood and sent a steady stream of metal and lasers in the direction of the droids. Shooting as fast as my pistol could manage, I knocked a droid to the ground before I was forced to drop back behind cover and grab the spare magazine from the floor beside me.

“Ah, shit!” I heard Styx hiss in pain a few seconds later as she quickly ducked behind the barrier, reflexively clutching at a burn on her forearm.

“Are you okay?” I finished sliding the fresh magazine into my gun and glanced over at her.

“Just a graze,” she replied through clenched teeth as she likewise reloaded her weapon. “I’ll be fine.”

Grunting in response, I turned my attention back to the battle and peered around the edge of the barricade, quickly firing off a pair of bolts at a droid that had wandered too far forward, sending it to the ground to join the others.

That’s three—no, make that four of them, I thought, correcting myself when I saw another one of the robots go down from a controlled burst of fire from Ariel’s rifle. But just as the droid fell, a loud mechanical rumble shook the room.

“Shit! Third wave is coming already!” Thule called out when the noise stopped as quickly as it had begun. “At least a dozen more droids incoming!”

“How is that fair? We’re not even done with the second wave yet!” I grumbled to myself angrily. Then I looked toward my brother behind the other barrier and shouted back as loudly as I could, “What’s the plan?”

“Rush forward to the next barrier! There’s an ammo crate there that we’re going to need!” he replied, jabbing his hand toward it, as if there could be any confusion. “We’ll cover you!”

“Do you have a plan B?” Styx shouted from over my shoulder. “Maybe one that doesn’t involve charging straight at a bunch of robots?”

“Go!” Thule yelled in response. He and the others all stood and charged as one, letting out a fusillade of gunfire at the two remaining droids and cutting them to shreds. “There’s no time!”

“He’s right!” I agreed. I pushed myself on to my feet and began to sprint toward the barricade, seeing the next wave of droids already closing in on it. “Let’s move!”

“Gah!” Styx exclaimed as she rushed to follow me. “We’re going to get shot!”

“Yep! Probably more than once, too!” I agreed flippantly, feeling my heart pounding in my chest as I ran. “But what else is new?”

I moved too fast to hear anything else that Styx might have said in reply, my attention entirely focused on running. The distant droids still emerging from a newly opened side room turned their red eyes in our direction. Fire from their arm-mounted lasers filled the air around us less than a second later. For the briefest of moments as the distance between us and cover shrank with each step, I thought that we’d make the desperate sprint completely unscathed, but two sudden impacts to my shoulder and chest quickly dispelled that idea.

“Rah!” I screamed in pain as I forced myself to keep running. I managed another dozen steps before throwing myself forward just behind the barricade, feeling my bare skin scrape itself raw against the metal floor. Crashing to a stop as I landed on something hard, I had just enough time to process the pain I was feeling before a pair of feet hit me from behind, sending a second wave of agony shooting through my back.

“Oh, ow! That really hurts…” Styx wheezed, breathing hard after our desperate sprint. “Shit! Sorry, Velius! Are you okay?”

“I’ve…been better,” I replied weakly, forcing myself to suck in a deep breath as a combat log entry followed by a crimson-colored notification flashed in my vision.

A [Mk1 Training Droid] hit you 2 times with [Laser Barrage I] for a total of 80 points of Energy Damage!

Hit Points: 73/170

“But I’ll survive,” I added as I remembered the urgency of our situation and twisted myself into a crouch. “How did you make out?”

“Toasted a bit, but not as badly as you from the looks of it,” she answered with a note of concern just as the rest of the party arrived. The group slid behind the barricade to either side of Styx and me.

“Someone give me ammo!” Ariel demanded urgently, wasting no time on pleasantries as she immediately rose from behind cover and began firing her rifle, her shield flaring brightly as it absorbed a stray laser. “I’m almost out!”

“That’s you, Velius! You’re right on top of the box!” Thule barked, matching Ariel on the opposite end of the barricade as he, too, resumed firing at the oncoming droids.

“Shit, I got it!” I called back. Looking at the footlocker before me, I realized it was the object I’d struck so painfully a few seconds earlier. I reached down and flung open the crate, which was packed to the brim with the ammunition we all desperately needed. Grabbing a pair of rifle magazines for Ariel with my free hand, I simultaneously reached out with my Telekinesis ability and picked up two more for my pistol. The ammo floated through the air after me as I slid to the side, getting out of the way of Daedalus and Styx, who immediately crowded the crate behind me.

“Here you go!” I shouted a second later, pressing a magazine into Ariel’s outstretched hand. She immediately slammed it into her rifle and resumed firing without missing a beat. “The other mag will be floating by your side!”

“Just in time! You’re a lifesaver, Velius!” Ariel replied. I released the second magazine into my telekinetic grip and then joined her in repelling the newest wave of attackers. “This is going to be close!”

“Sure looks like it!” I called back as I scanned the battlefield ahead. The droids in this wave were gradually advancing toward us, their ranks laying down a steady stream of laser fire, heat visibly radiating from their weapons as they cycled. Only two of the original dozen had been taken out of commission so far, thanks to Thule’s and Ariel’s efforts, leaving ten more still standing.

Good thing these droids aren’t that smart, I noted, appreciating the complete lack of self-preservation or any semblance of tactics displayed by them so far. I sent a trio of bolts into a damaged droid’s chest, prompting something inside it to overload and explode. Apparently whoever was running this Combat Trial we’d found ourselves in was setting the bar for the test really low, doing little more than marching the droids directly into our field of fire like lemmings.

And even better they aren’t in close, I thought with a wince, feeling the scalding heat of a passing laser bolt blister my skin as I ducked down behind cover just in time. I grabbed one of the floating magazines out of the air and reloaded my pistol. Something tells me this is going to get worse before it’s over. We haven’t even encountered the gang we’re supposed to take out yet.

I pushed that unsettling thought to the side for the time being. The combat was going by in a blur as droids continued to close in on our position. Soon enough, each of us had been singed by near misses or taken grazing hits. Anchoring either end of our line, Thule and Ariel did the best they could to attract enemy fire, their shield generators soaking up the majority of the damage, but there was only so much they could take before they shattered and the bolts found flesh.

“Look out, straight ahead!” Daedalus shouted from my left, snapping me back into the moment as a robot that both Ariel and I had focused on together was reduced to a sparking pile of metal by the last few shots in my magazine. “More dro—oh shit!”

Feeling a surge of panic grip my heart at the thought of another wave of robots to fight, I shifted to take in Daedalus’s warning. There I saw four fast-moving shapes erupt from the open room ahead, their long strides rapidly eating up the distance between us. Eyes widening as I processed the new threat, I realized that these new droids were slightly different from those before them—marginally larger, yet somehow sleeker. When I saw a glint of light reflect off a long piece of shining metal protruding from both a robot’s forearms, I instantly recognized what we were up against. The exact same words that Daedalus had just uttered cut through my mind as well.

Oh shit.

“Close-combat droids incoming!” I shouted as I snatched another nearby floating magazine and reloaded as fast as I could manage. 

“Damn it! Figures they’d throw them in last!” Ariel spat as she shifted her aim toward one of the onrushing droids and resumed firing. “Take them down before they get close! Forget the others!”

“On it!” Daedalus answered from my left, our weapons sounding in tandem as the three of us sent a wave of metal toward the droids.

I continued to fire my pistol as the wave charged our way and cleared my mind, reaching for the new ability that I had yet to use. I instantly felt a surge of psionic energy build up within me, held it for a moment, focused on the charging droid that I was shooting at, and released. A wave of power surged out of me, impacting my target, which immediately stumbled and fell heavily to the ground as a burst of electricity erupted from its head and chest. I could feel a wicked smile creeping across my face at the results. Aa brief entry appeared in my combat log before it vanished.

You hit [Mk1 Melee Training Droid] with [Mind Spike] for 45 Psionic Damage!

“That’s one down!” I called out as we all shifted our attacks to the next droid. The bright-yellow lasers from Styx’s weapon finally shifted over to join us and the droid practically disintegrated under the combined assault, leaving us with only two more of the mechanical attackers to worry about.

Unfortunately, it was at that exact moment that we ran out of space.

Vaulting over the barricade and our heads, as if it were trivial, the two remaining combat droids landed behind our ranks, prompting several panicked shouts as we scrambled to meet the adversaries in our midst. I twisted toward the closer droid with just enough time to fire two wild shots before I was forced to throw myself aside as a razor-sharp blade sliced a bloody line across my shoulder.

“Gah!” The pained shout escaped my lips as I futilely tried to back away from the blade in the droid’s other hand, which was sweeping out toward me. But before the blade gained any momentum, a blur of motion brought Ariel to my side. She caught it on her rifle, trapping it in place.

“Kill it!” she called through gritted teeth, straining to hold the weapon at bay. “Hurry!”

Not needing to be told twice, I channeled another surge of psionic energy before slamming it into the robot, which visibly staggered under the Mind Spike’s effects as it overloaded and shorted out delicate circuits. Not content with that, I activated the Psi Accelerator on my wrist, calling forth a bar of violet energy. Working as fast as my mind could manage, I willed it into a crude-looking blade as I swept my arm in front of me, carving a burning gash deep into the droid’s chest and the circuitry within. Daedalus took advantage of the opening to join the fight, firing a barrage of bolts directly into the droid’s innards and causing it to spark with electricity as it fell to the ground in a heap.

“Nice shot!” I breathed a deep sigh of relief that the bladed robot had been put out of commission then immediately spun to search for the second droid. “Now where—”

The question died on my lips as I took in the droid with one of its blades buried in my brother’s side. His body trembled with the strain as he used both hands in his struggle to keep the second blade back and the first locked in place. Facing the other way directly behind him was Styx, her purple skin glistening with sweat as she fired her rifle wildly at the robots still advancing toward us.

“Could…use…some help here, guys!” Thule rasped painfully. “This really hurts!”

“Ah! Oh no!” Ariel gasped before her voice turned hard, the sound of her rifle fire punctuating her next words. “We’re coming! Hold still!”

None of us needed any encouragement. Daedalus and I joined her in filling the training bot with bolts until it, too, was a sparking wreck, limp in my brother’s grip.

“Thanks,” Thule replied weakly the moment our gunfire ended. “Now…the other droids…”

“Don’t worry, big guy,” Styx called, a final shot ringing out before she lowered her weapon and turned around to face the wolf-man, patting him on the back gratefully. “I got the last ones, thanks for the save.”

“No problem.” Thule let out a loud groan as he pulled the droid’s blade free of his body and tossed it to the ground with a clatter. “Oh…that feels so much better now.”

“So it looks like that’s the last of them,” Daedalus said as we all scanned the area for threats, finding only the sparking remains of the droids we destroyed. “For now, at least.”

“Seems like it,” I agreed. I finally had an opportunity to take in the large bay that we’d spawned in. It was rather sparse save for the various barricades we’d used during the battle. Beyond that, it seemed there was only one way in and out of the place, specifically the one that the droids had come through. “But unless I miss my guess, we’re supposed to keep pushing forward.”

“Yeah, straight into the gang that knows we’re coming for them,” Styx stated. She looked like she was about to say something else, but she stopped herself as a chime sounded in my ears, followed a second later by a notification in my vision.

Mission Update! Training Day: Scenario Trial I—Survive & Assassinate the Target

Objective Accomplished!

Survive the Ambush: 1/1

You gain Experience!

Congratulations! You have reached level 2!

You have learned the psionic ability: Telekinetic Strike

You currently have 5 unspent Attribute Points

“Sweet. I gained a level from that!” I exclaimed as I finished reading through the text, feeling a sudden surge of energy course through me. The wounds on my body itched wildly as they rapidly healed themselves in the wake of the energy’s passing. Within seconds, I felt as good as new, all traces of pain and fatigue having completely vanished. “Ah, I could get used to that feeling!”

“You’re telling me,” my brother replied as sighs of relief sounded out from everyone once their injuries were healed, thanks to the newly gained level.

“Well, I suppose that makes things a little easier for us,” Ariel said, standing straighter than she had a few seconds earlier. “Now, would it be too much trouble to ask for some clothes, or maybe even some armor?”

“It might not be, actually,” I replied while motioning to the door that all the droids had come through, noticing for the first time that there was a large crate, similar to the ones we’d opened earlier, directly in the middle of the hall beyond it. “There’s another box over there—might have something useful in it. It certainly looks big enough.”

“Then what are we waiting here for?” Styx asked as the five of us quickly grabbed what ammo was left in the second box we’d found before making our way toward the crate, wrenching it open the second we arrived.

Where we found the armor we so desperately needed within.

“Oh thank God! And there are shield generators in here, too!” Styx exclaimed the second she saw the crate’s contents, everyone else chiming in with similar sentiments. “This is going to make getting shot at just a little more bearable.”

“Just a little,” I agreed as we all rapidly dressed ourselves. Nobody remarked in the slightest on the fact that the armor was a bit worn, marred by laser burns, scratches, and what I was fairly confident were a couple of smears of dried blood.

Probably didn’t want to waste equipment on us until they knew we’d survive at least a basic encounter, I thought as I pulled the final strap tight and checked over my new equipment. Its description appeared in my vision.

Basic Plas-Steel Armor Set

Kinetic Armor: 200

Energy Armor: 200

Durability: 121/180

Basic Shield Generator

Energy Shield: 200

Recharge Delay: 6 seconds

Recharge Rate: 10 per second

Durability: 86/120

Looks good enough to get us through this. I dismissed the tags from my vision and quickly assigned my new attribute points, putting them all into Psyche.

“All right! Now we’re locked and loaded!” Ariel exclaimed from beside me as she, too, finished equipping herself, eagerly motioning us down the empty hallway ahead with her rifle.

“Let’s give those pirates hell.”

Chapter 3

“You’ll never take us alive!” a vicious voice shouted just before an explosion rocked the warehouse, momentarily cutting off the deafening sound of weapons fire that had dominated the space a moment prior.

“What makes you think we have any intention—” Thule was cut off by a second blast, which knocked us all off our feet.

“Ugh, this could really be going better!” I exclaimed with a wince as I tried and failed to pick myself up from where I’d ended up. I’d been unceremoniously thrown across the room, landed badly on my shoulder, and finally rolled to a stop.

Letting out a wheeze as I collected myself, I had a moment to reflect on just how rough the last few minutes had been. The five of us had been through the virtual wringer since we’d gotten our armor. At first it had gone easily enough—we’d rushed deeper into the warehouse to find more training droids acting out the part of pirates in the middle of a hasty evacuation, and they’d put up little resistance when we arrived with guns drawn. But that early success had been short-lived as better-armed and armored droid-pirates rushed to meet us.

Worst of all had been the pirate leader himself, who turned out to be an exceptionally large and heavily armored droid, wielding a Gatling laser.

And rockets, too, I thought as the room shook for a third and what I hoped would be final time, sending a spray of shrapnel to ping off my already weakened shield.

“Fall back to the ship!” the leader called out. The sound of the final blast was replaced by a chorus of shouts and pounding feet.

“Heads up, guys! They’re escaping!” I heard Ariel shout as I pushed myself back to my feet and took in the exodus in progress toward the bay’s rear exit.

I needed no further encouragement. I lifted my pistol and started shooting while simultaneously charging a surge of power through my Psi Accelerator. After only a moment to build the energy needed, I thrust my hand forward, sending out a Telekinetic Strike that bowled over two of the retreating droid-pirates using a third as the ball, leaving all three sprawled on the ground. The others also contributed as best they were able, a sporadic hail of gun- and laser fire cutting through the disorganized mass of pirates that had bunched themselves up in an attempt to make it through the doorway. Panicking, some of them turned back to attack us, but by that point their fate had been sealed. Primarily because we had been given time to recover from the blasts that had momentarily stunned us, and secondarily by the large clear hatch that slammed down across the exit, cutting off their escape route.

“Well, that was cold,” Thule said once the final droid had fallen, their pathetic last stand having lasted only seconds. “Or at least it would be, if these things were real people.”

“Pirates are gonna pirate,” Ariel replied with a dismissive shrug as we all regrouped from the fight, our attention fixated on the heavy door now blocking our path. “But that’s not important right now. What’s important is that we get through this door, and fast. Or else they’re going to escape on that ship the leader mentioned.”

“Which means that we’ll fail the mission,” Styx stated. “And after all we’ve already been through, that’d suck heaps.”

“Don’t worry, I’m on it,” Daedalus replied as he jogged forward toward the collection of droids scattered in front of the blast door. “It might not be a pretty solution, but I think I can pull out a few of their power cores and rig something together that’ll get us through the door.”

“That sounds perfect, what do you need?” Ariel asked as we all watched the Estros Engineer work. His clawed hands quickly pried open a compartment in one of their chests and pulled out a glowing orb.

“A grenade and twenty seconds or so.” He repeated the process with another droid.

“And maybe theme music for inspiration?” I asked. I called up a menu option that I’d seen in passing while inspecting my character sheet earlier. A few seconds later, the song’s opening rhythm began to play from each of our armor’s external speakers in perfect sync, filling the air with the promising thrum of heavy bass.

“Aww yeah, this is what’s been missing so far!” Ariel exclaimed as the music continued to build, reverberating off the metal walls of the bay around us. “This is my jam! Turn it up!”

“Please don’t listen to her,” Styx immediately interjected. “My ears are already starting to bleed!”

“Sorry, Styx,” I replied. I mentally increased the music’s volume before dismissing the menu from my HUD. “But you know the—”

“I’m done! Five seconds till it pops!” Daedalus suddenly shouted, the lizard-man already sprinting away from the pile of droids. “Find cover and get ready!”

Four…three…two…I counted off mentally as I did exactly that, ducking my head right as my count ended. One!

A thunderous blast shook the room around me as the powerful detonation sent a column of fire and metal up to batter the ceiling and splash against the walls of the now thoroughly destroyed bay around us. Lasting only an instant, the flames dissipated to reveal a massive hole where the door once stood.

“Go, go, go!” Thule shouted impatiently, his large form out of cover and headed toward the breach before the words were even out of his mouth, with Ariel close on his heels.

With a surge of adrenaline coursing through me, I fell into line behind the pair, rounding the corner in a heartbeat and charging toward the gaping maw that had once been a blast door. Within seconds the three of us were through the ruptured entrance, barely glancing at the charred and mangled droids on the ground, the first victims of our breach. Carefully sprinting among the twisted and scorched wreckage of the door, I took in the room, a part of my mind identifying it as a loading dock.

“Heads up!” Ariel shouted as we rushed forward, the sound of sporadic weapons fire in the enclosed space just loud enough to momentarily drown out our music. “We have contact!”

“Got it!” I replied. Ariel and Thule peeled away to either side ahead of me as they turned their attention toward the shooters they’d identified. The sounds of combat intensified.

Trusting that the pair would protect my flanks, I continued my charge toward the center of the dock, my attention focused on a makeshift barricade composed of several large metal crates that had been hastily stacked in a line. Holding my pistol out before me as I ran, I had two entire seconds to steady my aim before a figure rose up from behind a crate, bearing the red glowing eye that marked the center of a droid’s face.

Barely needing to shift my aim, I squeezed the trigger, feeling the faint recoil ripple up my arm as a fingernail-sized tungsten bolt launched from the muzzle, crossing the distance between me and my target in an instant before it connected squarely with the center of said glowing eye. Another step closer to the barricade and I saw the spray of metal and circuitry fly. Then I was forced to shift my attention to the side, where another droid was rising.

“No shields on these!” I announced while pulling the trigger, my second nearly point-blank shot sending yet another would-be attacker to the ground.

Not breaking stride as the sound of gunfire within the bay intensified yet again, I closed the remaining distance between me and the barricade, using the remaining moments to mentally activate my Psi Accelerator. A now familiar vibration coursed up my arm as I vaulted over the crates.

I spotted a third droid hiding behind the boxes as it began to rise to its feet—just in time for me to open up its chest with a blazing blade of violet energy.

Gasping in simulated agony, the droid-pirate staggered backward, its weapon falling to the ground as it clutched at the massive burn mark across his body with both hands. I wasn’t one to relish suffering, Human or otherwise: Barely a second later I swept the violet blade out for a second time. The droid’s body joined the others on the ground.

No more pirates lay in wait behind the barricade. “Center is clea—” I began to call out, but before I could finish, sparks of cobalt energy suddenly bloomed around me. The light show was quickly followed by a whining alert in my ear and a warning notification in my HUD.

Your shield has taken damage!

Shield: 58/100

“Never mind!” I shouted. I mentally cleared the display, instinct already spinning me toward the source of the attack, a droid with a rifle pointed directly at me. Before I could bring my pistol to bear, brilliant arcs of energy erupted from the droid-pirate’s neck. Then its head fell clean off its body.

“Now the center is clear.” Styx’s voice came from the empty space behind the droid as it collapsed. My eye caught a shimmering distortion that rapidly resolved itself into her lithe, gray-armored form, holding an exceptionally long knife she’d picked up from the close-combat droids earlier. “Oh, and so is the right flank.”

“Show-off!” I grumbled. I turned to scan for other targets only to be staggered as a small explosion rocked the room.

“Left flank clear!” Thule declared smugly moments after the gunfire had come to an abrupt end. In the direction of the blast, both my brother and Ariel ran toward the far end of the room, tendrils of smoke wafting behind them.

“Now, there’s the show-off,” Ariel commented in an amused tone.

“You know you love it,” Thule stated with a throaty chuckle.

“Keep focused and keep moving, guys!” Daedalus cut in before anyone else could join the byplay. “I can see their ship from here and there are more reinforcements coming our way now! At least eight by my count!”

“Eight, eh?” Thule commented thoughtfully. “You know what that means…”

“Velius!” Ariel called out immediately. “You’re up! Send these weaklings packing.”

“Got it!” I broke into a sprint. I spotted the oncoming droids as they wove among the crates and containers between us and the ship. Dismissing the blade of energy that still protruded from my left forearm with a thought, I cleared my mind and readied my Telekinesis ability. “Toss them when you’re ready!”

“Here they come!” Ariel shouted as she and my brother tossed a pair of objects toward the doorway. “Frags out!”

My eyes immediately locked onto the two flying grenades. I focused my will on them and a trickle of psionic power coursed through me, causing the trajectory of the two explosives to level out and pick up speed. They sailed through the air like missiles.

Right into the path of the coming reinforcements.

With one final mental push, the grenades passed between the leading droid’s legs just before they detonated, producing a violent conflagration and shower of jagged metal across the area. Though the music that was still pounding through our suit speakers masked any sounds at this distance.

“Woo! Perfect timing there, Velius!” Thule exclaimed exuberantly as he and Ariel raced ahead; the other three of us brought up the rear just behind. “They didn’t stand a chance!”

“Thanks, man,” I replied graciously as we sped across the dock, not even pausing to glance at the sparking remains that had been the droid-pirate reinforcements. No doubt they’d intended to play for time, but had ended up as little more than a speed bump. “All right, what’s our—”

“ATTENTION, MERCENARIES!” an abrasive voice suddenly boomed from across the dock before leveling out in volume. “As you are aware, we have two hostages and will not hesitate to kill them if you do not stop your attack! You will allow us to board our ship and leave in exchange for their lives! Once we are clear, they will be jettisoned in an escape pod—”

“Like hell they will,” I growled while shaking my head at the pirate leader’s demand. “Soon as they’re airborne they’ll blast us with their ship’s weapons.”

“Yeah, that’s about what I’d do, too,” Thule agreed as we rapidly closed in on the ship ahead, seeing that they were still preparing to take off. “Anyone got a plan?”

“I’m thinking we go in hot, use my tac shield, and hope for the best? The hostages really aren’t our priority if it comes to that,” Daedalus replied.

“We’ll have to,” Styx said. “Time is ticking. We can’t afford to do this slowly.”

“I don’t think any part of the day so far has been slow.” Daedalus sighed theatrically. “But it’s probably our best option. I’ll try to get it down as fast as possible.”

“Styx and I will take the flanks then,” I added as we entered the final stretch before the ship, the time for planning at an end. “Good luck, everyone!”

Without even slowing our stride, the five of us charged into the open space around the enemy ship at near-reckless speeds, Thule and Ariel in the lead. The sound of two concussive blasts briefly drowned out the heavy-metal music playing from our suits, before I even had a chance to take in the entire scene. Time slowed as I tried to process everything at once. I first noticed the courier ship parked directly in the center of the dock, its side air lock open and ramp deployed for boarding. But the ship only held my attention for the briefest of moments; then I noticed several droid-pirates crouched behind a row of shipping containers, identical to the ones in the previous bay. Directly in front of the crates, an exceptionally large droid-pirate clad in heavy black armor plates loomed over two kneeling pink droids.

That changed when twin blasts of pure force fired by Thule and Ariel simultaneously hit it, causing a momentary spray of azure energy as the droid was sent flying backward. The impact slammed the droid into and flipped it over the crates behind it. No sooner had the space been vacated than a trio of micro-drones practically crashed into the ground right where it had been standing, a bright-blue wall of light springing to life between the hostages and our enemies.

Just in time to absorb a spray of bolt and laser fire from the other droids as they reacted to our opening assault.

“That shield isn’t going to last long!” Daedalus shouted as time resumed its normal flow and the hangar bay erupted into chaos. “Get the hostages behind cover, fast!”

Tuning out any reply that Ariel or Thule might have given as they rushed toward Daedalus’s tactical shield, I focused on my own task and moved to flank the enemy, taking advantage of the fact that I hadn’t attracted any attention yet. Ducking behind a grav-lift, I used it as cover before sprinting toward some metal crates that seemed to have been hastily stacked halfway between us and the pirates’ defensive line.

Unfortunately, though, I wasn’t the only one that had the idea to flank the battle.

As we rounded our respective sides of the crates, I crashed headlong into a droid-pirate then rebounded from the impact. Stunned for an instant, I looked up to see an armored droid standing before me. Sudden panic bloomed in my mind when I realized that the rifle in its hands was pointed directly in line with my body. Reacting at the speed of thought, I activated the device on my forearm once again while simultaneously bringing my pistol to bear.

Not waiting for the violet blade to finish forming, I pulled the trigger on my weapon the moment that I had a target, firing round after round as I tracked the muzzle upward along the droid’s leg and hip. But nothing struck its body; instead there was only a bright azure flash as its personal shield deflected my attacks, leaving me scowling.

Oh, damn it! Figures these would have shiel—ah shit! I bit back a curse as the droid’s rifle flashed just a moment before I sliced off half of its barrel. I’d been too slow to prevent the several rounds that slammed into my own shield, shattering it. Fortunately, the droid’s barrier also failed nearly simultaneously as a result of my own fire. Tuning out the wailing alarm in my ear, I fired another bolt from my pistol, only to miss as the droid leaped away, dropping its broken weapon in the process.

Tracking my target as it danced backward, I sent two more bolts slamming into its armored chest. The droid staggered slightly from the twin impacts but showed no sign of damage as it pulled a sidearm free from the holster at its waist, then angled its arm toward me. Not liking my odds of survival in a point-blank shootout, I reflexively lunged toward the droid-pirate as its weapon continued to rise, lashing out again with the blade of energy protruding from my left arm.

Something struck my side at the same moment that I sliced through the thinner armor at the joint of the droid’s elbow. Distantly, I noted the severed arm falling to the ground as I leaned in closer to the damaged droid, thrust my pistol just under its chin, and pulled the trigger twice. It stiffened briefly as a pair of bolts tore through its main processors, then fell lifelessly to the ground. That left me wincing as a sharp spike of pain in my side made itself known.

Shit, it tagged me, I realized: I could feel a sticky liquid heat inside my armor as I momentarily leaned against a tall metal crate while waiting for my shield to recharge itself. But I’d barely taken a single breath and was only beginning to reload my pistol when Ariel’s pained voice filled my ear.

“Velius! Styx! What’s taking so long with those droids?” she shouted. “We’re pinned down with the hostages and in case you’ve forgotten, the big guy has a Gatling laser!”

“Working on it,” I replied testily. Relief surged as my shield began to recharge, the chirping alert in my ear fading away.

“Same here,” Styx chimed in, her voice sounding a little exasperated. “This bastard here is being mighty unkind and refuses to let me shoot him!”

“Work on it faster!” Thule exclaimed at the same instant that a loud boom filled the room. “I have one grenade left and this tac shield has maybe fifteen seconds before it goes down! Then we’re screwed!”

“Shit, save that grenade for a second, I have an idea,” I said by way of acknowledgment, a plan already forming in my mind as I peered around the container I was taking cover behind and saw that I had a reasonably clear shot toward the crates where the droid-pirates had taken cover.

Moving before I was spotted, I charged out from behind my cover and sprinted toward the enemy line, managing to make it three-quarters of the way there before one of them turned its head in my direction. I dropped into a slide to traverse the remaining distance between me and the cover ahead as a brief spray of laser fire lanced through the space I’d just vacated.

Well, they certainly know I’m here, I thought grimly, knowing that I only had seconds to capitalize on my gambit before they responded to my presence on their flank.

Forcing myself back to my feet in a half crouch, I rushed forward, keeping both of my weapons ready for action. I stole quick glances as I moved, and it wasn’t long before I could see the remaining three pirates taking cover behind the crates, though they were completely exposed from my current angle. But before I was able to take advantage of that, another spray of laser fire sailed over my head, courtesy of the pirate that had spotted me a second earlier.

“Okay! I’m in position!” I announced as I settled behind cover and shifted over to the edge of the crate, catching sight of my squadmates and the hostages crouched behind the tactical shield. At a glance I could tell that their situation had become dire: The group was pinned down by the heavily armored droid-pirate leader, who was intent on flanking their tactical shield. “Toss that grenade toward the pirates, then get your asses to cover! I’ll buy you as much time as I can!”

“Rah!” my brother barked in lieu of a more eloquent reply as he activated and tossed the grenade overhand, taking a singeing hit from a laser in the process.

I watched the grenade sail through the air, directly toward the droid-pirates, bouncing once off the top of the crates they were using for cover before continuing out of sight; the sound of the explosion echoed through the air a second later. When I rose from cover, my pistol held before me, I saw that the blast had disoriented them, but that they were all still alive confirmed they must have been equipped with shields.

Which now, thanks to Thule’s grenade, had to be dangerously close to overloading, if not completely depleted.

Not waiting to test my theory, I rushed the droids, drawing a bead on the one that had tried to shoot me just seconds earlier and firing as I moved. The first bolt slammed into my target’s head, the metal cracking from the impact. Feeling a predatory smile spread across my face at the result, I fired again, followed quickly by a third and a fourth shot until the faceplate shattered in a spray of sparks. Continuing forward, I shifted my aim toward the second droid in line and resumed firing, my bolts striking its chest and side as it and its one remaining ally turned in my direction, desperately trying to bring a weapon to bear before I entered melee range.

My shield absorbed the peppering of laser fire as I close; they’d been too slow. I led with the violet blade outstretched before me. The burning beam seared the closest droid’s arm as it slid past the feeble attempt at a block and plunged deep into its shoulder. Twisting my arm to increase the damage, I pulled the blade free by throwing my shoulder into the droid’s chest, sending it sprawling backward and into its companion. 

Staggering, the third droid reflexively tried to catch its wounded ally, leaving it completely exposed to the two point-blank shots I fired a moment later, the rounds catching it at the base of the neck where the armor was weak, a spray of sparks telling me that they’d pierced straight through.

“Pirates have been taken care of!” I declared, my violet blade flashing before me as I delivered the coup de grâce to the droids. “Where—”

A hailstorm of laser fire interrupted me as searing streams of light filled the air, a handful of them splashing across my body in a spray of azure energy. I threw myself to the ground the moment I realized what was happening, my right shoulder erupting in agony, accompanied by the nauseating smell of burning flesh wafting out through the scorched hole in my suit.

“And it looks like I managed to get the big guy’s attention, too,” I added with a cough as the volley of laser fire continued above me, accompanied by globs of superheated metal being stripped from the crates that I was now using for cover.

“You really did, Velius!” Styx’s urgent voice rang out in my helmet. “He’s coming your way fast! You need to move! Now!”

“Ah, damn it,” I grunted, pushing myself to my knees with my left arm just as the crate ahead of me was sent flying, clanging heavily into the side of the nearby ship before falling back to the ground. Looking up, I took in the massive and intimidating form of the final droid, its jet-black armor mottled by burns and gouges.

I shot to my feet, a surge of adrenaline dulling the pain that had slowed my wits. I spun on my heel, desperately sprinting back the way I’d come, away from the enormous gun, praying that I could get behind cover before a torrent of lasers roasted me alive. Each step felt agonizingly slow. I counted three bounding strides before the first beam hurtled past me.

I zigzagged, desperately attempting to evade the fusillade, until after what seemed like a lifetime I found myself finally diving behind cover, landing heavily on my injured arm and shoulder. Sucking in a pained breath, I didn’t stop moving, forcing myself to crawl forward to put more crates between me and the heavily armed pirate.

“I think it’s my turn to ask where the help is!” I shouted into my helmet’s mic, over the crash of metal on metal behind me. “I’m running out of cover!”

“Two seconds!” Daedalus replied. “The hostages are safe and we’re getting back in position!”

“Hurry!” I urged, peeking out from behind cover to fire a rapid burst at the oncoming pirate, only for the bolts to vanish in an azure glow as they deflected off its shield. “Damn shield eats my bolts like they’re nothing!”

Dropping back behind cover before I found myself full of holes, I retreated to the last crate in the line, reloading my weapon once more as I waited for the rest of the squad to come to my aid. Thankfully, though, I didn’t have to wait long, the thunderous roar of gunfire rising up over my suit’s music as my friends rejoined the battle. Breathing a sigh of relief, I waited for a few seconds to ensure that the droid-pirate’s attention would be off me while also giving my shield time to finish recharging.

The moment it was ready I rose into a crouch. My eyes landed on the lone droid, its attention had turned back toward my friends as it alternated between firing at each of them. They’d ringed it, such that it was forced to constantly turn to shoot at a new target as its prior one dropped behind cover. But despite the near-continuous onslaught, the air around it continued to pulse with an azure glow as its shields deflected or absorbed everything sent toward it. Even so, it was clearly only a matter of time before they failed. I joined in on the effort, emptying my entire magazine into the armored droid’s back in the span of seconds, then I reloaded with practiced ease and resumed firing, seeing the familiar azure flare appear with every shot.

Until it didn’t.

“Its shields are down!” I shouted, seeing the aura of energy around the droid abruptly vanish as its shield generator overloaded and my attacks began to spark off its head, chipping away fragments of armor with every hit. Visibly panicking at the loss of its barrier, the droid wasted no time in abandoning its position, retreating backward as fast as its legs could take it. Which unfortunately happened to be directly toward me.

“Oh shit,” I cursed to myself as the droid blindly kicked a crate out of its way in its rapid backpedal. I had nowhere to go.

Nowhere except straight at it.

“Watch your fire!” I shouted as I quickly holstered my pistol and jumped onto the crate before me. The heavily armored droid was drawing near. “I’m going to jump onto it and finish it off.”

“Wait, you’re going to what?” Styx exclaimed in disbelief.

“You heard me!” I retorted as I leaped off the crate toward the droid-pirate’s back, violet blade held out before me.

Sailing through the air, I didn’t even have the time to question the wisdom of the maneuver before I collided with the droid’s back I hooked my free arm around its head and both of my legs around its waist for purchase. I felt the droid’s panic intensify as it tried to dislodge me, whipping its body from side to side. Knowing that I had only seconds to work, I stubbornly maintained my grip while bringing my violet blade to bear, thrusting it into the joint between its neck and its shoulder armor.

The energy blade flared but didn’t immediately pierce the protective layer. Instead the armor became a brilliant red as it began to burn and eventually melt. The desperation of the droid’s thrashing meanwhile intensified with every second that passed. The pain in my numerous wounds was nearly blinding as I was tossed about, dodging under a grasping hand as well as several clumsy attempts to bring its massive weapon to bear against me, but it was just too big to be useful right now. Then I had to grit my teeth as I waited for my blade to finish its work.

As it slowly slid into the wound, I sensed victory was at hand and focused on keeping the bar of energy pressed into the opening that I had made in the armor. After several more seconds the droid’s motions began to slow and then stopped. Its body swayed drunkenly before abruptly toppling forward . Riding the droid to the ground as it collapsed, I had enough sense to release my hold in order to keep my limbs from being crushed.

“Well, that just worked out perfectly, didn’t it?” I pushed myself to my feet, standing on the now dead robot’s back while breathing heavily, making sure to strike a humorously triumphant pose just as the music filling the air reached its climax. “Thanks for the help, guys.”

“Geez, who’s the show-off now?” Styx grumbled as she stared at me, her tone more amused than anything else. “Anyway, I guess that’s it, right? We finished our hit? The gang and pirate leader sure look dead to me. We even rescued the optional hostages.”

“I hope we’re done,” Ariel commented tiredly as the entire squad came out from behind cover to make their way toward me. “I’m just gased. We never stopped moving the entire run.”

“I’m sure we’ll find out—” Daedalus replied hopefully, just as the same voice from earlier split the air.

“Congratulations on surviving your first Scenario Trial, candidates,” it said, in the same tone it had used before. “Your performance was arguably the sloppiest I’ve seen in my entire life, but damn if you all didn’t come through in the end. That at least gives us a good base to build from going forward.”

There was a brief pause as the sound of a gong filled our ears, followed by a box that appeared in the center of my vision.

Mission Accomplished! All pirates eliminated, and hostages rescued successfully!

Mission Time: 00:06:36:34—A New Scenario Record!

Mission Update! Training Day: Scenario Trial I—Survive & Assassinate the Target

Objective Accomplished!

Neutralize the Pirate Syndicate: 1/1

Kill the Pirate Syndicate Leader: 1/1

Rescue the Captive Executives: 2/2

You Gain Bonus Experience!

Congratulations! You have reached level 3!

Congratulations! You have reached level 4!

You currently have 10 unspent Attribute Points.

“Now, I’m sure you have an endless array of questions for us, chief among them likely being Where are we and why did you just pit us against a horde of killer robots?” the voice began again, having paused long enough for everyone to read the notification. “All of which and more will be answered during your debriefing, after your showers. So make your way toward the yellow lights that mark the exit, there’ll be some eggheads in white coats to sort out your stuff when you get there.”

There was a brief pause as the voice took in a breath. “Oh, and I really wouldn’t be standing around if I were you. We have a busy day planned. What you’ve just been through was only the beginning.”

Dead Run

RJ Barker

They were hungry.

They were always hungry.

Been marching for an hour afore the sun began to crawl up into the sky, sending shafts of hazy light through the trees and waking the creatures of the forest into panic as some alien force moved through their world. Boots stomping, rough linen hissing.

The Boy blinked, trying to clear the tiredness falling over him like a blanket. His brightness, his wakefulness, his awareness left behind like all their comforts, like all their friends, beaten and left on the battlefield of Antietam. He concentrated on the feel of the gun he carried. The stock of his rifle warm from his own body heat, greasy with his sweat. He loved that weapon like the father he’d never had.

They called him The Boy, even though The Tall Man had made him second-in-command after the sergeant had taken a minié ball to the leg and the wound had gone bad. Sergeant had raved and screamed at the shadows for two full days before he went on to meet his maker. The Boy hoped when he died it wouldn’t be drawn out. Hoped he’d be torn to pieces by Whistling Dixie, or meet his end with a mercifully quick shot to the head. He didn’t want to linger on the edge.

His thoughts had been on death a lot lately. When the South surrendered and The Tall Man took his troop of seventy-five, vowing never to give up, spirits had improved for a while. The Boy had imagined they would collect more men as they cut a swath across the land.

But only two men had come, both convicts fleeing Union justice and them more here for food than honour. Slowly their troop’s numbers dwindled through losses and desertion. It never occurred to The Boy to leave, he’d been with The Tall Man since he was fourteen and he’d follow him until one or both of them died, inevitable now. The Tall Man had set them on a path of vengeance and The Boy’s Whitworth rifle would deliver it, a hexagonal bullet to the head of the highest-ranking Unionist they could find, and to hell with escaping. That was never part of the plan.

Sometimes, at night, he dreamed of that moment of vengeance. The whole world vanishing but for the view down the sights. He was the chosen man, the best shot in the troop. He saw the target in his blue uniform. He did not know the name or rank of that man, or what his face would look like, or if he wore a beard or moustache or shaved his face clean. He knew only that he would be important. Neither did The Boy harbour some great idea that his bullet would change anything, the war was lost and all the friends he had lost had died for naught. If you had pressed The Boy on the whats and whys of the war he would have had no real answer, only fallen back on vague talk of what God had laid down and vague words of the way things were meant to be. But he was not a stupid or obtuse boy, and knew that what men said was God’s will was often simply said to be because that was the way it was and had always been. He could not rightly say himself that a man was lesser simply because of the colour of his skin—he had seen coloured men fight and die brave as any white man, and braver than many. Not that reason mattered to him, or had ever mattered. He fought because The Tall Man fought, and he followed him because it was all he knew.

The Tall Man held a hand up for silence, bringing The Boy out of his reverie and back to readiness. His stomach tightened and he checked that his powder horn and knife were placed where he could easily get at them, that the bag of hexagonal bullets—never heavy enough—was hanging where it should. Around him, men vanished into the undergrowth with all the practised skill of those brought up in the woods and wilds, an innate understanding of their place here. A skill that had saved them from skirmishes they were ill equipped for, ammunition and men running low as it was.

He listened close. Heard no human sound apart from the wheezing breath of Old Bill who had seemed close to death ever since he had met him, but always lived where others died. Birds twittered, the wind continued to rush through the topmost branches of the trees and they shook and trembled like they felt some great fear that men were not party to. Eventually, among the woodland sounds, he heard something different, something that should not be there, that did not belong in the green and humid world; a low moan.

The Tall Man heard it too. Extended two fingers and pointed forward. Elias and Jake, the group’s Choctaw trackers, moved ahead while the rest waited. Cold sweat making hands clammy where they gripped weapons.

A low whistle echoing through the woods.

The Boy stood and whistled back twice, and at the answering low-high-low whistle he motioned the group onwards. No one spoke. Creeping forward, they found themselves in a small clearing where thick tree cover had killed any plant before it could reach the light, leaving the earth dry and dusty as desert. Strewn around the clearing were bodies, men, women, and children. A couple of covered wagons stood, their tresses shorn and horses gone.

“Bushwhackers,” The Tall Man spat. They weren’t the only Southern troop in the area but The Tall Man would have no truck with banditry; what they must take they did, but never too much and with the minimum of violence and the giving of promissory notes that could never be redeemed. When The Boy had first joined up The Tall Man had been under the command of a colonel, a man with drooping moustaches who rode a beautiful grey horse. One night The Tall Man had told The Boy what a fine officer that colonel had been, he’d understood war was necessary but he had never liked it and he’d always treated those that were not soldiers with the utmost courtesy. Even going so far as to raise a shelter above a gallows, so that those that must hang could meet death with eyes open instead of squinting against the sun.

The Boy walked among the bodies in the clearing. He’d seen so many dead it hardly seemed strange to see a body ripe and bursting now. This was just flesh gone the way all flesh must. Most of the bodies showed the telltale marks of musket fire. The first volley had probably taken the men down. Then the bushwhackers had picked off the rest of the caravan from the trees. Never needed to show their faces until everyone was dead. It struck The Boy as a cowardly way to fight.

He heard that low moan again and followed the sound to its source. The covering had come loose from the arching ribs of a wagon and hung down the wooden side, making a small shelter. He lifted back the canvas slowly with the barrel of his rifle.

In the shade he found a girl, beautiful. Her skin translucent white like some perfect woman from a story and as far from the whores he had known, who caked makeup on their faces to hide the marks of pox, as to appear some otherworldly creature to him, as soft and delicate as a newborn fawn.

He’d only seen girls like this one once before: When he’d moved from carrying ammunition for the soldiers to getting a rifle and being a soldier himself, The Tall Man had picked him out to be guard for one of the officers’ parties. He’d stood there, proud as could be, and glanced at the fine ladies as they walked by. This girl looked like them, her hair was curled and soft. But she had a luminosity those women had lacked.

“This one’s alive,” he said out loud and to no one in particular.

A callused hand grabbed him by his shoulder and pushed him to one side. Alain, one of the convicts, stood above the girl. The tail of his coonskin hat jerked as he stared at her, his eyes shone with avarice.

“She is mighty fine,” said Alain. “I ain’t seen a woman in—”

“I warn you, Alain,” said The Boy, voice low and threatening, hand going to the knife at his side, “any part of you touches this girl and I will cut it off. For that is not the way we are.”

The convict sneered at him, hand going to his own knife. “Maybe I should stick you and tell The Tall Man I found his catamite squirming atop this girl he’d killed?” There was a madness in the man’s eyes, the same look The Boy had seen on men drunk with battle. A need to quench themselves in killing thinking that would fix what the terror of battle had broken in them. But Alain’s madness was focused entirely on the girl and what he wanted from her.

“If you think you are man enough to end me,” said The Boy, “then draw that knife and try your skill.”

“She a sweet thing,” said Alain, his voice almost tender, his smile showing browned teeth and bleeding gums. Saliva gathered as white foam in the corners of his mouth and he backed away. “No need for any killing, eh, son?” But though his hand moved away from the knife at his side, it went toward the pistol and The Boy only had his rifle, kept empty so as not to jam it with old, damp powder. In that second The Boy had eyes only for Alain, waiting for the moment when he would make a move and The Boy would have to hope on some error that gave him room to close with the man before he was shot.

“I’m tempted to kill you here, Alain.” A pistol appeared at the side of Alain’s head and The Tall Man stepped around the edge of the ruined wagon. “I’ve killed men in my command for much less than this, it’s a pity I need every hand I got.” Fear extinguished the madness in Alain’s eyes.

“Sorry,” he said, head bowed, voice quavering, “only I ain’t…”

“Stop talking and go join the others,” said The Tall Man, “see what can be salvaged from these poor souls’ supplies, no sense letting it go to waste.”

Alain slinked off to find George, the convict who had escaped with him and the only man he called a friend.

“You should have killed him, sir,” said The Boy, “ain’t nothing good in that one.” The Boy brushed dirt from his tunic.

“You’re probably right, son, only a matter of time before one of ’em tries to kill me in my sleep.” He paused and stared at his revolver with rheumy green eyes. “Or tries to run and then I shall have to visit justice upon them.” The Tall Man removed his hat and ran a hand through greasy, long grey hair. “Won’t kill a man in cold blood, boy, not my way. Kill a deserter, kill my enemy.” He shrugged. “I hope one of them convicts calls me out then I can do it properly, but it won’t happen, not with their kind.” The Tall Man let his voice trail off while staring into the woods, smiled sadly, and returned his attention to The Boy. “Unusual for you to let someone creep up on you”—he looked at the girl—“but I can see why you was distracted, yes I can.” He knelt and, surprisingly tenderly, started to turn the prone girl onto her side.

There was blood beneath her. She moaned as he moved her. At the waist of her dress were two small holes, one in the front, one in the back.

“Looks like a shot went right through her.” The Tall Man’s face was grave.

“Will she live, sir?”

“Not unless she gets some good doctorin’, the kind we can’t give.” The Tall Man gently laid her back down. “You don’t want her to die, do you, son?”

“No sir, I do not.”

“Then”—he turned the chambers of his revolver, avoiding The Boy’s gaze—“I want you to take her to the nearest town. Find her a doctor. I’ll give you some money.”

The Boy thought for a moment, scrutinising the mental map in his head. “Nearest town is loyal to the enemy, sir.”

The Tall Man nodded. “All the towns are loyal to the Union now.”

The Boy stared at him. “I’m your best shot. You need me to finish the mission.”

“We are marching towards our dyin’ and the croak of the Raven, son.”

“I ain’t afraid to die.”

The Tall Man slid his pistol back into its holster. “I know that, few men as brave as you, why else you think I gave you those stripes on your jacket?” He smiled at The Boy. “I’m old, son. I’m just wanting to kill a man out of stubbornness and ’cos I don’t know how to do anything else. My world’s ended, but I figure I may as well go out with a bang. You’re young, you can start again. Gonna be a new world, and you’re the nearest I got left to a son. I want you to live. I want this girl to live, too.” He pointed at her. “You do as I say and I get both my wishes. Bin too much dyin’ these past years.”

The Boy felt tears sting his eyes and fought to hold back the pain that clawed at his throat.

“I’m a soldier, sir, it is my duty to stay here with you and see the mission through to…”

“You’re a soldier and you’ll do as you’re ordered, Boy”—a sudden roar. “I’m orderin’ you to take this girl into town and save her life. I’m orderin’ you to surrender. I’m orderin’ you to live.” The Tall Man’s face set in a way The Boy knew brooked no argument, still he would have tried had not Eugene, the cook, appeared. “Eugene,” said The Tall Man, “girl’s hurt, you make her as comfortable as you can. We’ll stay here for half an hour. I want to talk to the men before we set out.”

Of the twenty left twelve were detailed to go back with The Boy, all young men.

The rest, the convicts and some of the older men, would stay with The Tall Man and fight on, pursue the target. The Tall Man told his troop that each one could be proud and know his honour was beyond question but it was time to face facts. Those staying either couldn’t go back, like the convicts, or felt unable to face a world ruled by those they’d learnt to hate in the fierce battles across the South. The Tall Man finished up, telling them they would stay together until they were out of the woods, when Jake, who had been sent to scout the forest, called out.

“Sir! You’d better see this, sir.”

The Tall Man and The Boy followed Jake, and forty feet beyond the clearing they stopped. The Boy joined them in standing dumbstruck.

In a corridor, stretching as far as they could see in either direction, the trees had been flattened. The Tall Man walked to the centre of the corridor, climbing over splintered trunks, and looked down at where one of them had been snapped off at ground level. He moved the earth around with the toe of his boot and let out a quiet whistle before turning to look at the men who had followed.

“Bret!” he called and a man stepped forward, dirt and blood staining one side of his khaki uniform, his left arm hanging in a sling. “You done a lot of book readin’, you any idea what done this?” He waved lazily at the flattened trees.

Bret straightened the cap that sat atop his mop of blond hair and took a wad of chewing tobacco from his pouch and pushed it into his mouth, proceeding to chew it thoughtfully.

“Reckon it could be an elephant.” He made the first syllable sound like eye and drawled the word out, eye-laugh-ant. “Heard tell some of them are as big as a locomotive and twice as strong.”

A murmuring among the men until one piped up: “Maybe it is some sort of locomotive, one that don’t need rails?”

Another burst of conversation.

“Whatever it is it ain’t something I want to go up against,” said The Tall Man, glancing down the corridor of broken and flattened trees. “I want y’all ready to go in ten minutes. Boy, wait here.”

The men wandered back towards the clearing to gather up their possessions and as much as they could carry of the murdered settlers’ goods. The Tall Man spoke quietly to The Boy. “You keep your eyes open, son, somethin’ is off here. Somethin’ ain’t right.” He took his pipe from his belt and started to fill it with tobacco.

“You mean whatever broke the trees down?”

“That and more, you ever hear of bandits hitting and not taking anything? Only thing seems gone is the horses.” He lit his pipe and blew out a cloud of blue smoke to hang in the still air. “Something very strange here, son, and I don’t like it. Forest ain’t right.”

They walked in silence back to the clearing.

Some of the men had made an improvised travois to carry supplies. The bear-like Creole cook, Eugene, had strapped the wounded girl onto one and dragged it over to where The Boy and The Tall Man stood.

“Don’t look good,” he said, “need to get her help soon as we can. She spoke as I moved her.”

“What did she say?”

“Said she craves the dead and the dyin’. Din’t like the sound of that none.” Eugene shrugged his huge shoulders and dragged the travois and the girl away.

The Boy had heard the rantings of many who were badly wounded and delirious with pain or fever, but something about those words coming out of such beauty sent a shiver down his spine. It didn’t sit right with him that a woman would be saying such things. He picked up his pack and joined the others getting ready to leave.

The woods felt unusually quiet and still, the fretful wind gone.

They moved in single file, those without travois beating a path for those with. Usually they would be wary about making tracks so easy to follow, but that most of them would be surrendering the next day made them careless and noisy. But it was as if some heaviness lay over the wood, and it swallowed up their noise the way a thick mist would and the sound slowly died away, to be replaced by something pensive and worrying. The Boy broke from his place in the centre of the line and caught up with The Tall Man.

“Something’s wrong.”

The Tall Man nodded as he strode forward. “Uh-huh,” he said. “The silence?”

It had been playing on The Boy’s nerves for the last hour as they walked. He’d been brought up in the woodlands and he knew the forest was never this silent. There were always animal and bird calls, the sound of woodpeckers drumming, deer barking. But now, apart from the returning whistle of the wind through the trees, there was no noise at all. No sound of anything living apart from the steady tramping of the troop’s boots.

“Fair gives me the shivers.”

“Me too.” The Tall Man made the signal for the Choctaw scouts to come up. “You two, split up and go on ahead. One of you take Bret, one of you take George. I want to know what we’re headed toward.”

The trackers fell back and gathered the two men who had been detailed to help them, then melted into the woods.

They marched and the oppressive silence followed them until even the most oblivious began to pick up on the strangeness of it. The Boy could feel morale falling. Usually, at times like these, he would sing or one of the men would start to play the mouth organ or a tin whistle. The noise would dispel the tension marching with them, making it worth the risk of being heard. But today when the mouth organ started it had seemed wrong, eerie, and the player ceased after only a few bars.

The Tall Man barked something, not even a word, just a noise they had all come to recognise as meaning “stop and be silent.” The Boy went to the head of the line to find The Tall Man crouched behind a tree and squinting forward.

“Something in the trees up ahead, son, come with me, you take the left.” He signaled the rest of the men to remain behind them.

They crept forward, finding themselves in another of the strange alleyways of flattened trees. In the centre, sitting on top of one of the stumps, a figure rocked backwards and forward muttering to itself. As The Boy watched, The Tall Man came out of the trees twenty yards down on his left and approached the figure.

The Boy did the same.

It was George, the other of the two convicts who had joined them. He was rocking to and fro and muttering under his breath. As The Boy came closer he could hear the words George was repeating to himself. See the man’s skin was slick and red with blood, like he had bathed in it.

“The night came, the night came, the night came…”

“What’s that mean, George?” The Tall Man asked softly, but the ex-convict continued to rock and repeat his three-word mantra. The Tall Man seldom raised his voice, years of practice meant he could put a knife-edge into a whisper. “Where is my scout, George?”

The convict stopped rocking and rubbed the top of his balding head with one hand, smearing blood around his pate. Then looked up into the faces of The Boy and The Tall Man. George’s eyes were a startling blue against the red. “I killed ’im.”

The Tall Man drew his revolver but George didn’t stop speaking.

“I done bad things, there’s names and faces that visit me in the night. Innocents.” A tear rolled down his face and along the deep scar that marred his cheek. “Someone’s whispered my name to the devil.” He began to rock again, wrapping his arms tightly about himself. “The devil come for me, yessir he did. The night came alive and it came for me but that Indian, he got in the way.” He started to sob. “It took him instead of me, but it gon come for me, I know it.”

The Tall Man stared, confusion warring with revulsion over the blood-covered ex-convict and what he was saying.

“The devil came for me and he’s gonna take us all.” George fixed his stare on The Boy. “He gonna take you, boy, he gonna take The Tall Man, and there ain’t nothing we can do to stop hi…”

A single shot rang out and George slumped backwards, quietened forever. The Tall Man holstered his revolver and looked at The Boy. The Boy nodded, he’d seen madness take men before and knew how it could destroy a troop quick. Soldiers were a superstitious lot.

“The devil got you now, George,” said The Tall Man quietly, and he slipped a bullet into the empty chamber of his gun, “so let’s hope he leaves the rest of us alone.” They walked back to the troop and The Tall Man looked up into the rapidly darkening sky. “We make camp here.” He put a hand under his hat and scratched his head. “Make a fire, a big one.”

The men glanced warily at one another, it was rare they had a fire and when they did it was always small.

“Did you not hear me?” barked The Tall Man. “By God we’ll at least be well lit tonight.”

The Boy was glad of the fire, the strangeness of the day had shaken him and must have shaken The Tall Man as well. It was the only thing that explained the fire. The Boy took first watch and then drowsed fitfully, wrapped in a blanket damp from rain a few days ago. Around him men snored and occasionally he heard someone moving as they tried to get comfortable on the hard ground. Any chance of sleep he may have had was ruined by whispering from the sentries.

He threw off his blanket and stood, shivering slightly as the night air worked its way through his uniform to raise goose-pimples on his skin.

“What’s that whispering about?” he said.

The two sentries looked at each other, deciding who would talk, and The Boy recognised Hack in the firelight. “Hack? What you seen?”

The man glanced across at his comrade before clearing his throat. “More what we ain’t seen, sir, just you keep lookin’ over in that direction.” He pointed in the direction of the corridor of felled trees where they’d executed George. “Don’t look into the woods, though.” Hack spat, “Look at the stars.”

Once, The Boy had been involved in a night fight and he’d never been so scared in his life. Not knowing where anything was. The stars reminded him of that night and the way the afterimages of the muzzle flashes had stayed in his eyes as millions of small white dots. He watched the sky, wondering what Hack meant.

Then he saw.

The stars were vanishing.

It took a moment for him to work out what was actually happening. His stomach had tightened up into a little ball inside him at his first thought, as it looked like something was eating the stars. He knew that couldn’t be, sometimes The Tall Man read science magazines and he knew the stars were planets like the moon, just very far away. The stars could not be eaten, which meant they were being blocked from sight as something moved down the track of flattened trees. Something enormous.

“Hack,” he whispered, “get The Tall Man over here, start waking the men and tell them to load their weapons.”

The Boy concentrated on the shape in the trees, when The Tall Man came over he pointed. No words exchanged. The Tall Man went pale in the firelight as the size of the thing became apparent.

“Son,” he said softly, “about half a mile due north of here”—he pointed backwards—“there’s a gully not big enough to fit more than two men across. I want everyone to start making their way to it. Now.”

And the night was ripped apart.

A cacophony like no other, like a fire crackling but magnified a thousand times. The sound of trees being snapped and wrenched from the ground, of wood screaming in protest as the creature forced itself through the forest towards the camp. Then it was among them. Its speed incredible, crashing through the trees, bending some aside and breaking others, men in various states of readiness stood rooted to the spot in shock at the sight of it. The creature was as long across as three men with their arms outstretched and as high as any saloon The Boy had ever seen. It had no colour, no true form, only a vast and constantly changing body of the deepest black.

Fear, sudden and total fear flooded through The Boy’s body. This was something impossible, inhuman, unfightable. Every sinew of his being told him so, every muscle wanted him to run, and yet he could not.

The creature stopped at the edge of the clearing, the fire reflecting wetly off its black hide.

“The night came.”

The thing seemed unsure, as if confused by the circle of firelight and the men there. Wanting to come forward, to roll over and snap the frail bodies as easily as it had trees, but unable to. It made no sound as it moved slowly along the edge of the firelight, flowing around the trees instead of breaking them, moving them through its bulk. A stink rolled over them; it smelt of seawater gone bad, of rotting fish and sludge, of the cold swamps that would drag a man down in suffocating, dead water, of the aftermath of battle.

No one moved. Men stood and gaped at the thing. The Tall Man backed slowly away from it until he stood next to The Boy. “Ain’t nothing good here,” he said. “Get ready to run, son, get Eugene to take the girl and make for the gulley.” He turned and saw the convict Alain. “Alain, get me as much lamp oil as we have.” The convict started towards the travois, all the time keeping his eye on the creature.

“Why’s it stopped?”

The Tall Man stared at the thing, “I’m hoping it’s scared of the fire but I don’t know, maybe it’s looking for something.”

“It ain’t got no eyes,” said one of the troop from behind them. “How’s it see if it ain’t got no eyes?”

“What if it’s looking for the girl?” said someone else.

The Tall Man breathed heavily. The Boy had never seen him frightened before. “It’d make sense, that’s where we saw the tracks first.”

Alain returned just in time to hear the end of the conversation. “Then I’m thinking”—he put down the barrel of lamp oil and a wooden bucket—“we should leave the girl for it and git.”

The creature started to extrude long, thin tentacles into the clearing. Coming slowly, tentatively. No one moved as they watched the tentacles writhe across the ground, winding around packs and over boxes of ammo.

To The Boy’s surprise The Tall Man considered Alain’s idea for a moment then shook his head. Got that look on his face, the same look he’d had when he decided to kill a high-ranking Union man. “I ain’t leavin’ no one for that. S’already taken some of my men. Ain’t just going to sit back and give it what it wants.” Alain looked surly, as if he was about to argue. “Fill your bucket, Alain,” said The Tall Man.

Alain did, turning the crusted and filthy spigot on the barrel, the oil coming out in slow drips. He worked at it with his knife, something desperate about his actions. The Boy’s attention torn away by a whimper.

A tentacle had found a man, Harris, inching around his leg. A dark stain appeared at the crotch of his trousers and he let out that whimper again. Another tentacle lifted from the ground, hung in the air, seemed impossible for how thin it was, then fell slowly forward until it was on Harris’s shoulder, moving up his neck as he stood there, still as he could be. Trying not to even blink. Unable not to shake. The tentacle explored the man’s face and he whimpered again.

Then the creature, unhappy with what it had found, ripped him in half.

Rifle and pistol fire from the fifteen remaining men shattered the quiet of the night. The clearing filling with eye-watering gun-smoke.

Then nothing. Only men stood, wide-eyed and fearful in the dark while the smoke cleared.

“Is it gone?”

“Did we git it?”

“We got it.”

“I ain’t sure.”

A whip-crack in the night.

A tentacle flashed out across the space between the edge of the wood and one of the men, Glaybourne, fell without a sound.

“Reload! Reload!

Again, a whip-crack and a body writhing in the dirt. The Boy saw Hack fall screaming, his leg severed at the knee. Someone pushed him, Alain the convict, and he felt the air behind him split by something fast and violent. Then Alain ran past him and through the gunfire towards the creature screaming out a rebel yell, a bucket in his hands filled with lamp oil. The creature ignored him and the convict threw the contents of the bucket over the thing; in reply a liquid-quick appendage punched through his torso, sending his body cartwheeling off into the night.

The Tall Man stepped forward. So calm in the midst of the screams and the chaos. He held a burning brand in his hand and threw it, sending it arcing gently through the air. The Boy expected the creature to grab it with a black-shining tentacle but the torch rose and fell unimpeded, hitting the thing square in the centre.

It erupted into flame, and it screamed.

The noise was all The Boy’s nightmares in one sound. It was Whistling Dixie shredding men, it was cannon fire, it was the sound of a minié ball cutting the air a hair’s breadth from your own head, it was the sound of men moaning and dying in tents, the sound of guts rupturing, the sound of infection eating flesh. In that sound was every iota of the pain and fear he’d seen or felt on the battlefield.

But the fire drove it back.

The creature retreated from the clearing, the air full of its screaming.

A hand grabbed The Boy by the scruff of his neck: The Tall Man. “Run, son,” he shouted, “run towards the gulley, it ain’t done yet.”

He ran. They all did. The Boy couldn’t tell how many had survived the creature’s attack. He knew The Tall Man had and after a while found himself running just behind Eugene who carried the unconscious girl in his arms. Running hard through the darkness, tripping and swearing, whipped by branches. At first there was no sound of pursuit. Then the crashing and rending of wood as the creature took up the chase. Occasionally a scream would echo out into the trees and he knew the creature had made another kill. Eugene sobbed as he ran.

“It’s coming, Boy,” Eugene shouted. “It’s getting nearer to us, I can hear it.” The sound of trees being ripped up, rent, smashed out of the way, getting so loud The Boy could barely hear Eugene’s shout. “Keep running, we’re nearly there.” The Boy could see the entrance to the canyon, a shadow in the shadow of the forest.

The crack of air being cut by something thin, cruel, and fast echoed in The Boy’s ear. His head rang with it. The tentacle barely stroked the back of Eugene’s head and he fell forward, limp and dead, the girl’s unconscious body spilling out onto the track in a flurry of petticoats. The Boy stooped as he ran, feeling the strain in his back as he picked the girl up and managed the final few strides to the gully entrance, dragging her with him. A second later The Tall Man ran in, skidding to a stop in the dust and mud. He turned and threw a small bomb of gunpowder and shrapnel at the creature as it crashed into the wall behind them.

“Quick, go! Go!” shouted The Tall Man, following The Boy into the gully. They ran for five minutes before The Boy’s body gave in to exhaustion and he stopped, his whole being shaking, and he collapsed, the girl falling where her head hit his lap so he cradled her. The Tall Man looked at the steep sides of the gully then glanced up to the stars above. “We’re safe here, I reckon, it’s too narrow for it, it won’t be able to get in. We’ll wait until daylight then make our escape. It don’t like light none.” The Tall Man turned to him, eyes wide with fear. “It kept the dead, boy. I saw it behind you, it was carrying them. What would it do that for?” He stopped and stared above The Boy’s head. His long face went pale. “God save us,” he whispered.

He followed The Tall Man’s gaze. Something moved across the top of the gulley, straddling both the walls and blocking out the starlight above them.

A tentacle shot down from the darkness and pierced the head of The Tall Man. One minute he was there, alive and real, and the next he was limp and dead and gone. The Boy couldn’t move. Knew it was over.

He waited for his own death. But it did not come.

Instead, what happened was impossible. Hell-sent. Like the thing were the very devil come to get him just as George had said. The Tall Man, dead as he was, stood. Then The Tall Man spoke. The tentacle that had killed him remained in his head, linked to the thing above as his mouth opened to whisper two words.

“Give her.” The Tall Man’s mouth moving but the voice cracked and broken, not the voice of anything human.

The Boy looked from the puppet of The Tall Man to the girl in his lap. Then drew his knife and held it against the throat of the girl, unwilling to give her up alive to the thing. Who knew what it would do? What it wanted. Death must be the better option.

The Boy shook his head. “No, I’ll kill her first, ain’t letting no demon take her.”

“I protect,” hissed The Tall Man’s body.

The Boy paused, his blade drawing a thin line of blood from the girl’s throat. “Protect?”

Then, and for the first time, he heard the voice of the girl, soft, sibilant, and barely more than a whisper.

“Help me,” she said. “Help me.”

“I will,” he said. “I will.” Her face, pale, and cold and so near to death. Skin like porcelain. Lips bent into the smallest smile. “Live,” he said.

Her eyes opened. She looked frightened, panicked, terrified, but only for a moment. Then the frightened eyes of the dying girl clouded, changed, and something very old and very predatory looked out and reached to embrace The Boy. Not with arms. Not with the girl’s body, but with a vortex, a darkness that he could not look away from, a cold presence that pushed his consciousness aside.

“Hide me,” it said, and though the girl’s lips moved the words were in his mind. And then The Boy found himself watching as his hand moved, he did not will it. It happened without his consent. His knife sliding, cutting the girl’s throat.

Then pain.

Running through him, unbearable agony. Like nothing he had ever endured. His mind no longer his, something terrible sorted through it as the thing that had been in her and was now within him searched for information, wanting to know where the nearest town was. Wanting to know where people were. He wanted to fight but it promised a lessening of pain in exchange for the information, though not an end. Never an end.

And soon the pain was all there was, and he knew he would do anything for it to stop and he let go, the fight ended. He watched the world from a corner of his mind while another thing thought for him. Stood for him. Began to stumble toward town as it learned to work this new body.

He was hungry. His beast was hungry, too.

They were always hungry.

And this world was full of food.

Pearl’s Price

by Marie Brennan

Seven prayers to the ancestors. Seven shuffles of the cards. Cut and deal.

Nine cards, in three rows of three. The past, the present, the future. The good and the ill of it, and that which is neither.

Patterns. Connections. The threads of their fates…

the good past

Sword in Hand: the card of commitment

“We aren’t the first to try,” Liatry said, her voice echoing dramatically in the still air of the underground temple.

“When the armies of Kaius Sifigno began to overrun Vraszan, before he was ever called Conqueror, no doubt the various city lords and clan elders said he must be stopped. But their own history kept them too divided to join in solid alliance against him until it was too late—and besides, he had uncanny success in the field. He knew where to strike and when, who to bribe and how. One by one, the city-states of Vraszan fell to him, and no one was able to bring him down.

“Then once the Conqueror controlled the entire valley of the River Dežera and settled in to rule, before he was ever called Tyrant, no doubt people from one end of Vraszan to the other said he said he must be stopped. But Vraszenian leadership was broken, too weak to mount any credible threat—and besides, he had uncanny luck in avoiding assassins. He was never where they lay in wait, never ate the poison-laced meals. No matter what method they tried, no one was able to bring him down.

“Now he rules from the holy city of Nadežra: Kaius Rex, the Conqueror of Vraszan. The Tyrant who pins the Vraszenian people under his boot. Now people are too afraid to say he must be stopped—and besides, he has an uncanny knack for knowing who plots against him. So no one believes anymore that he can be brought down.”

She paused, letting her gaze sweep her audience. Nine people watched her silently: some with doubt, others with curiosity. Only Zmienka and Issena showed confidence, determination, love.

They already knew what she was going to say.

“But he can,” Liatry said, grinning. “And he will.”

Her speech was theatrical, and deliberately so; it was modeled on the last one Olov ever delivered. The play he staged was about ancient Vraszenian history, not the Conqueror, but that hadn’t saved him. These days, any discussion of politics was assumed to be a coded call to action against the Tyrant—quite accurately, in Olov’s case. Kaius Rex’s soldiers cut his tongue out right there on stage, though his death took a good deal longer.

Liatry only heard about that afterward. She’d bolted the moment the soldiers appeared, and she hadn’t been on a stage since. A part of her missed it dearly.

She let the dramatic pause last a moment too long. Meralno spat on the stone floor and said, “With your fine words will you bring him down? I want him dead, as do we all. But this is no game, Liatry.”

“Yes it is,” she shot back. That wasn’t the next part of her speech, but she was used to improvising. “One the Tyrant has been winning for decades. So the only way for us to win is to cheat.”

She spread her arms, indicating the chamber around them. “We must change the rules of the game. Do things no one has tried before, things he won’t anticipate. Like, for example, hatching our conspiracy in the last place he’ll look: his own hidden temple.”

It lay deep within the Point, carved out of solid rock. The crown of the Point had once held a sacred labyrinth surrounding the Wellspring of Ažerais, the holiest site in all of Vraszan. One of the Tyrant’s first actions had been to destroy that labyrinth, replacing it with the Great Amphitheatre where bloody amusements were now performed for his pleasure.

This space beneath it was something else, though. The walls were carved with numinatrian designs, geometric figures meant to channel the power of the Lumen. Liganti magic, and Liganti religion. She could see Meralno drawing breath to object again, but Issena spoke before he could. “He hasn’t used this place in over ten years.”

Of them all, she would know. The rest of those gathered in the temple were Vraszenian, or else “sailor’s get” like Liatry, their ancestry mixed with the various peoples who traveled through or traded with Nadežra. Only Issena was Liganti, honey-haired and pale. Which gave her words authority…but also gave people like Meralno reason to doubt her.

Sure enough, he made a contemptuous gesture in her direction. “And for this we must take her word? You know how close her family is with the Tyrant!”

“They are?” Liatry said in feigned surprise. A man like Meralno expected confrontation; he wasn’t prepared for mockery. “Masks have mercy. Zmienka and I never realized! We took her into our bed and our hearts without once asking ourselves if she could be trusted.”

His shoulders hunched, hostility corroding into defensiveness. “Today she may share our cause, but tomorrow? Next week? Next year? Easy enough for her to walk away; she lives not with the dangers we face every day.”

“That’s true.”

Issena’s voice was soft as she moved forward to stand at Liatry’s side. She met Meralno’s gaze not with a glare, but with steadfast sincerity. “I live with different dangers instead. Kaius is less likely to arrest me on a whim, to kill me in a fit of pique…but it can still happen. And do you know how often he orders members of his court into his bed? Do you think what happens there is pleasurable for anyone other than him? Anything Kaius wants, he takes. Tomorrow, next week, next year, what he wants might be me.”

“And when that day comes, can you be sure you won’t trade us for your own safety?”

“I can.” That came from Zmienka, stepping up to join Issena and Liatry. Meralno reflexively ducked his head, like a boy chastised by an elder, for all that Zmienka was younger than him. He respected szorsas, and she’d shown a talent for reading pattern at an early age—a talent strong enough that her parents had realized she was meant to be their daughter rather than their son.

She lifted her voice to address not only Meralno but the rest of the group as well, watching with wary unease. “Once this place was sacred to something other than the Tyrant’s rites. It was ours long before it was his. Here a spirit lingers, one I can call upon to protect us—all of us, Issena included. It will make it so that no other can enter besides ourselves.”

For the first time since Liatry began her speech, one of the others in the group spoke up. “Pattern?” Tmaryas said, dubiously. “Forgive me, szorsa. I know you have great skill. But how can your cards keep our enemies out?”

Zmienka reached into her pocket, but what she drew out was not her pattern deck, the cards she used to read people’s fates. Instead it was a charm of the sort once sold in every sacred labyrinth in Nadežra, before the Tyrant tore the labyrinths up: a length of blue cord, twisted into a decorative, three-lobed knot.

Meralno breathed out at the sight. “You want us to tie ourselves together. Form a knot, for the purpose of killing Kaius Rex.”

It was an old Vraszenian tradition, an oath of friendship and common purpose. Liatry said, “Issena is the second way we’ll change the game. She can be our eyes and ears in the Tyrant’s court, feeding us information on how best to oppose him. But if we do this, we have to trust one another. Vraszan’s weakness lies in its divisions—in the rivalries between cities, the rifts between the clans. Our strength has to lie in our unity.”

“A knot can be more than a promise,” Zmienka said, picking up the thread of Liatry’s theme as smoothly as if they’d rehearsed it. “Pattern is the connections between things—not only seeing them, but affecting them. With pattern, together I can bind us, making us more than we are apart.”

Liatry could see Meralno wavering. He wouldn’t have come here if he didn’t burn to see the Tyrant fall—but wanting it and believing it was possible weren’t the same thing. He said, “You think this will be enough? A hidden base, a Liganti spy, and a knot?”

“No,” Liatry said with a careless shrug. Then she grinned at him, putting a challenge into her eyes. “But to find out the last piece…you’ll have to swear.”

He wasn’t the first to step forward, but he wasn’t the last, either. No one wound up backing out. Together they bound themselves, swearing loyalty, secrecy, and dedication to the downfall of Kaius Sifigno. Aža might be illegal these days, but Liatry had managed to get her hands on enough for them to conduct the ritual properly, and Issena, eternally practical, had brought wine to dissolve the shimmering powder in.

The “little dream” spun Liatry’s vision and made her a touch giddy as the rite ended. Before Meralno could return to his questions, she flung her arms wide and returned to a declamatory voice. “My friends, my knot! For decades people have sought to bring down the Tyrant, and they have failed. And it may be that we cannot do it either…

“…so we will create someone who can.”

the good present

The Mask of Knives: the card of tyranny and rebellion

A thousand people stand crowded into the plaza in front of the Imperiat. Some are there out of cruel eagerness to see a man executed de Ninate: placed inside the intricate geometric shape of a numinat, then broken and torn by the figure’s power, piece by agonizing piece, until the magic finally permits him to die. But most are there because the Conqueror commands it: a display of his power, both in the man’s execution and in the ability to force others to watch. His soldiers have rounded them up, ordinary men and women and children, and herded them into this space to see what happens to those who challenge the power of Kaius Sifigno.

A thousand people…and one uninvited shadow.

Liatry stands unmoving in the shelter of a pillar. Her new coat works better than the first version; no one took any notice of her slipping into position. Meralno may have been talented at imbuing once, but drink robbed him of his skill after his wife was executed. Imešny, on the other hand, can deliver on her promises. So long as Liatry doesn’t draw attention to herself, the coat will enhance her concealment. And since Imešny isn’t part of their knot, she’s received her payment in the form of escape from Nadežra, upriver into the rest of Vraszan, where the Tyrant’s hand doesn’t grip quite as tightly.

Bit by bit, they’ve started prying his fingers off Nadežra, too. If Liatry is lucky—if Issena’s information is true—then today’s work might even weaken his grasp enough for them to pull the city free.

Drumbeats pulse in the distance, heralding the approach of the condemned. Orradinci has been held across the East Channel since his arrest, in the Tyrant’s palace; the Masks alone know what he’s been subjected to there. Kaius’s appetites fluctuate day by day, swinging one moment toward bloodthirst, the next toward lust, then abandoning them both for food and drink. The worst days are when those things tangle together. The last person executed was cooked for Kaius’s table, the Tyrant feasting publicly on her flesh.

They say he wasn’t always a monster. A warlord, yes, his armies overrunning Vraszan with terrifying speed…but not this.

Liatry doesn’t care what he was in the past. Even if Kaius sheds his monstrosity today, he will still have to answer for everything he’s done. And judging by the procession entering the square, today will not bring that miracle.

The steps of the Imperiat stand just high enough to let her see inside the squared ranks of the soldiers, where a riderless horse paces. Ropes from its harness lead to the ground behind the horse, and the battered, bloody figure being dragged there. On an ordinary day, Liatry would pray to Šen Kryzet that this abuse has knocked Orradinci unconscious. It would be a mercy for him not to feel what comes next, after they place him in the numinat.

But not today. Today she needs him as alert as possible. If she has to carry him out, this will be a lot harder.

Liatry forces herself to wait, heart beating fast, as the soldiers untie Orradinci from the horse and haul him up onto the platform where the numinat waits. This one is more than just lines chalked onto the boards; it has a vertical element as well, the nine-pointed Ninat figure that will keep him alive while the rest does its work. The soldiers bind him to the points of that star, then back away, clearing a path for the Tyrant’s executioner to step up to the unfinished numinat.

While the soldiers’ commander calls out Orradinci’s crimes—espionage, conspiracy, treason, all their details carefully left unspecified—the executioner places the foci that will call on the appropriate Liganti gods, channeling their power through the lines of the numinat. Then he closes the circle around the standing Ninat figure, activating its effect. Finally he bends to chalk shut the line on the boards that will begin the killing process, tearing Orradinci apart one bloody shred at a time.

Liatry times her move perfectly.

As the executioner finishes his mark, she darts out from behind the pillar. Her sword flashes down and cuts straight through that closing line. His hand is still on the chalk, still touching the boards; the sudden burst of the power breaking shoots through his body, and he falls with a scream.

The soldiers are still turning to see when Liatry hurls a clay disk to the boards. It’s one of Issena’s creations, and when it breaks, it sends out a flash of blinding light. The numinatrian etching on the tiny mask inside her hood protects her from the flare, but everyone else reels. A swift series of kicks topples the soldiers from the platform to the unforgiving flagstones below. Then she’s cutting Orradinci’s bonds, her imbued blade parting the ropes with a single stroke each time. He groans as he slumps into her arms, but he’s awake, and Liatry shoves him toward the line that’s just tumbled down from the roof of the Imperiat. “Go!” she shouts, waiting only long enough to make sure he’s gotten his foot into the loop at the bottom. The minute his weight is on the rope, Tmaryas and Yugemir up above start hauling for all they’re worth. This is the most dangerous moment, when the soldiers at the edges of the plaza might bring their crossbows to bear and shoot him down.

But he isn’t their priority. Liatry is.

Or rather, the hooded, black-coated figure people have begun calling the Rook. Liatry and her knot agreed to base their creation on the stock figure of the Hooded Stranger from street theatre, but Dusjin rightly argued that it needed a name. She even had the clever idea to compose a street ballad about their creation right after Liatry began her work. The Tyrant banned the song immediately, of course, but people still hum snatches of it when no soldiers are around, or drum out its rhythm on the tables as they drink.

It isn’t enough for Liatry simply to dress herself up in a costume, even one with both imbuing and numinatria worked into its components. Her audience doesn’t know the story yet; she needs to bring it to life for them, to imbue it like any other creation, so that it wins their imaginations and their hearts.

She needs them to believe enough in the Rook that when she does something as foolhardy as intervening in a public execution, they’ll help her get away before the soldiers stomp her into the delta mud.

Liatry is tall enough, her shoulders broad enough, that most people assume the Rook is a man. Keeping her voice as deep as she can, while still pitching it to be heard by the crowd, she calls out, “Slaughtering a bound man is easy. But let’s see how you fare against a moving target!”

A couple of the soldiers have climbed back onto the platform, which conveniently makes it harder for the more distant ones to shoot. They’re still blinded enough to make their charge uncertain, though. Liatry trips one into the other, then seizes the nearest limbs—a foot, a hand—and loops a cord swiftly around them, yanking the prepared knot tight. Nothing they can’t get out of, but it will slow them down.

She ducks just in time to avoid a crossbow bolt. As more hail down on the platform, she takes cover behind the intricate framework of the standing Ninat figure. Orradinci is safely on the roof; time for her to go.

Liatry slices again at the boards, this time with far more force. Then she hurls her weight at the metal framework. The wooden planks snap, and the frame topples forward—right onto three more of the soldiers. She rides it to the ground, springing free as it lands.

Reckless though it is, she halts for long enough to sweep a bow to the crowd. “I’m afraid this is a one-act play. But I will see you for the sequel: The Tyrant’s Fall!”

Then she runs. There may be a few sadists down there, not to mention enough cowards to bridge the River Dežera…but enough people are cheering the Rook on that she’s got a relatively clear path to the plaza’s edge.

It’s starting to work. The people believe, and all the components of her disguise are coming together, and—

She’s got too much momentum not to slam into the man who blocks her path at the edge of the plaza. He’s not a soldier, but for one horrible moment his hands clamp down on her arms, his grip strong enough she can’t easily break it. In another moment the crossbows will be reloaded, or the soldiers behind her will catch up, and she’ll be dead.

Then Zmienka appears, like a conjurer’s trick, and blows caustic powder into the man’s eyes. He lets go of Liatry with a scream. She grabs Zmienka, and only the shouts of the crowd pursue them as they escape.

“The Rook! The Rook! The Rook!”

the good future

Pearl’s Promise: the card of reward

The entire city will know the moment he dies.

Afterward, they will call it a miracle. The bells of the Imperiat suddenly beginning to ring, with no one’s hand on the rope. The deep, brazen notes continuing without pause, the sound washing outward like a ripple in a pool: to the clock-tower in Suncross, to the tight-packed mass of Lacewater, then off the Old Island and across the river in both directions to the Upper and Lower Banks. Most of the Vraszenian labyrinths are long gone, torn up by the Tyrant in an attempt to stomp out the faith of Ažerais; they did not have bells anyway. But the temples built by the Liganti do, and every last one of them will ring, tolling the death knell of Kaius Sifigno.

And the Rook will hear it.

Concealed atop a roof not far from the Imperiat, he will turn his face to the clouds, eyes burning dry. The Liganti say all souls are reborn, after the fires of the Lumen purge them of their imperfections. Kaius’s soul will burn for a very long time in those fires. But Vraszenians say the soul has three parts: one that passes to punishment or reward, one that is reborn, and one that lingers on, not quite in this world, a shadow in Ažerais’s Dream.

He will whisper a prayer for the one that is gone, and his thanks to the one that will return.

The third remains…and has work yet to do.

the ill past

The Mask of Mirrors: the card of secrets and lies

“Are you all right, love?” Liatry was a warm weight against Issena’s back, draping over her shoulders where she sat at her worktable, etching numinata into the leather of a small black eye mask. “You seem tired.”

Issena shrugged her off, then twisted on the bench to crack her back, using the stretch as her excuse for pushing Liatry away. Under the guise of rubbing her eyes, she also wiped her brow. The cavern that held the temple was always cool and dry—a near-miracle in the swampy delta that underlay Nadežra—but she felt hot, her skin damp and a little too tight.

Zmienka clicked her tongue. “You must take a break, miryl. It would not be good for you to become lost in your work.”

By “lost,” she meant the meditative state crafters drifted into when they imbued their creations with greater potency. Every inscriptor learned the danger of falling into that trap. It was one thing to put imbuing and numinatria side by side, as they were doing with the disguise for the hero they were inventing: a hood imbued to stay on the wearer’s head through every movement and breeze, for example, while a band along its edge, embroidered with numinatria, deepened the shadows within. Two separate effects that happened to exist near each other.

Imbuing a numinat was another matter entirely. It could be done—oh, there was no question of that. Some of the greatest works of numinatria in the world had been imbued by their inscriptors; they were great because they were imbued. That latter magic made the former more effective.

But numinatria was, at its core, about channeling energy. Ordinarily the source was the deity whose name decorated the focus placed within the numinat. Imbuing meant threading a piece of oneself into the work, though, and if an inscriptor did that to their figures…then they became part of the source.

And a human, unlike a god, could not withstand that forever.

Issena ought not to say it. She knew that, and the words came out of her mouth anyway. “Maybe I should.”

Silence fell. It was uncanny, the moments when the temple became quiet. Out in the city, even “silence” was permeated by people speaking in the distance, birds singing, the constant, liquid song of the river and its canals. But the temple, buried deep in the only natural hill for miles around, could be truly quiet—and Issena found it unnerving.

Liatry’s voice broke the hush. “I thought I was supposed to be the one who makes inappropriate jokes.”

Issena turned on the bench to face her lovers. She knew what she would see: twin expressions of absolute, unyielding stubbornness. All three of them were stubborn; they had to be, to dedicate themselves to the downfall of a man who seemingly could not be killed. Their determination was part of what drew her to them, like a moth to an unquenchable flame.

Even so…“What we’re doing is beyond dangerous,” she said. “We could be caught at any moment, and then the Tyrant will hang us or burn us or execute us de Ninate. We knew that when we started, and we agreed not to let it stop us. We agreed that if this costs us our lives, it will still be worth it.”

“If,” Liatry shot back, half a heartbeat ahead of Zmienka’s echo. “It’s one thing to risk it, and another thing to resign yourself to it.”

“You would be more effective if I imbued the numinata in your disguise.”

“And you would be dead. I’m not willing to make that trade.”

Zmienka clapped her hands, silencing them both. “No arguments. Issena, we need you for many things, not only this disguise. In the court of the Tyrant you serve as our eyes and ears; among your countryman you serve as our agent, persuading them to act in ways useful to us. And you are one-third of my heart, as you are one-third of Liatry’s. All of that is worth more than boots that jump a little higher.”

The disguise contained much more subtle numinatria than what she’d etched into the soles of the boots—but that wasn’t the point. Issena couldn’t make herself voice her real argument, though. It stuck in her throat when she tried, and what came out instead was, “I have to go home anyway. My father…”

Liatry grimaced. “He’s getting suspicious.”

“Worse than that,” Issena said heavily. “He’s getting ambitious. Now that Adessil is dead, power is shifting. My father is angling to have the secret police put into his own hands. And Kaius—”

She couldn’t make herself say it, but Zmienka pressed her lips together and nodded. “To your father, you are a bargaining chip with the Tyrant.”

So far Issena had managed to keep clear of his attention. They said Kaius had a preternatural ability to tell when people were plotting against him—not just who wanted him dead, because that was three-quarters of Nadežra, but who had a plan for how to make it happen. She didn’t know if their own scheme qualified yet; they were still struggling to harmonize the various types of magic in a way that would be effective enough to stand a chance. But she hadn’t forgotten Meralno’s suspicious words, the day they formed their knot. She couldn’t risk being the one who gave them away.

Liatry knelt, taking Issena’s hand and planting a delicate kiss atop her fingers. “Love…what Zmienka said about you being our spy. The instant that becomes too dangerous, you need to tell us. We can hide you here in the temple. We’ll manage without the information you bring us. Better that than losing you.”

Tension was building in Issena’s chest. She pulled her hand back too fast and stood. “I understand. I’ll think about it. I—I have to go.”

It was all she could do not to run for the archway that led out of the temple. As soon as she was out of sight, she fumbled out her handkerchief and released the cough she’d been fighting to contain. The numinat embroidered into the fabric helped muffle the sound, so it wouldn’t echo back into the temple chamber.

When she drew the handkerchief away, red stains marred the regular lines of her stitches.

All of that is worth more than boots that jump a little higher.

But what if Zmienka wouldn’t have those other things much longer? What if the biggest threat to Issena was something they couldn’t hide her from? What if Zmienka and Liatry were doomed to lose one-third of their hearts?

She ought to tell them. She was getting sicker with every day, and neither money nor magic could reverse that trend. Quinat might be the numen of health, but it could only strengthen the body’s energies. For some diseases, that was enough. For others, it only delayed the inevitable. Sooner or later, no matter what Issena did, her family or her lovers would realize the truth.

The idea had come to her late in the night, when coughing woke her from troubled sleep. I could waste away slowly, fearing every day that my father will sell me to Kaius for political advantage…or I could burn myself out in one grand move, and leave behind something that can bring the Tyrant down at last.

This thing they wanted to make, this hero born of magic, was a grand dream. It would certainly be enough to fight the Tyrant, to strike blows on behalf of the people he oppressed. Killing him, though, might take more than ordinary magic could provide.

For Liatry’s sake, for Zmienka’s, she would do it.

But they were the exact people who would tell her not to.

Coughing shook her shoulders again, hard enough to make her sag against the wall. Assuming there’s enough of me left to power anything.

Issena slipped a small bottle out of her pocket and downed the medicine inside, calming the storm in her lungs. Then, tucking her stained handkerchief away, she went back to her other life of lies.

the ill present

Saffron and Salt: the card of deals

For as long as she can remember, Issena has watched her father navigate the shoals of the Conqueror’s court. The Liganti officers rewarded with noble titles after the conquest of Vraszan enjoy countless privileges, but those don’t come without peril. Kaius has grown more unstable over the years, falling prey to his own appetites—not only for food and drink and sex, but for power, for blood, for any whim that crosses his mind. It takes a deft hand to satisfy those appetites without being consumed by them, and Carduin is among the deftest.

After this long spent watching him, Issena knows when he’s about to make a move.

She knows when she is his target.

He’s alone in his study when he summons her, and before the door has even finished closing behind her, Issena sinks to her knees on the thick Arthaburi rug. Head bowed, she begins, “Father—”

His hand lifts her chin, but not in affection or absolution. It’s only to line her face up for the slap that follows.

The force of it knocks her to the floor. Through the ringing in her head, she hears him snarl, “You fool. Do you have any notion of the danger you’ve placed us in? Playing at conspiracy with a swarm of gnats?”

The slur hits as if he’s plunged his hand into her guts and twisted them. He knows.

“I was right not to trust you,” he snaps, standing over her. She remains on the floor, huddled beneath his furious gaze. “I almost told you Kaius did give me control of the secret police. I almost gave you some responsibility with them. But you’ve been gone so often, hiding so much from him, from me…I decided to keep that to myself. And then I put my own officers on the task of following you. What do I find? My own daughter conspiring with that idiot they call the Rook!”

The pain inside isn’t from her father’s words. There was a time those might have hurt, a time when she loved her father and wanted to please him. But that was before he committed himself so wholeheartedly to maintaining and extending the Tyrant’s power—not out of loyalty, no; there’s no loyalty in Carduin’s heart. He only sees opportunity, and takes it.

The pain is because, despite everything, she has been the one to betray their knot. Entirely by accident, entirely against her will…but that makes no difference now.

“Well?” he says coldly. “No excuses? Nothing to say for yourself?”

Issena opens her mouth. She doesn’t even know what she’s going to say, but it’s reflex; when Carduin demands an answer, she doesn’t dare refuse.

Instead what comes out is a coughing fit, one that shakes her whole body. At least the red carpet hides the blood that escapes before she manages to get her handkerchief out. Her father isn’t watching; by the time she has her breath back, he’s paced over to the window and is staring out across the rooftops of the Pearls, hands locked behind his back.

“And now those gnats have gotten you sick,” he says, his voice contemptuous. “Filthy people. Kaius should purge them from this city—let them go wallow in the mud of their river.”

He doesn’t know how far the sickness goes. She’s managed to keep that hidden. It’s a tiny bargaining chip, but she clutches it to herself like the fabric wadded up in her hand…because if her father knows she’s dying, then she will lose what shred of power she has in this confrontation.

When she’s confident she can speak without setting off another coughing fit, she says, “Father. You know he’s gotten less and less stable. How long before he turns on you?”

Her father scoffs. “Say what you will about Kaius, but he understands the people around him. Unlike some of the others, I don’t want his place; the best way for me to get what I want is to stay at his side. So long as that’s true, he has no reason to doubt me.”

“Does he need a reason?”

For a moment, as her father keeps gazing out the window, she wonders if she’s gotten through to him. But then he turns, and the smile he directs at her is cold. “He’ll need one so long as I keep proving my loyalty. One of my men almost had the Rook at the plaza yesterday; a pity we lost him. We could have executed him right there. But no matter. We know enough for me to capture and turn in the rest of your fellow conspirators.”

Issena pushes herself up to her feet. Kneeling won’t do her any good, not now; she needs to make a pretense of strength.

“You don’t want to do that,” she says. “If you turn them in, Kaius will know I was part of the conspiracy. How well do you think he’ll trust you then?” The Tyrant isn’t in the habit of executing just the guilty party. Lately, even those killed for failure instead of disloyalty tend to be followed by their families.

Her father is too canny not to have thought of that. “They’ll die resisting arrest,” he says with an unconcerned shrug. Then his gaze narrows. “I know what this is about, Issena. I don’t need the Conqueror’s insight to understand you. I know about everything—including your lovers.”

The last ember of hope dies into ash.

It must show, too, because her father’s lip curls in disgust. “A Vraszenian card-shuffler, and a sailor’s bastard. Really, Issena? There are plenty of Liganti women you could have taken to your bed. We could have gotten a valuable alliance out of that. But no, you chose instead to rut in the mud.”

At his words, a tiny spark flickers. The ember is not quite out.

“Those alliances aren’t what you really want,” Issena says. Her voice is steadier than it has any right to be, given the thoughts roiling in her mind. “Not when there’s a bigger prize to be had: Kaius himself.”

She’s managed to confuse her father. Right now, that feels like a victory. “You mean—” Carduin stares at her. “You can’t seriously be claiming that you want to be taken to his palace.”

Taken to his palace. A fine euphemism for what that actually means…but when the one taken is Liganti, they use different words than when it’s a Vraszenian snatched off the street.

Issena makes herself fold the stained handkerchief and tuck it away, as if this were an ordinary conversation. “I know you’ve thought about it before. Adopting someone better to be your heir, and offering me to him.” For all that the Tyrant takes what he wants, sometimes what he wants most is for a thing to be offered to him freely—or something that passes for freely, at least. “I’m saying I’ll cooperate.”

“As long as I spare your friends.” Her father waves one hand in dismissal. “Leave a conspiracy on the loose? I’m not that stupid.”

“Not the whole conspiracy. Only Zmienka and Liatry. Let those two live.”

She can rationalize it to herself. Their knot is already doomed; better to save what few she can. And her father doesn’t realize Liatry is the Rook, the one person who might stand a chance of stopping Kaius—someday. If they can make the Rook strong enough.

But the truth is that she would rather carve her own heart out here and now than contemplate the possibility of her lovers dying.

If there’s any justice in the cosmos, the Lumen will consider her betrayal of her other knot-mates one of the stains she must purge from her soul before her next rebirth.

Carduin stares at her, unblinking. Then he says, “They’ll just gather more traitors and start up again.”

“Not if I’m in the Tyrant’s palace,” Issena replies immediately. “Not if I’m at risk like that. For my sake, if I tell them to, they’ll stop.”

She doesn’t know if it’s true. She prays it’s true. If it isn’t…

Her father has too much self-control to pace while he thinks. He merely steps back, presses his lips together, and falls silent. He has to agree; there’s so much for him to gain.

But he shakes his head. “Kaius…he truly can see into the people around him. He’ll see that you want to kill him.”

“I don’t,” Issena whispers, and in that moment, it becomes true. “Not if it means them dying. What I want most in all the world, Father, is for Zmienka and Liatry to live.”

He takes her chin again, surveying her face as if he can read her the way he says Kaius can. She doesn’t blink. She has nothing left to hide.

“If they don’t cooperate,” he says with quiet malice, “I’ll kill you myself.”

Then he releases her and turns away. “Your cheek is going to bruise. Kaius won’t like that. Go put some ointment on it, and take something for that cough.”

She obeys silently, shaking from head to foot. It turns into more coughing once she’s back in her room, great heaving, retching coughs that leave the basin she grabs smeared with spittle and phlegm and blood.

Killing me won’t be necessary, Father.

And then—as if the Lumen’s light has burned away the clouds—she sees her path.

On the streets of Nadežra, people whisper that Kaius Rex can do more than just see the intentions of those around him. They say he has ways of controlling people, of making them do what he wants. That’s why their knot took the chance at rescuing Orradinci: because it’s more than just rumor, and they need to know how. Adessil wasn’t executed for his failures; he emasculated himself in open court and offered the severed parts to Kaius before bleeding out. The determination shining in his eyes hadn’t been natural.

She can’t trust that the magic Zmienka threaded into their knot bond will be proof against that. She needs to make sure the Tyrant doesn’t ever question her.

With reckless inspiration, she takes her inkwell and dumps the contents into the basin, mixing them with the mess already there. Then she closes her eyes and whispers the inscriptor’s prayer. “I have my compass, my edge, my chalk, myself. I need nothing more to know the cosmos.” And nothing more to channel its power.

Issena faces the mirror. With ink and blood instead of chalk, she paints the geometric lines of a numinat onto her chest. Quinat is associated with the earthwise spiral; by drawing it sunwise instead, she inverts the numen’s meaning. Sickness instead of health. Then Ninat for death, not delayed but hastened, and the vesica piscis of Tuat to connect the two.

Working with her reflection is difficult, but soon she falls into a trance-like state, imagining her spirit is already out of her body. It doesn’t matter if this takes her with it—so long as it doesn’t do so too soon. She has to live long enough to send a message, long enough for Zmienka and Liatry to escape. That’s the only thing that matters now.

After that, she can die. And neither her father nor the Tyrant will be able to touch her then.

the ill future

The Mask of Chaos: the card of crime and disorder

Getting inside the house should not be easy. Although the Tyrant has been the focal point of people’s hatred and fear, his soldiers and his nobles are similarly despised, merely to a lesser degree. They have their own defenses, their own guards—and in the aftermath of the Tyrant’s death, these will be stronger than ever.

The Rook is more than an ordinary burglar, though. He’ll slip inside with ease.

But not without warning. When he opens the door to the hallway beyond, a sword will greet him, its point leveled at his chest. Backing up, the Rook will say, “I’m not here to kill you. I came for your help.”

Carduin will follow him into the room, blade not wavering. “I thought you were delusional when you set yourself against the Tyrant. Now this?”

Black gloves will spread wide. “But lo, the Tyrant has fallen. Which everyone said was impossible.” After giving the implication a moment to sink in, the Rook will add, “I think you and I both know that isn’t the end of it, though.”

In the provinces, rebellions; in the city, riots. And more: fighting between the various noble families, until Nadežra’s canals run with blood. Having held power this long, they won’t be eager to surrender it just because Kaius Rex is gone. Instead they’ll compete to take his place.

Seeing the hard set of Carduin’s jaw, the Rook will speak again, his voice low and intense. “I need to know who has the pieces. They may not be as powerful apart as they were together, but they’re still a threat. One your own daughter died fighting.”

Carduin will laugh. “You think I’ll help you against my own kind? The way Issena did? She was a traitor, blinded by love for her filthy, worthless doxies. I’m not nearly such a fool.”

His words will produce a moment of stillness in the Rook. Then: “No. You are a worse sort—one with no love in his heart at all.”

With his own blade already out, Carduin will have the advantage. He won’t make any threats; a threat is a warning, and only an idiot gives a warning to one he means to kill. He’ll simply lunge for the Rook, counting on surprise to bring him victory.

It won’t. Within three passes, the Rook will disarm him and force Carduin into retreat, his own sword-point now at the man’s throat, until Carduin’s back hits the wall. A few more inches, and cold steel will go through vulnerable flesh, leaving him to cough up blood like his daughter, like Kaius Rex. To die, like them.

For a moment the Rook’s arm will tremble.

Until he says, “I promised her I wouldn’t. And I keep my word.”

Two flicks of the Rook’s sword will draw a scream from Carduin. He’ll only hear, not see, the Rook leaning forward to whisper in his ear; he will never see anything again.

“I’ve vowed to destroy every last remnant of the Tyrant’s poison. With or without your help, I will make sure all your kind fall.”

the past which is neither

Jump at the Sun: the card of risk

By the time they made it back to the temple, Zmienka wasn’t certain she could support Liatry’s weight for much longer. When Issena leapt into view at the archway and took the limping woman’s other side, Zmienka almost fell to her knees to thank the Faces. She hadn’t expected their lover would be there, waiting for them to return.

“What in all the Lumen’s hells happened?” Issena demanded as she helped Liatry to a chair.

Liatry eased her left leg straight and hissed at the movement. “Nothing except me being clumsy. I jumped badly and wrenched my knee.”

“‘Nothing,’ she calls it,” Zmienka muttered, staggering to her own chair. “Nothing except the Tyrant’s soldiers pursuing her halfway across the Upper Bank.”

Issena’s brows snapped together. “They saw you?”

Liatry flicked the collar of her black coat in disgust. “Meralno didn’t do as good a job of imbuing this as he claimed he could.”

Before Issena could say more, Liatry shrugged and wiped the pained sweat from her brow. “This was inevitable. I can’t interfere with the Tyrant’s business and not get spotted sometimes. But I got a good look at his palace before they found me, so that’s something.” Then her tired expression bent into a wicked grin. “Led them a merry chase after it, too.”

“A chase that was not necessary,” Zmienka snapped. A chase that had led to Liatry getting hurt.

The second shrug looked no more repentant than the first. “I had to lead them away from you.”

That was only part of the truth. Liatry insisted the legend of their hero was as important as the magic they put into the disguise. Which meant doing things like taunting the guards into following her, instead of ducking for the shadows at the first opportunity.

In a way, that legend was its own kind of magic. Zmienka knew it was possible to imbue a pattern reading, pouring a bit of herself into the task much like a crafter would. Liatry said the same was possible for any performance, though not easy. When she put on the disguise they’d made, the hooded outlaw they’d decided to call the Rook, she did more than just hide her face. She put on a new persona, flamboyant and mocking…and she gave her own energy to make it more real.

It might not be as dangerous as imbuing a numinat, but it was still draining. Liatry obeyed like a puppet while Issena stripped her of coat and hood and boots, then groaned back onto her feet for long enough to hobble over to the pallet on the stone floor. She and Zmienka had both been living in the temple since swearing the knot oath; it was safer than outside. The straw mat was wide enough for all three of them to lie down together, and Issena coddled Liatry in her arms while Zmienka poured a basin of water, washed her own face, then brought the rag over to wash Liatry’s as well.

Zmienka was about to regretfully say that both of them were too weary for anything more than sleep when Issena spoke. “I came here tonight because I’ve learned something interesting.”

Despite her exhaustion, Liatry perked up. “Is this the kind of ‘interesting’ we can use?”

“Potentially. If it’s more than mere rumor.”

“Anything so close to rumor can wait until morning,” Zmienka grumbled, shucking her own clothing to climb under the blankets with the other two.

“Yes, but I can’t stay until morning. My father will wonder where I am.” Issena sat up, provoking a grumpy noise from Liatry. She apologized with a kiss, and Zmienka fitted herself against Liatry’s back. It was about as warm as snuggling up to the stone of the temple floor. The night was chilly, but not cold enough to justify this; Liatry must have poured even more of herself into that performance than Zmienka realized.

She ought to caution Liatry the way she’d cautioned Issena—but later. Right now, Issena was sharing her news. “There’s a man who sells to the court—half Vraszenian, if you can believe it, but an absolute genius as a jeweler, so everyone just calls him Orradinci and pretends they don’t notice he isn’t entirely Liganti. Even Kaius commissioned a piece from him recently.”

The notion that someone might be half Vraszenian was hardly surprising. The Tyrant and his armies had ruled Vraszan for decades; of course mixing would happen. Finding success among the nobles was another matter, and there was a time when Zmienka would have spat on this Orradinci as a slipknot. Vraszenians, even half Vraszenians, who curried favor with their Liganti overlords were traitors to Vraszan.

That was before Zmienka herself had taken up with a Liganti noblewoman.

It is not the same thing, a petulant voice muttered, deep in her heart. Issena wants the Tyrant dead.

But after that, what then? Would she sail back to Seste Ligante, the “homeland” she’d never seen? Would Zmienka tell her to leave—that she wasn’t welcome in Nadežra?

Of course not. And so Zmienka could not judge this jeweler, who might have his own reasons for the path he’d chosen.

With the tide of those thoughts sweeping over her, she’d missed the next part of what Issena said. It came without warning when Liatry sat bolt-upright, almost elbowing Zmienka. “He what?”

“It might not be true,” Issena said, stroking Liatry’s arms as if that would calm her excitement. “But if it is…”

Zmienka was about to suffer the embarrassment of asking what she’d failed to listen to when Liatry said, “If the Tyrant really does have something—some kind of artifact that makes him so powerful, so able to guess everyone else’s moves, even control them—”

Then without it, he would be vulnerable.

“How do we find this Orradinci?” Zmienka asked, sitting up as well.

Issena sighed. “That’s the hard part. He’s currently imprisoned. Likely to be executed before long.”

Zmienka felt the laugh coming before it emerged from Liatry’s mouth. It gave her enough warning to clamp down on Liatry’s shoulders before the woman could forget her twisted knee and try to jump up. “Springing someone from prison! Or even from the very site of his execution. Sounds like a perfect job for the Rook.”

It would be more dangerous than anything they’d tried so far, and tonight’s chase had proven the Rook wasn’t even ready for this much yet. Zmienka met Issena’s gaze, asking a silent question: Do you think it’s worth it?

Issena’s lips pressed together while she weighed that question. Then, grudgingly, she nodded.

With a feeling of mixed excitement and dread, Zmienka said, “Very well. The others we will tell, and together make a plan. You will do nothing tonight, Liatry—especially not with that knee.”

Liatry’s wicked grin returned, this time with a salacious edge. “Nothing that requires the knee, at least. But I think we can show Issena our gratitude before she leaves…don’t you?”

the present which is neither

Sisters Victorious: the card of courage

Zmienka wishes she had never laid this pattern.

The cards are spread on the table where Issena drafted the numinata for the Rook’s disguise, where all the members of their knot are accustomed to sitting for meals and arguments over how best to make the Rook work, how best to deploy his talents. Happy memories, now overlaid by a message she doesn’t want to receive.

If she hadn’t taken the last of their aža, maybe she could pretend she didn’t know what the cards meant. But the “little dream” can enhance a szorsa’s sight, giving her a deeper glimpse into pattern. With that spinning her vision, Zmienka knows exactly what the layout before her portends.

Parts of the past are no surprise. Sword in Hand for the knot oath they swore here; Jump at the Sun for the risks they’ve been taking, with mixed results. But The Mask of Mirrors, its polished surface hiding secretive depths…that speaks of Issena, and she knows it.

Not in the way Meralno feared, betraying them to save her own skin—never that. No, it’s the tiredness, the fever warmth to her skin even in this cold temple. The coughs she does her best to hide, with imperfect results. Issena is far sicker than anyone realizes, and has been for some time.

In the middle, the present line. The Mask of Knives, in the revealed position, for their necessary rebellion. They’ve learned something vital from the rescue of Orradinci: The Tyrant does have something, an artifact that underlies his terrible, ruthless control. His chain of office, each link forged of a different metal, one for every numen used in numinatria. How to use this knowledge is the question their knot parted without having yet answered; Kaius wears that chain at all times, and getting it off him will be as difficult as killing him. Zmienka laid this pattern in the hope of finding an answer.

Instead…

Her hand-painted deck represents Saffron and Salt, the card of deals, with a Vraszenian trader handing a sack to a foreigner in exchange for a basket full of precious saffron threads. Ordinarily when she looks at this card, it is the Vraszenian her eye goes to, the figure she associates with herself. But today it is the foreigner her attention falls on, even though he’s male, his skin the darker shade of an Isarnah or a Ghusai.

She isn’t the one making the deal. Issena is. And Saffron and Salt stands in the veiled position, the ill of the present moment.

The slap of boots against stone heralds Liatry’s approach well before she appears. Zmienka knows, long before she sees her lover’s face, that the news Liatry brings is bad.

“She’s gone to the palace,” Liatry says in between gasping breaths. She must have run all the way here; fit as she is, she still has to brace herself against one knee, bent over and retching for air. The other hand clutches a damp, crumpled piece of paper. “This letter—her father’s taking all the others. He found out about our knot. But she sold herself to the Tyrant, in order to keep us safe.”

Grief already had its hand around Zmienka’s heart; now its grip clamps down. She’s barely aware of standing, of stumbling over to Liatry, trying to draw her up into an embrace.

But Liatry isn’t grieving. She’s determined.

“I’ve got to stop him,” she says, shaking off Zmienka’s hands and heading for the rack where they keep the pieces of the Rook’s disguise. “Carduin probably expects it, but I don’t care. I’m going to kill the Tyrant, and then I’m going to get Issena out of there.”

“No,” Zmienka whispers. “You aren’t.”

In any place less silent than this buried temple, her words would have been too soft for Liatry to hear. The other woman whirls with the hood in her hands. “The fuck do you mean? We have to rescue her, Zmienka! I know it isn’t fair to act like it’s more urgent now—like all the other people he’s taken don’t matter as much as she does—and I know I’m probably not ready yet, but I have to try—”

“If you try, you will fail.”

Zmienka’s flat declaration stops Liatry cold.

With one shaking hand, Zmienka gestures toward the cards she’s laid out. In the center, Sisters Victorious: that in the present which is neither good nor ill, or sometimes both. The card of courage, which Liatry is certainly showing.

Above it, however, lies the future line.

“The Ember Adamant for the future good,” Zmienka says, her voice dead with resignation. “Others after us will take up this burden—I suppose some comfort there is in that. But The Mask of Chaos says these evils will continue, that there will be no consequences.” No consequences for them, either, she supposes; Issena’s deal has seen to that. Only if they walk away, though.

And the future ill…she forces herself to pick up the card, to show it to Liatry. Pearl’s Promise is the card of reward. But it lies in the veiled position.

No reward. No success. Their knot, the Rook, Issena’s death—all will be for nothing.

Liatry’s hand lashes out, knocking the card back onto the table. “Fuck that. I don’t accept it.”

Tears burn Zmienka’s eyes. “Then you accept me not. You trust not what I have to say.”

It breaks through the hard shell of Liatry’s focus, and she flings her arms around Zmienka. “Not that—I swear, Zmienka, I—but you have to be wrong.” Because if she isn’t wrong, then there’s nothing she can do. Nothing any of them can do.

Except to try. And Zmienka knows Liatry will try, no matter what. She can’t abandon Issena to the Tyrant. Can’t abandon Nadežra, and all of Vraszan.

Pressed against her lover, Zmienka feels the moment Liatry draws a sudden breath. It brings a tiny spike of hope into her heart, sharp and painful. “What is it?”

Liatry pulls back enough to put one gentle hand on Zmienka’s jaw and turn her head toward the table. The pattern still lies there, with a gap at the upper left, where Pearl’s Promise ought to be. When the card fell from Zmienka’s hand, it landed almost atop The Ember Adamant—in the position of the future good.

“Change it,” Liatry whispers. “Change our pattern.”

Zmienka almost laughs, and almost cries. “Liatry, miryl—one moment you believe not in my gifts, and the next, you ask too much. I cannot rewrite fate.”

But her words trail off as she says it. Because with aža spinning her vision—or maybe it’s this temple, with its attendant spirit whose presence she can sense, or both at once—she can see the pattern. Not just the cards on the table and what they mean, but the threads of connection between them. Threads that lead to herself, to Liatry, to the distant and captive and doomed Issena.

Threads she can touch.

“Change it,” Liatry repeats, her voice as fierce as fire. “Make Pearl’s Promise our good future.”

There are tales of szorsas doing that kind of thing. Women who didn’t just read the pattern of fate, but manipulated it. Sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad ones, but—

“Even if I can,” Zmienka says, pulling free of Liatry, “the price…Liatry, to do such a thing poisons one’s fate. There is always a cost.”

Liatry’s bitter laugh is answer enough. “A cost worse than we’ll pay right now? Issena lost, the Tyrant victorious, nothing but a vague hope that maybe someone, someday, will do what we’ve failed at. Tell me what’s worse than that—because I don’t believe it exists.”

The pattern doesn’t show Zmienka what will happen if she changes things. Only what stands now, and which threads can be moved.

The cards are dealt right, left, center—the good, the ill, and that which is neither—from the past to the future. For Pearl’s Promise to be revealed instead of veiled, it would have needed to be dealt one card sooner. But Saffron and Salt has already happened; Issena has already made her deal. The only thing Zmienka can move is this moment right now, Sisters Victorious.

With one shaking hand, she reaches out and removes it from the pattern.

It’s as if she can see the cards shifting before she touches them. The Ember Adamant, no longer the future but the present, a burden taken up now. Pearl’s Promise, the reward for what they’ve done. The Mask of Chaos slides one place left, no longer a mixed result but an ill one; those who should face consequences will not, and those who ought not to will suffer.

The ambivalent future is empty. Her deck lies to one side, where she set it after laying the pattern. Zmienka deals an additional card.

The Face of Light. The card of the future itself, and of self-control, of the ability to plan.

This fight will not end now. It will go on. But…they will accomplish what they set out to do.

The whole world spins around Zmienka, threads shifting, fate changing—and she falls.

the present which is neither

The Ember Adamant: the card of obligation

Liatry feels something around her as she heads for the Tyrant’s palace, and for Issena.

On a normal day, she would dismiss it as her own imagination, or the various kinds of magic worked into every stitch of the Rook’s disguise. But she just watched Zmienka move a few rectangles of painted paper as if she were moving the River Dežera, and then collapse like a marionette whose strings have been cut. Liatry took a moment to shift her to the pallet—but even as she did that, she felt urgency beating at her, an impulse saying, Go, go, go. You have something you must do.

The Ember Adamant. Liatry isn’t a szorsa, but she knows what that card means. She’s taken on an obligation, and it’s more than just her own love for Issena and her determination to see the Tyrant fall that drives her now.

The Rook’s hood cloaks her in shadow, while the little half mask inside it gives her preternaturally good vision in the darkness. When she climbs the retaining wall around the Tyrant’s palace, her gloves grip even the tiniest edges of stone with a spider’s surety; when she drops on the far side, she lands as lightly as a cat. It’s more than pieces now, this disguise—more than a collection of tools to aid Liatry in her work. It feels like she’s wearing a full-body mask, a shell of someone else around the core inside.

She’s already scouted the palace, as preparation for future action there. The Rook was made for the purpose of stopping the Tyrant, and he wants to head for that target first, but Liatry—

In the shadow of an arbor, she stops. When did I start thinking of the Rook as a person?

It’s like the conversations she had sometimes with her fellow street performers, back when that was her life and livelihood. Talking about characters in their plays as if they were real people; writing new skits, and arguing over what stock figures like the Old Gammer or the Greedy Merchant would or would not do.

But this is more. This is a sense of momentum—a stone rolling downhill that she can no longer stop.

She tries to think rationally. Issena’s a Liganti noblewoman; Kaius will be keeping her in the fine apartments, not in the cells he reserves for traitors and Vraszenians. The line of approach Liatry has chosen means those apartments are the nearest thing to her. It might be worry for Issena that makes her want to rescue her lover first, but it’s also solid reasoning: Issena might be able to help.

Footsteps crunch on gravel. A guard is approaching. And even though the last thing Liatry feels like being right now is dashing or flamboyant, that’s who she made the Rook to be. If she doesn’t stay in character, this delicate fabric of enchantment around her may come apart.

So she waits, lounging against one post of the arbor, until the guard comes into view and pauses to peer into the darkness, at the shadow within the shadows there.

“Evening,” she says with a cheerful wave. Then she lunges.

A hand over his mouth muffles any sound he might make as her knife slides between his ribs. The Rook lowers him to the ground—

Me, Liatry thinks, gritting her teeth. I’m still me.

For now.

The loss of the guard will put a gap in the patrols, one his fellows are sure to notice before long. She has to move fast. Up the side of the palace, taking advantage of the lack of a watcher, peering in one window after another. How is she to know which room holds Issena? They’re all dark, and even with the help of the Rook’s mask, she can barely make out—

It’s the coughing that guides her. A sound she’s heard too often from Issena lately, always stifled or brushed off as no important matter. But now the sound is worse, far worse, like her lungs are trying to tear free.

Breaking a window would draw too much attention. Liatry has to make herself slow down, take the time to get it properly open, before she can slip through and into the room beyond.

Issena is in the bed, curled around herself, coughing into the mattress. Even in the darkness, Liatry can make out the stain.

When she leaps forward to take the sick woman into her arms, though, Issena flings one hand out to ward her off. “Don’t!” she cries, in between convulsions. “Don’t come near me!”

The Rook—Liatry—goes still, looking at the floor, the ceiling. It would be characteristic of the Tyrant to lay a trap, some numinat or hidden snare to catch anyone who comes for his newest prize. She sees nothing, though.

Issena gets the coughing under control enough to speak. “You can’t touch me,” she rasps. “You shouldn’t even be here. What I did…I only meant to make myself sicker. So I would die faster. But I think—”

Like pattern, Liatry understands enough of numinatria to follow the thread. “You’re spreading it, too.”

The blood stains Issena’s mouth like lip paint, darkening her smile. “He’s already coughing. By morning, I’m sure he’ll realize I’m to blame. Much good may it do him.”

The Rook stands in silence. This was supposed to be my task. Bringing the Tyrant down, with rebellion or poison or a blade in the dark. Not with disease.

Not at the cost of Issena’s life.

Issena sags back against her pillows, exhausted. “I don’t care if he kills me now. I’m dead anyway. And you…you’ll be safe. You and Zmienka.”

You. She means Liatry. A flickering light, fading under the growing shadow of the Rook.

The Tyrant is dying, whether he knows it yet or not. But it won’t be the end. There’s his chain of office; there are all the Liganti nobles around him. The Rook was made to stop Kaius Sifigno—but he won’t really be stopped so long as those things continue to exist.

“I’ll kill them all.”

Liatry doesn’t even realize she’s whispered the words until Issena forces herself upright. Because she isn’t really the one who whispered them.

“No,” Issena says, gathering her remaining strength behind that word. “No—promise me you won’t. That’s what he’s done all this time, killing those who oppose him. And they’ll kill each other once he’s gone, scrabbling for control. The Vraszenians will kill them, in a war to take their land back. I know you can’t prevent that. But Liatry…I don’t want you to be a part of it. Help people if you can—I know you too well to imagine you’ll stand aside—but don’t let yourself become nothing more than a murderer. Promise me.”

She believes there’s still a Liatry to plead with. The threads are drawing tight in their new configuration, a web from which there is no escape. An inscriptor who imbues her numinat makes herself the source of its power, draining herself all the way to death. Liatry isn’t an inscriptor, and the Rook isn’t a numinat…but he has that within him, and pattern, too. And he is her creation, a work of art she’s imbued with her own spirit.

Maybe this is the cost Zmienka spoke of.

So be it, Liatry thinks. And it is her final thought.

The Rook pitches his voice a little higher, to a range that sounds like the woman who made him. “I promise.”

the future which is neither

The Face of Light: the card of self-control and the future

He will try to get Zmienka to leave the city, knowing before he starts that she’ll refuse.

“You need me,” she will say. Not to Liatry; she understands what has happened. What price they have all paid for this victory: Issena, Liatry, all the other members of their knot, executed by Carduin in a futile pretense of loyalty to a Tyrant whose fate had already been sealed.

But the death of Kaius Rex, though long dreamed of, will not be the end of Vraszan’s problems. The pieces of his power will remain; they will have traded one great Tyrant for many smaller ones. Less powerful, but still a threat that needs answering.

“When this body dies,” the Rook will say, not flinching from the inevitable. His path is a dangerous one, and no part of the magic in him includes immortality…not exactly. “Find another. Someone who’s ready to take up the fight. I’ll help them.”

None of them, not even Zmienka, can be sure how long it might take to root the last vestiges of the Tyrant out of this place. But the Rook has a mission.

And a promise to keep.

Why I’m Tired of Stones and Symphonies

By Andrew Rowe

For Shannon Kelly, Ash Brown, and Carly Thomas for originating the roles depicted in the story. Please forgive me. Also, thanks to Jess Richards for advice and edits.

“Wakey wakey, lives at stak-ey!”

Awareness flooded into me like the water around me would have flooded my lungs if it were, you know, ordinary water.

My eyes didn’t open, not yet. Instantly, I knew I’d been woken up too early. It was hard not to be—the muscles in my upper back spasmed as the thing sealed within tried to wrench itself free. My hands moved to my shoulders and my mind focused, reaching for my soul and wrenching it into a well-practiced technique.

Spirit Art: Seven-Branched Seal.

A familiar brand of agony spread down my spine, highlighting those areas that fancy folk in other lands liked to call things like star veins or meridians. Smoke rose where the seal touched my bathing waters, but I could only tell because of the smell. That horrid, familiar smell.

The cage within me stabilized. The horror quieted, at least for now.

I felt weak. Too weak. Whether that was because the seal was getting harder to maintain or because I’d been woken too early, well, that I couldn’t say without more information.

I pushed myself to the surface of the water. My eyes opened and immediately narrowed as I took in my uninvited guest.

She looked like a young woman, maybe twentyish, wearing dark leathers and an unnecessary number of knives. She had a hooded cloak on…indoors…in warm weather. At first glance, she looked absolutely ridiculous. At second glance, she looked sort of like me.

I exhaled and pushed myself out of the stasis pool entirely, giving the newcomer a hard look that suited my foul mood. “You’re wearing my clothes.”

“They looked comfy! And you weren’t wearing them, so…”

My eyes narrowed further. “And you’re wearing my face.”

Dark, familiar eyes blinked back at me. It was a good facsimile—as good as any I’d seen, really. Not that pitch-black eyes without any sclera were complicated, mind you, but a lot of people missed the subtleties. Mostly, my eyes were darker than the traditional rethri “black.” Beyond that, there were the epicanthic folds. Most Mythralians had never seen Artinian eyes, so they didn’t know how to copy them correctly.

I felt a tightness in my chest as I looked at the fake. Did she know how it was going to affect me? Who it would remind me of?

Of course she did.

I tried to keep my face neutral.

“I guess if you’re up for the day, I don’t need it anymore.” The intruder waved her hand in one of those peculiar signs that people from the Orchestra used—unnecessary gestures used to focus on specific sorcerous effects. It was better than speaking words, at least, but it came across as more than a bit theatrical.

My lovely intruder didn’t need flourishes to cast spells. When she wanted something to happen, the universe seemed to bend double to listen.

I watched as the illusion dissolved, revealing her own features, or at least the layer of illusion beneath. I’d often been tempted to look at her with my Quartz Sight, to see if there was some hideous skeleton thing beneath the veneer of freckled skin and reddened lips, but I’d always come to the conclusion that it was better not to know.

“Why are you here, Symphony?”

Aayara “Symphony” Haven, the Lady of Thieves, raised an eyebrow at me. “Wrynn, Wrynn, you’re…asking me why I broke into a reportedly impregnable vault? I should be asking you why you’re living in one. But we both already know the answers to each other’s questions, don’t we?” Her lips turned upward, just slightly. A performative smile, as hollow and insincere as every bone within her.

I groaned, pushing myself into a seated position at the side of the pool. “You want something from me.” I vaguely recalled the strange, singsong words that had roused me far too early from my slumber. “Something about…lives at stake?”

“Stak-ey. The rhyme is important.” Aayara nodded, mostly to herself.

I frowned. She was being playful. That was never a good sign. Like most demigods, Aayara had developed a number of different personas over the ages—it was practically a necessity to maintain what passed for sanity among them.

Thief. Lover. Conductor of the Orchestra. Even the names Aayara and Symphony were masks. If Aayara had a true face, I had never seen it.

This one, though…Aayara was in her Trickster mode. I’d seen what happened when people got involved with her when she was playing that way and it wasn’t pretty.

That’s not to say that I enjoyed the idea of dancing with a demented demigoddess on any occasion, but some days were worse than others. “Clarify quickly, otherwise I’m going back to bed.”

“Aww, don’t be like that.” Her lower lip stuck out and she widened her eyes, lowering her chin to exaggerate the effect of the pout. “This is going to be fun! And you’ll want to be involved, trust me.”

“Trust…you.” If my right eyebrow had shot any higher, I would have needed a star sorcerer to get it back.

“Uh-huh!” Aayara nodded fervently, giving every appearance of good cheer. “So, I’ll take it you remember Jack?”

“Remember him?” I shot forward, barely restraining myself from grabbing her. “That son of a bitch killed my—”

“Right, that Jack!” Aayara clapped, taking a step backward in what might have been a demonstration of caution, or perhaps just a general dislike for proximity to other living beings. “The Blackstone Assassin! Always up to dastardly deeds, that one.”

I folded my arms. “Unless you’re asking me to help you kill him, I don’t see how I could be interested in what you’re selling.”

“Oh, don’t be absurd, dear.” She laughed. “You wouldn’t even contribute in a fight like that. Not the way you are now.”

I stared hard at her, my jaw clenching. She…wasn’t wrong. I didn’t have a fraction of my old power, not with the seal on my back taking up so much of it. And even at my strongest…

My partner had been a better fighter than I ever was. Better than almost anyone. She’d even beaten a vae’kes, once.

When she’d drawn the ire of the Blackstone Assassin, she hadn’t had a chance to draw anything else. She’d died before her sword hand could move.

“Drop the insults. I know I can’t fight him. Get to the point.”

Aayara seemed to consider that. With a sigh, she nodded. “Very well, I’ll be direct. You’re aware of the Blackstone Assassin’s signature, of course?”

“Sure. Leaves a green stone on a pillow as a warning, trades it out for a black one after he kills them. People generally think it’s the same stone changing colors when the assassin takes the person’s soul. He always gets his target within twenty-four hours of leaving the first stone.”

“Right. Copycats generally miss the nuance and go straight for leaving a black gemstone. Thing you might have missed while sleeping is that he’s got personal agents now. People who use his methodology.”

I nodded. “Sure, I’ve heard. Just calls them Blackstones. Helps extend his reach and reputation without having to do the work.” I crinkled my nose as pieces began to click. “You want one of them dead, but you can’t do it yourself. Vae’kes not interfering with other vae’kes and all that.”

“You’re so close!” She smiled again. “But it’s even simpler—I don’t need you to kill anyone at all. I need you to save someone.”

My eyebrows went up again. “Why? They wouldn’t go after an Orchestra member or a Haven for the same reason you wouldn’t kill a Blackstone yourself. Unless your rules have significantly changed.”

Aayara shook her head. “No, some things remain the same.” She pressed her hands together below her face, as if in prayer to the wrong god, scrunched her forehead in what probably was supposed to look like a sad expression but just looked kind of constipated. “Would you believe that I’m just tired of all the senseless killing?”

I snorted. “Please. Don’t bother.”

“Fine, fine.” She waved a hand. “So, the kid isn’t strictly one of mine, but I’ve had my eye on him. Didn’t have a chance to formally claim him yet. Blackstones marked him as a future threat first. Dropped the first stone.”

“So, file some paperwork, put him in the Orchestra, give him immunity.”

She shook her head. “Can’t. Now that he’s been marked, he’s effectively been claimed by the Blackstones, just as a target. Their reputation would take a hit if they fail to eliminate him, so I can’t interfere. Not directly.”

“…Which is why you’re asking me.”

“Right! Everyone knows you hate me. Almost as much as you hate Jack. Why, us working together…it’s almost unthinkable!”

I rubbed at my eyes. “And why would I do this?”

Her tone was chiding, like I was a slow child. “Dear, sweet Wrynn. How could you miss a chance to damage your greatest enemy’s reputation? To shake the foundations of his infallibility?”

“I’d much rather damage his face.”

She gave me a helpless shrug. “But since you can’t, why not do what you can?”

“At best, this sounds like a mild irritation. He’ll find a way to spin it—call it a copycat that failed, have them executed, whatever.”

“Oh, but that’s where I can help. I’m much better with people than he is, always have been. I can make this look awful for him, cut into his resources…and make it that much easier for you to strike, whenever you’re finally ready. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“Doubt it’ll play out. You’re asking me to take a significant risk for something that you might be able to exploit to hurt him. Not worth it.”

“Well, I suppose that poor child is just going to die, then.” She turned to walk away. “Nothing for it.”

Despite knowing it was a trap, I stepped in. “What do you mean, ‘child’? You said ‘kid’ earlier, too, but I thought that was just in an I’m a thousand years old and everyone’s a child to me sense.”

“I’m not a thousand,” she pouted, turning back. “But to your point, the target is a little over nine.”

“Years, or some obscure unit you’re using to trick me?”

“…Oh, that’s clever, I like it. No, I meant years. Standard Mythralian ones, before you ask. He’s an actual, ordinary human child.”

“Why would the Blackstones be targeting someone like that?”

“That is the question, isn’t it?” Aayara smiled. “Take the job and you’ll get to find out.”

I paused, considering.

Losing.

The trap was obvious, but I couldn’t deny my interest. She knew me too well. “Fine. There are conditions.”

“I suppose there must be.”

I laid out my terms. Standard stuff, sealed with a magical contract that even Aayara wouldn’t want to violate. Agreed on payment, too, with half up front. I was curious, but I wasn’t running a charity.

Then, finally, I asked the question. “Who’s the target?”

“Oh, you’re going to love him.” Aayara smiled. “His name is Jonan Kestrian, and he’s a very nice boy.”

#

Tracking the kid down wasn’t hard. Aayara wasn’t being purposefully abstruse—games aside, she wanted me moving quickly—so she gave me an address and directions. She provided some documentation on him, too, which I used to formulate the basics of a plan while I traveled.

He lived in a small town outside of Selyr. The kind of small town where everyone knew one another, and thus I got some stares when I arrived first thing in the morning and started asking questions. I kept things basic—verifying the location of the Kestrian household, checking where I could find a bite to eat, that sort of thing.

I was tempted to go straight for food. Not out of hunger, but to listen to the local chatter and try to sort out if there was anything obviously amiss worth paying attention to. There was going to be some kind of snag involved in this plan that Aayara didn’t tell me—otherwise she wouldn’t have been in that teasing, Trickster persona when she’d woken me up. Unfortunately, she’d put me in a position where it would be easy to blame me for failing if I deviated from my course for even a few minutes to gather information before visiting the young target. So as soon as I’d verified the location of the Kestrian household, I headed over and knocked on the front door.

“One minute, please!” came a small voice. The target’s, probably, or a sibling. I waited. The door opened a minute later. I noted the lack of a click beforehand—it had been unlocked. As the door slid open, my glance darted to the handle and registered that there was no lock for it. Not unusual in a small town like this one, but certainly a security problem.

I took in the child next. He looked to be about the right age. Thin, almost to the point of malnourished, but maybe not quite across the line. Short, unkempt brown hair. Darker skin than usual for the region, indicating possible foreign heritage. Large, unfortunately designed spectacles. Slight bruising on the right forearm, indicating a possible defensive injury, but nothing certain.

No more serious injuries, nor any obvious signs of poisoning or disease.

I smiled brightly at the child. “Are your parents home?”

He shook his head. “Nope.”

Then he moved to close the door.

Cheeky little…

I raised a finger. “Hold on a moment, please.”

He paused, looking dubious. “Fine. What for?”

“Are you Jonan Kestrian, young man?”

He reached up and adjusted his glasses. “Who wants to know?”

“I’m with the Thornguard. I’m here to administer your mandatory sorcery testing.”

He paused for a moment, seeming to consider that. He looked me up and down, perhaps evaluating my immaculate stolen Thornguard uniform. It was a decade old, but Aayara had indicated that uniform standards hadn’t changed, and I didn’t think she’d lied. After a moment, he turned his head upward to meet my gaze. “Your eyes are funny.”

I blinked, then forced a smile despite the somewhat racist connotations of the remark. “You haven’t met a rethri before?”

“No, I have.” He folded his arms. “You aren’t one of them.”

Forcefully, I restrained my eyebrows, keeping my expression stoic. That was not a typical observation for a child to make—it wasn’t even a typical observation for an adult to make. My epicanthic folds weren’t typical for the locals, but most humans just assumed it was a weird rethri thing, and most rethri assumed I was either scarred by my bonded dominion or some kind of freak. “What makes you say that?”

“They’re too dark.”

I tilted my head to the side. “Elaborate.”

“Shadow rethri eyes are more of a dark gray than black. Death rethri eyes are black, but not that black, and you’re not showing any of the dark veins around them that death rethri get.”

Kid was right, at least for the most part. My eyes were a shade too dark for either of those. I was going for a shade rethri look, rather than shadow or death, but that was so obscure that he couldn’t recognize it. Rather than trying to sell him on being a weird deep dominion rethri, I gave him a simpler reply. “There is such a thing as makeup. Most death rethri wear it to cover those veins. They’re considered unsightly.”

He shrugged. “Sure, whatever. Anyway, not supposed to talk to strangers. Bye.”

He tried to shut the door again, but I lifted a hand to catch it. He took a step back, eyes flicking to a hunting knife resting in a sheath on a nearby table.

Not a bad instinct.

I raised a hand in what I hoped would be a gesture of peace. “Please. Not here to hurt you. I’m a soldier.”

“What else are soldiers for, if not hurting people?”

Ugh, the nine-year-old wants to wax philosophical.

I smiled again. “In this case, just administering a simple sorcery test. Then I’ll wait patiently for your parents to get home to discuss the results.”

“You’re going to take an entire day to test one person?” He shook his head. “That’s hideously inefficient.”

This, at least, I could respond to. “Ordinarily, children are brought to the local Thornguard base for their test on their ninth birthday. Our records indicate, however, that your test was missed.”

The kid visibly flinched. “I see.” Then, with a shake of his head, he waved toward the doorway. “May as well come in, I suppose. Not like I can stop you.”

“Thank you, young man.” I stepped in, closing the door behind him and processing for the first time that he’d never actually confirmed his name. “You are Jonan Kestrian, are you not?”

“Unfortunately.” He gestured toward a pair of chairs at a nearby table. The same one with the knife on top of it. He sat down in the side closer to the knife. I didn’t smile at that, but I desperately wanted to.

The house itself was fairly straightforward. Single-story, but reasonably large, with a visible kitchen area and a few side rooms in the back. Not very heavily adorned, although there was one creepy picture of an attractive blond woman that looked less like Jonan and more like one of Aayara’s guises.

Well, that’s not suspicious.

I sat down across from Jonan. He flinched as I reached into a pouch at my side. I didn’t comment on it. “I just need to retrieve test materials.”

I didn’t have test materials in my bag—not exactly. I did, however, have a particularly famous magic box that activated with the word retrieve and dumped out items I’d stored within it. Several vials of tiny crystals, a piece of parchment, and a pen appeared inside the bag. I pulled them out and placed them one at a time on the table while young Kestrian watched.

“Have you eaten yet?” I asked.

“Is that relevant?”

I nodded, displaying my infinite patience. “You’ll be given two types of testing today. The first involves taking these potions—” I waved to the vials “—which react to various types of essence in your body. If you have a significant enough amount of essence of a certain type, your eyes will glow briefly after taking it, much like a rethri. After that, we’ll do practical tests of sorcerous proficiency if necessary.”

He frowned. “Why the redundancy?”

“Simple enough—some children are told by their parents to hide their sorcery abilities. You wouldn’t do that, would you, Jonan?”

He blinked. “No, no, I meant the other way. Why bother with practical tests if consuming the contents of the vials provides a physical sign of sorcerous ability? Sounds like a waste of time.”

That was an eminently reasonable question—and the real answer was more along the lines of Because I need an excuse to take you somewhere that looks like a sorcery testing facility. Telling him that was out of the question, though. I’d considered just showing up and telling him that he was being hunted by a deadly assassin and needed to come with me, but the long-term consequences of telling a child that could be severe. Aayara had assured me that if I could protect the kid for the twenty-four-hour period, she’d put him under Orchestra protection until he was old enough to actually work for her. I didn’t necessarily like the idea of handing Aayara a new recruit, but at least this way he’d get to have a childhood.

Fortunately, there were cases where both forms of testing were done, albeit rarely. Thus I had an explanation prepared. “The presence of essence just shows that—if it’s there. It doesn’t always translate into proficiency. The practical tests show me what you can actually do with your essence, if anything. The results determine where you’re placed, the types of classes you’d be expected to take, and that sort of thing.”

He nodded slowly, adjusting his glasses. Processing. “I can see how that might be useful. And the food question?”

“If you haven’t eaten before you take the vials, you’ll probably vomit. Like, a lot.”

“Oh.” He blanched. “Does…it matter what I eat?” He gave a nervous glance toward what had to be the kitchen area.

A picky eater, or just low on food stocks?

A glance around the building didn’t demonstrate any particular level of affluence or lack thereof—it looked like a pretty standard village house, as far as I could tell. Unusually clean, perhaps. Supplies were a little sparse in general. Minimal adornments. Only one pair of boots near the door, sized for a child.

Hm.

I stood up, causing the child to jolt slightly. “A healthy breakfast is important. I’ll go pick up some supplies and make you something.”

“You…sure that isn’t too much trouble?” The kid looked nervous, but maybe a little hopeful. I thought I heard his stomach grumble.

“Absolutely! Like you said, I’ll be spending much of the day around here, anyway. Just wait here and I’ll be back soon, okay?”

“…Okay.” He spoke so quietly that it was almost a whisper.

I gave him my best fake smile and left the building.

#

Spirit Art: Twin-Body Technique.

A mirrored copy of myself appeared next to me. The differences between us were too subtle for the average person to notice, but this kid clearly wasn’t average, so I decided my original form would have to be the one to talk to him next.

It was good that we weren’t quite identical. Seeing an identical woman…well, it always bothered me. For reasons. Even the mirrored version did bad things to my head on occasion, but I’d learned to focus on the differences to keep my head straight. The technique was simply too useful to ignore.

I felt a brief surge of pain from the seal on my back, but it was manageable…for the moment. Maintaining the copy had a significant downside—she was taking up a significant chunk of my spiritual essence while she remained active, limiting which spirit arts I could safely use. I could reclaim her essence later, but only whatever was left over. If she used any spirit arts of her own, I’d get back less essence when we merged later on.

She winked at me, then went shopping.

I turned right back around toward the house.

Spirit Art: Form of the Silent Wraith.

My body faded, invisible and intangible. Then I walked straight back in through the wall.

#

It had only been a matter of moments since I’d stepped outside, but Jonan was already moving. I watched with interest as he lifted up each of the essence vials that I’d deliberately left on the table, cautiously opened it, then sniffed at the contents.

That was a little unusual, but it could have been attributed to either curiosity or caution. I wasn’t sure if he’d found the gemstone on his pillow or not—Aayara had been cagey about that detail. If he had found the gem, it was plausible (and rational) for him to be concerned about being poisoned.

…Not that your average nine-year-old knew what poison smelled like. Sure, they might be able to note that something smelled “off” compared with a usual dish, but presumably they wouldn’t be familiar with the normal scents of essence vials. For the record, that scent is generally extremely subtle, though it varies from essence to essence.

If the first step he took was a little odd, the next was full-on suspicious in a way that made me smile.

Jonan picked up two of the vials, took another cautious glance at the door, and walked to the kitchen. Then he found two empty jars in a cupboard, poured the contents of the essence vials into them, and went for the spice rack.

Oh-ho.

I watched as Jonan rinsed the essence vials out with water—a reasonable precaution—then replaced the contents with salt. Next, the adorable boy found a couple of vials of what I presumed to be some kind of food coloring and poured it onto the salt.

The resulting substances were almost indistinguishable from the original essence vials, at least at a casual glance. They would smell different, but he must have been gambling that I wouldn’t bother sniffing them myself before he was supposed to take them. Since I was the one bringing the vials, I had no real motivation to check their scent, at least from his perspective.

So unless I noticed a subtle difference in the size of grains between the essence vial’s original contents and the salt crystals, or happened to notice the salty scent, he would have successfully disguised the contents.

His motive was clear enough: By taking a false compound, he wouldn’t have the essence reaction and his eyes wouldn’t glow.

Fascinating. If he is swapping out only two vials, he must already know or suspect what the results of the test will be. There’s something he doesn’t want me to see.

I checked the labels on the ones he’d swapped out. deception and flame.

Odd. Flame is one of the most common essence types out there. Nothing unusual about it. Deception is rarer, but not illegal or anything of the sort.

It’s possible he just doesn’t want to be seen as having any sorcery ability at all. Maybe his parents don’t want him to get sent off to Thornguard training, or he’s personally afraid?

Or…

Ever-so-briefly, I activated my Quartz Sight technique. Without giving away the proprietary House Quartz secrets to how that technique works, let me summarize: I noted that he had the signs of potential for not only Flame and Deception sorcery, but Sight as well. That gave him the makings of a classic illusionist—or, perhaps, a classic future employee of the Orchestra.

Did he know that?

It was an interesting question, but I had others.

While he continued to scuttle about the kitchen, I searched the rest of the house.

Two bedrooms.

The first was presumably for parents. One bed, large. The covers were slightly askew, but not quite the way that said someone slept in here last night to my eyes. Maybe I was just being paranoid, but it looked more like someone had made the bed, then deliberately messed with the covers a little. In a more reasonable scenario, Jonan had been instructed to make the bed in the morning and done it badly.

The next bedroom was presumably for children—two small beds, one presumably his. One immaculate, the other less so. Books. No toys.

I found the gemstone soon thereafter—it was under the pillow on the second bed. Maybe he’d found it and hidden it. Maybe he’d never found it, and accidentally nudged it under the pillow while sleeping.

Maybe the Blackstone agent had put it in the “wrong” place, intentionally or otherwise. A slight deviation from the Blackstone Assassin’s traditional methodology gave an extra window for deniability if this particular assignment failed—it would be easier to attribute the failed attack to a copycat if it had been done “wrong.”

This is all just a little off. Too much to be a coincidence.

I headed back downstairs. Jonan was back in the entry, having replaced the vials on the table. He was nervously trying to read a book, which was kind of adorable.

I headed to the kitchen, then activated my Quartz Sight again.

Poison. I found it immediately—in one of the water jugs, no less. Not the one he’d used to wash out the essence vials, fortunately, otherwise I’d have to do some complicated logistics to swap them out.

A hint of spiritual power burned the poison out of the water. A surge of pain shot through my spine and I stumbled backward a step, but fortunately Kestrian couldn’t hear me in my still-incorporeal state.

I’m overdoing it, but I don’t have a lot of better options. This makes it more likely he’s an actual target…or…

I headed back out of the building.

Copy-Wrynn was almost back. We met up. I took the groceries, made sure they had been checked for poison.

“We merging?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Not yet. Need your eyes more than muscle.”

“Ugh. Guard duty again?” Copy-Wrynn groaned. “You’re the worst.”

“We both know it.”

My copy stuck her tongue out at me, then vanished. Then, once again, I knocked on Jonan Kestrian’s door.

#

Jonan answered quickly, then gestured me back toward my seat.

I shook my head, holding the bag of groceries. “In a minute. Can I use your kitchen to prepare something?”

“Uh…sure, if you want to.” He looked a little nervous, but still hopeful. Hungry. I could understand that. I remembered all too well what being hungry was like.

I headed to the kitchen and worked on preparing the world’s most basic lunch: sandwiches. Occasionally, I glanced back toward him, most notably when I picked up the previously poisoned water jug.

[No visible reaction], Copy-Wrynn whispered in my mind.

I lifted the water and inspected it, frowned obviously, then put it back down.

[He twitched a little at that, but nothing telling.]

Acknowledged.

I finished the food and brought it to him. We ate. He excused himself to go to the washroom. I waited for him to come back, then took my own turn in the washroom.

Anything?

[He’s jittery, but that’s to be expected in the presence of a stranger testing him,] Copy-Wrynn reported.

Fair. Keep watching.

She did.

I came back, sitting down across the entrance from him again. “Okay, we’re going to do the vials first. Then, if you show any signs of essence, we’ll do the practical part to see your level of mastery. Unless you think you can already show me anything?”

“No ma’am.” Jonan shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t have any talent.”

He sounded like he actually believed that. So either he was very good at lying, or he knew that he had sorcery and still believed that he didn’t have talent. I wasn’t sure which was worse.

“Let’s begin.”

He went through each vial, one at a time. He looked obviously nervous throughout the process, which helped conceal any extra nervousness when he downed two vials of salt.

That can’t be healthy, but it probably won’t kill him. They’re small vials, anyway, and he just ate.

Should have used sugar, though.

“Stop.” I raised a finger.

He froze.

I picked up my notes and began to scribble. “That’s a reaction. Let me jot it down, then we’ll see if you have any others.”

“No, that’s…” He blanched. “That has to be a mistake. How…?” He stared at the vial of salt, looking betrayed. Then he looked up, staring dead into my eyes.

I could imagine his thoughts:

Did I clean the vial enough? Was there enough essence residue to cause a reaction?

Is she seeing something else?

Did I swap the wrong vial?

Were they labeled wrong?

Did she…switch the vials again, somehow, when I wasn’t paying attention?

Is she just…lying to me? If so, why?

I smiled. “It’s natural to be a little surprised when you first hear about your sorcerous talents. They often don’t manifest naturally until later in life, but you’re lucky we caught this early. It means you can get the proper training and develop your skills to serve our nation from a young age. Why, if you’re lucky, you might even get into an elite division!”

“I…uh…” He shuddered. “I’m…honored?”

“I’m sure you are.” I put my paper down. “Let’s keep going!”

There was a knock on the door a moment later. I frowned, then turned toward the doorway.

[Two people in Thornguard uniforms. Armed, of course. Single standard-issue arming swords, couple of concealed knives. Minimal sorcery auras.]

Look legit?

[Haircuts look right, musculature is fine, but the way they’re standing…I’m leaning toward no, unless standards have changed. Badges say haskell and forest.]

I stood up. “Are you expecting anyone?”

Jonan shook his head. “Uh…no. Parents shouldn’t be home until later tonight.” After a moment, he belatedly added, “And they wouldn’t knock, of course.”

“I’ll get it, then.” I headed for the door.

Jonan nervously stood up, his eyes flicking to the knife on the table. “S…sure.”

I opened the door, then tried to look surprised. “Haskell. Forest. What are you doing here?”

They blinked at me. One of them looked down at his own badge.

“Uh, hello, ma’am,” the guy going by Haskell said, squinting at my badge. “Lieutenant Myr. We’re…here to administer a sorcery test?”

I smiled, noting that he didn’t salute when he processed that my rank exceeded his own. “I’ve already got that taken care of. Must have been another paperwork kerfuffle.”

“Right, ah…” He glanced at the other “Thornguard” awkwardly. Forest was unhelpful. “Can we…maybe watch? It’s been a long ride from Selyr and we could, uh, use a break.”

I tilted my head to the side. “You want to…take a break…?”

“…Yes?” he tried hopefully.

“Of course!” I laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. “Come on in. We’re almost done with the vials, but the practical is always fun.”

The “Thornguards” nervously filed inside. I waved them past me. I smiled, closed the door behind them, and then stabbed them each in the back seventeen times.

Okay, maybe not exactly seventeen. It was probably more like four or five. I like to be thorough, but not excessive.

Anyway, they dropped in the way that people who are repeatedly stabbed with magical poisoned knives usually do.

Jonan, to his credit, didn’t scream. That was helpful. Instead his eyes just sort of widened, and then he turned and ran toward the opposite side of the house.

“Easy, easy.” I wiped my knives off on the downed fakes, sheathed them, then approached. “Not going to hurt you.”

“What…what did you do?” Jonan stammered. There wasn’t a back door, as far as I was aware, so he didn’t have an escape route.

“They’re not dead, just…very, very incapacitated. Paralytic poison.” I didn’t mention how quickly they’d bleed to death if untreated. He didn’t need to know.

“B…but why? Those were…aren’t they your…”

I shook my head. “Not Thornguard. Those were assassins. Did you find something on your pillow this morning?”

His face went pale. “I…” He gulped. “I thought that was a prank.”

“Come here.” I knelt down by the fallen guards. Then, cautiously, I pulled out one of my baby-sized knives and cut around a section of the shoulder on Forest’s uniform. As expected, there was a tattoo of a black rock on it. “You know what this is?”

“…N…no?” he sputtered.

“Blackstone tattoo. Marks an agent of the Blackstone Assassin.”

Jonan took a step back, hugging himself and trembling. “…Am I going to die?”

“No, no, sweetie.” I stood up, repeating the process on the other uniform. He had the same mark. Then I tucked that knife away and walked over to Jonan. He took a step back. I didn’t blame him. “It’s okay. I’m here to protect you.”

“…Why? I’m…I’m a nobody.” Tears were forming in his eyes.

“You are, sure.” He seemed surprised by that response, but I wasn’t done. “For now. In the future…well, that remains to be seen, yeah?”

“…What do we do?”

I contemplated that. As much as I enjoyed playing “teach the boy to hide the body,” it wasn’t a good move.

Instead I ducked down, pressing a hand to each of the fallen guards.

Spirit Art: Stasis.

They stopped dying. That was the only courtesy I was going to extend. I could use that particular technique without risking overtaxing my spirit, but any direct healing technique would have been too much to handle in my current state. If the Blackstones wanted to save their agents later, they could put in the work.

“Now”—I reached out my hand—“we leave.”

Jonan hesitated for several moments. Then, finally, he took my hand.

#

The rest of the day was much less exciting—we took a walk, then a ride, then another walk. Then, we camped out in the middle of the forest. I etched wards into the surrounding area. Copy-Wrynn kept watch.

Jonan seemed distraught, as one might expect, but handled the journey well enough. And then, at midnight, she appeared.

“Well done!” Aayara clapped her hands.

Jonan startled and shot to his feet, then moved to hide behind me. “Who…who are you?”

“Why, I’m the fantastical maiden of thievery, Aayara Haven! And you, lucky boy, are now under my protection.”

Maiden was never a word I’d previously heard used to describe Aayara in any context, but I knew better than to contradict her when she was putting on a performance.

I stood, giving Aayara a nod. “You’ll take things from here?”

“Of course.” She smiled at me. “You’ve done your part beautifully.”

“You’re…leaving?” Jonan looked at me with big, pleading eyes. “Can’t you stay?”

“Sorry, kid.” I tussled his hair with what I had to admit was a fraction of real affection. “Got sleeping to catch up on.”

“I’ll let you go get some rest, then, and we can settle our remaining dues later,” Aayara called as I turned away.

“Sounds fantastic.” I nodded. I turned back to Jonan one last time. “Stay safe, kid.”

“I…” Tears formed in his eyes. “I’ll try.”

Then I walked away.

It was a long way back home. It felt even longer alone.

#

It was well after midnight, but Jonan Kestrian was still wide awake. Not out of fear, precisely, although there was still a degree of that.

No, he still had work to do.

He was in the middle of finishing his scrub-down of the not-quite-murder house when his periodic invisibility check finally revealed something—the familiar shape of a veiled woman. With a sigh, he rubbed his eyes. “If you’re here, you can help me out. I can’t lift the Fakestones, they’re too heavy.”

“Oh, darling, we have people for that,” she chided. “You don’t have to worry about them, just the basic post-operation cleanup.” A quick hand sign and her invisibility faded. Jonan tapped the side of his head, dismissing his invisibility-piercing spell.

Aayara waved to the seats by the table, the same place he’d sat with Wrynn only hours before.

Wearily, Jonan went and sat down across from her.

“So, how’d it go?” Aayara asked genially.

“Well, I’m alive. So, there’s that.”

“Yes, of course, darling. But what about the important things?”

He rubbed at his eyes. “…Right. Target performed largely as expected. Performed cursory, surface-level interrogation on me. No concern for details—parents, siblings, et cetera. As expected, she found and neutralized the poisoned water container in the kitchen, which presumably added to her suspicion level. No difficulty dealing with the expendable assets when they arrived. No indication that she discerned that the Blackstone marks were illusory, although she did have a facial twitch when she saw them. Could be indicative of suspicion, but possibly just distaste. Ultimately, I suspect she left believing that the assignment was legitimate.”

“Jonan, Jonan. So perfunctory! You’re not going to give me a full summary of events?” Aayara gave him a pouty face.

“Why? I saw the painting.” He pointed at a portrait on the wall. “You were watching the whole time.”

“Maybe, but that’s no excuse for a lack of professionalism, and even less of an excuse for failing to entertain me.”

The boy cringed back a little in his chair. “I…could start over?”

“No, bored with that now.” She wrinkled her nose. “What are your takeaways?”

“She concealed it well, but her gait was uneven. I think she was either injured or even more fatigued than you let on. Reaction times were still…there’s probably a technical way to say this, but she was too fast for me to evaluate properly. Minimal obvious use of sorcery, but as I’ve repeatedly told you, I can’t see spiritual energy.”

“Don’t be rude, Jonan.”

He folded his arms. “It’s not rude to tell you that you can’t expect me to evaluate something without the proper tools.”

“Disappointing,” she tsked. “I thought I’d taught you better than to make excuses for your failings.”

“I didn’t fail. You gave me a mission you didn’t expect me to be able to complete.”

She seemed to ponder that. “Still sounds like a kind of failure to me. What if I wanted you to surprise me with your competence?”

Jonan groaned. “I’m too tired for this. Either murder me for failing an assignment or I’m going to bed.”

Aayara clapped. “Well done, Jonan! You’ve passed today’s test.”

He stared at her wearily. “…Thank you?”

“Today served many functions, but the most important of them was learning that you have limits. And at times, accurately recognizing those limits may be the difference between life and death.”

“…You think I didn’t know that beforehand? After everything you’ve put me through? After what happened to my family?”

“My dear boy, I am your family.” She leaned closer, smiling hard. “Who else could you be talking about?”

Jonan shuddered. “…No one. I’m sorry.”

“Forgiven!” She sat up, looking cheerful again. “Anyway, you might know about your own uselessness on one level, but it’s important to have a reminder every once in a while. Can’t let yourself getting too big of a head. If your neck can’t support the weight of it…snap!”

Jonan’s face twitched. “Right. I understand. Can I go to bed now?”

“Of course you can, dear. Just as soon as you finish cleaning this place up, you can head back to Selyr and go to bed.”

“…You want me to go back to Selyr. It’s past two bells.”

“Nothing like a little morning exercise to keep the blood pumping! And don’t worry, Jonan. The roads are mostly clear of monsters tonight.”

The child hung his head. “Good night, Aayara.”

She leaned over and kissed him on the top of the head. “Good night, my sweet boy.”

“…Did you just poison me?” he whispered.

“You’ll figure that out in the morning.”

#

It was another hour before Jonan wearily finished removing all signs of his inhabitation of the house—with a fairly impressive degree of thoroughness—and wandered off toward the town stable. There he took a horse, which probably wasn’t his, and began to ride toward Selyr.

It was only after that point that I sat down across from the once-again-invisible Aayara and ended my Form of the Silent Wraith technique.

Aayara smiled at me immediately. “So what did you think?”

“The whole thing was a sham.”

“Right, right, obviously. But out of curiosity, what gave it away?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Your behavior was suspicious from the start, but there were a lot of things that didn’t fit. Mostly small stuff, some of which he couldn’t have fairly anticipated that I’d be able to investigate, like his little vial-swapping trick. The painting was obvious, but you wanted me to notice that. The kitchen was a problem. He wanted to come across as poor, so he didn’t have a lot of food, but he had a spice rack. I know the market is shifting and spices aren’t nearly as expensive as they used to be, but poor kids don’t have full containers of fresh salt.”

Aayara laughed. “Not bad, not bad. I wasn’t expecting you to catch that. Neat. Anything else?”

“The poisoned water didn’t really fit Blackstone methodology, either. They do use poison, but usually on weapons. Something like just poisoning his water and waiting for him to die wouldn’t be attributable to them clearly enough to count as a Blackstone kill. Beyond that, a lot of it comes down to experience. He had put some work into making the house look lived in, but not enough. Needed more shoes.”

“Shoes. He always forgets the shoes. Go on.”

I sighed. “I think I’ve said enough. I don’t like being used for training exercises, Aayara.”

“Oh, don’t be such a silly! It wasn’t just a training exercise.”

I glowered at her. “Right. It also appeared to be a way to test my current physical and spiritual state to see how easy it would be to eliminate me.”

“Well, sure, obviously. But don’t take that personally! I do it with everyone of significance from time to time. You should take it as a sign of respect!”

“I don’t consider lying to me about an assignment respectful.”

She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t lie to you. Well, not directly.”

“You said he was nine years old.” I shook my head. “He’s not. He’s small for his age, but even if he’s a prodigy, the sophistication in his language and thought process…”

“No, I said he was a little over nine. Twelve isn’t that much older than nine, is it?”

“I would certainly have handled things differently if I knew he was twelve.”

“Right.” She looked at me like I was being slow. “Obviously that’s why I lied to you.”

“You just said—ugh. Never mind.” I shook my head. “More important, he’s one of your agents. There was never a threat. The whole premise was…”

She raised a finger. “No, no. That’s where you’re wrong. The premise was true. He really was being hunted by Blackstones. See, Jack figured out that while Jonan was one of my agents, I’d kept him strictly off the books…meaning that poor little Jonan didn’t have Orchestra-level political immunity, and thus he could be pruned with impunity. Jonan didn’t know that, of course. He thought it was just a training exercise.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Those ‘Blackstone’ guys that I tangled with were just hired muscle, though.”

“Right, right. I killed the real Blackstones in the morning before I talked to you.”

“What?” I blinked, processing. “You’re not supposed to touch his agents, though. That was the whole…” I flashed back to when Aayara had first woken me up. “Oh, you absolute bitch. You killed them dressed as me.”

Aayara giggled. “You get it now! A little stabby-stabby wearing your face, leave a terrified witness to report back to management…then, before they can check things out, I get the real you to go spend some quality time with Jonan. When they send people to follow up, they find Wrynn Jaden actively guarding the target, confirming the earlier witness report and making the whole plan too expensive to bother with.”

“Except, of course, that now I’m on the Blackstone Assassin’s target list.”

“Oh, honey.” She reached over to try to pat my hand. I pulled back. “You’d have been at the top of that list for years if you could be, but Daddy dearest won’t allow it.”

For the first time since morning, I felt genuine surprise. “What? Vaelien? Why?”

“Can’t tell you!” She grinned from ear to ear. “Either way, you’ve got nothing to worry about. I mean, aside from the usual problems with your world-ending back and all that.”

I narrowed my eyes. “…You still used me. I’m not amused by that.”

“Right, right. But you still want to get paid, yes?”

“Obviously.” I reached out my hand. She placed a bag in it.

“A little something extra for your trouble, too.”

I grunted. I wouldn’t thank her for it. The “extra” was probably another trap of some kind, anyway, but I was too tired to bother interrogating her about it. I did, however, have one more question before I left. “The kid. You’re…making it official now, right? Giving him the protection you said you would?”

“Promise is a promise. The paperwork is already filed. He’s in my care now.”

“…Good.” I stood up. I considered saying something about the inappropriateness of Aayara’s child-rearing style, but I knew it wouldn’t have any impact. I felt bad for the kid, but it wasn’t like I could take care of him myself. By the time I woke up from my next nap, he’d be an adult. “We’re done here.”

“You sure?” Aayara leaned back in her chair. “While you’re awake, there’s this adorable little girl that…”

“Not under any circumstances.” I turned out to leave the room.

“Shame,” Aayara whispered. “Silk would have loved to meet you.”

Sons of Nightfall

By Philip C. Quaintrell

In the heart of Illian, nestled amongst the trees of The Evermoore, the city of Lirian stood proud, a bastion of mankind in the midst of nature. A cold wind blew through the streets, its bitter touch the harbinger of an unforgiving winter. Above the roaring hearths and smoking chimneys, the stars dominated the sky in their mysterious yet beautiful way; even the clouds dared not venture out to commit the crime of concealing their majesty.

Riding up the main road, his journey having brought him north, Asher didn’t take in any of it; at least not in such broad strokes. Beautiful as Lirian was, to the ranger’s eyes it was simply a maze of rooftops, alleys, and shadows, all of which were the tools of his old craft.

As with every city in Illian, the ranger knew his way around. He knew where the city watch were located and their typical patrols—simple fighters all, though they had the numbers. He also knew where the Graycoats’ sector house could be found: a building he stayed well away from. They were not simple fighters, and getting dragged into a confrontation with a so-called knight would bring more down on him.

With his green cloak gathered around his shoulders and a large hood concealing much of his face, Asher kept his horse, Hector, on the main road. Ahead, dominating the view, was a small mountain, its lowest rise home to the queen of Lirian and several high borns. Situated north of the city, the landmark made it even easier to navigate the streets.

Pulling on Hector’s reins, Asher guided the horse into Lirian’s eastern district, an area distinct for its human architecture. Glancing down an adjacent street, the ranger caught sight of elven-styled spires and rooftops, remnants of the immortals who once called Illian their home. Most would call them regal or exquisite in their design but, to Asher, they were just a pain in the arse to climb.

When seeking shelter and a warm bed in Lirian, there was only one place the ranger considered.

The Pick-Axe.

Asher was confident he could have found the tavern with his eyes closed, so loud was the ruckus. A welcoming light poured out of the windows, promising the ranger some warmth and comfort, neither of which was readily available in the wilds.

He swept his cloak over to one side and climbed down from the saddle. With his quiver, folded bow, and silvyr short-sword already on his back, Asher had only to remove his two-handed broadsword from Hector’s pack. When it was strapped to his belt once more, the ranger was comforted by its weight and the ease with which he could draw it.

“Rest a while,” he encouraged the horse, his voice gruff from lack of use. “I’ll find you somewhere to sleep later,” he promised, tying the reins to a post.

Before making his way up the steps and onto the tavern’s porch, Asher was drawn to the familiar sound of a large pig. Sure enough, tied to the post on the other side of the tavern, was a dwarven Warhog, a cantankerous and stubborn beast if ever there was one. Even now, the animal was chewing through the reins in a bid to break free and wreak havoc.

There was only one dwarf who had been exiled from Dhenaheim with a Warhog for a mount.

“HEAVYBELLY!” The name was bellowed from inside The Pick-Axe, bringing a smile to Asher’s stubbled face.

Passing through the creaky green door, the ranger was immediately struck by the aromas of ale and cooked food—both of which he intended to consume before the night was over. A small band were playing off to the right, their music light and cheerful. The bar was crowded with bodies, and almost every table and booth was occupied.

As always, Asher’s gaze was drawn to the pick-axe displayed horizontally above the bar. The iron pick was stained and dented. The wooden haft was scored with dozens of notches, each a contract fulfilled and a monster slain. Russell Maybury, the owner of both the pick-axe and the tavern named for it, emerged from between two patrons and leaned over the bar.

“Heavybelly!” he yelled again.

There was an audible kerfuffle to the ranger’s left as a group of standing patrons were shoved aside by Doran, son of Dorain and exile of clan Heavybelly. No taller than a man’s chest, the dwarf strode towards the bar wearing his usual black-and-gold armour, which only made him wider than he already was. His bushy blond beard was drenched with ale and littered with the debris of his dinner. With his hair tied at the back, his furious expression was there for all to see as he laid fierce eyes on Russell.

“What are ye abou’?” he barked in the common tongue. “Ye’ve got me up from a warm seat an’ a hot meal!”

Russell presented the dwarf with a thin piece of parchment. “Your tab, Doran! It’s getting out of hand!”

“Bah!” The son of Dorain waved the notion away. “Out o’ hand! Ye seem to be holdin’ it in one hand jus’ fine!”

Russell groaned and rolled his eyes. “There’s six months of food and drink on here,” he pointed out. “If you’re not entertaining folk with a story or two, you’re paying—you know the rules.”

Doran’s expression screwed up as he took in the crowded tavern. “I’ll tell ’em a tale tomorrow night.”

Russell narrowed his eyes on the dwarf. “That’s what you said last time. Then you left at the crack of dawn to hunt Trolls in The Narrows.”

“I’ve jus’ this day taken a new contract,” Doran assured, with a patronising gesture of the hands. “Local job, too. I’ll pay off the entire tab this week!”

Russell didn’t look convinced, but the tavern owner caught sight of Asher standing in the foyer and his mood immediately brightened. “At last, a ranger who pays his way!”

Doran turned to lay eyes on him. “Asher!” he cheered. “It’s been too long, lad!”

The ranger walked up to the bar. “Doran, Russell,” he greeted.

“It has, indeed, been too long,” Russell remarked with a genuine smile.

“It’s good to see you both,” Asher agreed. “I have journeyed from Karath and find myself in need of a good bed.”

“Karath?” Doran repeated. “What’ve ye been doin’ in the desert? Huntin’ Sandstalkers?”

“Something like that,” Asher replied.

“You’ve always got a bed here,” Russell interjected. “Even if I have to kick someone out,” he added with a pointed look at Doran.

The son of Dorain shrugged off the threat. “Come, lad!” he beamed, guiding Asher away. “’Ave a drink with me! Russell, two Hobgobbers an’ make ’em cold!”

Asher concealed his amusement and thanked Russell with a nod before taking in Doran’s gloomy booth. Propped up against the wall were the dwarf’s sword and axe, his weapons of choice. More distracting, however, were the numerous empty tankards scattered on the table top.

“Did I hear you have a new contract?” Asher asked by way of conversation.

“What?” Doran looked baffled by the question. “Oh!” He glanced back at the bar. “No, I haven’t even looked at the board yet. I only arrived two days ago. Jus’ finished a job in Whistle Town huntin’ a rogue Vorska.”

“Vorska?” Asher echoed. “They normally hunt in packs.”

“Aye, they do,” Doran agreed as he stripped pieces of chicken from a small leg. “Lucky for me this one broke the mould—nasty bugger!”

The ranger looked over the empty tankards again. “Did they pay you?”

“Oh aye,” the son of Dorain replied, a cheeky grin pushing at his cheeks, “but I stopped in Vangarth on me way ’ere. There’s a tavern there that sells Ameeraskan cider for barely a coin!”

Asher sat back against the wall of the booth. “You push him too far, Doran,” he warned.

The dwarf spat out a splinter of chicken bone. “Who? Rus? He’s one o’ us!” he argued. “He might ’ave retired but he’ll always be a ranger in his heart.”

“Well, I wouldn’t bet your tab on his good will,” Asher cautioned.

The dwarf waved the matter away. “I can deal with Rus. Tell me abou' yer travels, stranger—it’s been too long since I heard o’ yer sword cleavin’ some big nasty in two.”

Asher pushed his greying hair back, wondering where to begin when it came to the Sand Basilisk he had been contracted to hunt. He started with the small village that had collectively saved up to afford a ranger of his calibre, pausing only to accept a hot beef stew and fresh ale from Russell.

Time abandoned them to their booth after that, the rangers content to swap tales over their food. It was some time later, an hour that could only be described as late, when The Pick-Axe’s door opened and an icy chill swept over Asher, drawing his focus to the newcomer.

The ranger stiffened, his tankard resting on the edge of his lips.

A young man had walked in with a large pack slung over one shoulder and a smaller one in his hand. He paused in the foyer, his dark eyes casually surveying the tavern from left to right. Satisfied, he made for the bar and found an opening to place himself and wait for Russell’s attention.

“What’s with ye, lad?” Doran asked, his bushy eyebrows twitching. “Ye look like ye’ve seen a ghost.”

A ghost wasn’t a bad description, but Asher kept his thoughts to himself, his mind elsewhere. He was still breaking down everything his senses were telling him about the stranger. The way he carried himself, the style and state of his clothing, even the complexion of his skin informed the ranger that a student of Nightfall had just entered The Pick-Axe. That was to say a proficient killer, an assassin of the highest order, had just walked into the tavern.

“Asher,” Doran said seriously. “Ye look like ye’re fixin’ for a fight. What’s wrong?”

The ranger put his tankard down and subtly flicked his head towards the bar. “That man…”

The son of Dorain turned as much as his armour would allow and cast a frown over the newcomer. “I see naught but a pup,” the dwarf opined.

Asher glanced at his weaponry, propped up as Doran’s was. Approaching the man with any of it strapped to his body would make the assassin immediately suspicious, and every assassin of Nightfall was bred to be paranoid—Asher could attest to that.

“I’ll get the next round,” he stated, rising from the booth with a tankard in each hand.

His path to the bar already planned in his mind, the ranger wove between the patrons and barmaids until he was beside the potential assassin. Asher kept his head bowed so that his hair might conceal much of his face. Judging by the age of the younger man, there was a good chance he wouldn’t recognise Asher, but the Arakesh had a way of identifying one another.

While the man enquired about a room, his questions directed to one of the maids, Asher slid the tankards across the bar and waited patiently. His eyes slid to the side of his head as he inspected the man’s hands, resting on the bar top. The skin was rough and the knuckles were scarred and even flat in places. They resembled Asher’s.

Adjusting his position at the bar, the ranger looked down and scrutinised the pack leaning against the man’s leg. It was certainly big enough to fit a pair of short-swords, the chosen weapons of any Arakesh.

The tavern door opened again and the cold hand of winter blew in to lift Asher’s cloak and raise the hairs on the back of his neck. A pair of boots strode across the foyer and stopped behind the ranger. Asher instantly assessed his surroundings, planning to defend himself from a rear attack. If he needed to, he concluded, he could use the metal tankards as weapons.

“Tarek,” the strong voice commanded, turning the young man from the bar. “Have you made the necessary arrangements?”

His choice of language was Ameeraskan, from The Arid Lands. Though not the common tongue known to the majority of Illian, Asher was well versed in the quicker speech and picked up every word. The accent, however, was artificial, suggesting the owner hailed from elsewhere but had taken the time to learn one of the harder dialects in the south.

“There are no rooms available,” Tarek replied, their conversation baffling the barmaid.

“Then we will eat,” the voice stated, displaying some superiority. “The cold can wait until my stomach is full.” 

Tarek ordered them both a meal and drinks while the other left for a table. Asher kept his movements smooth and slow as he turned to walk away. There was a brief moment when his path crossed with the second stranger’s as he took his seat in the middle of the hubbub. The ranger got a good look at his face without being noticed himself.

Short dark hair, pale-blue eyes, a chiselled jaw that had been broken at least once, and tanned skin, though it looked to be from exposure rather than birth. Added to that, two scars were just visible, poking out of his hair line on the left, between his eyebrow and ear. It took a moment, once Asher had passed him by, but the name finally came to the ranger.

Glain.

Like Asher, he had no family name and the name he did possess told little of his heritage before Nightfall had taken him in. He was a little younger than Asher, who had entered his forties now. The ranger recalled seeing him in the halls of Nightfall, but they had never interacted. Still, if he recognised Glain there was every chance Glain would recognise him.

Asher returned to Doran’s booth, happy to have Glain’s back to him. The dwarf looked at the ranger’s empty hands with visible disappointment.

“Aren’ ye forgettin’ somethin’, lad?”

Asher kept his mouth shut, his mind racing. He ran through one scenario after another, his imagination capable of great detail when it came to the art of violence.

“Asher,” Doran snapped.

The ranger snatched at the dwarf’s wrist. “Stop saying my name,” he growled.

The son of Dorain frowned until his thick eyebrows knotted together. “What’s got into ye, lad?”

Asher delayed his explanation as he watched the younger man, Tarek, take his seat opposite Glain. “The two men who just entered The Axe,” the ranger began. “They’re Arakesh.”

Doran was not someone to be startled easily, his two hundred years lending him a degree of stoicism in most matters, but every muscle in his body coiled like a tight rope.

“Arakesh?” he echoed incredulously, using the same elvish word. “I thought ye were the only assassin to frequent The Axe,” he added, his tone dropping to almost a whisper.

Asher shot the dwarf a look, reminding him that his days killing for Nightfall were behind him.

“Are they here for ye?” Doran asked seriously, his hand sliding over the table towards his sword and axe.

“If they were I wouldn’t be watching them eat Russell’s stew,” Asher said. “They still have orders to kill me on sight, though.”

“Ah,” Doran replied with some revelation. “No one walks away from Nightfall an’ all that…”

Asher’s story was a saga all of its own and he had neither the time nor inclination to get into it with the dwarf. Instead he was calculating the number of steps between his booth and their table. Could he kill Glain before Tarek knew what was happening? Where on their person were they storing hidden blades? In truth, the ranger was confident, given the element of surprise, that he could dispatch both men before they could rise from their seats. But there were multiple witnesses who would call him a murderer since most people believed the assassins of Nightfall to be naught but myths.

“Do ye need to be leavin’?” Doran suggested. “Rus could let ye out through the back, if ye could get there unnoticed.”

That scenario had run through his mind again and again. How many times had he been forced to run in recent years? Sometimes he had fled on no more than a hunch that the Arakesh were in the vicinity. 

Where would he go? he asked himself. The Arakesh had eyes and ears in every town and city from Karath to Namdhor. Could he keep running forever?

“Where’s ye head, lad?” Doran’s question brought the ranger back to his booth.

“Firmly on my shoulders,” Asher replied absently.

Doran let out a little snort. “I suppose that’s more than their victim can say. Whoever they’ve come for is as good as dead.”

The dwarf’s words tugged at a thread that quickly unravelled Asher’s line of thought. Who had they come for? It wouldn’t be anyone in The Pick-Axe—Arakesh weren’t cheap killers.

“Hey now,” Doran said, cutting through his thoughts once more. “I know that look. Ye’re meanin’ to get right in the middle o’ this an’ ye’ve got no business doin’ so. Keep yer senses, lad, an’ get yer arse out o’ Lirian with what coin ye’ve got left. There’s plenty o’ jobs out there.”

“They’re here to murder someone, Doran.”

“They’re always ’ere to murder someone. Ye know that better than most! Why get in the way o’ it now?”

There was something about Glain and Tarek that didn’t sit right with Asher. It reminded him of his last mission for Nightfall.

“There’s two of them,” the ranger pointed out.

Doran shrugged. “So?”

“They rarely operate in pairs.” Asher ran a hand over his stubble. “This must be a test for the younger one.”

“Test? To see if he can kill a man?”

The ranger shook his head. “They’ve both killed men, likely dozens.”

The son of Dorain maintained his look of confusion. “Then what would he be tested for?”

The answer turned Asher’s stomach. “To see if he can kill a child.”

#

The moon had waned by the time Glain and Tarek departed The Pick-Axe. Asher was already waiting for them. Having utilised the distraction of a drinks mishap, deliberately orchestrated by Russell, the ranger had sneaked out before either assassin had finished their meal.

This was, of course, against the many protests of Doran Heavybelly. The son of Dorain had offered his sword and axe, but Asher was sure to keep the stout ranger out of it.

Now, nestled in the shadows of The Pick-Axe’s crooked roof, Asher stalked his prey. Glain and Tarek retrieved their horses and began a slow trot down the streets in search of another tavern. They shared those streets with the occasional straggler, men young and old, staggering back to their homes or on to the next source of ale.

Asher was careful to time his leaps from one roof top to another. He kept his distance since tracking the sound of their horses’ hooves was child’s play at such a late hour. Only twice was the ranger forced to climb down one building and scale another to maintain his pursuit.

Their journey came to an end, at last, outside The Stag’s Head, an inn twice the size of Russell’s establishment. Asher crouched in the dark, perched by the edge of a chimney, and shrouded himself in his green cloak and hood. Then he waited.

Only Tarek returned, to guide the horses to a nearby stable, but soon after, he once more disappeared inside The Stag’s Head. They had their beds for the night. It was tempting to go inside, blend in, and try to learn more of their reason for being in Lirian, but the risk was too high. Instead, Asher tucked his knees up and settled into the comfiest position he could on the roof. This wasn’t the first time he had waited like a gargoyle for his target, though he had hoped such a time had passed.

Thankfully, however, his wait proved to be short. Confirming the truth of their identity, both Glain and Tarek appeared on an adjacent roof, having climbed out of their window without a sound. Asher remained as still as the night itself, his eyes peering out from the cover of his hood. The assassins didn’t see him but, then again, their eyes were blindfolded with red cloth.

Asher cursed the Nightseye elixir that ran through their veins, as it did his own. Forced to consume the potion regularly from childhood until it was permanent, every Arakesh possessed heightened senses when plunged into pitch black. Such an environment was actually quite difficult to find, since the world of man was comforted by the light, but their blindfolds ensured true darkness.

Glain turned his head in Asher’s direction but made no action to suggest that he had discovered the ranger. Asher was confident that he remained just outside of their advanced senses, his heartbeat undetectable.

Clad in black, both assassins darted across the roof, skipping over the imperfections, and leapt to the next building. They made it look effortless, like a pair of cats exploring the city at night. Asher made to pursue again, though the ranger was forced to double the distance between them lest they hear his feet on the tiles or the scraping of his leathers. If he got too close, they would even smell his sweat, tasting the drink and food he had recently consumed.

Now and then he would stop and look for their silhouettes jumping from one roof to the next. They were heading north and with some speed. Past his prime, Asher did what he could to keep up, though his haste caused him to slip more than once.

Reaching the final building in the north, Asher crouched low on the lip of the roof and scoured the area for his prey. They were harder to see, but his eyes finally caught up with them farther north still. Glain was leading the way up the rocky face that stopped at the mountain’s lowest rise and overlooked all of Lirian. Beyond it was the palace, home to Queen Isabella Harg.

Was she their target?

Asher watched them ascend the rock as he tried to recall all that he knew of the Harg dynasty. They had reigned over Felgarn, a region that encompassed the entirety of The Evermoore Forest, for centuries. The king, Isabella’s husband… something had happened to him, the ranger was sure. A hunting accident perhaps? Possibly the red pox. Either way, he knew it was relatively recent, for he had been in Lirian at the time of the king’s funeral procession.

Queen Isabella ruled in his stead now, though she was hardly worthy of two Arakesh. Asher tried to remember the procession, but his head had taken several knocks since that day.

A son. They had a son.

The ranger couldn’t say the boy’s name to save his life, but he recalled seeing him now, no more than three years old at the time. He had tried to break away from the procession, distracted as children can be, and one of the handmaidens had reined him in.

As Glain and Tarek reached the top of the rock face, Asher climbed down, crossed the street, and began his own ascent. The stone was damp and sharp in places, both slowing the ranger down. He was tempted to retrieve his own blindfold, tied around his belt, to aid him in his climb. He would be able to feel every groove, ridge, and imperfection in the rock, as well as sensing where the footholds would be.

Asher grunted and stubbornly continued his climb unaided by the Nightseye elixir. He always loathed tying the blindfold around his head and using the so-called gift of killers. The feel of it on his skin, the pressure of the knot at the back of his head, brought back nightmarish memories. There was so much blood on his hands, he knew they would never be clean.

So simple a thing, a piece of red cloth. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to let it go.

Rather than dwell on it, the ranger pushed on and scaled the rock face until he, too, was clawing his way onto flat land again.

The palace wasn’t far, protected by its high walls and guarded by patrols of soldiers plucked straight from the best of Lirian’s army. Torches lined the ramparts and turrets, though there were very few sources of light from within the palace’s towers at such a late hour. 

Taking cover behind a collection of boulders, the ranger scanned the area, looking at the terrain like an assassin. That line of thinking led him to the tallest tree, not far from the eastern wall, its top easily towering over the ramparts. From that vantage he would be able to see inside the courtyard and assess the obstacles that lay between him and his target.

And that’s exactly where Glain and Tarek were perched.

The assassins would have been invisible had Asher not known where to look. Their chosen branch took their combined weight, offering them the perfect view. But they made no move to infiltrate.

Confused by their lack of action, Asher could do naught but hide and watch again. As it appeared time was on his side, the ranger took a moment to assess the grounds for himself. He quickly discovered a great number of carriages inside the walls and an unusual amount of activity around the stables. Judging the carriages by their appearance, Asher deduced that they all belonged to high borns, though not directly from Lirian. Given the sigil of the stag displayed on all of them, they were likely from the towns within the region and under Queen Isabella’s rule.

The reason for so many guests confounded the ranger.

More than an hour went by before Glain and Tarek moved from their perch. Asher shook his hands, hoping to get some dexterity back. He paused, however, refraining from moving beyond the boulders. They weren’t advancing on the palace. Both assassins descended the old tree and crept back through the shadows to the edge of the cliff. The ranger didn’t move, content to let them leave without confrontation. Challenging them here and now, outside the palace, would bring trouble down on him.

Instead, he waited for them to disappear into the city before rising between the boulders. He looked back at the palace. They had been scouting, looking for a way in as well as a way out. It was the mark of their order to execute clean and quiet kills without detection, perpetuating the myth of Nightfall.

It was unlikely that they required more information than they already had now. The prince of Lirian would die tomorrow.

In truth, Asher could have lived with that fact were the prince anything but a child. He could not, however, walk up to the palace gates and inform them of an assassination attempt. He would be turned away at the very least. He considered making his way back to The Stag’s Head and trying to kill the assassins in their room, but they would have set multiple traps to warn of intruders.

Instead, the ranger descended back into the city and walked the empty streets of the pre-dawn until he found himself at The Pick-Axe once more. Russell was just ushering out the last patron as Asher climbed the steps onto the porch.

“I wondered if you’d be back,” he said.

Asher looked past him. “I need my locker.”

“You need your bed,” Russell corrected, stepping aside.

The ranger entered the tavern, a tomb compared with the state in which he had left it. His quick stride woke Doran, whose head had rested flat on his table-top. The dwarf muttered incomprehensibly in his native tongue before laying eyes on Asher.

“Where in all the hells ’ave ye been?” 

Asher didn’t falter as he opened the door at the end of the bar and took the steps down into the basement. He walked through a sitting area and a small bar, a place for rangers to rest in peace, and continued down the narrow hallway, past the rooms. The final door brought Asher to a chamber larger than the sitting area, though it certainly wasn’t used for resting. The walls were lined with a variety of weapons to suit every kind of fighter, as well as a few relics good for nothing but display purposes.

None of it interested the ranger. He moved to the alcove set into the wall on his left and pulled back the curtain to reveal its secrets, his secrets. To the side, a dusty rail held half a dozen green cloaks identical to the one on his back. Two pairs of extra boots sat on the floor, ready to replace the ones on his feet. A small shelf to the right housed a row of daggers and a single-handed axe. He ignored the axe but placed several daggers into the empty scabbards on his belt, their predecessors lost to The Arid Lands. Nestled into the corner were three quivers, each stuffed with arrows, of which he took a handful.

Should he survive to see the next sunset, Asher vowed to return and exchange most of his gear, but right now he was more interested in the tall rack that displayed four two-handed broadswords with spiked pommels, just like the one on his hip. It was the perfect monster-killing weapon, but its range made it ideal against a foe who preferred to use a short-sword.

The ranger drew the sword on his hip, pausing briefly to inspect the steel. It was dented and chipped where the Sand Basilisk had proven a hardy beast. He swapped it for a brand-new one, already accustomed to the weight and grip. 

“Are ye goin’ to war, lad?” Doran enquired from behind.

Asher turned around as Russell joined them. “They mean to infiltrate the palace,” he reported. “Tonight was about gathering information, but they’ll strike soon.”

“They’re going for the queen,” Russell concluded.

“I thought ye said they’d be after a child?” Doran cut in.

“The queen’s son,” Asher explained.

“Prince Timothy?” Russell questioned. “Why would anyone want to kill him? He’s just a boy.”

“Royals and high borns have been killing each other for centuries,” Asher reasoned. “Lirian is one of six kingdoms, each with kings, queens, lords, and governors who would do anything for a little more power.”

“That’s a lot of potential enemies,” Doran grumbled.

“Killing the prince on his birthday would certainly send a message,” Russell opined.

Asher raised an eyebrow. “His birthday?”

“Aye,” Russell confirmed. “Lords and the like have been arriving for days. Queen Isabella is hosting a banquet in his honour tomorrow evening.”

Now the plethora of carriages and horses made sense to the ranger. “Lots of people. They’ll use the chaos to enter the palace and assassinate the prince.”

“How can you know that?” Russell asked incredulously.

“Because it’s what I would do.”

“An’ ye’re sure they’re ’ere for the little prince?” Doran checked.

Having been one of two Arakesh on just such a mission, Asher was certain. “They’re going to kill him,” he said definitively.

Russell folded his thick arms. “What are you going to do? Alert the watch?”

The ranger shook his head. “They’ll just get themselves killed, and that’s if they even believe me. I need to get inside the palace.”

The son of Dorain winced. “Ye really are gettin’ in the middle o’ this one, Asher.”

“Actually,” Russell suggested, “I might be able to get you right in the middle of it…”

#

In the twilight of the next sunset—after a less-than-solid plan had been scrambled together—Russell Maybury brought his horse and cart to a stop in front of the palace’s main gate. Local high-born guests were making their way inside, attired in the finest cloth and cloaked in expensive furs. Every one of them cast a foul and suspicious eye over the tavern owner and his inferior horse.

The Lirian soldier barring his way was somewhere between embarrassed and infuriated—at least that’s the impression Asher got from the tone of his voice. Braced within the under frame of the cart, the ranger could only listen and glimpse the legs of those walking by.

“You’re having a laugh,” the guard seethed. “Not only have you come to the wrong entrance, you’re telling me you’ve also forgotten your pass! For the love of the gods, man, it’s a piece of parchment the size of your arm.”

“You have my apologies, sir,” Russell replied for the third time. “As you can see, I’ve brought the Velian wine as requested.”

The guard moved, perhaps to inspect the truth of Russell’s wares. “I see wine but no request,” he sneered.

Russell sighed. “Well, I hope the queen’s got enough of the good stuff in there.” The guard had no reply, though Asher could imagine him reconsidering even as he stood there. “If I’m to leave I’ll leave,” Russell continued innocently enough, “but you’ll have to let me into the courtyard so I can turn this beast around.”

Asher could feel sweat dripping from his forehead, despite the frosty air. He heard the guard offer an apology to a passing guest, hoping he had made his mind up either way—the ranger’s muscles were beginning to sting.

“Right,” the guard finally said, his teeth obviously clenched. “Make for the door on the far right—it leads to the kitchens. Unload your barrels quickly and… discreetly. Otherwise you’ll find yourself in a fine pair of irons. Understood?”

“Aye, sir,” Russell agreed without a fuss.

Asher was happy to feel the horse and cart moving again. They rode over the stone flags and turned right into the courtyard, away from the main entrance and the flurry of guests. There was another set of footsteps accompanying them, and judging by the sound of scraping armour, it was one of the guards.

“You don’t have to worry about me, lad,” Russell offered as he brought the horse and cart to a stop. “I’ve been handling barrels like these all my life.”

“I’m not here to help you,” the guard rebuked, his voice suggesting it was a different soldier. “I’m here to make sure you do as you’re told.”

“As you like,” Russell replied quietly.

Noting the fading light, Asher began to worry that he would be too late. Glain and Tarek could employ a number of ways to assassinate the prince and, perhaps, even the queen, but they would certainly do so as soon as it was dark and the shadows were on their side.

As Russell planted the first barrel on the ground, Asher used the heavy thud to drop down from the cart. On all fours, he caught sight of the guard’s legs. The direction of his feet suggested he wasn’t looking in the ranger’s direction. A pity for him.

Asher rolled out from under the cart and shoved his foot into the man’s knee, dropping him to the ground and into the ranger’s waiting arms. He locked his elbow around the guard’s neck before he could so much as yelp. Then he squeezed, trapping his airway in an unforgiving vise. All the while, Russell continued to remove one barrel after the other, displaying them in such a way as to conceal the assault.

It wasn’t long before the Lirian soldier was a limp body. “He’ll wake up with a bad head and a groggy memory,” Asher assured. “Leave the barrels here and return to the city.”

Russell climbed back onto the cart. “I would say don’t do anything stupid, but I suppose we’re past that now. Good luck. I hope you save the boy.”

The ranger gave his old friend a nod and used the moving cart as cover to make his way to the nearest door.

It had been a long time since he had pored over the drawings of any royal palace or fortress—memorising such layouts was a basic requirement of any Arakesh. Asher crept through a side door and slid out of the kitchens before any servants could observe him. Resting his back against the cool stone of an empty hallway, the ranger closed his eyes in a bid to recall all that he knew of Lirian’s palace.

He was in the east wing. There were fourteen rooms, mostly used by servants. Two stairwells, in the north and south, but only the northern stairwell would lead him to the rest of the palace. If they were having a banquet they would be in the west wing, and judging by the direction of the music he could hear, that was true. The royal chambers were located in the middle, on the third floor.

Asher’s eyes snapped open. Someone was walking down the hall. He pivoted into the shadows and waited for the servant to pass him by, oblivious to the intruder. He paused a moment longer, until the young woman had finished lighting all the torches, before stepping out and heading towards the northern stairwell.

His progress was slowed by the increase in guards, their presence stepped up with so many guests in the palace. Avoiding them was easy enough, requiring barely a thought from the old assassin. He had spent nearly two decades navigating such obstacles and possessed a great deal of muscle memory when it came to evading detection.

Night had taken its hold over the realm now, casting the palace’s halls and passages in flickering shadows. Hidden between the west wing and the royal chambers, Asher had to decide on a direction. He hated this part, thinking like an assassin.

Locating his target was the primary goal.

On the second floor, and directly on the route to the royal apartments, he picked a lock that granted him access to the balcony overlooking the ballroom. Below was a sea of faces, elegant gowns, multiple bands, and long tables lined with food and wine. It wasn’t a life Asher could say he was accustomed to, but he had spent a good deal of time around high borns and knew the luxury they referred to as ordinary. This was the height of opulence.

The ranger required only a few seconds to lay eyes on Queen Isabella, one of very few to be accompanied by attendants with every step. No prince, however. Crouched below the railing, Asher sighed and gritted his teeth. He continued to survey the ballroom, until his attention was snatched when the queen made a straight line for the double doors. Where was she going? For the boy perhaps? There was every chance Isabella was a target as well as the prince.

Soon enough, after vanishing from Asher’s sight, the queen passed by the door he had picked and continued on towards the royal chambers. The ranger opened the door a crack and caught sight of the two guards who swept in behind their queen. A bead of sweat ran down his temple. They were going to strike soon—he could feel it. The old assassin swore under his breath and emerged from the balcony. His quick stride was measured and controlled, allowing him to trail the queen and her guards without a sound. Unfortunately, the same guards took up posts on either side of the staircase that led up to the third floor and the royal chambers, leaving the queen to ascend alone. The ranger darted to the side of the hall and flattened himself to the wall, using the cover of a tall display case.

He was running out of time.

This would be the moment he struck were he the one wearing the blindfold. He had been a fool to go to the ballroom first. He should have found his way into the royal chambers and waited for that quiet moment when mother and son would be alone. That’s what Glain and Tarek would be doing, after all.

Using what precious time he had, Asher considered his position in the palace. There was always another way—a lesson he had learnt early on in Nightfall. To his left was a door through which he could access a dead-end passage that led to the northern boundary of the palace. His route suddenly clicked into place for him, and he reached for the door handle.

Moments later, the double doors at the end of the hall opened up onto a modest balcony, offering a view of the looming mountain and a canvas of stars above. The ranger wasn’t interested in anything quite so high. His blue eyes shifted left and right as he assessed the palace wall that connected the second floor to the third. Dressed as the stone was, there were no natural handholds, but there was an extravagant trellis devoid of the beautiful flowers that winter forbade.

Up the ranger went and without delay. As he reached the third floor, a flicker of movement caught his eye, giving him pause mid-climb. A white curtain, gripped by the wind, blew out of an open window. There were none north of The Moonlit Plains who would leave a window open at this time of year. He so easily slipped back into their way of thinking: Leave the window open and let the cold draft lure any waiting guards into the room.

Leaping the gap, Asher latched on to the window ledge and pulled himself up. It was his most vulnerable moment. He heaved until his whole body was levered into the dark chamber. As quiet as he was, there was nothing he could do about his scabbard scraping over the sill. Glain and Tarek had to know he was inside now, their hearing immeasurably superior to any ordinary man’s. The royal chambers weren’t that extensive, and he was likely only one of few on the third floor.

As he rounded the furniture, it came as no surprise to discover the body of a guard slumped in a large armchair, his features concealed in shadow. The blood that had poured from his neck was being absorbed by the chair, staining the material.

By the time the ranger reached the door, his own ears detected a familiar sound from his past: a body hitting the floor. Asher moved to the next chamber, a grand sitting room by the height of the ceilings and the lavish sofas. Taking away from the grandeur, however, was the dead body lying in the middle of the room, a pool of blood oozing across the expensive rugs. The ranger breathed a sigh of relief when he realised it was a palace guard, but any relief was short-lived, for this could only mean one thing: The boy and his mother were left unprotected.

Asher crossed the sitting room and passed through two more. At the threshold of the third and final door, he heard the distinct sound of a back-hand slapping against skin and a body crumpling to the ground.

“No!” Queen Isabella shrieked.

As the assassin drew one of the short-swords from his back, Asher opened the door fully. It was Tarek, his blade held high, ready to come down on a sobbing Prince Timothy. Knocked to the ground, his mother could only look on in horror, her face already swollen and blood visible on her lips.

The young Arakesh slowly looked back over his shoulder to see Asher’s menacing stature. He rightfully turned away from the child and tilted his head, likely wondering why the ranger’s heart beat was so steady.

“You got caught up,” Asher chastised. “You should have sensed me coming, boy.”

“Who are you?” Tarek demanded, his frustration showing.

“I’m the thing you’ve got to go through.”

Tarek grinned with all the misplaced confidence of youth. His initial lunge was predictable. Asher snatched at his wrist and throat before spinning the Arakesh around and tossing him into the adjacent room, away from the queen and prince. Tarek growled, unaccustomed to being handled in such a manner outside of Nightfall. He lashed out at the floor with his free hand and rose back to his feet with a quiet rage about him.

Asher drew his broadsword, anticipating the second blade that Tarek inevitably retrieved from his back. He twisted and spun the short-swords around with a mesmerising performance: a technique often used to give a glimpse of one’s skill. The ranger was of a different mind, preferring to stand his ground, his weapon held casually in one hand.

Tarek darted forward and attempted to spear Asher’s heart, a lure set by the ranger and his low guard. A flick of his much longer broadsword batted the assassin’s blade away. His sword in the air now, Asher hammered the spiked pommel into Tarek’s wrist, causing the young Arakesh to drop one of his weapons. His yell of pain was quickly silenced by a swift punch to the jaw, forcing him into a tall bookshelf.

As the assassin collapsed down through the shelves, Asher stepped away to give himself some space in case Tarek lashed out with his remaining short-sword.

“They don’t make ’em like they used to,” Asher jibed, provoking the man.

Displaying some of his arduous training, Tarek recovered from the blows and rolled across the floor to jump up in front of the ranger. Heightened senses informed the assassin where his foe was standing at all times, but as potent as the Nightseye elixir was, it didn’t make him stronger or faster, and it definitely didn’t make him more experienced than Asher.

The ranger deflected three successive strikes while keeping his enemy at bay with his broadsword. After using a standard technique, a fighting style used by common soldiers, Asher switched to a more unorthodox style only taught in Nightfall. Two swipes and an elbow to the chest cut Tarek across the thigh and ribs and launched him back into the wall.

“Where’s Glain?” Asher demanded.

Tarek was rubbing his chest and catching his breath as the ranger’s words caught his ears. He didn’t need his eyes to see Asher, but the assassin tilted his head as if taking the ranger in again, assessing him with some revelation.

“You’re him,” he stated, his tone suggesting a hint of disbelief. “The exile.”

“Where’s Glain?” Asher repeated, his sword held horizontally in both hands and ready to plunge into the foolhardy Arakesh.

“I’ve heard stories about you,” Tarek continued, moving away from the wall. “The one that got away,” he said wistfully. “I will be a hero for bringing your heart back to the Father.”

It was subtle but, judging by the way Tarek shuffled his feet into position, Asher knew his foe’s next attack was imminent. In his mind, the ranger played out the short but conclusive melee, confident in his ability and Tarek’s comparative lack thereof.

The corner of the Arakesh’s mouth curled into a grin as he leapt forward, swiping across Asher’s midriff. The ranger pulled his sword back, his right foot moving with it. As Tarek’s swing went wide, exposing his torso, the ranger rolled his broadsword under and swung the blade up with the force of both arms. He felt the resistance, but the assassin’s leathers were no match for the edge of his new sword or the strength he applied to it.

Tarek stumbled away and dropped his weapon, his mouth ajar with shock. He staggered for only a second before his mortal wound took hold and he crumpled to the floor, a red line marring the centre of his body from groin to chin.

Leaning against the doorframe, her son clutched in both her arms, Queen Isabella stared at the dying man. Her eyes were glassy and her skin soaked in sweat. Only moments ago, she had truly believed her son was about to be killed.

Asher took advantage of her momentary shock and crouched down beside Tarek. His hands glided over the weakly convulsing body, checking the usual places an assassin would conceal anything on their person. The ranger cared little for the knives and darts he came across. His interest was knowledge. Ignoring the Arakesh’s last breaths, he searched his belt and found what he was looking for: a length of red string dotted with knots and no bigger than his forearm.

As his finger and thumb ran down the knots, the door behind Asher burst open. The ranger made no move to confront the newcomers—soldiers all by the sound of their armour. Instead, he sheathed his sword and raised his hands while slowly stepping away from their queen and prince. That didn’t stop two of the Lirians from rushing towards him with swords raised.

“Stop!” the queen barked, halting the soldiers mid-dash. “This man saved our lives.”

Asher remained quiet, though his mind was racing behind his calm demeanour. Where was Glain?

“Who are you?” Isabella enquired, her son still tucked between her arms.

The ranger relaxed somewhat. “My name is Asher, Your Grace.”

“I can only guess at your profession,” the queen remarked, looking him up and down.

“He’s a sell-sword, Your Grace,” one of the soldiers interjected with disdain. “A mercenary at best.”

“I’m a ranger,” Asher corrected, pointedly.

“A ranger…” the queen echoed, sampling the title on her lips. “How does one who hunts monsters find himself in my palace?”

Asher glanced at Tarek’s corpse. “As you say: hunting monsters, Your Grace.”

“Indeed,” Isabella agreed, tucking her mousy blond hair behind her ear. “And what kind of monster have you slain here?”

“The worst kind, Your Grace. He was an Arakesh of Nightfall.”

The soldiers looked at one another, some whispering amongst themselves. “They’re just a myth,” one of them argued.

“The myth lies before you,” Asher pointed out, gesturing to Tarek’s red blindfold.

“If he was an Arakesh like you say,” the soldier pressed, “how did you best him? You’re just a ranger.”

“Is that the respect our saviour is to be shown?” the queen reprimanded. “This ranger did what none of you could, something I will take into account when considering your future.”

The soldier averted his gaze with a short bow of the head. “Asher,” Isabella continued, her regal decorum slowly returning, “you have experience with this breed of killer?”

“Some,” Asher replied, sure to keep the truth to himself. “I have been tracking them since they arrived in Lirian, Your Grace.”

The queen’s face dropped. “Them?”

“There are two of them,” the ranger confirmed. “I’m afraid to say he was the less experienced of the two,” he added, referring to Tarek.

“Where is the other?” Isabella questioned without pause.

“Likely somewhere inside the palace, waiting to ensure the prince is dead.”

The queen gripped her son a little tighter. “Why is my child a target of Nightfall?”

“And how do you know?” the suspicious soldier asked, his tone softened after his queen’s harsh instruction.

Asher held up the length of red string between his fingers. “Because of this.”

The soldier took it from his grasp, though his dumbfounded expression offered the queen no further insight. “What is this?”

Isabella snatched the piece of string for herself. A quick peruse up and down its length, however, proved the soldier right in her opinion. “You took this from his belt,” she observed. “What does it mean?”

Asher accepted the string back and held it out for the queen to see. To the eye of an ordinary person, it was a series of knots randomly tied along the length, but to the Arakesh it was a language perfectly suited for those who didn’t need their eyes.

“This is the prince’s name,” he pointed out. “This is his description.” He displayed the knots beneath.

“And the other knots?” Isabella asked.

“That is the name of the employer—the person paying for the death of your son. You should know, Your Grace, that Nightfall will never stop coming for its target so long as the employer lives. And since there is no communication after a contract is accepted, the kill cannot be voided.”

The queen’s chest was heaving, her rage bubbling to the surface. “Who has done this?” she demanded with a measured tone.

The ranger took another look at the lowest pattern of knots. “Lord Huxley of Wood Vale.”

Isabella turned her head away. “That snake dines in my hall as we speak,” she seethed. “He has come for my son’s birthday!”

The suspicious soldier eyed Asher. “You seem to know an awful lot about the inner workings of the Arakesh.”

“Your sword!” the queen commanded, her hand held out to the soldier.

He hesitated. “Your Grace… If there is still an assassin out there, we should—”

“Your sword!” Isabella hissed. The Lirian soldier passed his blade over; credit to her, the queen handled it well. “You seem to know your way around these assassins, Ranger. What is your best guess regarding the second?”

Asher fell back into the mindset of an Arakesh, a seductive way of life. “He will be hiding in plain sight. Crowds are good for that.”

“The banquet hall,” Isabella concluded. She turned back to her guards. “You will surround my son and accompany me to the hall. Ranger, I would call on your expertise one more time.”

“I can give no guarantee, Your Grace. They are trained to move like ghosts.”

Isabella nodded her understanding and strode towards the door. Asher followed them closely, happy to leave the royal chambers via the staircase rather than the trellis. As they made for the next set of stairs, heading for the hall on the ground floor, Asher broke away without a word and returned to the balcony above the celebrations. He didn’t require the mindset of a parent to know what Isabella intended to do, and he wished to see everyone when she did it. 

It wasn’t long before the doors were opened for her and Queen Isabella charged into her own hall like a woman possessed. Lirian soldiers trailed closely behind her, Prince Timothy protected amongst them. They paused with the queen while she surveyed her numerous guests.

Her target found, the ruler of Lirian addressed the party, her voice silencing the band. “Lord Huxley of Wood Vale!” All eyes fell on the portly man, standing by the table of food with a flute of fine wine in his hand. “You have made the promise of coin for the blood of my son!” she accused, flabbergasting the lord. “For what? Rejecting your proposal? Your greed?” Isabella marched towards Lord Huxley, pressing him against the edge of the table.

“Your Grace,” he began, his arrogance and fear fighting for dominance.

The queen, however, was in no mood to hear the sound of his voice. Isabella plunged her sword into the lord’s chest and continued to push until the guard of the hilt touched his shirt. The air was forced from Lord Huxley’s lungs as blood rushed to his face, his eyes bulging wide. His death was assured, if not instantaneous. A collective gasp and a handful of screams were expelled from the guests.

There was one amongst them, though, who was not rooted to the spot and stricken with horror. A man, well dressed by the cut of his coat, turned away and walked towards the nearest door. He weaved amongst the guests with practised ease, purposefully avoiding eye contact and never so much as brushing another’s shoulder.

Glain.

Asher ran from the balcony. He took the staircase three steps at a time and leapt over the railing that curved around. Landing in a lavish hallway, the ranger sprinted to the other end with one hand holding his broadsword steady on his hip. Rounding the corner, he skidded to a stop as he came face to face with the assassin.

Glain frowned, narrowing his eyes at Asher. “I know your face,” he muttered before revelation slowly crept over his expression. “Asher?” The assassin looked him up and down with obvious disappointment. “Exile doesn’t suit you.”

“You came here to kill a child,” Asher accused, drawing his broadsword. “You failed.”

Glain observed the blood on the ranger’s steel. “Tarek failed by the look of it.”

“The employer is dead,” Asher pointed out. “Return to Nightfall and report as much.”

“I don’t take orders from you, traitor.” Glain began to edge his way around Asher, an arrogant smile on his lips. “Perhaps I’ll kill the boy anyway, just to prove a point. We can’t be seen to have our standards slipping, after all.”

“The mission is over,” the ranger growled. “Leave the city and tell the Father that Tarek failed. The Arakesh have no business in Lirian anymore.”

Glain twisted his lips as if considering it. “If I return to The Arid Lands and inform the Father that Tarek was slain in his duties, he’s going to want to know how such a thing could even happen. When I tell him that you were responsible, he’s going to look at me and wonder why I’m not holding your scruffy head in my hand. So you see my conundrum now. The job might be over, but our mandate to kill you on sight will never be over.” Glain removed the red blindfold from his coat and rubbed the fabric between his fingers. “I don’t need this to kill you,” he declared, dropping it to the floor.

Asher gripped his sword in both hands, a wry grin on his face. “If you could take my head, you’d already have done it.”

Glain grimaced and balled his fists until the knuckles cracked. “Do you feel that cold hand on your shoulder? That’s Death come to claim what’s his.”

“Death and I have an arrangement,” Asher replied. “You’ll see.”

Glain dashed forward, eager to prove himself the better warrior. Asher braced and swung the two-handed weapon at his unarmed opponent. Glain dropped low at the last second and slid across the marble floor, under the attack. Pivoting on one hand, the assassin kicked his leg up and struck a blow across Asher’s face, knocking him off balance.

Turning his uneasy motion into an attack, Asher spun around and brought his broadsword to bear again. Glain, however, was already up and ready for it. The Arakesh shifted his shoulders one way then the other to avoid the ranger’s swings. Finally, his right arm whipped out and slammed into Asher’s left eye. Momentarily blinded on one side, he missed Glain’s incoming punches, which laid into his midriff. The ranger tried to bring his sword back into the fight but the assassin was too close now, batting it aside with precise skill.

His body exposed, he had no defence against the knee that rammed into his gut. Glain had even jumped into him, adding more power to his attack. Doubled over in pain, Asher was helpless to stop the Arakesh from sliding his silvyr short-sword from the scabbard on his back.

He could, however, drove and roll away before his own blade was used against him. Coming up a few feet away, he watched Glain handle, and even marvel, at the hourglass blade.

“Silvyr,” Glain uttered. “Remarkable. It’s so light. I didn’t think you could get any outside of Dhenaheim.”

Asher resumed his full height and did his best to ignore the pain in his gut. The assassin should have pressed the attack and used the advantage to finish him. Instead, the arrogant fool preferred the sound of his own voice.

The ranger preferred action.

Springing forward, Asher met his opponent with a clash of steel and silvyr. They were careful with their footwork, always moving with the flow of battle. Inevitably, their duel attracted both guards and guests from the banquet hall. The queen was given passage to observe the fight, her bloodied sword still in hand. She held it out, stopping the soldiers from intervening.

There was no time to take in any more than that. Glain was coming at him with fast and timely attacks. He swiped the silvyr sword high then low, slicing a line across the ranger’s thigh. He staggered back while slashing his broadsword in the air to keep the Arakesh at bay.

“You’re sluggish,” Glain criticised. “How long has it been since you faced a real warrior?”

Asher gritted his teeth and lunged with a high and hammering stroke. Glain wasn’t there when the steel fell, his agility more than adequate enough to see him side step away. He flicked the silvyr short-sword one way then the other, cutting two lines through Asher’s leathers and the skin beneath. The assassin finished his assault with a swift kick to the ranger’s chest, launching him into the stone.

A Lirian guard, too foolish to heed his queen’s command, broke away from the rest. Asher yelled out, warning him, but Glain stood between them. The Arakesh deflected the soldier’s obvious attack before twisting around behind him. Asher’s silvyr blade flashed across the Lirian’s throat, sealing his fate.

The ranger wanted to roar with all the rage that bit into his muscles, but he was a slave to Nightfall’s teachings. With naught but a face full of fury, he pushed off from the stone and brought his silent wrath down upon the Arakesh.

Glain was forced back by the ranger and even took an elbow to the jaw, but the assassin remained on his feet, his senses sharp. For all his efforts, Asher was simply out of practice when it came to fighting an Arakesh of Glain’s calibre. He had spent too long hacking at monsters and challenging ordinary fighters.

Proving himself the more deadly of the two, Glain dropped down and pivoted on one knee to twist himself around and flank the ranger. Asher didn’t see it, but he certainly felt the silvyr run up the side of his back. He almost tripped over the soldier’s dead body on his way to the adjacent wall.

“You’re too old for this game,” Glain jibed as Asher slid down the stone. “You should have just rolled over and died. It would have been easier and less painful.”

The ranger, huddled beside the wall, turned to face the Arakesh. “Do you feel that cold hand on your shoulder?” he asked with a crooked smile.

Glain was not a man to have his own words used against him. And at last, he had no more words to add. The Arakesh tightened his grip on the silvyr blade and hammered it again and again. Asher raised his broadsword in time with every strike, blocking that fatal blow. He could feel the bones in his arm aching from the incessant jarring. Still, he met the silvyr with true grit. Steel, however, was no match for dwarven metal.

The broadsword shattered halfway up the blade, littering the floor with sharp debris. Glain looked down on Asher with a hungry expression. He had but to swing and the ranger would perish.

Exhausted, sweating, and bleeding, Asher met Glain’s dark eyes. “That arrangement I told you about…”

Glain’s demeanour of superiority faltered for just a second as doubt crept in. Asher gave him no more than that. With a burst of energy, the ranger kicked out both of his legs and slammed his feet inside the Arakesh’s knees. Some things snapped while others crunched, but the outcome was simple: Glain could no longer support his own weight. He instantly collapsed towards the ranger. Asher thrust what remained of his broadsword into the assassin’s chest, gripping the back of his neck to ensure the blade went all the way through.

Glain gasped his last breath before Asher slid his body off to the side. His dying expression was one of pain and surprise. The ranger sighed and let his head rest back. Even the Sand Basilisk had failed to bring him this close to death.

Lirian soldiers closed in and checked that Glain was dead. Asher called on his reserves and found his feet. Straightening his back was a painful affair, and his ribs weren’t happy about it, either. Thankfully, his injured leg was still up to the task of supporting him, and so he slowly walked away from the corpse.

“I believe this is yours.” Queen Isabella’s voice turned the ranger around.

He accepted his silvyr short-sword and returned it to the scabbard over his shoulder. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

“Thank you, Ranger,” Isabella countered. “Your presence here deserves more than I could ever give you.”

Asher couldn’t help but think about the soldier he had assaulted in the courtyard. He quickly explained the violent path he had taken to enter her palace and asked that she pardon Russell Maybury when his part in it all came to light.

“Of course!” Isabella said without a moment’s thought. “I expected you to ask for coin at the very least.”

“I wouldn’t say no to a horse, just to get me back to The Pick-Axe.”

The queen tilted her head, looking up at the ranger with a piercing gaze. “The gods don’t make them like you anymore, Ranger… Asher.”

The ranger nodded his appreciation, though he had no reply but to walk away. He needed to get out of the city.

“Asher,” Isabella called before he could disappear. “Is it over?” she asked, Glain’s corpse just beyond her.

Looking from the body to the queen, he simply answered, “Yes. For you.”

And with that he took his leave.

It felt like a lifetime before he reached the haven of Russell’s tavern. His borrowed horse was taken back by the soldier who had escorted him, though Hector appeared somewhat disgruntled to see his owner return astride another mount. Asher paid him no heed and staggered up the steps and into Russell’s waiting arms.

“Damn it, Asher,” the big man muttered. “You look half dead.”

“That’s better than the way the other guy looks,” Asher jested.

Russell helped him inside and downstairs, to the privacy of the rangers’ sitting area. The warmth from the fire was most welcome after the ride back from the palace. Doran’s brash accent and harsh words, however, were not so welcome.

“I did warn ye, ye dolt! If ye’re goin’ to get mixed up in high-born drama an’ assassins ye’re goin’ to get the sharp end!” The dwarf paused by Asher’s side and inspected some of the visible wounds. “How do ye fare, lad?” he asked in a softer tone.

“Like I got the sharp end and the blunt end.”

The son of Dorain nodded in agreement. “So it would seem. An’ the boy? He lives?”

“He will enjoy his next birthday a lot more than this one,” the ranger explained.

“Good man,” Russell complimented. He laid a worn and weathered box beside Asher’s chair. Inside were the tools of a physician, something Russell was not. But he had more experience than most when it came to patching up the wounded. “I’m going to have to cut through your leathers.”

The ranger put up his hand, halting the man. “They’re not that bad.”

“The blood on my chair would suggest otherwise,” Russell pointed out.

Asher sighed, dug his fingers into the armrest of the chair, and forced himself to stand up. “I only came back to get a new sword,” he told them. “And maybe some new leathers,” he added, fingering one of the gashes on his ribs.

“You can’t leave in the middle of the night like this,” Russell argued. “You’re dead on your feet.”

Asher cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders. “I need to get out of the city, now. Nightfall will send more to investigate, and I can’t be here when they do.”

Without waiting for further argument, the ranger made his way to the locker, where he changed his clothes, restocked, and retrieved his second broadsword since arriving in Lirian. What he really wanted to do was lie down and pass out.

His gear sorted, Asher returned to the cold of winter and mounted Hector. He disguised what he could of his pain and took the reins in hand. Doran and Russell stood at the bottom of the tavern’s steps, watching him closely.

“Well, Nightfall certainly builds ’em to last, eh,” Doran commented. “If ye don’ die o’ yer wounds between ’ere an’ the next town, I might see ye again.”

“I hope so,” Asher replied. “Though not too soon,” he added with half a smile.

“Where will you go now?” Russell asked.

“It would be better if you don’t know,” the ranger said.

Doran chuckled to himself. “Somewhere with monsters, I suspect.”

Asher gave something of a hungry grin. “Where else?”

Sword in the Shadows

Jay Boyce

“Yes, Your Majesty. We’ll take care of it.” Eric groaned, hearing Stephen’s voice wrapping up the conversation behind him. King Derrick wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important, so he’d been forced to cover for him while he answered. Twenty swords swished back and forth in the air at the mouth of the alley, keeping the group of beithiche holed up, for now. At least, he hoped so. With the beasts’ ability to become practically invisible, it was hard to tell where they were.

“Are they even still in there?” Stephen asked, peering past the swords as he stepped closer, trying to discern where the danger was coming from.

Eric shrugged. “As far as I know, yes. So, what’re the new orders?” Years of working together in the shadows of the kingdom had solidified their friendship, and that was before they’d started working as professors at Dracona. He silently controlled the swords, shifting them so they were slicing higher now, leaving a small gap at the ground that seemed unintentional. It was time to end this fight.

The two men walked forward, and the glimmer of darkness beneath his blade wall solidified, shadows stabbing up as the bodies of three beithiche came into view when their magic was broken, yowling with rage that their stealth had failed. Eric brought the tips of the blades down, turning them into a pincushion of swords. Only when the last one stopped moving did he recall his swords, sending them to the makeshift harness on his back, which was more of an open wooden box than anything else. Not exactly comfortable, but being called into a war zone during a ball hadn’t really left him many options.

Stephen was examining the bodies, and when he was satisfied they were dead, he turned back to his friend. “We need to head to the southern wall. We’re on guard duty for the night.”

Pausing, Eric shook his head. “Guard duty? Why would he ask us to go guard the wall?” Derrick had many underlings, and if the wall had been breached, there were many other better options to repair and guard it. He and Stephen had a…different skill set, to say the least. When they’d run through the portal into a city overrun by monsters, they’d been kept busy rescuing their people and killing the monsters before they left any more trails of bodies in their wake.

Hand on his shoulder, Stephen informed his friend as they began to walk quickly, “We’re not guarding the wall. We’re looking for Jade.” Both men were alert, keeping their eyes peeled for more monsters, though Jade had done a fairly decent job of drawing the majority of them to her, leaving only a few pockets like the beithiche they’d just taken care of for the rest of the city. The sounds of her battle had echoed far and wide, until finally an uneasy calm fell.

“Is she all right?” Eric asked quickly, concern etched in his expression.

Making a long face, Stephen responded, “She’s alive, despite her best efforts to kill herself by fighting every monster in the city, if that’s what you’re asking.” He was obviously still angry about that. Not that it wasn’t helpful or smart, but it was practically suicidal. They’d ducked for cover when she magically screamed her challenge to the world, hordes of monsters rushing past in their frenzy to fight her. Both of them had grown fond of the girl in the two weeks since she’d been brought to their world, though not for her penchant at diving into danger alone. Sooner or later that was going to backfire.

Turning the corner, they stuck to the shadows as they moved, avoiding the eyes of friend and foe alike as Stephen explained, “No, she made it out and got healed, but she’s apparently picked up a trio of baby dragons.” A squawk that was half gurgled surprise and half choked-back anger erupted from Eric’s throat, and Stephen nodded in sympathy. “However, it appears she’s insisted that she’s fine and she’ll just hole up near the wall for the night. Derrick wants us to make sure there are no other…incidents.”

Incidents. What a pretty word for a girl who caused chaos everywhere she went. Sure, she meant well, but that didn’t lessen the upheaval left in her wake. However, that didn’t mean he blamed her. The gods had sent a traveler from another world to shake things up and help them grow, though as he looked at the broken buildings and littered bodies in the streets around them, he had to question if this was really progress.

Heavy silence hung over the duo, and finally Eric asked softly, “Does she know we’re coming?”

Shaking his head, Stephen confirmed his suspicions. “No, she said she could handle it on her own, but Derrick said she looked like she was about to fall over, so as long as we stay out of eyesight, she probably won’t be coherent enough to notice we’re there. He wants us gone before she wakes up, too.”

Silent protectors. That sounded more up their alley. That, and with her being extra paranoid about danger, she probably wouldn’t register them, since they were friends. She might be chaos incarnate, but she was their chaos, and he wasn’t about to let anything happen to her if he could help it.

As they got closer, Eric couldn’t help but ask, “So, do we have anything to go off other than ‘close to the southern wall’? Because that isn’t exactly a small area.”

The grimace on Stephen’s face was all the answer he needed, and they both looked up at the wall looming before them helplessly. Finally, he muttered, “Find the disturbance, find Jade.”

As much as Eric didn’t want to admit that that was a sound tactic…it was. She was not one to do things quietly. There was a watchtower nearby, and Eric pointed at it, to which Stephen made a go ahead gesture. Swords floated out of his temporary carrier, interlocking to create a staircase against the wall.

He paused, shaking his head. He’d controlled metal all his life, but he’d never thought to use it to fly until Jade arrived and rocketed around the skies. He still wasn’t completely comfortable with the idea, choosing to create temporary stairs instead. He and Stephen used the metal pathway to make their way carefully to the top of the tower, though he had to shift them every few steps to continue the path. When they actually reached the roof, he stepped onto it with a sigh of relief, waiting until Stephen joined him before resheathing them and releasing his magic.

Unlike Jade, he didn’t have a massive black hole of mana to draw from, so flying wasn’t all that feasible anyway. But shifting stairways—those he could do. From their new vantage point, they scanned the wall, until Eric pointed to a spot two towers away from them, which was a hive of activity on the otherwise sparsely populated wall. “I’ll bet you ten crowns she’s there.”

Stephen just gave him a bored glare, informing him, “I don’t make losing bets.”

“Nah, all the time. Remember when you bet that the zombie healer was a fake?” Eric jibed him, grinning. They both knew they were using humor to cope with the horrors of war they had faced that night, but it was better than sinking into depression. They would mourn the dead tomorrow; tonight was for saving the living.

“In my defense, she wasn’t a zombie, so technically I was right. Was that really only two weeks ago?” They were both still on the lookout, trying to make sure they hadn’t missed any other potential disturbances.

“Time flies when you’re having fu—what’s that?” Both of them dropped to the roof as they saw clouds of darkness split off from near the tower and fly towards them. Stephen’s shadows wrapped around them, making them blend in with the darkness of the roof. Every once in a while, flashes of brightly colored wings could be glimpsed at the edges of the cloud, a few of them dropping lower as they passed the two men, almost as if in curiosity. Slowly, the cloud flew farther on, leaving them rooted in place.

“Why aren’t they attacking?” Eric’s voice was quiet, with the slightest edge of fear. Jade had tamed her ten fellacai, and they’d gotten used to seeing them, but in a town filled with monsters, seeing a swarm of thousands was a terrifying thing. The glittering insects signified imminent death by tiny wings.

“They’re headed towards the woods. Maybe Jade’s queens ordered them not to hurt humans? It’s the only thing I can think of.” They paused, staring after the swarm, then Stephen shook his head. “Either way, we should go find her. They’re not doing any harm, for now.” What he didn’t say was that they were both now positive she was in that tower.

Stephen dropped the shadows around them and Eric brought out a few swords. “Down should be easier than up, right?” All he needed to do was slow the speed. Stephen just grinned and stepped onto the proffered swords, while Eric hopped off the ledge onto them. They sank through the air, gliding on the metal towards the walkway as he controlled them carefully. Both jumped off and onto the platform when they were closer, startling the pair of guards in that lookout.

“Hey, we’re here on the king’s orders, lower your weapons.” Stephen spoke soothingly, a hint of compulsion in his voice causing the guards to relax slightly. He waved to them and said, “Go back to guarding, we’re just here to inspect how the wall is doing.” The men slowly nodded, and they spent a minute reassuring them before making their way down the walkway.

The closer they got, the more whispered conversations they heard as they approached guard pairs. “She came out of the sky, and she had a tree of baby dragons. Dragons! Can you imagine how much they’re worth?” For those guards, Stephen cloaked the two of them in shadows and waited until they passed.

Eric glared at their backs. “Sloppy and greedy. Looks like it’s a good thing we came.”

Stephen merely beckoned him on. “Let’s find her first.” They were almost to the tower when they really got stopped for the first time. There were too many people around holding lights for them to slip in using the shadows.

“Halt! State your business!” One of the guards to the building leveled his spear at them, and Eric and Stephen shared a look of resignation. The door opened behind them, and a woman stepped out, causing all of the soldiers in the vicinity to straighten slightly. The stench of blood and sweat hung in the air, and her splattered uniform showed she’d been in the thick of the fighting at some point that night.

However, her arrival was a boon to the men. “Countess Vey, good to see you.”

Her eyes widened slightly as she took in the two men, then ordered the guards beside her, “At ease. They’re allies. Gentlemen, why don’t you step inside and we’ll talk?”

Looking at the guards all paying attention to them, they nodded. “That would be for the best.” She led the way inside, preceding them as she walked towards her office, firmly closing the door behind them as they followed to block any curious ears.

Sitting behind her desk, she steepled her fingers as she stared them down, finally asking, “Viscount Kane and Viscount Silverstone. I’d be surprised to see you here if I hadn’t just let the traveler rest in the officer lounge. Are you here to bring her elsewhere?” Her voice was blunt and to the point. As someone who ruled her sector of the guards with an iron fist, her formal titles far outranked them, though her knowledge of their informal titles made her treat them as equals.

Stephen spoke up quietly. “No. We’re simply passing through to check on the security of the wall. There’s no need to disturb her for such trivialities.”

Countess Julian Vey studied them, finally questioning, “And if she asks?”

Eric smiled. “If something goes that wrong, then you can tell her whatever she wants.” The many implications and undertones of such a simple conversation were not lost on any of them.

Nodding slowly, Julian stood, walking to the door. Before she opened it, she told them, “The northern corner of the stables was always a bit drafty for my taste.” Opening the door and leading them outside, she nodded to them in front of the guards and bid them farewell. “Good luck with your investigation. If you find where the monsters came from, send word.”

“Of course, Commander Vey. Thank you for your time.” Stephen’s words were smooth as they gave her a small bow, nodding to the surprised-looking guards before they walked away, moving down the wall. Their usage of her second title put her men at ease in a way that using “Countess” had not, allowing them to pass freely as just more faces going about their duties. Silently taking the next set of steps back down into the city once they were out of sight, they moved with purpose and the guards simply watched, not having a reason to stop them getting off the wall when they reached the checkpoint. They finally doubled back at the bottom once they could no longer be seen by the lookouts.

“So, you think we’re going to have problems?” Eric commented offhand as they wound their way back towards the tower, sticking to the shadows as they searched for the nearby stables. They weren’t incredibly hard to find, given that there was a stench of carcasses pervading the area where one of the monsters had obviously gotten in and started snacking before it was killed. They surveyed the lifeless body of the giant beast before slipping past it and into the darkened depths.

“Probably. It’s Jade. She’s got so much magic in her blood that it attracts monsters without her even doing anything, let alone after she issued a magical challenge to an entire city filled with them tonight. If it isn’t the monsters, it’ll be someone who thinks they have nothing left to lose and wants to start over elsewhere anyway.” There were so many dead, he simply couldn’t realistically imagine that greed wouldn’t get the better of at least one person, or that there weren’t any spies that survived. They would have sighed, but they were both trying to take shallow breaths to deal with the entrapped stink as they made their way to the back of the once glorious stables.

A figure loomed out of the shadows, his back remaining hunched over as he stopped his cleaning of the debris and asked, “What business do ye men have in me stables?” His eyes were hard and angry, set in a stubborn line. He was obviously unhappy about the massacre that happened here, and they realized he was guarding a stable that had small foals, which had been saved, somehow.

Giving him a stern look, Stephen replied, “We heard there was a draft in the corner and came to check it out, for safety’s sake, of course.” The man grumbled, giving them hard stares before turning and leading them towards the corner.

He began to walk towards one spot of the stall when Eric cut in: “Allow me.” He could feel the metal thrumming, and the secret latch that controlled it. Turning the metal with his magic, he lifted the trapdoor open, revealing a dark hole with a single metal ladder sunk into the rock leading down the depths.

The caretaker nodded to the ladder. “Go on. I’ve still got to cover up after ye, and I haven’t got all night.” Eric simply nodded to him, jumping agilely down the hole and grabbing onto the ladder below to stop him from simply falling to the bottom. His hands stung for a few seconds as he descended into the depths, but he paid them no heed. Stephen merely climbed down from the top, and the trapdoor clanged shut as soon as his head was out of the way.

“Friendly,” he murmured as they were encased in pure darkness. Bits of light gathered at his fingertips, shedding a dim glow on their actions as they moved down the hole. It wasn’t much, but it was at least enough to see the outlines of what they were doing.

“Can’t you make that brighter?” Eric asked with a grin. “You know, you’ve known you had light magic for at least a week; you should be better by now.”

“Shut up, it’s not like I’ve had much time to practice.” Just because he’d found he could didn’t mean he’d had the time to dedicate to improving it. The last two weeks weren’t exactly a walk in the park, with monsters entering the city at unprecedented rates, the kidnapping of the royal family members, and foreign delegations to oversee. That wasn’t counting the number of times he’d been sent to track Jade, either. She’d caught him a few times, but he’d followed her far more often than she knew, even after she’d called him out on it. Orders were orders.

As they reached the bottom of the hole, they found an immaculate stone tunnel. It was wide enough for three people to walk through, though barely taller than the average person. It was obvious expedience had been the key in its creation. This was a bolt-hole, not comparable to the elaborate underground systems that ran through the capital. At least they didn’t have to worry about tripping on anything.

“How many people do you think know about this passage?” Eric wondered aloud as they walked.

Stephen shrugged. “Maybe ten? The commanders, the hostler, and maybe a few others who’ve had the chance to use it. It’s not like there’s usually a need to sneak in or out of the command post.” Julian had told them because of two factors: She knew they were the hands of the king because her own position was high enough to have met them before. The second was that she was sheltering a traveler with dragons. Just about anyone would welcome extra expert help in that case. If you factored in the giant monster invasion of the city, it was simply a no-brainer.

“Unless they already used it tonight. But given that the wall wasn’t seriously attacked, that’s fairly doubtful.” The herd in the stables had been slaughtered, sure. They were a ready source of fairly easy pickings. At the same time, Eric was remembering that there hadn’t been anything covering the hole when the hostler went to open it. He sighed and finished, “We’ll have to keep an eye on it, just in case.” That hostler had hidden somewhere, after all. Odds were it was in this passage.

As they reached the end of the tunnel, another hole led up once more, and the two of them climbed it silently. This close to their target, all small talk was set aside until they could figure out the general situation. Stephen took the lead, knowing his shadows might be essential to keeping them hidden, but his worries proved unfounded.

“I suppose it’s easier to hide a room in a headquarters than the stables.” Eric’s voice was still soft, given that thin sheets of metal were all that separated them from the rooms outside. This was more than just an escape path; it was a room meant for observing in secret. At least part of the reason why was to make sure no one was around when you came out, he was sure. Happily enough, that didn’t seem to be much of a concern at the moment.

Whether it was because they were short-staffed, it was the middle of the night, or Vey had cleared the area out some because of Jade, the desks in this corner of the building were vacant, and there were only one or two people in offices that occasionally came in or out. Glowing orbs left on desks provided scant dim light, obviously forgotten for the night by those rushing out.

Unfortunately, they weren’t as close to the lounge as they wanted to be in order to check on Jade. The quiet of the building was palpable as they slipped open the trapdoor, noting how to reopen it before sliding it closed behind them once more. Even in the darkness, they stayed low, using the desks and area dividers as cover to head for the corner. A large stone cubicle near the lounge became their target. They could stay hidden somewhat comfortably beneath the two large desks and no one would know. Close enough to observe, far enough to be hidden.

They were about to settle in when they heard pained groans coming from the lounge, both men jumping to their feet and padding silently to the door. The groans only lasted for a minute or so, and as Eric eased the door open, he whispered, “Is she okay? It sounds like she overdid things again.”

Stephen slipped in, shadows cloaked around him, but three pairs of observing eyes fixed on him from a few feet away and he dropped the shadows, not wanting to alarm them. Cat-sized dragons were staring at him from the top of a tiny tree that Jade had obviously magically grown to carry them around, given that most tiny trees didn’t form a perfect, sturdy nest with their crown branches. He nodded to them, muttering, “Nothing to see here. I’m just checking on her.”

He moved past them, kneeling next to the bed to check on the sleeping girl there. As he passed the tree, one of Jade’s fellacai swept out from her hiding spot among the branches before landing on his shoulder with the quietest chirp. He took a moment to stroke a finger along the black-and-gold butterfly wings of her familiar, noting that the rest of the ten were watching from the branches, her tiny guardians. Until Jade had bonded with these glimmering queens, their magic was a source of fear to be avoided. Now people marveled at their beauty as they followed her around.

Even the dragons seemed to settle down a bit more as little Ramoth stayed on his shoulder, overseeing his treatment of their bonded. It was at times like this that he wished he could communicate with them, too. It was hard to imagine what had caused the dragons to trust the tiny creatures in the few hours since Jade had discovered them. He had to suppress a chuckle as he realized that the dragons shone like jewels, and of course Jade would collect and protect any small animals she considered pretty, without regard to how dangerous the rest of the world knew them to be. That small smile faded as Jade shifted on the bed.

Her expression was troubled, restless, and her skin glistened with sweat. Taking out a handkerchief, Stephen carefully wiped away the droplets on her face, sighing. There wasn’t much else he could do for her, and she didn’t look to be going into a state of severe drainage like she had when she scared them the last time. Whatever strange ability she’d been given by the gods that allowed her to grow so quickly, it came at a price. Convinced that at least for now, she was okay, he simply moved the food sitting next to her so it would be slightly more convenient for her to grab, then looked back at the tree full of dragons and fellacai. As he moved towards it, Ramoth left his shoulder to join her family.

Kneeling in front of them so he was at their level, he met their curious but intelligent eyes and said in a whisper, “If you can understand me, do me a favor. If she starts to look really…pale or shriveled, make some noise so we can come in and check on her.” He struggled for an explanation of what would happen if she’d overdone her ability. The last time it happened, her muscle mass had started shrinking, as if her body was eating up her stores to support the changes she was undergoing.

He also wasn’t sure why he was bothering to try to barter with dragons, but he figured it was worth a shot. When the emerald one actually nodded imperiously to him, he wondered if they really had understood everything. So little was known about them that he wasn’t sure, and the only dragons they had records of were bigger than the tower, so who knew what these babies understood? The fellacai didn’t exactly make a lot of noise, so while they might be protecting her, the dragons were their best shot at knowing if something happened in the room; they couldn’t exactly open the door without throwing the entire tower into chaos with their magic.

Giving the imperious little dragons a tiny bow based on his gut instinct, he stood, slipping out of the room once more, finding Eric watching the rest of the room from the shallow alcove of the doorway. When Stephen nodded to him, they both made their way back to the cubicle they’d claimed, and Stephen explained in a whisper, “She’s just using that ability of hers again. Between the dragons and her fellacai, we shouldn’t have to worry about anything inside the room. We can just focus out here unless they make noise.”

Eric nodded. “Your turn or mine?” They’d done overnight watches together for so long, it was sometimes hard to keep track of who was on first or second watch, though they tried to alternate.

“Yours.” Stephen settled in, grabbing a cushion from the seat nearby and using it as a padding on the stone floor. He’d slept on worse. In that not-so-comfortable position, he was asleep almost instantly. It wasn’t a good sleep, but the type of sleep that came to soldiers who had to seize every moment of rest that they could, relying on their comrades to wake them in case of danger. A sleep that was disturbed several hours later by Eric silently poking him in the shoulder.

He was instantly awake. The two men peered into the dimmed lights of the room as Stephen tried to pinpoint why Eric had woken him up. The quiet shuffling of feet from the secret passage clued him in first, though the smell of freshly spilled blood wasn’t far behind. “You’re absolutely sure this powder will work?” The low whisper was filled with doubt as it carried in the silence of the room.

“Of course. I paid good money for this stuff. Guaranteed to knock out even the biggest beast, let alone a little girl and a few babies.” The man’s voice was gruff, but filled with a twisted pride.

A woman’s voice questioned quietly, “If this stuff is so good, why didn’t we use it on Old Thomas?” There was obvious distaste in her words, her disapproval evident.

The man’s growl was harsh and angry. “I just told you this stuff was expensive, Denise. The old man saw us, he’d have been able to tell everyone exactly who we were. Don’t think your hands are clean just because I was the one holding the knife. If I go down, you’re both coming with me. All we need to do is grab the girl and the dragons and we’re home free—set up for life. No more late-night guard duties, no more risking our necks. Now shut up and do your jobs.”

It was obvious the argument had been going on for far longer than they’d heard, but they’d kept their voices to the barest whispers to maintain secrecy. “Fine. Give me the powder. Let’s get this over with.” The man’s whisper was hurried, and he looked back, wondering why their leader hadn’t responded. His eyes opened wide and he tapped the woman on the shoulder, stuttering in a louder voice than he probably meant to, “George?”

George’s eyes were glazed with sullen hatred, even in death. Eric's cold smile was at odds with his boyish face as he slowly pulled the sword out of George’s heart, letting the man crumple to the ground without his steel to support the lifeless husk. The standard leather armor all three guards wore did little to protect them against his metal magic. His bloodied hands were enough to condemn George, and the knowledge that he held a magical knockout powder sealed his fate as the first to die. There was no mercy for traitors who not only abandoned their post, but sought to cause harm to their people for greed.

Denise was staring back at him in abject fear, and she stepped back, only to bump into a sturdy chest. She looked behind her as Stephen loomed over her, his black hair and clothes making him that much more ominous in the dark, and opened her mouth to shriek, only to find shadows covering her mouth, no sound escaping. Stephen tsked and said to Eric, “Now we’re going to have to find someone to clean up the blood. What were you thinking?” The poor woman clawed at her mouth with broken nails as her face slowly began to turn blue.

The second man stepped back defensively, his grimy hands flashing in movement, only to feel the cold press of steel against his neck and freeze, several floating swords anchoring him in place. His eyes widened as he murmured, “No…no…it can’t be. Who are you?” His voice was still quiet, seeing as Denise was still being muted for trying to scream.

Eric shrugged, wiping the blood of his blade off on the clothes of the man he killed. He took a moment to rifle through his pockets, coming up with a bag of powder that he pocketed as he watched the two fearful would-be kidnappers. The man was still staring at him fearfully, but recognition dawned on his pimpled face. “Wait…I know you. You’re Eric Silverstone! You—you’re a librarian!”

Tsking, Eric frowned at him. He could tell Stephen was holding in a snort. No one ever suspected the head librarian. “Well, now you’ve gone and made things awkward. However, perhaps this can be overlooked if you tell us where exactly you were planning on taking the traveler.”

The man was pale, looking between Eric and Stephen in obvious panic. Denise waved her skinny fingers, pointing to herself with frantic eyes, and Stephen seemed to reluctantly let the shadows drop from her mouth, allowing her to breathe once more. She took in a few shuddering breaths, her fingers holding on to her throat as if she could stop the shadows from assaulting her once again as she said brokenly, “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Just, please don’t kill me.”

Eric nodded to her. “You have my word, I won’t kill you. Now, tell us.” She seemed to relax slightly, still shooting Stephen nervous glances as she edged away from him.

“George didn’t tell us much, didn’t trust us really. But I know he had a buyer lined up. A man from Aislean.” She cast a glance back at the door where Jade was resting, then sighed and went on, “After we knocked them out, we were going to meet them at an inn called the—”

“Shut up, Denise. Look here, Eric. You’ll never know the truth without our help. I want more than to live. I want to be free. Now, if you can promise me—” His words flowed out, but Eric was watching his fingers, quickly stepping aside as a blade of wind flew from the clumsy gesture. It barely dinged the stone behind him, but angry choking noises signified that Eric’s swords had missed the mark slightly when the thin man dodged.

Instead of a clean cut through the heart and throat, blood was spurting out sporadically from his throat as his heart sought to pump it to vital organs, while air leaked from his punctured lung along with the blood. Like a dysfunctional fountain, it splattered over the walls and Denise, who was too slow to step out of the way as Eric and Stephen had. She looked in horror at her former companion and stepped forward reflexively, her hands beginning to glow.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, healer.” Stephen’s voice was cold as he stared the woman down, and she came to a shocked halt, eyes tearing up, though whether it was out of fear or because blood had gotten into them, he might never know. Arms wrapping around her sides, she huddled into herself as she looked at them in terror.

Blood spilling from his lips, the man slumped against the wall as he tried to block his wounds with his hands, realizing that he was going to die as Eric retracted his swords and Stephen denied him treatment. Hatred filled his squinty eyes, and he coughed out, “You’ll…regret this…” With an ominous feeling, Eric stabbed his sword into the still target, plunging deep into his heart this time, the jerking motion stopping the last accrual of power from the man. Eyes wide, he seemed to curse them in his death.

Yanking the sword out with a twist of mana, Eric let it drift to his hand, wiping it off on the guard leathers of George as well, though he frowned slightly when he realized there wasn’t much clean surface left to wipe it on. With a sigh, he left it hanging in the air, an obvious threat as his expression returned to neutral.

“I believe you were telling me the name of the inn?” His voice sounded utterly disinterested, as if he hadn’t just killed the men in front of her, though Stephen was looking at the blood staining the floor in distaste.

Shaking, Denise looked at her former compatriots and whispered, “The Golden Feather. It’s called The Golden Feather. I overheard George calling him Reuben.” She was shaking, her arms clutching her sides as she whispered, “You’re—you’re the sword in the shadows, aren’t you?”

“I hate to break it to you like this, but I’m the shadow.” Stephen’s voice startled her, and she tried to jump, only to find herself restrained. Her eyes widened, but she couldn’t scream, the sound caught by shadows once again. Stephen gave her a sad smile as he told her, “Unfortunately for you, Eric promised not to kill you. His deaths might be messier, but they also tend to be faster. But don’t worry, for giving us the information we need, we will at least make sure you have a proper burial. It’s just a shame a healer was caught up in this mess.”

His words were light, but the struggle seemed to go out of her. Not that struggling would have done her any good once she was caught in his shadow web. That didn’t stop hope from blooming in her eyes when the room lit up slightly, a door opening as Julian looked out, drawn by the noises she’d heard. She had papers in her hand that she’d been reading, but she sniffed, looking in their direction as she identified the tang of blood in the air.

Slowly, she tucked her papers into a satchel at her side as she walked over to them, her eyes surveying the gory scene as she sighed, seeing Denise’s struggle to reach out, her eyes silently begging her to save her. Her words crushed the woman’s last hope. “Oh, Denise, foolish woman, what have you done?” Her gaze was filled with sorrow as she looked down at the two men oozing blood onto the floor as she sighed. “Haven’t we lost enough people tonight?”

Eric had pulled out a cloth and was using that to clean off the two swords he’d used to kill the second man, whatever his name was, and answered Julian. “Traitors who seek only their own comfort do not deserve your pity.”

Julian’s eyes were still on Denise, and she watched the light finally fade from her eyes as she slumped to the ground. “Perhaps, perhaps not. But in the end, I’m the one who’s going to have to deal with the fallout of the families whose loved ones died because there wasn’t a healer available.” She gave them a resentful look for just a moment, then cast her gaze to the ceiling, muttering, “Very well, what’s done is done. I suppose I’ll need to find out what post they were supposed to be guarding. ”

“It seems as if you’ll need a new hostler as well. They mentioned killing Thomas.” Julian’s frown deepened, and Stephen went on. “We’ll leave you to it.”

She couldn’t seem to help herself from asking, “You’re not going to stay?”

Casting a glance at the door that led to Jade sleeping, Stephen shook his head. “No. We need to finish dealing with this without her finding out about it.”

Julian frowned, pointing out, “Shouldn’t she know that someone is trying to kill her?”

“Kidnap, and no. She’s got enough to worry about from monsters, she doesn’t need to worry about the humans, too.” Eric interjected. Both men were frowning now.

“So you’ll never tell her what you did tonight.” Commander Vey was asserting her authority, staring them down as she assumed her role. It was rather interesting to see when she stepped in and out of her perceived responsibilities, or in this case, the responsibility she felt towards the traveler.

Stephen gave a low chuckle. “No, she has a strange sense of honor. I’d prefer not to see how she looks at me when she finds out we’ve killed in her defense.”

Julian seemed to deflate slightly, understanding fully how difficult it could be to separate a person’s actions in the line of duty from the person. Her disapproval didn’t vanish completely, however. After all, their reputations weren’t without precedent. Still, the situation at hand demanded she set aside her personal feelings for the time being. “Very well. Can you at least help me get them out of the way? I’ll get someone to clean up before she wakes, but the bodies will have to be dealt with later.”

Sharing a knowing look, Eric gestured, “Lead on.” Using shadows and swords, each man supported the other with their magic as three bodies lifted into the air. Julian nodded, then led them to a spare office on the other side of the building, letting them leave the dead there. She closed and locked the door with a sigh after Eric reclaimed his swords, wiping them off once more as he avoided stepping in the trail of blood they’d left in their wake. He gave her a look, then pointedly glanced around the darkened interior. “It’s a bit quiet in here. You might want to change that.”

She looked startled, then muttered grouchily, “If you hadn’t been in here, I wouldn’t have sent the aides out!” Seriously. She’d cleared the room to make things easier on them, and then they complained that no one was around.

Eric gave her a wan smile. “Well, we’re leaving now. Call them back.” When she gave him a questioning glance, he shifted his eyes to the door separating them from the bodies. “We have a few loose ends to go tie up, so you’ll need to make sure there are no more…incidents…here.”

“Anything I should know?” Her voice had hardened, and she was in commander mode once more.

“If you need to know, you’ll be told. Just make sure nothing happens to her.” Stephen’s voice was harsh, and laced with a tone of compulsion. Julian gave him a sharp look, knowing he’d just used magic on her.

“I’ll do my job. You go do yours.” The men nodded, and she silently followed them to the secret passageway, watching them vanish into the darkness, their voices getting farther away as they called the king. Making sure the passage was concealed behind them as they sped off into the darkness to finish their hunt, she walked back over to where the trail of bloodstains began, studying them before muttering, “Bloody two-faced sword and shadow. One day that girl will see you for what you are. I hope to witness the reckoning you’ll face then, king’s assassins or not.”

Even her brief interaction with the traveler Jade had confirmed what the men said. She had a peculiar sense of honor, of justice. She’d thrown herself into the face of danger to save just a few more people. At the same time…she had an air of innocence still. She was just a child doing her best. With a sigh, Julian moved to the door, opening it and informing the guards, “Recall my aides. I’ve got new orders from the king.” Of course, she still needed to call King Derrick and report sooner rather than later, but she’d give him time to finish talking to his pet assassins before she followed up.

The guards nodded, one of them trotting off to send the word as she returned inside. The night already felt as if it had taken a week, and it was only set to get longer. With a contrary sigh, she sent a prayer up to the goddess, that she might protect the sword and the shadow.

For now, the city, and especially a sleeping girl, needed them.

The Ax of Lahareed

David Dalglish

Citizens of the conquered desert city of Lahareed gathered in the shadow of the red cliff, forced into attendance. Stasia Ahlai stood among them, her mouth hanging open in shock, as the Everlorn Empire’s appointed regent addressed the crowd from a high balcony carved halfway up the cliff face.

“Impossible,” she said.

Impossible, for two days ago, she had left the regent to die upon his bedroom floor. The steel of the axes hidden underneath her long coat had cut the man’s windpipe down to the spine, yet there he stood, with no hint of a scar on his throat. Given the ruin she had left of his neck, he shouldn’t be able to breathe, let alone speak with such a full voice and obscene confidence.

“The empire’s priests might have saved him with their prayers,” her sister, Mari, softly said beside her.

“No prayer could mend what I did. Even if he lived, there’d be scars, or signs of healing. It’s been two days, Mari, not two months.”

The regent, a handsome bastard named Edgar with green silk robes and flowing blond hair braided into a ponytail that hung down to his waist, rambled nonsense about unity and obedience. His words meant nothing. The fact that he lived was all that mattered.

“Maybe it was a double?” asked Mari. “Someone meant to fool you?”

“I wasn’t fooled!”

Her outburst earned her harsh glances from the surrounding people. Though the two sisters wore the same thin robes as the Laha’rean natives, their paler skin and distinct red eyes marked them as foreign to the conquered nation. The distrust amused Stasia as much as it frustrated her. At their father’s request, they had traveled to Lahareed to foster the fledgling rebellion inside the empire’s newly acquired territory, yet they did so under the guise of an opportunistic business come to profit in the wake of the conquering. Stasia and Mari were used to being hated and adored in equal measure. It all depended on whether or not the person knew of the blood on their hands.

“It was him,” Stasia continued, this time with her voice lowered and controlled. “I saw the way soldiers protecting him panicked. I heard him beg. The empire is making a mockery of me, Mari, and I won’t let them get away with it.”

Regent Edgar lifted his hands high while bellowing from the cliffside balcony. High above him, where the cliff flattened, was a sprawling sandstone mansion, the seat of power for both city and nation. Most distinct was the tower in its center, four looking glasses stationed facing each cardinal direction. From that tower’s spire had once flown Lahareed’s flag, now replaced by red hands clasped in prayer in the center of a gray banner: the official mark of the Everlorn Empire. Below the balcony where Regent Edgar prattled flew a different sort of flag. Twenty steel poles were hammered like nails into the cliff face. Traitors and heretics hung by the neck from those poles, their bodies dried out by the heat and pecked apart by birds.

“I pray for peace,” Regent Edgar boomed to the crowd. Though he spoke the imperial tongue, the sapphires embedded into the word-lace at his throat flared with magic, translating it into the native Laha’rean so all might understand. “I pray mercy be given to you beloved children under my care. Close your eyes and bow your heads. We give our hearts to the God-Incarnate, our father, our caretaker, our emperor. Give him our love, so we may receive that love in return.”

Stasia turned and pushed her way out from the crowd.

“We need answers,” she said. “Not this shit.”

The prayer would last for several minutes, and she could stomach none of it. She had heard more than enough during her ten years of insurrections all across the continent of Gadir.

“In unity we thrive,” Edgar prayed behind her. “Together, we grow. Arm in arm, hand in hand, the God-Incarnate blesses us, cares for us, if only we release our hatreds.”

Below him, the hanging corpses swayed in the desert wind.

#

“You’re really willing to show your face here?” asked Tani, the young man set watch at the entrance to the rebel hideout deep in Lahareed’s slums. “Here, now, while the streets are full of whispers that we’re liars and fools?”

“I am no liar,” Stasia seethed.

“What about a fool?”

She shoved the man aside and barged through the door, refusing him the dignity of a response. Within was crowded and thick with smoke from the two dozen men and women lingering about the tables and sofas. The stench of the weed, a gray herb almost exclusive to oases that grew in the miles surrounding Lahareed, overpowered Stasia with its bitterness. Her eyes watered as she held back a cough, frustrated that the hit of it denied her the dramatic entrance she intended. Instead it was the elder leader of the resistance given first chance to speak.

“You are bold to think you are welcome here,” he said. Though he spoke the native Laha’rean language, the words changed to the imperial tongue in Stasia’s ears courtesy of the magic of her own word-lace. Such trinkets were invaluable to her and her sister, given their constant travels to newly conquered lands of the Everlorn Empire.

“Why would I not be?” Stasia asked. “Or does a single trick break the spirit of Lahareed’s famed resistance?”

“A single trick?” a woman missing an eye asked by the window. “Or a single lie?”

Stasia’s rage spiked yet again. Lies, the empire’s officials labeled all stories of the regent’s death. And now members of the resistance would repeat such nonsense to her face?

“I did not lie,” she said. “My word is true, as was the aim of my ax.”

Waves of anger rolled through the dozen within. They did not believe her, and they resented the position she had put the rebellion in.

“I trust you greatly, but the world says otherwise,” the elder insisted. “We gave you our greatest weapon, and what have we to show for it? Nothing.”

One of their members had been a guard at the high castle in the years prior to the empire’s invasion. From him, the leaders had learned of a secret tunnel leading up the cliffside, meant as an escape but potentially serving as a way in for the rebels. Stasia had used that entrance two days ago so she might bury her ax into Edgar’s throat. A scout had checked the entrance the next day and confirmed that the empire’s soldiers had discovered the tunnel and collapsed it completely. A fine cost, when they thought the regent dead and the resistance’s members were declaring victory in every tavern and inn. But now?

“I swear, I dealt the bastard a mortal wound,” Stasia said. “Whoever is walking around in Edgar’s skin is not the real Edgar.”

“A fine tale,” said the elder, “but who will believe you? Even as we speak, the regent is in the Narrows addressing the doubters. I heard him myself. His voice, his face, they are true. You failed, Ax. And our honor and trustworthiness suffer in your stead.”

More glares and murmured curses. Each syllable was like a needle thrusting into Stasia’s fingertips. She glared back at them, pride wounded, rage stoked to the high heavens.

“Fuck this,” she said. “I’ll go to the Narrows and settle things once and for all.”

Stasia stormed out the squat building to find Mari waiting with Tani at the entrance.

“I heard it all from outside,” her sister explained.

“Then you know where I’m going. If Edgar refuses to die, or someone else is pretending to be him, then I’ll just kill him while the whole city watches.”

#

The Narrows were long and winding like a snake, an apt comparison given the ruthlessness of the merchants who populated the place. Several hundred people crammed within the mile-long marketplace to greet the regent and his procession of guards. The dozens of entrances to the market were blocked off by sentries, and any who entered were first checked for weaponry. For this reason, Stasia and Mari lingered just beyond, one eye on the entrance, while they pretended to be waiting for a confectionary to reopen.

“There he is,” Mari said, and they both turned to look.

Even from such a distance, and with a crowd blocking much of him, Stasia could tell immediately something was amiss.

“Look at that glow,” she said softly. “How can anyone think that is the real Edgar?”

It looked like a faint rainbow of light shimmered across the pale man’s skin, so gentle and thin that Stasia briefly thought she imagined it. Yet based on Mari’s reaction, her sister also saw the glow.

“It doesn’t prove anything,” Mari said. “But it does look…divine. I don’t think that helps us, though. Couple it with stories of him surviving your assassination, and it makes him seem that much more special.”

“Special?” Stasia fought down an urge to spit. “He’s human, he’s an asshole, and he’s going to bleed out while the crowd watches.”

They left the entrance and followed the road in the same direction the regent walked, albeit on the opposite side of the wall-to-wall buildings that made up its exterior. Stasia was looking for somewhere relatively quiet, and she found it where two buildings had a gap between them. To keep the market sealed and guardable, a red-brick wall closed the gap. In the shadows of that little alcove, she removed the thick coat that hid her muscular frame. Beneath she wore simple clothing, cheap and plain garments anyone could buy at the local markets. Nothing to identify her or mark her origin beyond the axes clipped to her belt.

“I’ll be waiting here,” Mari said, her sister not the fighter of the two, at least not when first arriving in a new nation. That would change once she communed with a deity, but that took time and opportunity not yet afforded them. “I’ll know you’re coming when I hear the guards screaming bloody murder.”

Stasia laughed despite her growing nerves.

“Fine, but if something happens to me, you run like the wind.”

“Nothing will happen, though, right? Promise?”

Stasia grinned, wide and devilish.

“Just a good clean kill with an ax, I promise.”

Stasia used cracks in the brick wall to climb up to the adjacent rooftop. Belly flat on the shingles, she peeked over the top of the slanted roof. There, not far in the distance, she spotted the regent’s procession. She watched for a moment, getting a solid feel for their speed, and then slipped back down. All the while, she counted upward, using it to place the regent in her mind.

Ever since she was twelve, Stasia had worked and fought in resistances in some capacity. Though her father was her primary teacher of melee combat, she had learned from others in myriad cultures and styles. She knew methods to sneak silently across grass and brick, how to hide beneath water without revealing air bubbles, and ways to scale walls and climb rooftops to ambush a target in their bed. But as time passed, and she settled into herself, Stasia had learned what methods suited her best. Power. Strength. Overwhelming force. Let those more clever and quick thrust knives into backs. She preferred an ax to the face.

Hiding her identity was of paramount importance, so once her hair was tied into a short ponytail, she withdrew a thick black cloth from her pocket. It was a gift from her deceased blood-mother, and sewn in white across its front, perfectly lining up with her mouth, were the saber-like skeletal teeth of a panther. Stasia secured it over her face, then prepared her ax.

Stasia’s great-ax was a miracle of engineering, and crafted by the legendary blacksmith that was her father. The axes and their handles were perfectly flat on one side but for a few hidden grooves and hooks, so that she could slam the halves together and lock them into a singular great-ax. She retrieved a slender steel pole from an interior coat pocket and jammed it into a hollow slot at the bottom of the handles. A single twist firmly secured it, doubling the length of the great-ax’s handle. A mighty weapon, heavy and long, yet still capable of being smuggled about a city underneath her coat.

Stasia lovingly brushed the flat face of that ax, taking comfort in the smooth steel. She had lived a lifetime of rebellion, and her gear and clothes reflected that. Perhaps one day she could toss it all away. One day she might not need to carry a mask in her pocket to hide her face at a moment’s notice. But it wasn’t today.

Face covered, ax ready, she pushed to her feet, crossed the sharp triangle top of the roof, and lunged with all the coiled strength in her legs into an aerial assault. Stasia had mentally tracked the path the regent walked with his guards and timed her leap accordingly. Every aspect was perfect. She soared over the heads of bystanders and guards. Her ax crashed down with enough strength to split steel, every muscle in her arms and back coordinating together into that singular hit. The regent noticed, yet all he did was lift his meager sword, its blade nowhere near thick enough to withstand the heavy great-ax.

And yet, somehow, her ax hit the sword and halted. The shock rippled through her arms, and she screamed in pain, fearing the bones in her wrists might break. The sound of steel on steel rang through the crowd, immediately followed by panicked shouts and fleeing bystanders fearing a full-blown ambush. Her mind blanked. It wasn’t possible. The sword should have shattered. Edgar should have collapsed under the impact with a broken arm at the least. Instead he smiled at her with far too much amusement on his handsome face.

“You,” he said.

“Me again, but who the shit are you?”

Stasia gave him no time to answer. The kill failed. Time to flee. Guards rushed her from all sides, but they were convinced she would press an attack on her target, not suddenly turn her rage their way. Her ax carved a bloody path, looping about up and above her head before crashing down. The first one foolish enough to try blocking her ax found his arm hacked off at the elbow. Two others pressed her with shields, but she sidestepped through them, ducked underneath a slash meant to decapitate her, and barreled straight into the crowd of bystanders.

Within that chaotic mess of humans she sprinted, relying on their frightened and confused tangle of limbs to delay the soldiers. Her chasers were decked out in platemail, whereas she wore only loose, light clothing. She could outrun them, but only if she wasn’t cornered.

Escape was an awning built to overhang the entrance of a market shop. She jumped, caught the top of a corner pole with her hand, and pulled all the way up. From there, it was easy enough to scramble along the ledges, up to the rooftop, and then vault from building to building until she reached a portion overlooking the alcove where she’d stashed her coat. Stasia dropped low, absorbing the shock to her knees and doing her best to ignore the shouts of chasing guards on the other side. They’d try to organize, to follow, but she’d be faster.

“Is he dead?” a waiting Mari asked.

Stasia didn’t answer immediately. It took two seconds to disassemble her ax, another to yank the cord from her ponytail and remove her mask. Weaponry hidden underneath her thick coat, she finally turned to her sister.

“I failed,” she said. “Now run.”

#

They dashed through streets and back alleys until Mari was gasping for air and the Narrows far behind them. The two had fled into the relative safety of Lahareed’s slums, where patrols were rare and nearly anyone could disappear amid the winding corridors, packed homes, and disorganized shanties that housed the hundreds left homeless after the empire’s invasion. Stasia found a secluded spot ending at a brick wall dividing districts, and once within, she screamed through clenched teeth. Her frustration felt like bubbling oil within her veins.

“Damn it, I’ve fucked us over twice now,” she seethed. Her attention turned to the red cliff, visible from every point in the city. She glared at the mansion fortress built atop it. “I only helped prove the bastard is alive and well. We need to find him alone, and without guards.”

A tall task, though. The only place the regent might be alone and unescorted would be in that clifftop mansion, which the locals insisted was impenetrable. The cliffsides were perfectly smoothed by the winds and passage of time. The lowest portions of the cliff were heavily patrolled, and lit braziers hung from various poles so even at night the entire cliff surface was visible. There would be no scaling the sides unnoticed, and the two entrances into the fortress at the bottom were carefully guarded, and most likely doubly so after her first attempt to kill Edgar.

“I know it’s frustrating, but we need to be patient,” Mari said. “No empire falls in a day. We can free Lahareed, but we’ll do it together.”

“Together?” Stasia asked, turning away from the cliff.

“I’m attending a ritual tonight, which the priest class call an arang. Kasthan has not yet heeded my prayers, but I think he finally will come. He’ll accept my offer, I promise. I just need you to be patient for once, at least with me.”

Stasia turned back to the cliff, and she smiled despite her frustrations.

“Kasthan, the falcon reaper?” she asked, an idea forming. “Fine. I’ll be patient, but in return, I’m coming with you.”

#

Seven fires formed in a circle marked the forbidden gathering far out in the burgundy sands surrounding the city of Lahareed. Six spiritual leaders in vibrant robes the color of the midday sun stood between the arranged fires. Emalj, the people named them, akin to priests so far as Stasia understood. The nature of gods and worship was vague to her, for that was her sister’s specialty. The bewildering variations and creeds Stasia had encountered over the past decade of fighting the Everlorn Empire had only made her less patient in learning the unique rituals and laws. Every god and goddess had their own customs, and every god and goddess had been slain when the armies of God-Incarnate Lucavi came marching with their swords drawn and their banners held high.

The six Emalj swayed amid a cold night wind, their arms raised to the stars. Hoods covered their faces. Silver jewelry dangled from their wrists and waists. They were singing, but it was a kind of song Stasia failed to recognize. The words were meaningless, the word-lace about her neck unable to translate them in her mind. It droned, long and steady, a primal cry evoking emotion over tangible language. The crowd of thirty or so men and women beyond the circle echoed the song, throaty and without any discernible verses.

“Keep silent, and show the Emalj full respect,” their guide, Tani, said. Of the three, the young man was clearly the most nervous as they approached the gathering. “In Lahareed, we observe the six seasons, and to mark the transition between each, we gather for an arang to give thanks and blessings to the falcon reaper. Do not interrupt the song. Do not enter the holy circle. Don’t, well, just don’t do anything other than watch, and things should be fine.”

One among the arang noticed their late arrival, and he rushed to intercept.

“Are you a fool, Tani?” the older man said. His face was dusted with sand so that in the moonlight his skin took on an almost violet hue, whereas his white beard looked flecked with blood. “You would bring outsiders to the arang?”

“Mari Ahlai has done much to learn our customs,” Tani said, his head bowed low in respect to his elder. “And their family has given both blood and coin to aid us. I thought it fair they see what they fight for, and witness the sacred rites Everlorn would destroy.”

Stasia held back a grimace. Tani never should use their real name so casually. Ever since arriving in Lahareed, they had gone by nicknames, her as Ax, Mari as Whisperer. Such measures were necessary to protect their family’s involvement in the scattered rebellions across the continent of Gadir. So far as the officials of the empire knew, the Ahlai family was a prominent and respected owner of a smithing conglomerate, all too happy to supply their soldiers with weapons and armor.

“That decision was not yours to make,” the elder said. “The foolishness of a naive boy could lead to the death of all who still hold faith.” He glanced among them. Stasia could feel his unease and impatience. The ceremony was starting, and he wanted to be a part of it. “Very well. You may attend, but I expect the utmost respect from you strangers, is that clear? And Tani, let the weight of their presence be on your head.”

“Of course, elder,” Tani said, bowing low.

Permission given, Stasia, Mari, and Tani positioned themselves at the front of the crowd to observe the ceremony. Stasia crossed her arms, her hands resting atop the hilts of the axes strapped to her belt. She felt awkward and unnecessary. Religious rites were for her sister. The chaos of the battlefield was Stasia’s true home.

The eldest of the Emalj took lead without an obvious signal or speech given to start. Though no markings were drawn in the sand to guide them, they remained perfectly positioned, moving not an inch in either direction so as to break the circle formed between alternating man and fire.

“On this sacred day, when season passes into season, the world turning unending, we offer our hearts to he who watches over all.”

The other five took up the call in unison.

“Our hearts in your talons, great one.”

A change swept through the clearing from the tangible power of their words. Stasia could not identify why, but to her eyes the stars shone with a new clarity. The night lost its chill. The hum of the crowd’s song grew familiar to her, a vibration in her chest that was just shy of pleasant. Time passed with a looseness that hinted of divine magic. The six Emalj spread their arms wide as if to link hands despite the span between the members and the burning fires that separated them. The eldest cried out, his voice so fervent, so desperate, it made Stasia tremble.

“Kasthan, we beseech you! Take from us our sins! Fly low, fly close, and grant us mercy.”

The fires burst as if doused with oil. The sand trembled as if an earthquake were imminent.

“From sky and soil, seed and harvest, birth and reaping, take us, love us, be with us.”

He paused. His voice cracked with emotion when he next spoke.

“You live, Kasthan. You live. We know it. We believe.”

That part was new, Stasia sensed, added recently after the deity had been publicly sacrificed at the hands of the Everlorn Empire’s priests. It added a weight to the ritual not even she could deny. Kasthan meant nothing to Stasia, just another dead god, no different than the many of her own homeland as well as the nations they had visited since, but her fingers trembled. The presence of the divine was never normal, never mundane, and there could be no doubt that Kasthan had come to answer his followers’ call.

Fire leapt into the center of the holy circle. Sand swirled on a wind none could hear or feel. It built into a funnel within the circle, mixing with the fire to become something familiar. Wings took shape, spread wide into a dive. Smoke licked the edges. Talons made of embers curled for unseen prey. When a beak of sand opened, it let loose a keening cry that pierced through Stasia’s mind like a nail. The world broke away for the barest moment, and she saw images of a past that was not hers. She saw an oasis blossoming, saw processions of beautiful and lively worshippers singing and dancing in blue and gold robes. Children laughed as they splashed one another with buckets, and old men clapped and sang while playing games with dice.

Stasia sensed the history of Lahareed in this vision, a time before the empire, and flying over it all was the shadow of the falcon reflected clearly in the blue water.

The image faded. The echoes of laughter and joy ended with it, gone like the keening of the falcon. Stasia rubbed at her face, found her cheeks wet with tears.

“You live,” echoed the eldest Emalj. He openly wept as he spoke. “Praise unto thee, great giver, praise unto thee.”

The shape within the sand had already begun to dissipate. The sand lazily swirled, and the fires dimmed. Stasia’s heart ached for Lahareed’s people. She understood their loss, their betrayal, the feeling of violation to have something so sacred and beloved stolen. It was a crime repeated time and time again across the continent of Gadir. One day, she prayed it would stop. One day, the pain would see an end. Peace, should the people allow it.

It would not be tonight, not at this arang. Tonight was a time of vengeance. No matter the Emalj’s insistence, Kasthan was a dead god, and he would know no life beyond what Stasia’s sister offered. Mari was a god-whisperer, and she would give the falcon reaper one last chance to taste the blood of the empire on his tongue and crush the bones of imperials between his sickle claws.

“All right,” Mari said aloud to herself. “Let’s do this.”

She stepped out from the crowd. Tani reacted instantly, grabbing her wrist and yanking her close. Others around glared, but they quickly returned their attention to the swirling funnel of sand and the groaning of their song.

“Are you mad?” Tani hissed. “They will cut your feet from your ankles, if not your head!”

Mari smiled at him, warm and reassuring.

“I know. It’s all right. I’ll crawl if I must.”

Stasia put her hand on Tani’s shoulder, making her meaning clear without having to say a word. He glanced between the sisters, then released Mari’s wrist with a huff.

“You were warned. I wash my hands of the rest.”

He stormed away, wanting no part of whatever Mari planned. Stasia watched him go, and she hoped the young man suffered no ill consequences for choosing to bring the Ahlai sisters to the arang.

“Go,” Stasia told her sister. “I’ll make sure you’re kept safe.”

Mari broke for the circle of Emalj. Gasps marked her passage to the holy circle. The Emalj were too stunned to move, and she slipped right past them into their center. Wind and fire whipped through her hair, but it did not burn. Her dress swirled about her legs. Her fingers curled heavenward. She bowed her head and dropped to her knees.

“I feel you,” she whispered, yet that whisper carried louder than a crack of thunder. “Ever present. Ever watching.”

“What madness is this?” asked one of the bewildered Emalj.

“It is a gift of my blood,” Mari told the increasingly agitated crowd. Her arms spread wide, her dress lifting with it, but not in any natural manner. Shadows stretched beyond her, shaped like wings. The back of her dress rippled. The seven fires burned higher, and the smoke switched from gray to crimson. “I am a god-whisperer. I commune. I bond. I speak.”

“We need no outsider to speak for Kasthan,” an Emalj shouted. Still they refused to leave their designated places between the fires that formed their holy circle.

“I do not speak for slain gods,” Mari said. She closed her eyes and tilted her face toward the stars. “The slain gods speak through me, for I give them a voice with which to speak. I give them a body to inhabit. I offer a life, that they might once again live. Nothing is taken. Between us, there is only a gift, one heart to another.”

If any meant to argue, they were given no chance. The sandstorm thickened around Mari, its rage so great Stasia feared she might watch the flesh scrape away from her sister’s body. There was never a guarantee of safety when delving into the realm of gods. Stasia swallowed down her fear. This was not the first such communion, nor would it be the last. She held faith in her sister’s abilities.

“I humble myself before you,” Mari spoke to the fiery wind. “Will you listen, mighty falcon?”

Stasia did not possess her sister’s gift. She had asked her sister for stories, though, especially after her very first transformation. Mari said when communing with a god, it was as if the entire world fell away. She stood alone in darkness that stretched from horizon to horizon, and she would kneel naked before the slain deity to offer up her physical shell. Some took it gladly, others begrudgingly, but it was a rare god or goddess who would refuse a chance at revenge. Not even the most peaceful of deities remained peaceful once they fell to the knives of the Uplifted Church.

“We will not suffer you to defile an arang,” an Emalj shouted. “Step back!”

But Stasia’s sister would not obey. Her lips fluttered softly without producing noise, little hints of a conversation none present were privy to. The communion had begun, and no force in the world could halt it. Cries of blasphemy and rage washed over her, but against this tempest none seemed willing to move. Stasia watched, ready nonetheless. Her sister’s life was on the line. Under no circumstances would she allow her to be disturbed.

At last one of the Emalj broke from the circle, eliciting gasps from the others. He rushed for Mari at the center, hands bunched into fists. Stasia intercepted his path. With several inches in height and dozens of pounds to her advantage, it was easy enough to hold his furious struggle back. The man tore the hood from his head and pushed against her arms, screaming as Mari softly prayed.

“You would come here to mock us, to insult us?” he shouted. “‘Dead,’ you call our beloved as if we did not see the knives tear apart mighty Kasthan’s body. ‘Slain,’ you claim, as if we did not witness the priests rip apart his feathers. We saw, but we believe, we know, that Kasthan lives on. Did we not hear his cry? Did we not bear witness to his life?”

His voice cracked as his emotions overwhelmed him.

“We had everything taken from us. We watched in chains as Kasthan was bled dry. We have been beaten, and spit on, and forced to renounce our faith with blades at our throats. Yet we live on. We endure. Do not speak of slain gods. Do not dare break our solace and claim to speak with wisdom you cannot—”

Mari’s mouth opened, and from within sounded the deep keening call of a falcon. It was the same as the one that had come from the funnel earlier, only the strength of this new cry made a mockery of the earlier phantom call. The power of it rolled sand outward from Mari’s feet as if she stood within the center of a swirling wind, yet the air had fallen still. All present dropped to their knees, even Stasia, for she felt something cold and fearful clutch at her breast. The furious man in her arms went limp, his body trembling as his mouth hung open.

“It cannot be,” he whispered.

Her sister opened her eyes, and they shone a crimson deeper than the sands. When she spoke, it was with a new voice, one Stasia did not recognize. It was sharper than steel, and possessed a breathiness that, for reasons she could not explain, made Stasia think of the midnight storms they had witnessed on the caravan to Lahareed, cold and full of wind and sand.

“Be silent, my dear Emalj. You speak with a bleeding heart.”

The back of her dress tore as wings burst from her spine. Bones broke and shattered as her body reshaped. Her face elongated, the center of it darkening as it curved downward into a hooked beak. She lifted her arms, elbows twisting backward so they might meld with the sprouted wings. Feathers bloomed where once was pale skin, dark along the underbelly but a lighter gray along the tops. What little remained of Mari’s clothing shredded as her feet warped, but they did not become talons of a falcon, but instead curved steel sickles that dug deep into the sand.

Mari tilted her head as the people murmured and cried. She was Kasthan, but not. Stasia had seen the paintings of the slain god when first she’d first arrived in Lahareed, portraits smuggled into safekeeping lest they be burned during the purges. Those paintings showed a beautiful falcon with deep-brown feathers and rings of gold looping those sickle feet, but that god was dead, and even in the life gifted by her sister, that death would not be denied. Gray tainted the color, a paleness hinting of the grave. Instead of gold rings, it was seven knobby pieces of bone that marked the ends of the sickles and the start of her leg muscles.

“Still you offer the stars your hearts,” Mari spoke. “Still you keep me nestled deep within your prayers. I thank you, beloved children. I honor you, as you honor me. Let us not forget one another, even as bodies of flesh and bones rot and break.”

Stasia released the Emalj, and the both of them stood. The man staggered toward the gray falcon, his face twisted in shock and confusion. He reached out a hand, then pulled it back as if he might be burned. Mari patiently waited, her wings fluttering softly as if getting a feel for their weight and span.

“It has been so long since your shadow flew over the city,” the Emalj said softly. “Is it you? Is it truly you?”

Mari lowered her head and closed her eyes, and the Emalj did likewise. He leaned into the soft feathers of her head and neck, embracing the gray falcon towering over him. Silence followed, long and heavy. If they spoke, it was in a manner between only them. The Emalj shuddered. His knees fell weak.

“Kasthan,” he said as his tears bathed the feathers. “Never leave us. Never again.”

His sobs ended the silence, but he was not alone in shedding tears. The other Emalj bowed low in reverence. The gathered crowd, their shock abated, turned to song, once more singing the same deep rumbling worship, only this time Stasia felt every word. She knew every ache. It was love and loss, loneliness and need, all cares and fears lifted to the heavens to be taken into the sickle talons of the falcon reaper of Lahareed. It was beautiful in its desperation. It was holy in its reverence.

At last the man retreated. Mari spread her wings to their fullest, a few testing beats billowing sand in all directions. She looked to Stasia with her red eyes. When she next spoke, it was in her original voice, if but a shade deeper.

“What say you, Ax?”

Stasia dropped her hands to the hilt of her weapons. The edges of her lips curled into a smile.

“I’d say there’s a dead man in an impenetrable palace just begging for a visit.”

#

The morning sun was already peeking the first of its rays over the horizon, but Stasia would not wait a second longer. She rode atop the back of the falcon reaper, one arm wrapped about her sister’s neck. Together they soared over the quiet city, her presence certain to cause a stir once people noticed. Stasia welcomed the chaos. Her first attempt on the regent’s life had been in secret, and look at all the trouble that had caused. This time, people would know. No stealth. No cover of night. The sisters streaked straight for the high fortress, and the balcony of stone that overlooked the city.

“He’s waiting,” Mari shouted. Stasia leaned forward and squinted against the wind. Sure enough, Regent Edgar stood at the far end, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Just makes our job easier,” Stasia shouted back. She readied her ax, and when they looped over the balcony, Mari’s wings banking hard to catch the wind and peel off speed, Stasia dropped to the hard stone, rolled to absorb the momentum, and then bounced to her feet. Thick curtains walled off the long balcony as a safeguard against the rare storm, but they had been pulled open to allow in the cool night air. Just beyond them was the regent’s bedroom, recently redecorated with white and gold cabinets and dressers lugged across the desert in wagons so that the regent could feel at home in the foreign land. With the false Edgar behind her at the balcony edge, the way in was clear. Ax in hand, she glared inside the bedroom.

“I fucking knew it,” she said.

Regent Edgar, the real Edgar, lay atop the extravagant bed’s sweat-stained sheets, his face and neck a mess of blood and bandages. He still breathed, that miracle accomplished by the care of the being hovering over him. Her body was vaguely serpentine, an impression given by the scales that covered her exposed surface. Those scales were so smooth, their surface so blindingly reflective, that she appeared a woman made of mirrors. Her hair was long, and it crackled like crystal. She wore a dress seemingly molded out of her own glass-flesh, which only increased her resemblance to a carved, living statue.

Her hands weaved over Edgar’s body in a looping pattern, soft stars of light sprinkling down from her fingertips. A glow shone about the man’s exposed skin, a glow Stasia recognized well, for it was the same otherworldly presence that had marked the false Edgar’s face when he addressed the crowd the day prior. Little whiffs of smoke or mist floated from the injured man’s face, faintly burning the same color as the skin or hair it lifted from. Those ethereal colors joined into the glow, which projected like a beam to the other man on the balcony, granting him his false visage.

“Who are you, face stealer?” Stasia asked. “What nation did they enslave you from?”

Though her body revealed her deific nature, the chains around her wrists and ankles betrayed her humbled status. The humbled were gods of conquered nations, minor gods usually, ones with scant few followers even at the height of their worship. Should the Uplifted Church sense potential, they would enslave them, chain their limbs, and subject them to unending hours of prayer. Some stories claimed it took decades, but the loyalty and belief of a god could be twisted and given over to the God-Incarnate himself. The humbled became loyal servants, faithfully serving the empire that had slain their own followers, conquered their nations, and denied them worship.

The sight of one always filled Stasia’s stomach with bile. To her mind, no more wretched and horrid a sight existed on the face of Gadir.

“You speak in ignorance, assassin,” the goddess said. Her voice was surprisingly hard, as if each syllable were spoken through glass scraping against stone. “I am a weaver of dreams, a mender of the mind. A gift is never a theft, and none of which I draw is taken, only reflected.”

The false Edgar at the balcony drew the sword. While it at first seemed of regular size, it blinked in and out of existence twice, the glow about it fading until the weapon was now thrice its original heft. A weapon not of a regent, but of the empire’s inhumanly strong paragons.

“You may drop the charade, Vishkanti,” the false Edgar said. “They won’t be leaving here alive.”

“You act as if these blessings are but meager tokens to give and take,” Vishkanti said. The humbled turned Stasia’s way. Her eyes shone yellow, the irises a bloody red. “I see your axes. Have you come to finish your mutilation?”

Stasia twirled the weapons in her grip. Their motion and weight helped fight off an unwelcome bout of nervousness. To take down a humbled on her own…

“Damn right I am,” she said. “We’ll see how good your healing magic works once I’ve cut the regent’s head clean off his shoulders.”

Vishkanti smiled at her with such confidence it chipped away at Stasia’s own. A wave of those mirror-like hands, and the illusion encasing the false Edgar flickered away. In its place was a towering man in golden platemail. His hair was red, his skin like tanned leather. By his size and muscle, Stasia recognized him as one of the Everlorn Empire’s paragons, elite warriors blessed with magic and outfitted in the finest armor and weaponry the empire’s coffers could muster.

“Nice to meet the real you,” Stasia said. “Have you a name?”

“Bordova, Paragon of Blades,” the towering man said. A shadow crossed over him from above. “But don’t worry about introductions. I’ll have plenty of time to question you once you’re properly chained in a dungeon.”

Mari’s cry raked over him from above.

“A falcon heeds no chains!”

They collided in a chaotic mess of feathers and steel, Mari’s sickle talons scraping at Bordova’s gold armor and her beak seeking the exposed flesh of his face. Stasia tensed her legs to join in the fight, but movement from the corner of her eye froze her in place. The humbled had left her perch upon the bed, and though she looked frail, she was still a goddess in possession of otherworldly power. Stasia spun, thinking she would take the offensive, but had not anticipated the immense speed with which Vishkanti crossed the balcony.

The goddess lunged, hands reaching, fingers long and curled and suddenly resembling hooks instead of human appendages. Stasia slammed the handle of her ax between them, pressing against Vishkanti’s chest as the mirror-faced goddess leaned closer. Cold hands dug fingers into Stasia’s face and throat. The goddess wasn’t a warrior like some deities Stasia had met, her strength not much beyond a human’s limits, but she wasn’t warring with raw strength. She fought with visions and broken realities. This self-titled dream-weaver wielded memories like a knife, and they cut just as deep.

“Do you still smell the smoke?” Vishkanti asked. Stasia found it harder and harder to breathe. It was the goddess’s hands around her throat, she knew that, but then again…the smoke was so thick. Heat burned against her skin. Where was she? Every breath was a struggle, for the air was blacker than any storm.

“Lies!” she tried to scream, but it was a pitiful protest.

Miqou burns, floated Vishkanti’s voice across the nightmare. You should have burned with it. Choke on the ash. Die amid the flames.

The Everlorn Empire had come to the forest capital with torches in hand. They had tried to subdue the populace through their tried-and-true traditions, but after years of struggle they had given in to easier methods. There would be no more ambushes, no more guerrilla forces lurking amid the leaves. The branches of Stasia’s home would burn, and the high-built homes along with them.

Stasia fought, she fought, but she was only seven now. How could she hold back a goddess? She was a child, a frightened child. Easier to cry. Easier to swallow down lungfuls of ash and fall into sleep. Her fathers weren’t here to save her. The low streets were crowded with strangers, their faces masks of shadow streaked with tears. She was alone, she was lost, she was destined to fall beneath the stomping boots and carried torches. Already she saw soldiers approaching like feral beasts of flame. They would consume her like they consumed the godwoods. Resignation weighed her down, slackened her muscles. She didn’t even feel the pressure around her throat. She didn’t care that her lungs ached.

All over. Let it all be over.

“Fight it, Ax!”

Her sister’s voice pierced through the noise. It scattered the smoke. It was the voice of a falcon, given words through the magic of the word-lace.

“Don’t you dare leave me now!”

Through the memories and haze, she lifted. No, not seven years old. Twenty-six. Not alone, but fighting alongside her sister. Not choking on smoke, but glass hands wrapped about her throat. Stasia lay on her back, the humbled above her. Vishkanti’s yellow eyes pulsed with silver veins. Her lips were pulled back to reveal horrifyingly jagged teeth. She squeezed with frantic strength that would no doubt leave a massive ring of bruises across Stasia’s neck, presuming she survived.

Not now…not ever…thought Stasia. She curled her legs and then kicked. Her heels dug into Vishkanti’s stomach, lifting her away, tearing her grip free of Stasia’s neck and sending her staggering backward upon the balcony.

Now separate, she let out a singular, worried cry before Mari blasted straight into her, having retreated from her battle with Bordova. The keen of the falcon mixed with scraping glass and breaking crystal. Vishkanti screamed as sickles tightened about her arms and waist. The black beak smashed into her forehead, then hooked sideways and opened momentarily to snap shut across her pristine face. Vishkanti’s cry turned shrill, then ended in a sudden cacophony of broken glass.

Energy billowed outward from the breaking corpse, divine and formless. Stasia dropped to her knees, shivers racking her body. She wept, overwhelmed with emotions her mind knew were not her own, but her heart felt them all too powerfully. Vishkanti’s memories assaulted her, endless hills, green grass beneath a dark sky, stars, a field of dreamers dressed in white, and then it was gone. Lost. In the hollow silence afterward, Stasia rose to her feet, her ax resting on the stone, its handle bouncing in a loose grip between her fingers. She turned to Bordova. Her face still wet with tears, she grinned with savage mania at the horrified paragon.

“There’s only one way out,” she said, and she pointed to the cliff. “By choice, or by my ax, you’re due for a fall.”

Mari fluttered her wings, and to punctuate the threat, she cried out a singular, furious keen. Shards of liquid glass dripped like blood from her beak. Stasia saw gashes across her sister’s body from her battle with the paragon, but thankfully none looked particularly dire. Her sister was the embodiment of divine wrath when taking a slain deity’s form. She could withstand a few cuts of a sword.

“I fear no mortal, and I fear no false god,” Bordova said. He readied his enormous blade. “Come then, the both of you. Die while the city watches.”

Stasia sprinted toward the mighty paragon. Her ax shook in her grip. Her breath whistled into her lungs through clenched teeth. Paragons were the mightiest soldiers in all the Everlorn Empire, blessed with inhuman strength and adorned in weapons and armor heavier and thicker than any mere human could wield. To defeat one required more than skill. It required more than luck. Feet pounding upon the stone, her sister soaring overhead on gray wings, she let absolute fury take control. Paragons were used to easy victories and fearful opponents. They hadn’t faced someone like her. Not her rage. Not her willpower. The pain of a thousand forest fires burned through her, freshly awakened, and it banished any trace of her fear.

Stasia’s ax slammed down upon the two-handed sword, but instead of letting it slow her momentum, she continued onward, her knees buckling into a slide. She slammed shoulder-first into the paragon’s thigh, and it felt like crashing into a tree trunk. She dug her right heel into the stone and lifted, all while positioning the handle of her ax so that it wedged between her and the lower edge of the paragon’s blade. Despite having the better angle, it felt as if she were trying to lift a boulder. Stasia screamed as her muscles stretched to their limits. It didn’t matter if she actually toppled Bordova over the edge of the balcony. She only needed him to stop her. She only needed his attention locked her way for the briefest moment.

Mari banked overhead, her presence a shadow Stasia glimpsed from the corner of her eyes. Her impact, however, was immediate. Though Bordova retreated back a step, he didn’t dodge in time. One of the sickle claws hooked into his chest, and it ripped through his thick steel armor as if it were made of paper. Blood splattered across all three as the sickle tore apart chunks of his shoulder and collarbone. Mari’s flight continued, dragging the paragon another step backward before cutting free. Bordova staggered, his footing ruined, his left arm hanging worthless at his side.

Forced to wield the enormous weapon one-handed, he couldn’t manage the speed required to keep up with Stasia’s onslaught. She dashed to her feet and spun, her ax punching a hole in his side and collapsing multiple ribs. His counter hit only air as she spun about him. A screech of metal marked her tearing the ax free. A scream of pain followed, wet and weak, and she wondered if she had hit deep enough to puncture a lung.

Up came his sword, then back down in a strike that would cleave her in half if she didn’t dodge. Most foes would barely stand after such grievous injuries, but the paragon’s hit was strong enough to hammer a deep groove into the ground. The problem for him, though, was that the stone caught the blade when he tried to drag it free. Stasia gave him no reprieve. The base of her ax smashed his nose, breaking cartilage. A sideswipe followed, the sharp edge of her great-ax punching straight into his abdomen. Bordova screamed once, then louder as Mari swooped around for another pass. Her claws raked across his back with such ferocity that it tore the leather clasps holding it together. Chunks of metal collapsed with dull clangs to the floor.

“You…” he gasped, blood pouring down all across his body and leaking out in pools at his boots. “You…won’t get away…”

Stasia ended the pitiful protest with a downward chop, burying the ax into his forehead. It sank halfway in, bisecting his skull down to the nostrils.

“The city’s watching,” Stasia said as she ripped the ax free. “Go say hello.”

She slammed her heel into his chest, tumbling him over the balcony’s waist-high barrier. She didn’t give him the respect of watching him fall. Bordova wasn’t why she was here. Despite the long hours and the exhaustion prickling at her muscles, she walked with a bounce in her step through the curtains to the grossly extravagant bed.

Edgar’s eyes were open, his look dazed and confused. Though she was the reason he lay in such a state, he showed no recognition of her. Stasia lifted him up with a single arm. He had never been a large man, and the past three days at death’s door seemed to have sapped him of his weight and color. She carried him by the throat, past the curtains, past the silver puddle that was the slain humbled, to the far end of the balcony. In her other hand she dragged her ax, leaving a wet trail across the floor.

A falcon scream marked her arrival at the balcony’s edge.

“You never understood your foes,” she told the dying man. Blood seeped across her hand, dark and sickly, as her fingers dug into the bandages around his neck. “You’ve tried breaking these people, but they’ll live on. They’ll fight you, they’ll fight your replacement, and they’ll fight even the God-Incarnate himself should he cross the desert. No surrender, not here, not anywhere within your empire.”

Edgar tried to say something despite his ruined throat, but she didn’t care to hear it. A flex of her fingers crushed the reply into a whimper. Down below, a crowd gathered around Bordova’s splattered corpse. They might not understand what was happening, but all of Lahareed could see and hear the return of their god, Kasthan. The falcon once more cast a shadow across the city, even if in a pale form gifted by Mari.

“I cut your throat and left you for dead, yet people called me a liar,” Stasia said. “I won’t make that same mistake twice. This time, everyone gets to see you die.”

She flung the regent from the balcony, coiled her legs, and then leapt after him. Wind whipped across her face and teased her ponytail. The dying man fell beside her, limp and weakly flailing his limbs. Far below, she saw the city, and the gathered crowd, and could only smile. Excitement surged through her. Taking the handle of her ax in both hands, she spun through the air. Two full revolutions, building momentum and power. On the third, she slammed her ax directly into the regent’s chest.

The body exploded in a shower of bone, meat, and gore. Stasia pulled out of the spin, and though the ground was close enough she could see the individual people screaming at the bloody rain falling upon them, she felt no fear. Her trust in her sister was complete.

The falcon swooped underneath her, expertly catching Stasia. Her left arm wrapped about the feathered neck. Dark wings flared wide, and they banked over the crowd. Mari let loose another piercing cry, and amid its echo, Stasia lifted her blood-soaked ax. She held it out as proof of her kill. Triumphant. Defiant. Coupled with the call of the falcon, it was a promise all the city would understand, one the sisters would give their lives to achieve.

A promise of blood and fury against the empire who conquered their lands. The vengeful ax, and the flight of the falcon reaper.

Ghost of the White Wood

JA Andrews

The sign of a ruler who can outlast the uprisings and uncontrollable chaos brought on by his enemies is the ability to record history in a way that paints himself in a favorable light. Regardless of the actual events.

—excerpt from Foundations of a Strong Empire by High Lord Reston Ferr

1

It never paid to kill Kalesh soldiers. The faceless, numberless men conscripted from every conquered people were used by the Emperor as expendable chisels to chip away at sieged cities or disposable blades to be thrown against any army that dared stand against the Empire.

But kill a single black-masked soldier somewhere else, away from the battlefield, and the Empire would repay you by sending a hundred more.

At least they once had.

The current number was dropping disappointingly close to fifteen.

Melia stood on the rock outcropping, looking across the narrow gully at the bright-green leaves in a patch of aspens. She ran the numbers again. Six soldiers at the quarry, four more at the inn, and two intercepted messengers—both with imperial dispatches. Twelve Kalesh soldiers killed in all.

“Only two hundred soldiers?” she asked the woodsman who was keeping back from the edge of the outcropping. That was considerably fewer than a hundred for each soldier killed.

The man attempted something resembling military attention, even though he was breathing so heavily he looked ready to collapse. “Two hundred and fourteen camped at the crossroads, my son says. And that boy’s smart. Can count to a thousand.”

“And the carriage?”

“Just crossing the dry streambed.” He grinned. “Has the imperial dragon on the door and looks to be riding heavy.”

She tried to keep the irritation out of her voice. “How many soldiers with it?”

“Oh. Six.”

Melia looked the short distance downhill to where the road disappeared around a curve. Six was high for a single carriage.

She drummed her fingers on the shaft of her bow. This gully between two rock outcroppings was the only narrow point along the forest road, and it was barely long enough to trap the carriage. If the six soldiers were spread out too far in front of and behind it, this could be hard to contain.

“Thank you.” She nodded a dismissal, and the man hurried off.

She surveyed the area again. The sun was dropping closer to the horizon in front of her, and the fifteen men from the town of Hallen lurked in the growing shadows, invisible enough from the road to serve her purposes.

She stood alone atop the outcropping on one side of the gully while five townsmen with hunting bows crouched on the other. The rest were spread out in the woods with bows and knives.

The air stirred behind her, a subtle, quiet sound. Like an exhale.

“How are the townsmen?” Melia asked, without turning.

“Eager,” Evay answered, stepping up next to her. The elf was taller by a hand, more slender and more fluid, but she had traded normal elven loose-fit garments for human clothes. She was dressed like Melia in thin pants, a sleeveless tunic, and a fitted vest. The only difference between the two was that Melia’s pants were thicker and her tunic long-sleeved to ward off the early-spring chill. The elf’s russet hair was pulled back into a braid, thicker and coarser than Melia’s own black one.

“They won’t wait for your signal,” Evay warned.

“None of them ever do.”

“The one farthest up the hill, is he the cobbler whose wife was killed?”

Melia nodded.

Evay shook her head. “I don’t think you put him far enough away. He’ll snap first.”

“I don’t blame him.”

“Neither do I. I just thought you should know he’s already thinking about coming closer, and if he attacks the carriage before it reaches the rocks…well, you didn’t bring enough untrained, eager villagers to take on six soldiers in the open.”

Melia glanced up the road. She could see the cobbler pacing between tall pine trunks, not bothering to hide. “He seems like a good man. He’ll hold a little longer.”

“He’s a broken man,” Evay said. “I don’t think he has anything left to hold on to.”

Melia considered the distance from the pacing man to the gully. “He’ll hold.”

“Your relentless human optimism is adorable.”

They were silent for a moment. Melia ran her thumb over the smooth, pale wood of her bow and looked over the valley south of them.

“You’re brooding over the fact that the Empire only sent two hundred men, aren’t you?” Evay asked.

“It is a little insulting.”

The faint creak of a wagon wheel floated up through the trees, and Melia searched the slope below them for any sign of the carriage.

“Did you hear that just now?” Evay slung the viciously curved elvish bow off her back and pulled an arrow from her quiver. “It must be so limiting to have ears that can’t hear things until they’re almost within your reach.”

Melia readied her own identical bow. The white wood always looked a little more at home in Evay’s long elvish fingers, but the grip was comfortable, and Melia absently plucked the string, feeling the bow thrum. “Yes, yes, I know. You can hear a pine needle fall in the forest. Doesn’t it get annoying to have to listen to so many things that are too far away to care about?”

“Like the fact that your cobbler broke?”

Melia turned to see the man stealing through the trees toward the narrow, rock gully. He held a knife in his hand with a clumsy, awkward grip. Every line of his body blazed with reckless savagery.

She swore and glanced back downhill toward the carriage. She could hear the squeaks and groans of the wheels clearly, but it wasn’t in view yet.

Evay’s feet were planted on the rock, her bow drawn, an arrow aimed steadily at the cobbler. “He’s getting awfully close to where he shouldn’t be.”

“Wait,” Melia said, moving to the edge of the rock. “We have a moment more.”

“Barely.” She spared a glance for Melia. “That’s a long distance for you. Try not to fall down when you get there.”

“I’ll do my best. If he makes a run for it, don’t miss him and hit me by accident.”

“Miss?” Evay scoffed. “When I shoot you, it’ll be because I meant to.”

Melia stepped as close as she could to the edge of the rock. “I’m pretty sure you’re bound to not kill me.”

“No, I’m bound to keep others from killing you. I don’t think the blood debt covers me killing you.”

“I’m fairly certain it does.” Melia gauged the distance from herself to the base of the rocks. It was long.

“Your cobbler isn’t stopping,” Evay pointed out.

Melia let out an annoyed breath and stretched her fingers toward the ground on the far side of the road. She focused on a single patch of forest, on the way the last of the sunlight slanted through the trunks to land on the dusty earth. On the way the breeze tugged at the strands of moss hanging from the lowest branches. She thought of how the earth would feel under her feet and pulled that piece of the world toward herself.

She took a step.

A rush of air blew past her as she stepped onto the dirt, directly in the path of the cobbler.

The sound she made was much louder than an exhale, and the man hissed in surprise, flinching back.

Melia braced for the wave of dizziness that followed, setting one hand on the nearest tree and keeping her eyes focused on the man in front of her.

His surprise only lasted a moment, and his rage returned faster than Melia’s balance. Which was a bad sign. People were usually more stunned when she appeared out of nowhere in front of them.

He lifted the knife. “Don’t try to stop me.”

“I’m not,” Melia said. “I’m just asking you to wait.”

The man’s chest rose in fast, furious breaths. “Do you know what they did to her?”

“I do,” she answered. “And if you wait—just a moment—we will pin them in the gully and make them pay.”

He started to shake his head.

“But if you attack them in the open forest before they reach the rocks,” Melia said, “they will kill you and your friends. They will leave your body behind the way they left your wife. And they will never think of you again.”

The man’s hand shook, and tears filled his eyes.

She didn’t know his name. She didn’t know what his wife’s name had been. Once, she’d learned the names of all these people the Empire had broken. But this endless fight had grown so heavy, and at some point, she’d stopped wanting to add the weight of their names, too.

“Just another few moments,” Melia said, trying to keep a little distance from his raw pain. “Please.”

The cobbler’s jaw clenched, but he nodded once, and Melia set her hand on his shoulder. “Thank you.”

She looked across the road, up to where Evay stood on the rocks. The elf lowered her bow and made a few quick hand motions.

“The carriage is at the turn,” Melia said quietly. She considered, briefly, moving back up next to Evay, but there wasn’t time to cross the road and climb the rocks, and stepping up there so soon after stepping down would leave her too dizzy to shoot.

“Hide,” she said to the cobbler. “Just another moment. Wait for me to shoot.”

The approaching carriage was hidden by the rocks, and Melia nocked an arrow, moving to the edge of the road, listening to it trundle closer. She could hear the tromp of the soldiers’ boots and the steady gait of the horses.

A hunting bow twanged from up above her, and she heard an arrow thunk off the wooden wall of the carriage.

Melia swore. They never waited.

“The Ghost!” one of the Kalesh soldiers yelled. “He’s here! Protect the carriage!”

The other soldiers took up the cry.

A grim smile spread across Melia’s lips as she stepped out into the road. The men from Hallen let out their own shout, and arrows rained down on the soldiers, killing two.

The driver snapped his whip at the pair of horses, urging them fast through the gully. Melia sighted down the arrow to the thin strap of leather connecting the nearest horse’s collar to the carriage shaft.

The carriage driver saw her and shouted, and a soldier sitting next to him pointed a crossbow toward Melia.

Before he could aim, he toppled from the carriage with one of Evay’s arrows in his neck.

Melia ignored the growing chaos and held her breath, feeling the tension coiled in the bow. When she released, the arrow flashed in the sunlight and sliced through the thin strap where it connected to the horse’s padded leather collar. The tip of the arrow sank into the collar, deep enough to jab into the horse’s shoulder.

The animal reared back. The broken harness twisted loose, and the carriage shaft dropped, crashing against the horse’s legs and driving him sideways into the other steed.

One of the three remaining soldiers charged at Melia. He was dressed in the full black uniform of the Kalesh troops, his tall boots wrapped with leather straps, the bottom of his face covered with a black mask.

She started to raise her bow but caught motion at the edge of the woods. The cobbler burst from the trees with a heartrending scream, slamming into the soldier, sinking his knife deep into the Kalesh man’s chest.

The horses whinnied and reared, the carriage twisted, and the terrified face of some minor lordling pressed against the window. Trapped in the gully, the last Kalesh soldiers fell beneath the onslaught of the townsmen.

Melia slung her bow over her back and stepped around them to the carriage door. She pulled it open to find a wide-eyed, heavyset nobleman crouched in the corner, blubbering. Reaching in, she grabbed his arm, pulling him out until he fell heavily on the ground. He started to scramble away, but she grabbed his collar, and he curled up in a wide, shaking ball, whimpering about the Ghost of the White Wood. His long Kalesh robe was crumpled, the red silk smudged with dirt.

One of the men from Hallen leaned into the open carriage door and let out a whoop. “Gold! There’s gold in here!”

Melia dragged the nobleman farther out of the way as the other townsmen rushed the carriage. They pulled out a chest filled with gold and silver pieces, a crate of the nobleman’s extravagant clothes, and a bundle of papers.

The cobbler stood away from the others, his knife bloody, his face still savage. His eyes locked on the nobleman, and he stalked toward the quivering lord.

Melia stepped in front of the nobleman. “Not this one.”

“Move,” the cobbler said.

“No. He lives.”

The other men quieted, their eyes watching the cobbler warily.

“He deserves to die,” the cobbler hissed.

“Maybe,” Melia answered. “But I want him to live.”

He shifted forward, and an arrow lodged in the ground at the front of his boot.

“Let this go,” Melia said. “Her next shot will not be a warning.”

A hint of madness crept into the cobbler’s eyes, and Melia braced herself for the last foolish move the man would make.

An older man took a step toward them. “It won’t bring her back, Tom.”

Melia watched the cobbler’s resolve crack at the words. The anger drained away, leaving just the raw, hollow pain. Tom dropped the knife, and it thudded to the ground.

“I’m sorry,” Melia whispered as tears filled his eyes. Her own old, worn-in pain rose, and the next words came out ragged. “I’m sorry they took her from you.”

Tom merely stood there, tears washing lines in the blood and dirt on his face. The older man took him by the shoulder.

Melia picked up the bundle of papers from where they’d been dropped. Skirting around the back of the wagon, she headed for the outcropping where Evay waited.

A man ran after her, holding out the chest of coins.

She shook her head. “Take it and split it among the town. The horseshoes are marked with the imperial seal, so change those quickly. And dismantle the carriage in the woods before you get back to town. Don’t let it sit anywhere visible.”

“You don’t want anything besides the papers?” he asked.

She glanced back at the cowering lord. “I want you to send him back to where he came from.”

The man nodded. “We will. Thank you,” he said, earnestly.

She took in the bodies of the soldiers on the ground and the wounded townsmen.

Six more soldiers killed.

Maybe that would be enough.

2

Melia flipped through a pile of dispatches and reports from the carriage as she walked with Evay through the trees.

“How do humans manage to make words so dull?” Evay asked, holding up a report on lumber production to catch the dying light.

Melia pulled a map out of her pile and set it on top. “Did you think the Kalesh would be sending love poems to each other?”

“That would at least be interesting. I’m sure humans write horrible poetry, though.”

They walked beneath tall, thin pines, patches of brilliant blue sky visible through the needles high above. Bits of bright-green spring were starting to show through the dried-out roots of last year’s grass, which lay flattened by a winter’s worth of snow.

“What’s elven love poetry like?” Melia asked. “I love you as much as I love a tree…almost.”

Evay grinned. “About eighty years ago, I had an elf with the most stunning red hair write me a poem. It was very romantic.”

Melia glanced over. “You never told me there was a red-haired elven admirer in your life.”

“It lasted a few seasons, then he left with an assembly of elves who followed rumors of an ancient forest that still had sentient elder trees, far to the east.”

“Ah.” Melia turned back to her map, studying the notes written next to the Kalesh outposts. “So he loved you almost as much as the trees.”

Evay grinned again and set her hand on the rough bark of a tall pine as she passed. “Hard to love someone more than trees.”

“Not really.” Melia held the map up. “This information is old. The Kalesh outposts had these numbers last summer, but the northernmost one has easily twice this many by now, and we both know that the outpost near Fir is currently under repair after some serious fire damage.”

Evay glanced at the map. “You should fix it. Draw in some fire. And me next to it looking dramatic and shooting a flaming arrow.”

“This doesn’t strike you as odd?”

“It’s been odd ever since the carriage turned out to be a fancy southern one with skinny city wheels.”

“I agree. Why was it on the forest road?”

“Carrying a chest of gold,” Evay added, “and out-of-date paperwork.”

A smile played at the edges of Melia’s mouth. “Dare we hope all this effort is because of us?”

“A proper trap?” Evay’s face lit up. “Makes me feel like they think we’re almost as important as a tree!”

“A true honor,” Melia agreed. She flipped through the rest of her papers, but everything was out of date or useless. Taking the remainder from Evay, she rolled them up and stuffed them into a hollow at the base of a nearby tree stump. “If it was a trap, it was an expensive, poorly executed one. Seeing as we aren’t trapped.”

Evay walked to a pine with a thick trunk and set her hand on it, listening for a moment. “There’s no one following us.”

Melia stopped and let her gaze run through the forest around them. Birds chirped in the treetops, and a squirrel let out a bossy stream of chittering from a fallen log. “Why sacrifice the carriage?”

“To pin down your location?”

“Without actually trying to capture me? Why go to the expense?”

“Must have been to learn…” Evay paused. “What did they learn?”

Melia scanned the quiet woods again. “I have no idea.”

#

“Melia.”

Evay’s voice pulled Melia up out of an old, dark dream, and she cracked an eye open.

The forest around them was cast in the blanched colors of very early dawn. Thin, ghostly frost edged every blade of grass and turned the branches of pine needles to a brittle white.

“Melia,” Evay repeated. “There’s trouble in Hallen.”

Melia pulled her thick blanket higher. “What kind of trouble?”

“The trees speak of fire and pain.”

Melia blinked at the elf kneeling beside her. “The Kalesh?”

“You and I are the only other people who tend to set things on fire around here. And I didn’t do this.”

Melia pushed herself up. There was no frost inside the shallow shelter Evay had convinced the three small saplings to make last night, but the air was cold.

“How many Kalesh are there?”

Evay shrugged. “Trees aren’t great at counting.”

Melia pulled a worn brown cloak out of her pack. “Then let’s go count ourselves.”

“Hallen isn’t exactly close.”

“Running will warm us up,” Melia pointed out.

Evay stood, dressed in the sleeveless tunic from yesterday. “I’m not cold.”

“That’s because you’re abnormal,” Melia said, tying the cloak closed and rubbing her hands together. She strapped her quiver to her back, picked up her bow, and started jogging toward the north. Evay fell in easily beside her.

Melia was hot long before they saw the smoke and heard the shouts from Hallen. She circled to the hill on the northwestern side, tucking her cloak and pack into the hollow of a tree and moving to the edge of the forest where she could see most of the town. Only two buildings were burning, both on the far side where the main road entered the town. At least a hundred black-clad, masked Kalesh soldiers filled the town, moving through the streets, pulling people from their houses and corralling them into the main square.

A dark-haired man in a captain’s uniform stood on the steps of the largest house on the square, watching the commotion impassively.

“This is the perfect time to walk away,” Evay said.

Melia shook her head. “You think this had anything to do with the carriage?”

“This is the Kalesh being Kalesh,” Evay answered. “And in larger numbers than we can do anything about. You don’t owe this town anything. Whatever is happening here is not the kind of sword you want to fall on.”

Melia nodded but moved along the edge of the trees downhill until the busy square was out of view. She reached the narrowest point between the forest and the town and stopped. A wide planting field lay between her and the nearest building, the earth newly turned and soft.

“You’re not going to cross that, are you?” Evay asked. “Because there are about a dozen windows or streets some Kalesh soldier could see you from, and getting dragged into the square feels like a closer look than you really want.”

“I thought I’d step across,” Melia said. “You coming?”

Evay raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to step over that distance? You almost fell just stepping down from the rocks yesterday.”

Melia peered across the field. “That smaller alley between those two houses, I think.”

“You’d be better off aiming for that flat porch,” Evay said. “The alley is too shadowed to see good details.”

The porch in question stuck out on the second story of a taller building, and the early sunlight highlighted the rough wooden boards.

Melia focused on how the light hit the wood, how the curtains in the open window along the building were drawn out, fluttering in the morning breeze.

She reached for the porch and pulled it toward her, taking a step and landing on the rough wood with a gust of wind that blew the curtains back inside.

The wave of dizziness hit, and the entire porch shifted to the side, the thin railing drawing suddenly closer.

There was a soft breath of air as Evay also stepped and appeared at Melia’s side, grabbing her arm and pulling her upright.

“Maybe stepping to a high surface wasn’t the best idea,” Evay said, keeping her hand on Melia’s arm.

The world slowly settled down until the porch was steady beneath Melia’s feet. “Thank you.”

“When you saved my life in that river,” Evay said, “I didn’t expect the blood debt to require me to save you from yourself quite so often.”

Melia drew in a deep breath, shaking off the last of the dizziness. “It’s your fault, really. If you hadn’t taught me to step, these things wouldn’t happen.”

“If you would learn to do it well, these things wouldn’t happen, either,” Evay muttered. “You’re like a child constantly trying to step farther than you’re capable of.”

“Do you know any other humans who can do it?” Melia asked, moving to the edge of the porch.

“I refuse to use humans as a measuring stick.” Evay walked silently along with her. “There’s no reason to set the standard so low.”

Melia tilted her head. “The town has quieted.”

“That’s probably not good.” Evay nocked an arrow in her bow.

Melia did the same, then moved quickly down the stairs at the side of the porch. The street was empty, and they slipped behind the building into a narrow alley, sliding closer to the town square.

“…and the violence has done nothing but increase,” the captain was saying to the crowd.

He stood on a wide porch that covered the entire front of a large house, several steps above the level of the square. Melia studied his uniform. The red stripes on his sleeve said he was a first captain, although he was young for such a rank. Not too much older than her. Maybe twenty-five. His dark hair hung down loose around his face, and his neatly trimmed black beard gave his chin a squared-off look.

Melia squatted down in the corner of the alley, peering over a large crate. Two Kalesh soldiers dragged a man who hung limply between them into the square. They dropped him at the front of the crowd of townspeople who were corralled together.

“In many parts of the Empire,” the captain continued, his voice brusque, “the children attend Kalesh schools. They are taken—no, given the opportunity to go to larger cities, to attend schools where they learn history and geography, where they learn about more of the world than just the small corner they were born into.”

A woman at the edge of the crowd pulled her young son closer.

“So far, that opportunity hasn’t been extended to this edge of the realm. But the Emperor has grown concerned about the safety of his children here. If this land isn’t safe for grown soldiers, it is certainly not safe for our youngest, most vulnerable citizens.”

The threat hung in the air over the silent crowd.

“The coward who is known as the Ghost of the White Wood is a hindrance to the peace that the Empire is attempting to create.” He gave the crowd a long, piercing look. “And this supposed Ghost has been busy around here.”

He motioned to the side of the stairs, where the lord from yesterday’s carriage stood, looking calm and noble now that he was surrounded by Kalesh soldiers. He was dressed in a long, green Kalesh robe with a glittering silver dragon embroidered up the side. A matching wide silver belt was tied around his paunch. “Lord Ferr was accosted just yesterday by a band of rabble shouting about the Ghost of the White Wood.”

“Yes, Captain Bastian,” the lord called out. “My men were ambushed and murdered, my possessions stolen. I barely escaped with my life.”

There was a spattering of scoffing in the crowd.

“Looks like we didn’t steal all of Lord Ferr’s clothes,” Melia said.

Evay nodded.

“I know that among the common folk,” Captain Bastian said quietly, “criminals like this Ghost are admired, even revered, but I can assure you that these attacks do nothing beyond endangering your towns. The Emperor desires peace in his realm. When troublemakers like the Ghost are allowed to roam free, they do not just harm Kalesh soldiers, whom you might think are your enemy. These rebels harm you. They make the land dangerous for your children. They breed distrust and enmity between yourselves and the Empire, who desires only to protect you. And they create a breeding ground for other criminals to lie and steal and murder at will.”

He raised his voice. “It is not the Empire who is your enemy. It is the outlaws who risk your lives and your homes and your safety, chasing after their own glory.”

Melia watched the crowd. A few of the men she recognized from the ambush yesterday were glowering at the captain. But other faces in the crowd were less hostile.

“They don’t really believe that, do they?” Evay asked quietly.

“Some of them want to, I’m sure,” Melia answered.

Captain Bastian paused, then gave the people of Hallen a somber look. “If you turn over the instigator of all this rebellion, the violence here can stop. If it continues, the Empire will merely send more and more soldiers to your region, restricting your freedom and eroding the trust that should exist here.”

“They claim they’ll send more,” Melia said. “In reality, they’ll send a trifling number.” She shook her head. “Two hundred men and Captain Bastian, who’s here to chat us all to death. This is insulting, that’s what it is.”

“Today,” Bastian said, “the general I serve is here for one thing. The Ghost.”

Melia straightened. “They sent a general?”

“I wonder which one,” Evay said.

“General Hiy is buried in the fighting to the south, and Birion’s been on that crusade in the northeast forever. There haven’t been any other generals in this region for years.” Melia studied Bastian with more interest.

“I hate when you get that look,” Evay said.

“We’ll just trail him when he leaves. Find out where this general is. Nothing dangerous.”

Bastian leaned easily against the column next to him on the porch. “This town has information about the Ghost of the White Wood. Trust me that it will be better for you if you cooperate sooner rather than later. If I am convinced that this territory is not a safe place for children, I will include that in my report.”

The square was quiet.

“Someday,” Evay said, “someone is going to give you up. Especially if it’s for something like saving their children.”

“They can’t. They don’t know who I am or where I am.”

“Someday, someone might figure it out.”

“Then I’ll have you to protect me.”

“Against a hundred Kalesh soldiers?”

“Why not?”

“I don’t have a hundred arrows.”

“They wouldn’t kill me here. They’d arrest me and drag me back somewhere more populated for a farce of a trial so they could discredit me and execute me publicly. You’d have plenty of time for a heroic rescue—”

“I am the Ghost of the White Wood,” a man’s voice called out.

A ripple went through the crowd, and Bastian pushed off the column. “Come forward,” he commanded.

There was movement in the crowd, and Tom the cobbler walked brazenly toward the stairs.

Melia swore.

Evay shifted her grip on her bow.

Bastian walked down the steps as the cobbler approached. Melia searched Tom with her eyes but saw no sign of a weapon.

“I’m the Ghost of the White Wood,” Tom said loudly, standing tall in front of the captain, “and I’m here to say that your words of peace are hollow. Your soldiers are vicious and ruthless, your laws heartless. You destroy the land that you conquer, crushing the people’s hearts and dreams. You murder the innocent and steal the possessions of those weaker than you whom you claim to protect. You’re a disease on this world, and you should be cut out and burned in the fire.”

“For a cobbler,” Evay said quietly, “he gives a decent speech. I like him.”

“You realize he’s human?”

“Maybe he has some elvish blood.”

“I think we’re going to get the chance to follow them and do that daring rescue.”

“Down with the Emperor!” Tom yelled, turning his back to Bastian to face the people in the square. “Down with the—”

Bastian stepped forward and yanked Tom’s head back.

A knife flashed in the sunlight as the Kalesh slashed it across the cobbler’s throat.

Melia lurched forward, and Evay clamped down on her arm, keeping her in the shadows.

Tom toppled forward and fell face-first in the dirt. A wide red pool spread beneath him.

The townspeople shifted. What had been restless distrust toward the Kalesh turned to something uglier.

Melia’s gaze stayed locked on the still form of the cobbler sprawled in the square.

Bastian flicked some blood off his hand and climbed the steps again. He turned to face the square with an impassive face. “The Ghost of the White Wood is a woman.”

Melia snapped her gaze to him.

“I will not tolerate lies.” Bastian held the bloody knife at his side. “It seems I was wrong about this town. I thought you were a people who could be reasoned with.”

Melia’s eyes were drawn back to the cobbler. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bastian motion to one of his soldiers. The man walked to the crowd and grabbed a young woman, dragging her toward the captain.

She screamed and pulled against him. One of the men from the town pushed forward, but a soldier slammed the hilt of his sword into the man’s head, and he crumpled.

“Until someone tells me otherwise,” Bastian said, watching dispassionately as the woman was hauled to the foot of the stairs, “I will assume that the Ghost of the White Wood is here.” He looked back at the crowd. “Understand that if the only way to stop this rebel is to execute every woman in this town, I find that an acceptable price. There will be peace in this region. I will not stand by and let one woman bring suffering to so many.”

The young woman cowered at the foot of the stairs, and Bastian looked at the crowd expectantly.

Melia shifted.

“Don’t,” Evay said flatly.

“His knife is going to be a problem,” Melia said.

“Not if you stay here.”

Melia focused on the porch directly in front of Bastian.

Evay swore. “It’s too far!”

“Just take care of the knife.” Melia stood, trying to ignore the string of elvish curses coming from Evay as the elf stepped next to her and raised her bow.

“He may just slit your throat, too,” Evay warned.

Melia set her own bow down and dropped the quiver to the ground. “Not if he believes I’m the Ghost.”

Evay let out an irritated grumble. “If he takes you out of here in a carriage, I won’t be able to see you.”

“I don’t see a carriage.”

“I won’t even be able to cover you well if you’re too far away. And we both know you’re not great at stepping. What if you need to escape?”

“I’ll have to rely on my meager human skills, I suppose.” Melia pulled a small knife out of her belt. “You don’t have to come.”

Evay swore again, some elvish word Melia didn’t recognize. “I’m not leaving you to your meager human skills.”

“I appreciate that.” Melia focused on the wood of the porch, the grain worn smooth by thousands of footsteps. The way the sunlight slanted down onto it, warming the front edge.

She stretched her fingers toward the porch. Next to her, Evay’s bow let out a soft twang. The arrow whistled toward Bastian, and Melia pulled the porch to herself.

She took a step.

Her foot landed on the smooth wood of the porch, directly in front of Bastian. The gust of wind that came with her blew his hair back from his face.

Evay’s arrow sliced through the space between them, cracking into the blade of Bastian’s knife, knocking it out of his hand. The knife and the arrow tumbled into the corner of the porch.

Melia planted her feet and grabbed a fistful of Bastian’s shirt with one hand. She reached up and pressed the edge of her knife against his neck with the other before the wave of dizziness hit. She locked her gaze on his wide, dark-brown eyes, focusing on staying upright.

Bastian froze, looking down into Melia’s face, and the square fell silent in shock.

The dizziness faded, and Melia leaned closer. “You shouldn’t have killed the cobbler.”

3

Every muscle in Bastian’s body was tense as he gauged Melia. His chin was lifted away from the knife at his throat. He was tall, and she could see the pale skin of his neck usually hidden by his beard. He stood perfectly still, his hands empty at his sides.

When she didn’t immediately slit his throat, a small smile curled the edge of his mouth. “So you are here.”

The soldiers around the square shifted, the closest ones drawing their swords and edging nearer. Bastian waved them back with his hands.

“That was quite an entrance,” he said quietly. “I was going to require some sort of proof that you really are the Ghost, but I suppose the fact that Lord Ferr is hiding behind his guards at least proves you were with the attack on his carriage yesterday.” He gave her a calculated look. “The stories about you may not be as exaggerated as I’d thought.”

“Get your soldiers out of this town,” Melia said, her voice loud enough to be heard by the townspeople and the soldiers. “Leave these people alone, and I will come with you.”

Bastian let out a snort of amusement, his breath blowing in her face. “Predictable. But I accept.”

He gave a slight nod to a soldier standing at the side of the steps, and the man called out orders. Soldiers around the square backed away from the crowd and moved toward the main road, falling into ranks.

Melia kept the knife at Bastian’s neck. “Are you going to slit my throat the moment I give you the chance?”

Bastian gave the slightest shake of his head. “You’re far too valuable to kill in some backwoods village. I have orders to bring you safely to General Turrn at the crossroads. What he will do with you there, I don’t know. Nor do I care.”

Melia stared at him, trying to keep her hand steady.

General Turrn. The Emperor’s youngest son.

“Predictable,” she said, keeping her voice even, “but I accept.”

She stepped back, dropping her hand. Flipping the knife over, she handed Bastian the hilt.

He took it, his eyes searching her face. “If you do anything troublesome on the way to the general—or if whoever shot that arrow at me does anything troublesome—I will take out my irritation on this town.”

She gave him a flat look. “I should have saved calling you predictable for now.” She held her hands out for him to bind them. “I told you I would come with you. I’m not Kalesh. I keep my word.”

He held her gaze. “Everyone is Kalesh. I’ve never met a single person who isn’t. At least not for long.” He reached out his hand toward Lord Ferr. “Give me your belt.”

“This is silk!” Ferr objected.

Bastian kept his hand out, not bothering to look at the lord. Ferr huffed, untied the sash around his waist, and stepped only close enough to hand it to Bastian before backing up again. Bastian tied it quickly around Melia’s wrists. She held back a grunt of pain as the silk dug into her skin.

The captain made a gallant gesture down the steps. “Legendary outlaws first.”

#

The soldiers marched along the wooded road out of Hallen, back toward the crossroads where they’d intersect the larger highway leading into the distant heart of the Empire. The rhythmic pounding of their feet on the dark dirt thudded like the heartbeat of some huge creature. Traveling near the middle of the long procession alongside Bastian, Melia’s own feet fell into step with them. Lord Ferr huffed along behind them.

The road wasn’t ideal. The trees were far enough away that it would take two long steps to reach them. Her first would leave her a dizzy, obvious target in the wide-open field, only halfway to the forest. If she could manage a quick second step through the wave of dizziness, she’d be so disoriented when she reached the woods, she’d be lucky to stay standing.

“Do you have a name?” Bastian asked. “Or am I just to call you Ghost?”

“Ghost has a nice ring, but my name is Melia. And you’re Captain Bastian, if the noble Lord Ferr can be believed.”

He nodded.

“You’re awfully young for a first-rank captain,” she said. “Which means either your father was very, very wealthy, or you’re good at what you do. Judging by the fact that you spent a few minutes gauging the town of Hallen, warming them up to the idea of losing their children to see if they’d respond violently, I’d say you’re the sort of man who grew up figuring things out for himself instead of expecting everything to be given to him. I’d guess you worked for those little red stripes on your sleeve.”

Bastian frowned and took in Melia’s clothes. “You’re awfully young, and awfully female, for a renowned insurgent.”

“People grow up fast when the Empire comes. Even the women.” She gave Bastian a calculating look. “This is a very good day for you, isn’t it?”

Bastian glanced into the woods. “How’s that?”

“What will the reward be for bringing in the Ghost of the White Wood?” Melia caught movement deep in the trees past Bastian. The russet of Evay’s hair and a glimpse of a white bow in her hand. The second bow was on her back. “They won’t make you a general, of course. But a colonel, possibly. Because we know the Empire rewards those who serve blindly.” Melia refocused on Bastian. “Which brings me to the one question I always have for people like you but almost never get to ask. How do you live with yourself?”

“My conscience is clean,” Bastian said simply. “I’m not the one ambushing carriages and murdering soldiers.”

“It doesn’t ruffle your conscience to murder every woman in a town to find me?”

“Ah,” Bastian said slowly, running his fingers through his beard. “I don’t expect you to understand that necessity. If the rumors are to be believed, you’ve carried your little rebellion around most of this territory. Burning outposts, destroying the structures at the quarry, being a general nuisance to both the Empire and the local people. But I can’t imagine there’s anything in your experience that would allow you to truly grasp the complexity of smothering a rebellion as inflammatory and insidious as what you’re attempting here.”

“No, I don’t grasp the sort of cowardice that would lead a man to knowingly murder innocent women. I don’t understand the stupidity of hurting and killing people and then expecting them not to retaliate.”

“The point is,” he said as though speaking to a child, “that a rebellion is like a spark getting thrown into a haystack. Everything is calm and people are living and the Empire is working, then someone calls themselves the Ghost and starts attacking outposts and stirring up the mob of common folk. Do you have any idea how fast that violence can spread? How many innocent lives would be lost if that happened?”

“Innocent lives? Like Tom? The cobbler you murdered in the square? Because he had the audacity to be angry over the fact that four of your soldiers got drunk in a local tavern, started a fight, and shoved his wife, the barmaid, into the stone mantel, crushing her skull. They dragged her body out behind the tavern and left her in the mud.”

Bastian raised an eyebrow. “Am I now responsible for the actions of soldiers who weren’t even under my command?”

Melia raised her bound hands and pointed a finger at Bastian. “No, you’re responsible for killing Tom.”

“The man was calling for the overthrow of the Emperor. It is my job to quell the sparks of rebellion here.” He met her gaze squarely. “Do you think that cobbler was looking for anything besides death?”

Melia’s jaw clenched, but she didn’t answer.

“Shall we compare how many men we are responsible for killing?” Bastian continued. “From what I hear, you have killed dozens of soldiers, most of whom were merely doing their job. And let’s not forget the story that gained you fame in the first place, the assassination of the Emperor’s nephew, Prince Orenn.”

“Assassination? The Emperor’s sniveling nephew was ordering the murder of a two-year-old boy who’d walked into the street, just because it had made Orenn’s horse shy to the side. Would you have stood by and let that happen?” She paused. “Never mind, you work under General Turrn, doing nothing to stop his atrocities. You’re the sort of soldier who would have carried out Orenn’s order in the face of the most basic human decency, aren’t you?”

Bastian’s brow creased. “You shot Orenn and his six guards from a rooftop.”

“Would it have been better if I’d tried it from street level among a crowd?”

“No.” Bastian let out a short laugh. “I’m saying that a planned assassination usually comes from the high ground. If you’re so innocent, why were you on the rooftop in the first place?”

“Oh, I went to the rooftop to kill Orenn and his men. But not until he threatened the boy.”

Bastian studied her for a moment. “I didn’t believe the rumors about you. Common folk are always making their heroes out to be so fantastical.”

“What rumors are those?”

“You are part elf. Your arrows never miss.” He paused. “That they call you the Ghost because you can move instantly from place to place.”

“I am not part elf,” Melia said. “My arrows miss every time I aim poorly, and sometimes when I aim well. And I don’t think I need to address the final rumor with you.”

“How did you do that? I was watching the square. You weren’t there…and then you were.”

Motion in the woods past Bastian caught her eye.

She saw Evay again, and behind her, something else moved.

Another elf.

Melia’s steps stuttered, and she glanced over to the forest on her side of the road. Three more shapes moved through those trees.

She pulled her eyes back forward. Evay was with other elves?

The shock of that was instantly displaced by something far more troubling. If Melia had seen five elves, there were certainly many more that she hadn’t seen. The Kalesh soldiers marching around her suddenly looked terribly vulnerable.

She stretched her fingers and gave Evay the signal to hold. For a breath, she saw the elf clearly, next to a tree deep in the woods, her face set in a frown.

Signing their word for general was impossible with Melia’s hands bound the way they were.

Big fish, she signed instead. Ahead.

Evay’s frown didn’t relent, but she faded back into the woods.

“Maybe you’re not as observant as you think you are,” she said to Bastian.

“I’m fairly certain I can recognize when a dizzy woman appears out of nowhere in front of me.” Bastian glanced past her. “What do you see in the woods?”

“Trees. Why, what do you see?”

“Your rebel friends aren’t planning some ill-advised ambush, are they?”

“I don’t really have rebel friends,” Melia answered. “Wherever I go in the Empire, I come across people whom you’ve hurt. You’ve murdered their families. You’ve taken their land. You’ve stolen the resources their towns have lived off for years.”

“And when you find these people, you lead them in rebellion.”

“No. I do offer some ideas on the best way to carry out the plans they already have. You know that it’s not every man who can pull off a good ambush.”

“Or every woman.”

She smiled at him. “How exactly did you know I was a woman? As far as I knew, no one had figured that out before.”

Bastian peered past her. “There is something in the woods. I saw someone.”

“You’re not nervous about an ambush here, are you?” she asked lightly. “Because the trees are too far back from the road. Even the common folk wouldn’t be stupid enough to ambush a hundred Kalesh soldiers across the open ground. I mean, to pull off an ambush like this, you’d need, what? Fifty first-rank Kalesh archers?”

Bastian shook his head. “More to ensure a victory.”

“I agree,” Melia said. “Of course, you could just use a couple dozen elven archers.”

Bastian’s gaze snapped to the woods. “The elves have no quarrel with us.”

“Then why do you look so nervous?”

Bastian put his hand on the hilt of his sword and took a step closer to Melia.

“I would not do anything that looks like you’re threatening me,” she said quietly.

He pulled his hand away from his sword and turned to a soldier behind him. “Tell the men to be alert for signs of ambush.”

The soldier saluted and ran toward the front of the line.

Melia smiled. “Do you think that will make a difference?”

“What is your game here?” he demanded, keeping his eyes on the woods. “Why did you give yourself up to me?”

“Saving the women of Hallen from being murdered wasn’t enough of a reason? Or keeping their children from being abducted by the Empire?”

“We’re far from the town. Why haven’t you had the elves attack?”

Melia looked up the line of black-clad soldiers. “Would you believe that I don’t want to see these men killed?”

“No,” he said bluntly.

“How many of these men came from towns like Hallen?” she asked. “How many were conscripted when the Empire took over their homes? Or were taken from their parents as children to be raised by the military? My quarrel isn’t with them.”

“Then why did you kill six of them yesterday in an ambush?”

“The only thing I killed yesterday was a horse’s harness strap.”

Ahead of them, the crossroads came into view. A small inn and tavern sat at the intersection of Hallen’s road and the larger highway that ran toward the rest of the Empire. Spread out in neat lines on the far side of the highway were a hundred Kalesh army tents.

The soldiers ahead of them marched toward the tents. Bastian motioned for several men to follow him. He took Melia’s arm and, with an apprehensive look at the forest, veered away from the main column, heading toward a set of larger tents near the center of the camp.

“How can you serve a man like Prince Turrn?” Melia asked as he led her down a wide dirt avenue lined with tents. “The man massacres towns as often as other men eat a meal.”

“I don’t serve any man,” Bastian said, “I serve the Empire.”

“Which Prince Turrn may one day rule. Assuming he kills off his two older brothers, which we’re all surprised he hasn’t done yet. I suppose I see the draw of serving the man who will be Emperor, regardless of the horrors he asks of you.”

“My orders from General Turrn were to raze any town that I suspected of harboring you,” Bastian said stiffly. “I chose, instead, to draw you out with some easy bait and narrow my search to a single town. Which, you will notice, I did not raze.”

Melia glanced at him. “That is true. But what if I hadn’t given myself up to you?”

“Bastian!” a man barked, striding up to them. “This is the Ghost of the White Wood? A woman?” He was tall and thin, with pale skin, his beard and hair short and severe, as black as his black uniform.

“Yes, Colonel Sart,” Bastian said, snapping off a salute. “I assume General Turrn is in his tent?”

“Of course, but I’ll take her from here.” The colonel grabbed Melia’s arm and pulled her away from Bastian.

“Sir,” Bastian objected, “I believe she’s still dangerous—”

“She is unarmed, correct?” Sart demanded.

“Yes, sir, but I believe she may have companions in the woods.”

Colonel Sart snorted. “We patrol the woods, Captain. I don’t think any commoners are a threat to us.”

“But, sir—”

“There are two hundred soldiers around us, Captain. Unless you’re going to tell me she really is a ghost, I think I can safely take one woman to the general.”

Bastian’s lips twitched, and he visibly worked to keep his tone even. “There were some…puzzling aspects to her actions.”

Sart raised an eyebrow. “For example?”

Bastian straightened his shoulders. “She appeared to move with inexplicable speed.”

The colonel looked at him for a moment, then a sneer curled up the corner of his mouth. “I’ll keep a firm grip on her. And I’ll be sure to share with the general that the fantastical tales surrounding her are influencing even the officers in our ranks who never outgrew their common upbringing.”

A flicker of something bordering on hatred flashed in Bastian’s eyes, but he answered in a controlled voice. “I’ll accompany you to give my report.”

“No need.” Sart turned away. “I’ll make sure the general hears everything you had to say.”

4

Colonel Sart’s fingers dug into Melia’s arm, and she tried to shift, but he pulled her forward, striding toward a large tent near the center of the camp. The perfectly straight lines of soldiers’ tents spread out around Melia, covering a dauntingly large area. Past the last tents stretched open grassland peppered with guards until it reached the forest.

It was near midday, and the sunlight poured down on the camp and the fields and the trees. If anything moved in the forest, she couldn’t see it from this distance.

Melia dragged her attention back to the camp. She’d come too far now to waste time focusing on the forest.

Colonel Sart pushed her into the largest tent, and she stepped into almost utter blackness.

“General Turrn,” Sart said, snapping his hand up in a salute, “the rumors are true. We’ve captured the Ghost of the White Wood.”

As Melia’s eyes adjusted to the dimness of the tent, she could see a man sitting behind a wide desk. A lantern sat next to him, illuminating a map and a pile of papers.

Colonel Sart shifted his grip to Melia’s shoulder and shoved her down, driving her to her knees before the prince.

Prince Turrn slowly raised his eyes to look at Melia, and they glittered in the dim light. “This?”

“Yes, sire.”

“Are you sure?”

“Captain Bastian is.”

The prince looked Melia over. “This is what I’ve been chasing for years?”

“Incompetently,” Melia said, meeting the prince’s gaze. “You’ve always been at least three steps behind, and you know almost nothing about me. Captain Bastian is the first Kalesh officer to discover I’m a woman. You never even put together that I’m not from the White Wood.”

“Then maybe we’ve found the wrong person—”

“If you had,” she interrupted, years of fury rising up in her, “you’d have realized I have an elven bow made from an elven Frost Pine. The wood is white as bone.” She leaned toward the prince, ignoring the pain of Colonel Sart’s fingers digging into her shoulder. “You took troops to scour the White Wood, wasting months searching that area, and all those people—the people you massacred—had nothing to do with me.”

Prince Turrn shrugged. “You should have been clearer with your name. For instance, I’m Imperial Prince Turrn Pherris Consur of Cartelutzia. Because my holdings are in Cartelutzia. If you weren’t from the White Wood, you should have made that clear.”

“Whatever you’re known by now,” Melia said, “history will remember you as Prince Turrn of the Northwest Crossroads. After all, defeated generals are usually remembered by the place they died.”

Colonel Sart snorted. “Do you have a hidden rebel army in the trees like Captain Bastian says?”

“No.” Melia kept her eyes on the prince. “I’m going to kill the general myself.”

Prince Turrn let out a laugh and leaned back in his chair. “If you really were the Ghost of the White Wood, I might double the guards on my tent tonight, but right now I’m just wondering if I shouldn’t kill you here and save myself the embarrassment of dragging you back to my brother.” He waved a hand at Colonel Sart and picked a paper off his stack. “Get her out of here while I decide what to do. And get me a list of the towns in this area. Burning a few of them might make the locals offer up information about the real Ghost.”

The colonel snapped off a salute and pulled Melia to her feet.

Melia took a step toward the prince. “I killed your cousin Prince Orenn as he was riding on the small avenue between the jewelers’ district and the silk merchants. He had six guards with him. Five very large, one smaller who rode at his shoulder. It was a clear afternoon, and the shadows came over the goldsmith’s shop, which is why I picked the roof across the street.”

Prince Turrn’s eyes locked onto hers, and his fingers curled, crumpling the paper.

“The prince’s men stood bravely,” Melia continued, “attempting to protect the sniveling excuse for a man. The only challenge in killing Orenn himself, after he wet himself and fell shrieking from his horse, was being careful not to shoot the woman he hid behind. But he was too stupid to figure out where I was. I killed him with a clean shot in the back when he turned away from me.”

The colonel pulled Melia’s shoulder back, spinning her toward him before he slammed his fist into her jaw. Light burst across her vision, and she reeled over. Sart’s iron grip on her arm was the only thing that kept her upright.

Melia’s head spun, and blood seeped into her mouth from around one of her teeth. She blinked up to find Prince Turrn leaning on his desk, glaring at her, his lips white with fury.

Something about his expression struck Melia as familiar. She’d seen that face, younger but just as enraged.

She spit blood out on the floor of his tent. “You were there,” she said, wiping the back of her hand across her lips, “farther up the street. Those were your guards who rushed down to help.”

Prince Turrn’s voice was low and vicious. “I would kill you this moment, very slowly and very painfully and with a great deal of pleasure, if the Emperor didn’t want to do it himself.” He looked at Colonel Sart. “Get her out of my sight, and assemble a hundred men to escort her south. We leave at dawn.”

Colonel Sart saluted and turned, dragging Melia with him, the motion making her head spin.

“What town was she found in?” Prince Turrn asked.

Sart paused. “I’m not sure, sire. It was Captain Bastian who found her.”

“Find out, and burn the town to the ground. No survivors.”

#

Melia sat in a dark tent, shifting her back against the post, pulling at the bonds around her wrists for the hundredth time. It had been hours since her hands had been tied behind her back, and her shoulders ached almost as much as her jaw, which felt decidedly wrong. As though it had been hit with something very hard.

She moved it gingerly, poking her tongue at one of her teeth that felt a little loose and looking out the front of the tent. The door was pinned open, and she could see another tent half a dozen paces away, across a trampled dirt path. Soldiers’ gear was piled in front of it—two packs, two sleeping rolls, two swords, and two daggers.

The guard stationed inside Melia’s tent stood at the opening, carrying on a low conversation with the guards posted out front, glancing back at her only occasionally.

“Evay?” Melia said, keeping her voice low. Her guard didn’t give any sign of hearing. “After all these years, I still don’t know if you mean it when you say you can hear a pine needle fall in the forest, or if that’s just some poor elvish attempt at humor. But if you can hear me, Prince Turrn is here.” She paused, imagining the combination of interest and instant disapproval Evay’s face would register at that news. “And you know that this is a sword worth falling on.”

Melia glanced at her guards, but they took no notice of her. “We both know,” she continued quietly, “that you paid off the blood debt years ago. I pulled you out of a river, and you’ve saved my life at least twenty times since then.”

Outside, the first star glimmered over the tops of the nearest tents. “We both also know this camp is too big for me to step out of. But finishing things here and taking Turrn with me…this is a good end.”

The tent around her felt empty. “I know the years you and I traveled together are short for an elf, but they were not for me. Not only would I have died dozens of times without you by my side, I’d also have lost hope long ago.

“I really hope you’re hearing this, because I’ve never once been able to say so much without you pointing out how human I’m being. It’s refreshing.

“And I hope you can hear me say thank you, Evay. You’ve been a sister, and a friend, and I definitely love you more than I’ve ever loved a tree. But in case you need to hear it, your debt to me is long repaid. This, tonight, is my choice, and I do not want you to stop it. Thank you for coming this far with me. I…I honestly have no idea why there are elves with you today, but I hope it’s a good sign for you that they’re here.”

Her words faded into nothing in the empty tent, and Melia pushed away the hollow, lonely feel of it. She opened her mouth to say something final to Evay, but her throat tightened at the thought.

She took a deep breath and turned to her more pressing challenges. Turrn’s tent was several tents down. Too far away for a single step, especially when she couldn’t see where she was going.

But that was all right. She needed to make one stop first.

A campfire flickered outside, illuminating the tent across the dirt road with its pile of soldiers’ gear. One of the daggers was easily accessible, leaning against the side of the pile. It was longer than her own knife, but it would have to do.

She focused on the ground just at the door of the other tent, studying the way the firelight hit the dirt—

A man moved into her line of sight, and the soldiers outside snapped to attention.

Bastian strode into her tent carrying a lantern. He sent away the soldier who’d been stationed inside, commanding him to close the tent flap behind him. The captain set the lantern on a crate and paced back and forth, watching her with hard, probing eyes.

She stared at the closed tent flap completely blocking her view of the next tent. “Good evening, Bastian,” she said, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice. “Did you come to set me free?”

“What are you doing?” he demanded. “You could leave, couldn’t you? And I know your elven friends are still here, even if Colonel Sart is too stupid to know it.” He continued pacing. “Are you trying to kill the Emperor? Do you think Turrn will bring you to him? If so, you’re overestimating your importance to the Empire. You’ll be brought to the capital, locked in a cell, and most likely starve to death before you’ll ever get your hearing in front of the Emperor.”

“Bastian,” she said easily, “if you came to cheer me up, you’re failing.”

He stepped closer until he stood right in front her, his gaze cold and piercing. “What are you doing?”

The lantern light glinted off the grip of her knife, still tucked into his belt.

She shifted her feet under herself and shimmied herself up the tent post until she was standing, her face only inches from his.

He took a step back and set his hand on the hilt of his sword.

She smiled at him. “Turns out I was waiting for you.” The lantern lit the floor behind him, showing the dusty footprints on the canvas. She focused on the absolute stillness of the air in the tent.

Her hands felt numb behind her back, but she stretched out her fingers and imagined pulling that piece of the world toward her.

Purposefully leaving the cords around her wrists behind, she took a step and stood behind Bastian with a quiet puff of air.

He drew in a sharp breath.

Pain shot through her stiff shoulders, and she pulled her arms from behind her back and grabbed the knife from his belt, blinking away the very slight dizziness from such a short step.

She jabbed the point of the blade into his back, cutting into his uniform and feeling it bite into flesh. “Quiet,” she whispered. “Hand away from your sword, please, Captain.”

Bastian released the hilt of his sword and held his hands up. “You won’t get away with whatever you’re planning,” he hissed. “The camp is on high alert. General Turrn has tripled the guard around his tent. You can’t even kill me quietly enough that the soldiers outside won’t hear.”

“I don’t want to kill you, Bastian. I have a job for you.”

He paused. “What job?”

“Colonel Sart has been tasked with discovering what town you found me in and burning it to the ground, along with all its inhabitants. I want you to stop that.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Give Sart new fake orders. Kill him. I don’t care. Will you do it?”

Bastian stood silently, his hands still held out from his sides.

“Is this really that hard a decision, Captain? You promise to save the lives of several hundred people, and you get your own life in return.” Every muscle in his body was tense. “Unless you’re too fond of the colonel to act against him.”

“Sart is a bloodthirsty coward,” he growled.

“Then stop him,” she said simply.

He stood still for another breath, then gave a curt nod. “You have my word. I’ll take care of Sart and his orders.”

“Excellent.” Melia glanced back at the closed tent flap. She pictured the piece of ground outside again, next to the pile of gear, hoping her mental picture was close enough to reality.

Bastian shifted slightly, and she pressed the point of the knife into him.

“Don’t move, Captain.” She reached her other hand toward the front of the tent. “I do want to thank you, though. I never could have made it this far without you.”

She focused on the ground outside and started to pull it toward her.

Her knife wavered, and Bastian spun, drawing his sword.

A quiet rustle rippled through the tent.

Evay appeared at Melia’s shoulder, the lantern light drawing her elven features into a savage fierceness. Her white bow was trained on Bastian. “She told you not to move, Captain.”

5

Bastian froze, his sword poised to swing at Melia.

Melia gave Evay an irritated look. “What are you doing here?” she said quietly. “What happened to I can hear a pine needle fall in the forest? You couldn’t even hear a single woman speaking in the middle of a camp of soldiers!”

“I heard you,” Evay said evenly.

Melia let her knife fall to her side. “But I told you not to come.”

“Which I disregarded.” The elf kept her arrow fixed on Bastian. “What exactly are you doing here?”

“I was getting my knife back because I don’t have my bow.”

Evay tipped her head toward the floor behind her, where a white bow and a quiver lay neatly on the canvas.

“Ah! Thank you!” Melia slid her knife into its sheath and stepped over to pick up her bow. The pale wood was warm against her hand as always, as though it had just been lying in the sun.

“Can I shoot this man?” Evay asked.

Melia slung the quiver into place on her back and pulled out an arrow, nocking it. “Please don’t.”

“He killed the cobbler.”

“I remember.” Melia stepped up next to Evay. “But he’s going to protect Hallen.”

Evay kept her arrow trained on the captain. “I liked the cobbler.”

Melia glanced at Bastian, who still held his sword up. “You should drop your sword, Captain. She’s looking for a reason to shoot you.”

“I already have a reason,” Evay said.

Bastian raised his other hand and slowly leaned over, dropping his sword on the tent floor.

“I need to get to Turrn,” Melia said to Evay. “But that’s the end of the road for me. I can’t step far enough to get out of here safely. Unless you brought some sort of elven escort.”

Evay shook her head. “Apparently they keep tabs on me and are here to make sure I don’t do anything overly aggressive toward the Kalesh. They think it would cause trouble if it became known that an elf assassinated a Kalesh general.”

“Oh.” Melia paused. “That’s less friendly than I was hoping.”

Evay shrugged, but her face was set in hard lines. “You don’t really expect them to ever welcome me back, do you?”

“Are they still here?”

The elf nodded. “They said they wouldn’t protect me if I decided to come in here, but if we needed it, they were willing to provide a diversion on the north side of camp.”

Melia raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s something, at least. If Turrn really has tripled his guard, we’ll need a diversion.”

“There were an awful lot of soldiers around that big tent down the way.” Evay tilted her head toward the tent flap. “Your other immediate problems are the two soldiers out front and our captain here.” She ran her gaze over Bastian. “Can I at least wound him?”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Melia admitted. “We can’t have you following us, Captain.” She held her arrow and bow with her left hand and pulled out her knife with her right. Stepping toward him, she raised the knife, aiming the hilt at his temple.

He lunged forward, grabbing her wrist.

She twisted her arm, and the tip of the knife slashed toward his face, slicing deep into his cheek, opening a gash from his temple to jawline.

Evay’s bow twanged, and an arrow lodged into Bastian’s thigh.

He let out a yell and stumbled back, falling to the floor.

The guards outside yanked the flap open and rushed in. Melia dropped her knife and spun, raising her bow. One of Evay’s arrows sank into the neck of the first guard. Melia’s took the second, lodging in his chest. He fell with his feet still outside the tent, the flap caught up in his legs.

Evay raised her bow, another arrow covering the door, while Melia grabbed the second guard and pulled his body far enough in for the flap to close.

Bastian let out a grunt of pain, and Melia glanced over at him. The cut on the side of his face was dripping blood down his chin, and the arrow in his leg quivered as his leg shook with pain.

“I was just going to knock you out,” Melia said, annoyed.

Evay walked over, looking contemptuously at the captain. “You should have let her. She’s always nicer than I am.” She reached down and twisted the arrow in Bastian’s leg.

The captain let out a cry of pain; then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he passed out.

“That was…not quiet,” Melia said. “About time for that diversion, I think.”

Evay lifted her face. “Pilennae,” she called, then moved to the tent flap and pulled it open a crack.

Melia followed. The night outside was quiet for a few breaths, then distant shouts rang out. Melia peered over the elf’s shoulder. Campfires lit the road outside with flickering light. It was late enough that there weren’t many soldiers on the road, except the dozen standing guard around Prince Turrn’s tent.

Over the tops of the tents, off toward the north end of camp, an orange glow rose. It widened quickly until the tops of flames could be seen over the nearby tents. A dark column of smoke billowed up, blocking out the northern stars.

“The Ghost!” someone shouted from far away. The cry was echoed by others. Shouts rang out in all directions, and soldiers came out of tents all along the road, then started running toward the fire.

“Now, to get to the general.” Melia peeked out of the tent flap. Someone came out of Turrn’s tent and shouted orders at the soldiers around it. They turned and ran toward the rapidly growing blaze. More guards ran out of the tent and brought horses up to the door, all of them facing away from the fire.

Melia smiled. “Even better. Our heroic general appears to be running away. Put out the lantern.”

In a moment, the lantern went out, dropping the tent into darkness. Melia tied the flap open and stood in the shadows just inside the door.

Down the street, Prince Turrn was scrambling onto his horse alongside Colonel Sart and half a dozen guards. The fire beyond them rose higher into the sky, and Melia caught the scent of smoke.

“The prince is mine,” Melia said, “and the colonel.”

Evay frowned. “That leaves only the guards.”

“There are six of them. That feels more than fair. And you’re not supposed to be killing any high-ranking Kalesh.”

The prince barked out an order, and two guards spurred their horses down the road toward Melia.

Sart fell in line, with Turrn just behind him.

“The prince will be the harder shot.” Evay said. “Nock your second arrow faster than you usually do, or he’ll be past you. If you take too long, I’m declaring him fair game.”

Evay stretched her fingers toward the tent across the road. In a breath, she appeared inside its doorway.

Melia stood inside her tent as the first guard passed between herself and Evay. When the second ran past, Melia stepped out into the road and raised her bow at Colonel Sart, who was riding toward her. His eyes widened, but her arrow sank into his chest before he cried out.

With a smooth motion, Melia nocked another arrow as Turrn’s horse ran closer.

“It’s her!” the prince cried, pointing at Melia, his eyes wild. “Kill her! Kill the Gho—”

Melia loosed her arrow. Turrn’s body jerked back as the arrow lodged in his chest. His horse raced on, passing her, and she turned, shooting another arrow into his back for good measure.

The guard riding behind Turrn let out a yell and raised his sword, aiming his thundering horse for Melia. She reached for another arrow, but he screamed and tumbled to the side with one of Evay’s lodged in his side. His body tangled in the reins as he fell, wrenching his horse around, blocking the narrow road and making the last three guards pull to a stop.

Melia shot past the panicked horse, and Evay’s arrows joined hers. One by one, the soldiers fell.

The first two guards wheeled around and started back toward them, swords out, only to meet two more arrows.

Melia lowered her bow and watched Prince Turrn’s horse draw to a stop several tents down. Slowly, the body of the prince slid off.

Evay strode across the road to join Melia. “You said I got all six guards.”

“You took too long, so I declared them fair game.” Melia pulled her eyes away from the dead prince and motioned Evay back into the tent where Bastian lay.

Evay followed her in. “What are you doing? Unless you’re really set on dying in this camp tonight, we should be on our way. Quickly.”

“Not without my knife,” Melia answered.

“You’ll never escape,” Bastian rasped from the floor. “The Empire will tear apart the north looking for you.”

“Tell them I’m leaving the north,” Melia said.

“They’ll chase you across the entire Empire.”

Melia glanced at Evay. “How do you feel about leaving the Empire?”

Evay looked in the direction of the huge fire the elves had started. “I have no reason to stay.”

Bastian gave a short laugh. “It’ll take you months even to get to the edge.”

“Then we’d better get moving.” Melia picked her knife up off the floor.

He shoved himself up onto his elbows, his face twisted in pain. “And what do I tell the Emperor? That I let the Ghost of the White Wood go?”

“If you value your career, I’d suggest you chase me.” She walked over to him and crouched down. “Don’t worry, I know the Empire is bad at tracking me. I’ll leave a wide trail out of the north so everyone will know I’ve left.”

She reached out with her knife. He tensed, but she merely wiped off the blade on his shirt before tucking it into the sheath at her belt. “With Turrn and Sart gone, I believe this camp is now under your control, Captain. Try to do something better with it than either of them did.”

He frowned at her. “Sart’s dead? I was looking forward to killing him myself.”

“That would have been bad for your career,” Melia pointed out.

“I’d have blamed it on you.” Bastian shifted and grunted in pain. “That man was a stain on the fabric of humanity.”

“Don’t worry,” Melia said, patting his unbloodied cheek. “There are a lot more stains in the Empire.” She gave him a smile. “Good luck with the chase, Captain, but I doubt we’ll see each other again.”

She walked back to the tent opening where Evay still stood.

“Which way?” the elf asked.

Melia nodded down the dirt road where soldiers were starting to gather along the side near the bodies of the prince and the colonel. “South. Look, they left us horses.”

“I think we can clear a path to them,” Evay said with a smile, nocking an arrow. “Along the right side looks easiest. Ready to run?”

Melia readied her own arrow and nodded. “Let’s wound instead of kill. Dead soldiers can’t report which way we went.”

The two of them stepped out into the road, bows raised. They released together, and two soldiers lingering along the right side of the street fell with arrows in their legs. Melia sprinted forward, Evay next to her, and they reached the milling, riderless horses before the soldiers understood what was happening.

Melia swung herself up into the saddle of one of the guard’s horses just as cries of “The Ghost!” rang out.

Evay mounted another and shot two men ahead of them. Melia urged her horse into a gallop, and Evay fell in next to her.

Soldiers surged after them on foot.

Melia and Evay raced through the camp, the commotion growing behind them as more joined in the chase. A few managed to mount horses and outpace the others.

“Still disappointed that the Empire isn’t taking enough notice of you?” Evay called.

“That depends entirely on how dedicated they are to this new search.” Melia glanced behind them and grinned. “So far, it looks promising.”

Epilogue

“They crossed the river just before dawn, Captain,” the first-rank cavalryman reported. “Lieutenant Dressen is no more than a few hours behind the Ghost. He expects to have her back in custody before sundown.”

Bastian dismissed the man with a curt nod. The motion sent a slice of pain along the stitches in his cheek. He shifted in the small chair at his desk, trying to find a more comfortable position, but the acrid herbs bandaging the wound in his thigh had barely dulled the pain.

He stared at the blank piece of paper he’d been avoiding on his desk, then moved it off his map and traced Melia’s progress again. He should wait until tonight to write this. Lieutenant Dressen was a competent man. If he caught her by sundown, Bastian would have at least one positive thing to put in the report that was going to end his career.

His eyes lingered on the thin line marking the road heading south from the river crossing. Would she let herself be caught, though? By Dressen? The question irritated him in a way he couldn’t quite pin down.

The doorway to his tent darkened, and Lord Ferr strode in with a smug smile. His robe was a rich blue, the embroidered dragon rendered in glittering hues of orange and yellow, as though it were made of fire.

“Come out of this depressing tent, Bastian,” Ferr said, squinting into the dimness. “This is a good day!”

Bastian gave the man a withering look. “We are responsible for letting the Emperor’s son be assassinated in his own camp.” He gestured to the paper on his desk. “How am I supposed to report that?”

Ferr set a bottle of Cartelutzian wine on top of the paper. “Done, Captain. The raven was sent half an hour ago. The Emperor will hear of it by late tomorrow, but I figured we could begin celebrating now.”

“Celebrating what?”

“Your promotion and my reward!” Ferr grabbed two goblets from a side table. “Your heroics are worth at least a colonelship.” He poured Bastian some wine and handed it over. “Drink up, man.”

Bastian set the cup down. “Explain yourself, Ferr. I am not feeling patient today.”

Ferr held up a finger for Bastian to wait and sipped his wine, letting out a pleased hum. “The Cartelutzians never disappoint.” He took one more drink before settling his large girth onto a nearby stool. “This situation here was so chaotic and tragic last night,” he said lightly, “I thought a full explanation, sent immediately, was the best course of action. No sense in letting the Emperor hear confusing, contradictory tales before he’s been convinced of the real one.”

Bastian frowned. “What did you tell him?”

“Merely the real story of what happened. You and I set a trap for the Ghost, despite having orders to do more reckless things by Prince Turrn, who had been growing rapidly more seditious and disrespectful in his conversations about the Emperor. My bravery in being bait, and your clever manipulation of the people of Hallen, convincing them to give you the Ghost of the White Wood, are worthy of song. But, when we returned to camp, Colonel Sart intercepted us and took the Ghost to the prince himself.”

Ferr stopped to enjoy a long drink.

Bastian, studied the man. His mind jumped ahead to where the story was headed. “You already sent this?”

The lord grinned and nodded. Bastian picked up his cup and took a long drink of his own.

“Now,” Ferr continued, “you and I had been apprehensive for some time about the prince’s worsening attitude, and so, once Turrn and Sart were through talking to the Ghost, you interrogated her and discovered that Prince Turrn had offered her freedom and wealth in return for assassinating the Emperor.”

Bastian raised an eyebrow.

“The details were unclear, but it involved a private audience with the Emperor, where she would magically escape her bonds. Appalled, but unsure of whom you could trust, you came to me. We decided that we should send a raven warning the Emperor before we did anything else, seeing as whatever move we made against the prince would probably mean our deaths. But before we could, Prince Turrn and Colonel Sart caused a fire to be set at the north end of camp as a distraction and tried to escape south on horseback with the Ghost.”

Ferr poured himself another glass. “Which is when you, brave Captain Bastian, attempted to stop them. You were able to shoot down the prince and the colonel. Their guards were executed immediately for treason.

“In the process, you were wounded, and the Ghost mysteriously disappeared. But, never one to give up, you organized a search immediately, and we are currently hot on her trail.”

Bastian set down his cup. “The Emperor will never believe that.”

“Of course he will. I have eighteen soldiers who gave me statements about the parts they witnessed. Granted, the night was chaotic, so it took a little help from me for them to piece together what they saw, but we have solid witnesses supporting our story. You’re set for a promotion, my boy, and I see the title to a stunning bit of coastal land in my future.”

Ferr rose and picked up the bottle of wine. “Stop sitting in here and fretting—I’ve got your official report half written as well. When it’s done, I’ll bring it by for your signature, and we’ll send it off. The story is rapidly circulating through the camp. I believe you’re being called Bastian of the White Wood. It has a heroic ring, does it not?”

Ferr strode out of the tent.

Bastian leaned back in his chair. His eyes drifted back to the map.

No, she wouldn’t let herself be caught. Not by Dressen. Bastian raised his goblet in a salute to the thin road on the map and drained the rest of the wine.

A Simple Thing

Bryce O’Connor

Entry I: 42nd of Autun, 658e.b.

Killing a man is a simple thing.

The act of murder, after all, requires little effort. In truth you need no more than a good blade and the resolve to finish what is started. A stomach for blood helps, as does a clever mind if you’re looking to get away with it, but in general, well… Killing a man is a simple thing.

Particularly for an individual as well versed in the act as I.

But everything has a beginning. Every person has a start to their story. For now I remember mine as vividly as a parent might recall the birth of their first child, though it is perhaps more accurate to make a comparison to the theft of some unfortunate’s maidenhood. It could be argued that both affairs result in one form of a bloody mess or another, but I loathe clichés as much as I loathe this illness of the mind that has driven me to record my recollections on a more permanent medium than memory.

Glad to see my thoughts wander even on paper…

Returning to the point. Regardless of the metaphor, I recall my first contract vividly. It’s believed I had fourteen summers at the time, perhaps less, and followed my second year of apprenticeship under Kingport’s most demanded killer. My master—whose face I still know but whose name I have long since lost to this cruel affliction—was not a fatherly man, but he was fair to me, sometimes even “good”. The contract was a gift, a commendation of survival. I wasn’t the first of my master’s protégés. I wasn’t even the first to make it two years. But the fact remained that I had made it, and this, I was told, put me in the minority and was well worthy of praise.

In short, I was deserving of the opportunity.

The job was to be a simple one, an in-and-out. No need to get rid of the body. No need to avoid a scene. Our employer, for reasons unknown to myself or my master—and equally unimportant—wanted only that a particular man be doing a lot less living in the not-too-distant future. I merely had to locate my walker—my target, my “dead man walking”—and end his life in any way I saw fit.

Simple. Easy. Quick.

I should have known I was fucked from the start.

Now, it needs be said that this would not be my first killing. Hell, this wouldn’t even be my first murder. But it would be my first in cold blood, the first death by my hands dispensed without thought or feeling, without emotion or judgment. I knew my master had doubts as to whether I could weather that burden in the moment, just as he knew I harbored the same reservations.

Thing is, if I failed…well…It was best not to think about it. My master had had other protégés, other apprentices, as I’ve said.

What I’ve failed to mention is the number of whom happen to be dead by his own hand…

Again, best not to think about it, and I had plenty on my mind to be getting on with. “Our hardest work comes not in the blow, but in the whetting of the blade,” another of my mentors—an old man we called simply the Fool—used to say. “Prepare. Plan. Plot. In doing these you will find the hallmarks of the assassin, the things that draw the final line between a true killer and the common butcher. Anyone can wield a sword, can hack at a shield until it splinters and breaks. It is only the assassin, however, who can slip a blade up the shield-bearer’s ass and convince him he swallowed it.”

In retrospect, this last bit of advice may have been given to me at a later time, under the influence of more wine than I care to admit to.

Still…it makes its point.

So prepare I did, and first came the obvious: I had to track down my walker.

Wex Arrun—the irony of recalling this man’s name amongst all those I’ve forgotten is not lost on me, I assure you—was a dockworker in the port district of Eastborough. Finding him wasn’t a hard job, in the end. Bald, burly, and bitter, with a cruel face and still crueler temperament, Arrun seemed to have a nasty reputation along the wharf, especially among the beggarfolk. This was most unfortunate for him, because the beggarfolk—with their eyes and ears in every shadowed alley and damp nook in the city—are the ones you want to treat best in a place like Kingport. They knew what I was, recognizing me from other jobs I’d followed my master on to watch and learn. Yet still they would have given me what I wanted on my walker for free, offering it up merely for the vengeance of old abuses.

Fortunately I wasn’t fool enough, even then, not to learn from the failure of others. I paid every tramp a copper, and two if they could offer me something novel. Within a week I knew Wex Arrun so well, all I would have had to do to take his place was grow six inches and shave my head. By the end of two, I might have gotten away without even that.

Too bad dock work never really caught my interest.

Once I had his habits down, I started planning, making a list of opportunities. He kept a shared room in one of the shabbier inns overlooking the port, the Three Old Sails. Striking while the walker sleeps would generally be ideal, but luck does not favor the wicked. I spent a rainy night hunkered down on the steep slate roof across from the room’s single small window, watching men come and go at all hours, working odd shifts or frequenting the dockside taverns later than might be advisable. There was no pattern, nothing predictable. My master could have pulled it off somehow, I was sure, but there was little chance I myself would be able to slip in and out without getting caught.

While I wasn’t worried about making a scene, I had no intention of being trapped in a cramped room with half a dozen angry dockworkers, each half again my size.

And so the inn was the first option to be scrapped.

Next came the thought of catching Wex on the job, but it wasn’t long before that idea went out the window, too. While it seemed almost a flawless opportunity—what with the bustling port and crowded fish markets I could try to lose myself in—something else the Fool had taught me kept tripping up my plans.

“A crowd is only good to you while you don’t stand out.”

The city’s central bazaar was one thing. Thousands on thousands of commonfolk, aristocrats, and nobles pouring in daily from every corner of Kingport and its closest territories. Never the same face. Never the same crowd. One could melt into the throngs as easily as a shadow swallowed by the night, vanishing without a trace.

Such was not the case along the harbor.

Eastborough was home to thousands, true enough, but fishermen knew fishermen like dockworkers knew other dockworkers. If anything went awry, if anyone had the opportunity to point me out, I would shine bright as a torch in the dark, alone in a crowd likely all too happy to see me caught.

Needless to say, the docks wouldn’t do. I had to find something else, something better.

His lovers’ apartments?

No good. There were three of them that I knew of, all with their own risks and challenges, and he never visited any particular woman on a predictable enough schedule to be of any value to me.

On his way to and from work, then?

Again, no. The Three Old Sails was barely a five-minute walk from his assigned jetty, following the busy harbor. It offered me neither the time nor the options I needed to risk an attempt.

Where he eats his meals? Where he collects his pay? Where he drinks and gambles with the other workers?

No, no, and no. He ate at the inn, collected his wages at work, and didn’t seem to have any friends to speak of. The port was no good. I had to find something else.

Then when does he leave? When does he travel out of Eastborough?

Almost never, he only went into the city to…to…

Oh.

Twice weekly, like clockwork, Wex Arrun trekked his way west into the hub of the city, following the same path every time. It took me an attempt or two to figure where he was going, slipping in and out of the crowds a few paces behind him as he twisted and turned along Kingport’s maze of thoroughfares, side roads, and alleyways. More than once I was tempted to cut him off at a corner and end it then and there, slipping my dagger into his belly and disappearing before anyone could register what had happened.

Whether fortunately or not, though, the Fool’s advice held me yet again. “Prepare. Plan. Plot.”

Too much could go sideways. Too many unfamiliar eyes. Too many variables.

In the end, I granted Arrun his life for a few more days, finally tailing him to an old building jutting wide and low off the south wall of the city. A battered wooden sign hung over the arched entry, carved into the shape of a water flower with slim iron words strung below it.

the lily’s den.

A bathhouse? Maybe this would be an opportunity…?

I waited outside for almost an hour. Yet another beggar won a few more coppers from me, offered if she temporarily vacated her crammed little corner beneath a rotting overhang directly across from the Den. Making myself small beneath the woman’s stained and molding blankets, I watched the comers and goers, counting off minutes in my head.

When Arrun reappeared, fresh and clean from what I imagined was a thorough and pleasant soak, I lifted myself from the shadows to tail him home again.

I returned to the Den repeatedly after that, paying my entry each time and being careful to match Arrun’s presence only some fraction of the days. Under the watchful eye of one attendant or another I stripped bare, wrapping myself in the provided towel before making my way to the main chambers and on to the smallest bath in the farthest corner of the room. It had a tone I liked, that place. Black tile gleamed on the floor and walls, shining in the dancing light of white candles lit moodily around the circumference of the room, or else clumped between the baths. The stone ceiling was dark as well, red cast in shadow by the low light of the guttering flames. After the bustle of the crowds outside, it was a pleasant experience. I remember wondering whether the staff would let me return if I committed the murder quietly enough.

Over the days I soaked for more hours than I cared to count in that water, taking in the structure in every detail, watching the people come and go. It was a public establishment, shared by both genders, and more than once I found myself somewhat distracted by glimpses of things rare enough at my age and in my lonely line of work. Older women trounced by without giving me a second glance, but there were girls as well, many much closer to me in years. I was a tall youth, strong and nimble from the hard months spent under my master’s tutelage. For a time I returned the smiles I got, even winking at the prettiest ones, making them blush and cover themselves with a giggle.

Each time, though, I was distracted a little less. Each time, my smile was more delayed, until before long all I saw again of the Den were its risks and opportunities.

I calculated everything, planning the moment from my shadowed little corner. The slickness of the tiled floor, the depths of the baths. The stone pillars that vaulted upward to support the arched ceiling. I studied the density of the wafting steams, thickest every quarter hour when manservants poured water over the hot iron braziers scattered around the room. I considered the strength of my towels and the heft of the wooden chairs tucked here and there along the wall, used by bathers looking for a reprieve from the heavy heat of the baths themselves.

Mostly, though, I considered my walker.

Every third day, Wex Arrun arrived so promptly two hours before sunset that you’d have thought he was on the king’s schedule. He would enter the main chambers, wrapped in a towel like any other patron, and disappear into the same private bathing room of the six available, two on each wall across and perpendicular from the entryway. While the length of his stays varied, he always remained more than a half-hour, giving me plenty of time to work with.

Same time, same place, same closed-off room.

My walker was—against my early judgments—a creature of habit, and I couldn’t help but smile whenever I recalled this fact.

Such men are a rare and ripe fruit in my profession.

On my last day of preparation, I soaked for a long time before making my move, not wanting to raise suspicion. As the servant came to thicken the steam, I lifted myself from the bath and pulled the towel around my waist again. Casually I made my way through the mist, doing all I could not to seem any sort of out of place. Carefully I stepped between the candles and avoided the edge of the sunken baths that could be hard to see in the dim light.

All the while, I watched the other patrons warily.

None were bothered with me, all too engrossed in the heat and comfort of their own baths. Even the attendants were preoccupied with their private gossip, as was the group of younger women I’d kept a particularly close eye on for fear of their attentions.

Not even when I came to hover before the small double doors of Arrun’s preferred room did anyone pay me the slightest mind.

I’d considered bringing a grease pouch for the hinges, but it would have been too difficult to sneak in and impossible to explain away if discovered. Stripping in the presence of the attendants had made things more complicated than I liked, and I’d have to figure something out if I wanted to get a weapon past their probing eyes. My own two hands would do plenty well in a pinch, but beating a man to death is so often a messy and needlessly slow affair.

No. I would need to scheme up something to get a blade into the baths, but for now I had other things to consider.

Forcing myself not to glance around one last time, I reached out and gave the doors a testing pull. There was a hint of metal grinding on metal, then silence, and they swung open easily. Slipping inside, I shut them behind me, allowing myself a quiet laugh for this small success before turning to take in the room.

It was not a spacious chamber. A narrow walkway plated in the same black tile circled a small bath, itself hardly large enough to hold more than two or three people. There were no pillars here. Only rounded black walls encircled the room, indented with alcoves bright with candlelight. A singularly flat mosaic marred the otherwise circular room, set into the stone across from the door to depict the crowning of some old king or another in years long gone.

A small space, but I recall thinking that small was good as I stole out again and made to retrieve my clothes from the front of the bathhouse. Sneaking in was out of the question. Even a deaf man with his back to the door might notice an intruder in those cramped quarters. It would all prove an advantage, though, if I forced the rush, delivering the killing blow before Arrun had the slightest chance to scream, much less defend himself.

By the time I was on my way home, I’d made up my mind, the final details of the plot already falling into place as I walked.

I didn’t sleep much that night, as you can imagine. I hadn’t slept much at all over the last two weeks, mind you, but that night has no comparison to this day. I was preparing for what I had to do, steeling myself in body and mind and soul to go through with what I must. This was my choice, I kept telling myself. This was the life I had voluntarily taken on, and I could either see it through to the end, or see it end period.

It was a much harder decision than you might imagine.

The day of execution dawned bright and windy. I spent the morning in continuous rehearsal, whetting and rewhetting the little blade I’d selected for the job between giving subconscious tugs at the twine I had looped around my neck like a necklace. I’d even hung it with a cheap pendant bought off some peddler the evening before, completing the illusion.

If I was going to do this, I was damn sure going to do it right.

The day passed in a warped manner, slipping by in that simultaneously listless and yet all-too-quick way time has when approaching something one both wishes for and dreads the arrival of. Eventually, however, the moment came, and I departed my master’s home with nothing more than a grim nod of encouragement from the man himself.

It has always fascinated me how circumstances can wile the mind so thoroughly. As a professional I’ve made it a study to understand how to manipulate men and women, physically and mentally both. It is a slim but necessary layer of my work. Contracts are rarely cut and dry. Often there are rules to be applied. Some employers want the total disappearance of our walkers. Others want it to look like suicide. You even get the rare request for a staged death, a charade so thorough that the involved can walk away from their old life as though they’d never lived it at all.

Whatever the circumstances, there is often someone—or indeed a group of someones—who require thorough tricking.

The problem with the mind, though, is that too often the only thing playing tricks on it is said mind itself.

Such was the case when I returned to The Lily’s Den one last time, an hour or so after leaving my master’s home. I was a familiar face by now and, as expected, had only to smile and present my payment to the red-haired woman at the entrance before she let me in.

Had she always looked at me like that, though? Her eyes seemed sharper today, scrutinizing my movements as I passed.

Inside, the attendant was waiting for me expectantly, and I almost paused upon seeing him.

This was a new face. One I didn’t recognize. Granted I surely hadn’t met all the employees of the bathhouse, but didn’t it seem odd that I should happen upon someone unknown today of all days?

I watched the man carefully as he bowed, but he gave no indication that anything was amiss. Instead he turned and led me down the familiar hall towards the changing rooms. Once again I was observed while disrobing and folding my clothes.

Did they always watch this carefully, though?

I couldn’t help but glance back at the attendant as I stacked the garments upon the bench provided.

His eyes met mine, but again he gave no sign that anything was out of the ordinary.

What was wrong with me? Was I seeing things now?

I told myself that everything was normal, attempted to calm myself with steady breaths when the attendant turned and led me to the baths. I could feel the beat of my heart through my chest, and almost forgot to nod in thanks as the attendant bowed me into the somber dark of the main chambers.

Carefully I picked my way through the candles, making for my familiar corner. Pulling my towel free, I laid it out carefully on the lip of the bath before stepping in.

The water was as hot as ever. I knew this. I could feel this. And yet for some reason I shivered as I sank my shoulders beneath the surface.

There was nothing different about this day. I was aware of that. The same oblivious patrons lounging about in my bath and others. The same servants making steam to wet the same damp walls and high ceilings. There was nothing here, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing I hadn’t seen half a dozen times before.

And yet my mind insisted on playing tricks on me, making me see furtive glances thrown my way from the corner of my eye, convincing me the exchanged words between the attendants in the far corner all involved me.

Everyone knew. All here were in on it. The woman at the entrance, the attendant, the bathers about me only pretending to lounge lazily in their steaming pools. Every single body in the room was tense and ready to strike, ready to end my plans before they’d even begun.

My heart beat so fiercely now that I thought the closest patrons were pretending to ignore that, too. Beneath the water my hands started to shake.

I wanted to run, wanted to bolt from the chamber. Naked or not, it made no difference. I could make it to the door before anyone caught me, could get out into the streets where they wouldn’t want to make a scene. I could steal clothes and food. I could go on the run. I had the skill. I had the ability. I could do it.

…or you could see it through to the end.

I actually had a hand on the lip of the bath, ready to pull myself out, when the thought hit me.

…or you could see it through to the end.

That’s what I had said, wasn’t it? During the sleepless nights spent staring at the plain stone ceiling above my bed. What is it that I had decided? What is it that I had chosen, regardless of the consequences? I had thrown myself into this life by my own choosing. I had sought it out, sought this very situation, sought this very moment, poised as some dark snake among the glints of the candles behind me.

…or you could see it through to the end.

There is a moment in most people’s lives where they come to accept what it is they are, wherever it is the adventure of life has led them. Some bear the responsibility of crown and title, and accept their duties to those they must serve and those they must obey. Some see their dreams slipping away in exchange for family or love, and accept that sacrifice with the intent of providing for what in the end is a much greater happiness. Some hear the hoofbeats of death catching up to them, and turn to accept the great beyond with open arms.

And some see a path they cannot run from, and accept the course of their fate.

In one thought, I accepted my path. In one thought I felt the decision made, and the fear washed away.

At once my body relaxed, my mind calmed. The patrons of the room turned once more to common people, too enthralled in their own pleasures to be bothered with the young man seated in their midst. The servants whispered and chuckled, much likelier discussing last night’s conquests than the odds of murder beneath their roof.

I smiled at it all, letting myself sink to just below my eyes in the heat I could feel plainly again. With a clear mind I looked about now, taking in the men and women trapped in my presence, unknowingly imprisoned between the red ceiling and black walls.

With a clear mind I discovered how, so suddenly, I was far more the wolf among sheep than I could ever be the sheep among wolves.

And it just so happened that the most tempting of sheep had finally arrived.

Wex Arrun followed his usual path, holding tight to the towel around his waist as I raised myself back up out of the water to lean once more against the bath wall. My walker was in a hurry today, almost ruining my plans entirely by killing himself slipping on the slick floor as he rounded one of the stone pillars. Catching his balance, he reached the doors to his private chamber and hastened inside.

I gave it the time it needed, finding patience in this new wolf’s skin of mine. Minutes marched by as I counted them off in my head.

Three. Four. Five.

There was the servant come with the water. Steam rolled thick through the air as I reached down to tug the twine “necklace” free from my throat.

Eight. Nine. Ten.

Pushing myself up out of the bath, I walked, calm and naked, across the room. It would do no good to have my towel covered in blood. I would take Arrun’s if I had the opportunity.

Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen.

Facing the doors, I stopped. Taking one cursory look around to ensure I was well shrouded in the rolling mist, I stuck two fingers into my mouth.

Feeling the flat of the slim steel on the inside of my cheek, I slid it free.

The blade was a sad, tiny thing, but it was the best I could do given the situation. I’d considered a garrote, maybe wound about my wrist like a bracelet, but my walker wasn’t quite isolated enough to prevent the sound of splashing and spraying bathwater from alerting someone to come running.

No. The blade would have to do.

Fifteen.

Taking the loose twine, I wrapped it smoothly along the dulled lower half of the three-inch blade. When it was all snug tight, I had what could pass for a grip with just enough steel left over to be lethal in the right hands.

And at that moment, I felt there were no righter hands than mine.

I didn’t give myself the time to think it over anymore. I’d made my deal with the shadows of the city, and whether they turned out to be the shade of angel’s wings or the silhouettes of demons was a problem for another day.

Gripping my blade, I grabbed hold of the door handle with my free hand and took a single breath. In my head I pictured the line of Arrun’s jaw, the weak fleshy point where it met neck, the point where even my bare inch of whetted steel could kill in an instant.

Then I threw the door wide, bolted inside…

…and nearly ran right into a small knot of men who had no business being there whatsoever.

There was a brief moment when I took them in, watching them turn towards me. Three in total, they’d dressed themselves up in old leather boots and worn clothes, but the longsword belted on every hip told me without pause that these were no simple commoners. They had had their backs turned towards the door, and so were whirling around in surprise as my eyes slid past them, taking in what I could see between their bodies.

There was a hole in the wall. That was the first thing I registered. The mosaic of the old king was swung inward, opened on hidden hinges that were totally invisible from within the chamber itself. A dim passage of dirt and stone vanished downward into the earth, faintly lit by what looked like distant torchlight.

Lower, though, below this, was my walker. Arrun was indeed soaking in the bath, but he looked to have been having a discussion with the men I’d nearly collided with. At first he seemed confused—who wouldn’t, having just been wildly interrupted by a naked teenage boy barging in on private conversation—but when my eyes fixed on his, the intent must have shown, because the confusion curdled into fear.

And then someone yelled.

It is odd, in that moment, what came to mind. No notion of fleeing flashed across my conscience. No true concern for my well-being pierced my thoughts. Rather, as I dove forward towards the closest of the three armed men, all I could think of were the smiles of the pretty girls I’d received during my first few days of staking out the Den.

All I could think about were those smiles, and how I wanted very much to witness such wonderful things again.

If that doesn’t speak to the priorities of the pubescent mind, I don’t know what does.

The first man went down before any of them had time to draw. His blade barely half unsheathed, he only managed to smash me across the face with the hilt before three quick jabs of my dagger severed the rear tendon of one ankle, nicked the massive artery on the inside of his right thigh, and—for good measure, of course—shoved up between his legs to have a pointed discussion with man’s most precious commodity.

As he stumbled howling into the bath, my left hand darting out to free the remainder of his longsword from its sheath, I remember wondering whether he would be better off living or dying.

The remaining two attacked as a pair, hoping to catch me before I got my footing. It nearly worked. A quick leap backwards kept my head firmly atop my shoulders and my insides still safely in place, but it didn’t keep the tip of one blade from cleaving a shallow four-inch gash across my chest. They didn’t give me a beat to catch up, following me and pushing me backwards around the bath.

But now things weren’t quite so unmatched.

The stolen sword was in my weak hand. As I dodged and deflected blow after blow, wincing at near misses and new cuts, I cursed myself for not having worked harder at learning to fight off-hand. It hadn’t been a keen focus of my teaching as of yet, but if I survived I would have to make a point of requesting a more thorough investment in the practice.

As it was, though, there was a reason my master was the most demanded assassin in the city. As it was, a sword in my bad hand was well worth two in their good.

It took some time to catch up with the pace, but eventually I was giving as good as I got. My blade snuck out, striking in the infinitesimal opportunities I could find between the men’s defenses. Soon I was cut and bloody, half a dozen more narrow wounds across my naked arms, legs, and body, but I was in no worse shape than either of my opponents. What’s more, the pair seemed well aware of the turning tide. They became more vicious in their attacks, striking with strength fueled by desperation.

Panic leads to mistakes, my master’s voice rumbled in my head. Make a mistake in the wrong fight, and you won’t need to worry about ever seeing another.

I was not the one to make the first mistake.

The walkway was a narrow thing. For a time the two men had worked well together, careful to stay out of each other’s way. As they became more and more desperate to finish the fight, though, they became increasingly less aware of each other’s movements.

And so it was when the heel of the outermost man caught the step of his comrade, tripping him forward.

In a flash it was done. The sword in my left hand swept up to take the stumbler through the throat. Distracted by his mistake, the second man didn’t think to duck when my right wrist flicked upward.

The little dagger that I had so carefully plotted my plan about took him through the eye, burying halfway up the makeshift handle.

But there was no time to savor victory. Beaten and bloody as I was, I wasn’t going to venture a guess as to how I would get home alive, much less conscious. Instead I focused on the one tangible thing left to me, the only thing that mattered.

Where the hell is my walker?

He hadn't gone out the door. I was sure of it. I would have seen. Which left him only one choice.

Leaving the bodies for the guardsmen to eventually make what sense of the scene they could, I whirled and sprinted down the strange tunnel in the wall behind the bath, stolen sword still in hand.

Footprints. I could make them out, wet and muddy, even in the limited light of scattered torches. I had no idea where I was going, had no idea how long this tunnel continued before it broke ground. I could hear the Fool berating me in my head, telling me my preparations, planning, and plotting had clearly not been thorough enough.

I’d jump into the sea before I gave the old man any more reason to be right about it.

Fortunately for me, wherever the tunnel was going seemed a fair distance away. It rolled and bucked, turning sharply and even splitting off into other spaces here and there.

The ground was soft, though, not even hard-packed dirt, and Arrun’s mad dash for his life was betraying him.

The path was child’s play to follow, the markings clear. Here and there I saw indents of hands and knees where he’d fallen, or else the wild confusion of his feet as he’d tried to decide which way to turn. Each of these was a flare of hope for me, spurring me on.

In the end, I caught up to him. In the end, the wolf ran down the sheep.

My feet were bleeding by the time I turned a corner and saw it. Set in the middle of a large dug-out chamber, expanded and supported on all sides by timber beams and heavy planks of wood, was an old iron ladder leading upward. A hatch was thrown wide at the top, and for a second I thought I heard the giggling of women falling through the opening.

Then I saw Arrun, naked and dirty, already climbing the rungs.

Never do I think I remember running so fast in my life. Perhaps it was the imagination of my youth, or perhaps just the youth of my limbs, but I was on him in a moment. The absolute refusal to let my walker escape fueled my steps, and I reached him just as he made it halfway up the ladder. Rather than grab the rungs myself, though, I took a wild leap, swinging the stolen sword in both hands.

The top quarter of my blade caught him in the flesh below his ribs, and as I tumbled to the dirt, losing the sword in the process, I heard him shriek and fall.

It took me some time to gather all my limbs, to figure out how everything worked again. Eventually I managed to groan and rolled myself onto my side, feeling the dust and earth stick to the blood and cuts that covered me. Finally I got myself up to sit, looking around.

Arrun was still screaming, lying on his back in the light beneath the shaft. One bloody hand he held to his side, attempting vainly to keep his organs from spilling out onto the dirt. The other was stretched out beside him, scrabbling for the ladder that led upwards to light and life.

Groaning again, I pushed myself onto my knees, then up to a stand. Stumbling forward on torn feet, I bent down to pick my dropped sword from the ground. Step by step by step I approached Arrun, hefting the heavy blade above my head as I did.

It was only when I stood directly over him that he finally noticed me, tearing his gaze away from the ladder that was just out of reach. He was shaking violently, blood pooling from his mouth and nose, spraying as he coughed. Wide eyes took me in, wet with fear and pain, and again I saw the sheep.

Then I brought the blade down, feeling it shear through flesh and bone.

My walker was done walking.

When I stood up again, I realized that the screaming hadn’t ended. Turning my face upwards, I squinted into the light of the shaft, raising a hand to shield my eyes from most of the glare. A number of long-haired heads were poking out over the edge, looking down on me. When they realized I was watching them, though, the screams reached new volume, and a moment later the hatch slammed shut, leaving me again in the dim light of the slowly dying torches.

That is how he found me, in the end. Naked, bloody, and covered in dirt, I sat curled up with my back against the ladder rungs, shivering beside the separated head and body of Wex Arrun.

The hatch above opened once more, and when I gathered the strength to look up I saw a pair of familiar boots climbing down to me. As it transpired, the building above was a brothel bordering the western slums of the city. The wealthier patrons of establishments such as The Lily’s Den had wanted the ability to enjoy whatever entertainment they might desire in the freedom of private rooms. Seeing an opportunity for great profit, the owners had obliged, and tunnels were built, twisting and crossing below a large portion of Kingport.

Fortunately for me, my master just so happened to be on excellent terms with a majority of the city’s courtesans.

Wex Arrun, we discovered eventually, was more than a common dockworker, though I’m sure you’ve figured that out for yourself, dear journal. He was a spy, a rat, a spider with a good mind for numbers and detail. He would use his work and connections along the harbor to get information on the holds and crews of docking ships, ranking their estimated values against the ease with which they might be taken. In turn he sold this information to the highest bidder, holding auction in the private chambers of The Lily’s Den, where the secret tunnels provided for an ideal measure of discretion.

All this my master told me later, once he’d sorted out the details and long after he’d gotten me home and stitched up. After some time at my bedside, he’d left to do his own digging. He was gone for two days, and when he came back he brought me a gift.

Something small hit me upside the head, forcing me to roll over and blink blearily against the afternoon light. There beside me, staining my pillow red, was a bloody burlap sack the size of my hand.

When I looked up, finding my master leaning casually in the doorway of my room, I was told to open it.

I did as instructed, sitting up and lifting the bag gingerly from the bed. I knew its contents without having to look, but I pulled it open obediently and peeked inside.

Two fingers. A pointer and middle, by the look of them.

They’d belonged to our employer, my master told me. As it turned out, he’d known all about my walker and his business ventures. Figuring there was no reason for us to know, he’d paid our fees for a simple job, angling to save himself the price of a more intricate contract.

I remember my master looking at me intently, then. As I’ve said, he was not a fatherly man, but he was good to me. For this reason I write the following words verbatim, as they are among the purest forms of expression I believe a killer is capable of.

“If you’d died, I would have needed a much bigger bag.”

That was about as sentimental as he got.

I end this passage, dear journal, with some advice for whoever might stumble across it. They are words that are harder to follow than remember but, considering my circumstances as I write this, remembering is well and good enough for now.

Prepare. Plan. Plot.

After all, killing a man is a simple thing…

Except when it’s not.

Mission of Mercy

Terry Mancour

“I don’t kill children,” Malbaras said, softly, to the man with the bushy mustache wearing the food-stained blue velvet tunic. It was a bold declaration, but Malbaras didn’t care. The noise in the tavern was loud enough to obscure any casual eavesdropping, and the statement was so outrageous that it would be easily dismissed as sarcasm, so Malbaras didn’t mind being so blunt at a business meeting that was ordinarily cloaked in layers upon layers of innuendo, misdirection, and code. He felt strongly enough about the subject to risk a raised eyebrow from a passerby or barmaid.

“This is a special case,” quietly insisted the man, whose name was Baracur and who worked adjacent to the palace.

Sometimes he worked for the palace, Malbaras knew, and sometimes for others who were adjacent to power and needed certain things done. If you wanted a red-headed courtesan, or a particularly potent poison, or a proscribed but entertaining hallucinogenic wine, Baracur was known as a man who could get things done discreetly, for a price. Everyone in the Palace District knew that, and knew the slovenly man with the bushy mustache by sight.

Fewer knew about Baracur’s other vocation: arranging cold-blooded murder. For that, the price went up dramatically.

“It would have to be,” Malbaras sniffed. “That’s beyond the limits of the code.”

Baracur snorted. “The code? No one pays attention to the code anymore,” he chuckled. “My friend, that code died in your sire’s age when Bloody Prince Raston and his family were butchered in his chapel. The Prinsted Company was the last to enforce the code. The last Fellow of Prinsted died six years ago. Mysterious circumstances. Tragic.”

“I was apprenticed to a Prinsted,” Malbaras growled. “They had honor. They died, rather than accept the Regent’s rule.”

“They died because the Regent sent his most ruthless secret police to seek them out and execute them wherever they were found,” Baracur reminded him, gently. “They didn’t adhere to any code, save loyalty to the Regent. And the Prinsted Company supported the Bloody Prince when no one else would, for very good reason. But such choices have consequences. You cannot pick a side in a civil war and expect to walk away afterward, my friend.” Baracur sighed. “I appreciate your loyalty to a long-dead company of hired killers, but the Prinsted Company lacked…nuance,” he explained.

“They would not compromise,” Malbaras said, his eyes narrowing as he stared the death merchant down.

“And now they are all dead. You are among the last trained in their tradition. And you left their company under dubious circumstances, before the purge, if I recall,” Baracur reminded him, gently. “That was an ugly time. We are at peace now. Let us not dwell on the unpleasant past. But when swords fall silent, daggers sing. Let us look instead to a prosperous future.” He raised his wineglass in salute.

Malbaras’s stare seemed to do little to intimidate the courtier. That was to be expected, he figured, but it still annoyed him. A trained assassin’s stare should instill dread and terror in those who receive it—but Baracur, he decided, had grown immune to such superficialities long ago. He had collected so many favors and knew so many secrets about the court that he felt insulated from repercussion. Indeed, he had been hiring Malbaras for assignments for the last four years and he’d yet to treat any of the transactions with the gravity called for by most clients. He seemed to operate without fear of repercussion.

Eventually, Malbaras sighed. “How is this one different?”

A wide grin exploded under the courtier’s mustache. “I knew you were capable of nuance, my friend! First, let me tell you that this case carries an exceptionally large fare—more than thrice the normal price for such a subject. More than three thousand gold, minus my commission,” he said, his beady eyes twinkling.

Malbaras grunted despite himself. That was more than enough to pay off his current debts. All of them. And leave him plenty left over. He was not a slave to debt, but the code demanded integrity in such matters. While he could easily end his creditors’ lives, and thus his debt, such a thing seemed an anathema to his professional ethics.

But then, so was killing children.

“Secondly,” continued Baracur, “she’s no one of importance, no one who will be missed or have too many people asking the wrong sort of questions. She’s the ward of an elderly ‘uncle’—I will not speculate as to the exact nature of their relations—but the man hasn’t been at court in years. A recluse, they say, and quite eccentric.”

Malbaras grunted again. He was not overly concerned with that sort of thing, but he knew other professionals were. Should they be caught trying to kill their subjects, or even suspected in the act, it was easy to engage the ire of entire families and clans. Malbaras thought better of his abilities than to ever be suspected of one of his successful subjects’ murder. He was better than that.

“Thirdly, I was provide precise details as to her home and the nature of their security,” Baracur assured him, patting his tunic under which, presumably, those details were concealed. “Maps, lists of guards and their patrols, everything you could want.”

“So it’s an easy job, and a high-paying job, which are contradictory,” Malbaras pointed out.

“It is a child,” Baracur said, with a frown.

“Still,” shrugged Malbaras. “It seems like a lot.”

“There are extenuating circumstances,” Baracur said. “Conditions that were demanded for the high fee. They must be followed to the letter.”

“I do not like extenuating circumstances,” Malbaras said, his voice even lower.

“In this case they are lucrative,” Baracur explained, apologetically. “You must slay the child through a specific means. Magical. And you must stay until she is dead.”

“She? I’m to kill a little girl?” Malbaras asked, surprised. He said it a little too loudly for the courtier’s comfort.

“Quiet!” he said, looking around suspiciously. “Yes, the subject is female. About ten or eleven years old. And you must finish her in a particular manner, provided by the client. This,” he said, and pulled a loosely wrapped package the size of an eggplant from under his cloak. “You must give her this—that is all—and then you must wait to ensure that it works. The client informs me that it is a sorcerous spell that will end her life within an hour or two. Painlessly. The subject does not even know it is happening until it is too late.”

Malbaras eyed the package suspiciously. “I do not like to work with magic.”

“Who does?” Baracur agreed with a shrug. “It’s unpredictable, when poorly done, and it doesn’t have the finality of a dagger or cheese wire. Nonetheless, this is what the client desires. Did not the Prinsted Company employ wizards?”

“Only as specialists,” the assassin sighed. “There were a few the company trusted to be reliable.”

“From what I understand, this method should be entirely reliable,” assured Baracur, patting the package. “You merely tuck it into her arms, and she will waste away within an hour. Two, at the most.”

“That suggests a nighttime foray,” Malbaras observed.

“Are you afraid of the dark, now?” Baracur teased.

“I just don’t like the thought of being caught in a little girl’s room in the middle of the night,” Malbaras frowned.

“I wouldn’t imagine you’d let yourself get caught,” Baracur countered. “Propriety aside, you must unwrap the package and slip this under her arms. Then wait until the last breath is gone. The client says they will know when that has happened. Of course, they pay nothing if you do not succeed,” he added.

“If I do not succeed, it is because I am dead.” Malbaras shrugged. “It will matter not if I get paid, then.”

“But it matters to me,” Baracur pointed out, indignantly. “I’m taking a lot of trouble to see this commission fulfilled. I will be put out if I do not get my share.”

“And I will be put out if I’m dead,” reminded Malbaras. “Surely you can bear a bit of disappointment, in that case.”

“I don’t suppose I have much choice,” admitted the arranger, disappointingly. “I might even pay for a requiem. You have been a valuable resource,” he flattered.

“A killer you can trust,” nodded Malbaras. “What mad world we live in, when such things are held as valuable?”

“The gods are clearly drunk, and of a wicked humor,” Baracur conceded. “You accept the commission, then?”

Malbaras sighed. The codes forbade the taking of a child’s life as a commission. His personal experience—to his disgust—had skirted that code far more often than he was comfortable with, and there were two incidences during his apprenticeship to the Prinsted Company that had all but violated the letter of it. One had been lamentably notable. He had, his soul was all too aware, slain children before. That the code had technically permitted it had brought him no solace. But the repugnance he felt over those unfortunate circumstances was so profound that he had become all the more insistent about it.

Yet Baracur was right, he also knew. The codes were no longer enforced, if they ever had been. Once, there were commonly accepted rules for assassination. Rules that had made killing for hire a high art. But those were the days of his youth, not now. Now he was a mature man, and his dotage was mere years away. He had debts to pay—not merely with coin, but debts of personal honor he owed, and a finite time in which to redeem them. This commission could go far in that direction, he knew.

“You said there were extenuating circumstances? Beyond the fee, the ease of the commission, and the lack of repercussions?” he countered, instead of answering the question.

“Of course. I saved the most compelling reason for last,” Baracur assured. “You can rest your conscience on this commission for one simple fact: The girl is already dying. This, my friend, is a very lucrative mission of mercy.”

#

No dogs, Malbaras saw. Not that he expected to see any. According to Baracur’s tightly written notes, the estate had minimal security for a place its size. Merely enough to dispatch the odd ruffian or housebreaker, or persuade distant relations that their visits should be brief.

The modest mansion within the walls of the estate was not richly appointed, though it was spacious and grand enough to denote a certain affluence. This part of the city was replete with such homes, the domiciles of petty officials, minor courtiers, successful courtesans, or up-jumped merchants who affected the trappings of the respectable nobility. Like this one, some dated back to the Fifth Prince, he knew. A few servants, a few guards, but no more than the contents of each little estate needed to feel protected.

He’d done his own research on the place, after receiving Baracur’s dossier. It would be foolishly unprofessional not to. He’d cultivated a sizable number of contacts over the years to assist him in such things, and with a few silver coins and the right questions he’d confirmed or discovered every important element to the subject’s lair.

The Ceratas Estate had been built more than three centuries before by a minor courtier for his family after taking service to the Fifth Prince. It was far smaller than the great mansions the court of the Seventh Prince, Andumel, had inspired across the western portion of the city, but its five-acre estate was sufficiently impressive during those times to keep the descendants of Lord Siorai within the margins of nobility and polite society ever since.

House Siorai had contributed a number of earnest members of court to the Princes over the years, often in important but obscure positions that had allowed the family to enjoy both relative security and relative status. They’d rarely ascended to the high-profile posts in the courts of the Princes, but they’d never been the subject of retribution or vengeance the way that other, more prominent (and sometimes extinct) families had. They had a reputation for gentle philanthropy, scholarship, and charity over the years, epitomizing the kind of stalwart and loyal pillars of the city that even the common folk looked to.

Yet the noble house had fallen, in recent times. The current Lord Siorai was an aging gentleman whose only daughter had married a wealthy merchant and was raising her children at his lavish estate, not Ceratas. Siorai himself had not been an active member of court since his youth, though he still commanded a quiet respect there. Indeed, he was often selected as a judge, or inspection official, or other neutral party in one department or another. His reputation for fairness and an apolitical outlook had ensured that he’d survived the purges after the Bloody Prince’s death relatively intact.

The girl who was his subject, Malbaras now knew, was named Lulea. She was the legal ward of the old man, taken in house after his daughter’s marriage, parentage unknown, presumably to allay the old widower’s loneliness. Such arrangements were frequently made when it came to the progeny of a beloved retainer or old friend or an unacknowledged but still cherished bastard in the family. It wasn’t unusual for a noble house of means to have three or four such orphans of fate lingering around the household, alert for good opportunities or a good marriage into a cadet line.

That also included less savory intentions, Malbaras was aware. Thankfully, there was no hint of impropriety in the arrangement that he could find. He’d encountered other such situations where the designs of the benefactor on the helpless ward were clear and well known. But Lord Siorai’s relationship with the girl held none of the scandalous rumors that usually accompanied such an arrangement. There wasn’t a scrap of gossip in court or without to hint otherwise.

Indeed, he found it strange that there was not much gossip at all about House Siorai and its elderly lord. Usually there was at least some catty speculation; in his research he found nothing but acknowledgment of the old gentleman’s honor and respectability.

That made the question of his client’s motivation all the more intriguing, in Malbaras’s mind.

Why kill a child, after all? Unless one’s vendetta was so total that it included every descendant, every fiber of the enemy’s house, there was no reason to opt for such a savage and unrelenting commission. Children were powerless, and even supposing some future continuation of the vendetta by a survivor was tenuous, at best. Most such childhood victims of that kind of excess never managed to make it out of poverty, much less put themselves in a position to entertain ideas of retribution. There were notable exceptions, of course, but few political orphans ever managed to attain a station sufficient enough to pursue such vengeance. So slaying them to prevent that was, by the numbers, impractical.

Could it be a purely merciful stroke? Malbaras wondered at that. If the child was beloved of the old man, but would soon perish in a painful bout of suffering, then this commission could, indeed, be seen as an act of mercy, not antipathy. Especially with the magical component of the commission, the entire project seemed designed to end the subject’s suffering quietly and painlessly. Hardly the showy execution most deadly enemies desired on their foes.

Surely there was no financial incentive for killing the girl that he could see. By the records she was a penniless heir, an orphan without siblings, with no legacy to expect or pass along. It was possible she had some mystical significance, he reasoned—this city was rife with secret cults, he knew from personal experience. She might be a Chosen One, or a Holy Adversary, or some other such nonsense. Perhaps her death would hold some spiritual significance or be the fulfillment of some prophecy, he reasoned. But even that speculation seemed ill fitting to the facts at hand.

The use of a magical weapon also gave him some clues. Such things were unbearably expensive, he knew, and rarely used for this sort of dubious purpose, due to the rare talents necessary to produce them. There might be a clandestine house of wizards who had some arcane grudge against Lord Siorai and wished to do him some spiritual harm. Malbarus knew of such things happening in the past. The city’s wizards were jealous of their prerogatives in their secretive art. They did not appreciate any meddling into their affairs.

It didn’t really matter who or why the client had been motivated to take such unusual and extreme actions, though. He had accepted the commission. He would see it through. That was the code.

Leaping down from the wall, he crossed the estate slowly and carefully. It was still early evening, but already darkness had blanketed the world. He walked in shadows unnoticed and unseen. He had observed but three guards about, one at the main door and two who spent most of their time in the tiny shack they worked from between infrequent patrols. Avoiding their attention was simple, as was gaining the second floor by climbing up the woodpile behind the kitchen. Making it to the third was even easier—there was stair on the second-floor roof of the irregular building that allowed him access to the top floor, and a window.

He knew from his research that there were four other servants—a butler, two maids, and a cook—to care for the old man and his ward. Three of them were already settled in for the night, while the butler was tending to the old man’s needs in his private chamber on the ground floor. The girl, he’d learned, was in a small room on the third floor, likely a servant’s room when the house had enjoyed more residents. Malbaras was gratified that the map Baracur had provided was accurate. The narrow door to the girl’s room was where he expected it to be. After a few quiet moments listening to it until he heard the sounds of the girl asleep on the other side, he quietly pushed it open and silently moved through.

Due to the irregular shape of the garret, the room was surprisingly larger than he had guessed, and far superior in comfort and decoration to a mere maid’s quarters. There was a small table and two chairs, a clothing press, and shelves filled with books, baskets, and boxes. The few toys in the room seemed old and unused, he noted as he removed the bundle he carried from under his cloak. That made sense, if the girl was sickly, he reasoned. She was sleeping in a small bed near a circular window that allowed a grand view of the estate’s gardens.

The girl herself could not be older than nine or ten, he guessed, as he unwrapped the bundle on the table. She had dark hair, a thin face tainted with malnutrition, and skin that seemed exceptionally pale in the darkness. There was an air of illness over her, he could tell from many small signs. She might have been pretty one day, he considered, if she had survived.

To his surprise, the object within the bundle—the magical “weapon” that he had been instructed to use—was a doll. An ancient, ugly, threadbare doll with a wooden head and a faded cloth body, stuffed with cotton or wool. The eyes were mere pits; though there was evidence that they had once been filled with some glass beads or other material, they were long gone. The painted hair on the head was faded to the point of being merely suggestive. The cloth that made the dress over the stuffed body was crudely embroidered and threadbare.

Grimacing, Malbaras studied the thing for a few moments in the gloom. He felt a wave of revulsion for it, as if it were some malevolent idol and not some cast-off child’s toy. He glanced at the little girl peacefully sleeping in her bed. For a moment, he entertained the thought of using a garrote or a simple pillow to end her life, rather than subject her to whatever eldritch power this grotesque toy had.

But he had accepted the commission. The code demanded he see it done.

With a suppressed sigh he silently crossed to the girl’s bedside, and with one last scowl at the ugly doll he placed it gently to the little girl’s side. Her arm moved automatically in her sleep to clutch it, and for a bare moment Malbarus was concerned that he had woken her. When he was satisfied that she remained asleep, he turned away…only to feel her little hand on his arm a moment later.

The unexpected touch startled the assassin, and he stiffened.

“Wait,” the girl said, quietly. “Don’t leave.”

There was no trace of fear in her voice, and when he turned his face to her, the expression she wore was not one of a child being frightened by a stranger in her room in the dark of night.

“I know why you came,” she said, her voice just above a whisper. “It’s all right. I know,” she emphasized. “Just…wait. Wait with me.”

Malbarus was torn—it was not common for your subject to be aware of your presence, much less your vocation. But his commission demanded that he stay until he saw it done. He had not anticipated her being awake for that. But her plea was so plaintive and earnest that he repressed the desire to flee.

“I…I was sent,” he said, simply, not knowing how else to explain his presence.

“I know,” she agreed, sitting up slightly, and with some difficultly. “I’m the one who summoned you.”

That was a startling admission to the assassin. Malbarus’s mind whirled at the implications—one did not often get hired to retire a client, he knew. In fact, it was almost unheard of. That thought was even more prominent to his mind than the idea that a girl no more than twelve had been able to hire an assassin of any sort in the first place. It did not stand to reason.

“You…did what?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I am the one who hired you,” she sighed, her little-girl voice clear and deliberate in the gloom. “I needed someone who would…who would work with children,” she said, apologetically. “I knew if I searched long enough, I would discover a man with the flexibility to see to my needs. I assure you, I do not lie.” She spoke with the diction and the maturity of someone far beyond her years, which startled Malbarus more than anything else.

“So you know you…you’re dying,” he said, forcing the words from his mouth.

“Oh, sweet Goddess, yes,” chuckled the little girl, sitting herself up in the bed unsteadily. The ugly doll was still tucked under her arm. “I’ve known for quite some time. Which is why it was so important to find you,” she insisted. “May I know your name? There will be no secrets escaping from this chamber, when dawn breaks,” she reminded him.

“I…I am called Malbarus,” he admitted, guiltily. That was a violation of professional standards, of course. To offer his real name instead of an alias was a breach of protocol. But there was something about this situation that compelled him to be truthful, when duplicity was normally called for.

“Thank you, Malbarus. I am called Lulea, though that was not the name I was born with. Here, have a seat,” she said, graciously waving over to the one adult-sized chair in the room. “I want to tell you my story—we have enough time for that—because I won’t have another chance to tell you, and I feel you have the right to know. It is rare that a killer for hire will take a child’s life.” He reluctantly drew up the chair and sat down. “May I ask if you have done that, in the past?” she asked, matter-of-factly.

“Only once or twice,” Malbarus admitted. “In the reign of the Bloody Prince. It was…not what was planned. Special circumstances. A matter of unfortunate happenstance.”

“I understand,” the little girl nodded, gravely. “Perhaps more than you can imagine. Our lives and our fates rarely come about the way we plan them. For instance, you must already suspect that there is something a bit…odd about me,” she said, pulling her knees to her chest under the quilt. “I don’t speak as a normal child does.”

“You do seem admirably mature for a little girl,” he agreed, reluctantly nodding in the darkness.

“I am far more than mature, Malbarus,” she agreed. “Indeed, if you will believe me—for I do not lie—I was born long before the Princes began to rule the city. Do not mistake this tale for a frightened child’s fancy: I was born more than seven hundred years ago.”

Malbarus considered. “When magic is afoot, all things are possible,” he quoted.

Lulea grinned. “Quite so. And magic is decidedly afoot. I am no ordinary little girl. Instead, I am an ancient, ancient girl who has read more books than are in a library, seen more lives come and go than a physician, witnessed more history than the oldest scholars can boast. Will you hear my tale? On this last night?” she pleaded. “I promise it will be entertaining. And pass what little time remains.”

Malbarus felt some alarm at the situation, but he also felt obligated, under the circumstances, to indulge the girl. “I have a bit of time,” he conceded.

“Thank you.” The girl sighed. “It seems wrong to hire a killer and not explain to him why. A man should know why he’s taking a life,” she explained. “It is the measure of his soul, to extinguish something so precious for money or belief. Especially a child’s life. I hope when my tale is done, you understand why you are here.”

“I am eager for some illumination,” agreed Malbarus. “You are not like my usual clients.”

“Of course not,” said Lulea. “You’ve mostly worked the political end since you left the Prinsted Company, with a little commercial and personal work on the side. I thought it best to know about the man I hired to kill me. It’s best to know that sort of thing. I learned that before the First Prince conquered the city.

“You see, Malbarus, I was born in what was once known as the Maraparath Hills, across the sea, in the land you now know as Marapa. I don’t remember my mother, beyond a few vague feelings. I remember my father, though, when he sold me to an old sorcerer. My father was a practical man,” she said, with a mixture of pride and revulsion. “He had five children, and could only feed three of them on his tiny hillside holding. I knew not what he did with my brother, at the time, but me he sold to a hill wizard named Ocoru Thornash for five silver pennies and a pregnant goat. It was a good price for a seven-year old, I learned. But then Ocoru was not looking for labor or even a bed warmer. He was experimenting.”

“Experimenting?” Malbarus asked, his eyes feeling tired as he pictured the story the strange little girl told.

“He was of the Avanastu sect,” she explained. “They are preoccupied with immortality. Quite good wizards, otherwise, but their obsession with the subject makes them less useful than others in their trade.

“Nonetheless, Ocoru was an adept in the order who felt he had found some clue to the secret of eternal life. He had spent years experimenting on animals and, when he could get them, slaves. He was particularly interested in acquiring young slaves, at the time, mere children, for his researches had indicated that they—we—were somehow important to achieving immortality. By the time he had purchased me, he had consumed several others seeking the component in their blood that he might exploit to save him from oblivion.”

“That’s…that’s horrible,” the assassin admitted.

“Men will do for magic and science what decency denies. He felt justified in such sacrifices. And he was not entirely wrong,” Lulea revealed. “He did hit upon certain important elements of the spell about the time he bought me. An old Arutian text had given him the idea, and he was eager to develop it: leaching the life-force from one body to extend another. It is thaumaturgically possible you see—I am proof,” she said, spreading her arms. “Ocoru had discovered a mechanism for the transfer, though he did not quite understand the agent of action or the limitations of the spell.”

“How so?” Malbarus asked, confused. “I am not a sorcerer,” he reminded her.

“Then the technical method would be meaningless to you,” she replied. “It is no matter. I only learned enough to realize that later, as it turned out. But the vital energy of children is potent, and is theoretically endless in its potential. Ocoru had discovered a means of transferring such energies between a child and an adult. The process was cloaked in ritual, of course—the Avanastu sect was always jealous of its secrets—but the power did flow, when properly channeled. Of that he was certain.”

“So he…drained children, to extend his own life?” Malbarus asked, appalled and intrigued at the same time.

“That was his intention,” agreed Lulea. “After many tragic missteps, he’d come to the realization that blood, actually, was not the vital energy he’d thought—it was merely the medium of the thaumaturgic powers that he required. He’d discovered a particular root from a surpassingly rare mountain tree that when properly prepared could provide a transferring medium without the bloodletting he’d been employing. Mere contact was sufficient.

“Alas, he had miscalculated, or did not realize the true translation of the Arutian text; for though the power did flow from one person to another, it had certain…limitations.

“You see, when he used the root, he did see the power move…but not the direction of the movement. In each case he was actually draining his own vital energy into his subject, thinking he was gaining years when he was losing them. Within a few months of his experiments, he was weakened to the point of death. And by the time he realized what was happening, it was too late.”

“He killed himself with his own spell,” Malbarus nodded, amused. He found Lulea’s voice very relaxing, the thoughts of a well-educated crone emitting in the voice of a child. “He ruined himself by going too far.”

“Essentially,” Lulea agreed. “Ocoru tried to reverse the process, but had no success—and only more weakness. Just before he died, he recognized that the energies only moved one way for supernatural necessity. He could not reverse the process.

“But he also discovered that the child victims he’d intended to sacrifice gained that vitality at a cost, as well. Not only did they postpone death, through the treatment, but they slowed aging to a stop. Immortality was possible, it seemed, but only at the expense of adulthood and maturity. In his last days he confirmed this with his beloved son and heir, a man of twenty. After three castings of the spell, he had aged a decade in the space of a few minutes. Once maturity falls,” she explained, “the root channels the energies from the older to the younger, exclusively.”

“That’s fascinating,” Malbarus agreed, genuinely intrigued, if horrified by the idea.

“Just so. It was fascinating. After Ocoru died, I stole the root and learned how to use it. There was a particular ritual involved, I knew, and after watching Ocoru conduct it time after time, consigning so many children to death as he struggled with its powers, I was able to try it myself a few years later. Once I started feeling…cramps,” she admitted. “The first blush of womanhood. I recalled Ocoru’s work, for he rambled aloud in his premature dotage, thinking that mere slaves would not have the wit to understand his learned mastery,” she said, with sarcastic scorn. “It took a few trials, but I was able to replicate his spell. I used it upon his son and stole all but a tithe of his life-force before I fled.”

“You? Killed his son?” Malbarus asked, surprised.

“I felt justified,” she said, guiltily. “He’d tried to continue his father’s research, but did not, alas, enjoy his father’s objectivity. He would take his frustrations out on his subjects in unspeakable ways. So I took what little life was left in him away, freed my fellow captives, and escaped into the night with the root and a little silver…and a doll.” She clutched the ancient toy a bit guiltily. “It was the only thing I had left of my mother,” she explained, “and even though the head was coming off, I took her with me.” She patted the doll he’d brought to kill her with affectionately.

“It was a dark and lonely time for me,” she continued, her voice almost hypnotic. “I was a street orphan in a seaport called Narguay, long destroyed, now, and did what I had to in order to survive. I did so for years, without aging a day. When I felt my cramps coming on, I used the root to replenish my youth once again at the expense of another sacrifice.

“For eighty years I lived in Narguay, and during that time I learned many, many things. I discovered my brother had been sold to a galley and thence to an estate, here in the city,” she said, gesturing toward the distant town center through her small window. “He married, had children, and died before I could track him down.

“In Narguay I used my maturity and my experience, as well as my vulnerability, to collect a small fortune and use it to sustain myself. When it was clear that the Ginlewasi Empire wasn’t going to allow Narguay to resist, I fled on a barque to finally seek out the only relatives I had in the world. My brother’s descendants. I came here about a century before the First Prince claimed the throne,” she revealed.

“That…that is difficult to believe,” Malbarus admitted.

“That is the nature of magic.” Lulea shrugged. “But the city was safer at the time than Narguay. Indeed, Narguay was utterly destroyed by the Empire. And then when the Empire fell, and one of the royal family in the dispute claimed the city for his patrimony a few decades later and became the First Prince, it was even safer for me.

“By that time I had learned how to choose my sacrifices more carefully,” she admitted. “The first hundred years or so I didn’t much care whose life ended to continue mine. But then…well, things became complicated. I was forced to do things I didn’t like to survive. I was living with my great-great-nephews at the time, who had risen from slavery and into a prosperous peasantry. There were some unfortunate incidents,” she said, sorrowfully. “Things that touched my heart and that I will not speak of. But after that I decided I had to be more selective with my subjects.”

“That does seem to be an ethically difficult situation,” agreed Malbarus. “I, myself, had to choose between decency and convenience, more than once. It is not an easy choice.”

“It never is,” agreed the crone in the body of the child. “But it is quite necessary, nonetheless. One cannot live in the world if one hates oneself, especially if one is facing an eternal life. So I resolved to only use the root on the most deserving of people…that is, those most deserving of death.”

“And how did you select your victims?” Malbarus asked. He was growing tired, despite how interesting the tale was. A sign of age, he decided. He was no longer twenty.

“Carefully,” she provided. “I found wicked men, evil men who delighted in pain and torture. Especially those who would utilize children for that purpose. My experiences with Ocoru and his perverted son had shown me that there are those who deserve to die. Perhaps I held them in unfair contempt, because of my circumstances, but better they than…than some blameless drunken sot behind a brothel.” She shrugged. “Or worse yet, some hapless innocent who happened to be near when the cramps began. Oh, most men harbor secrets and guilt over things that they’ve done, crimes against the state, against nature, against the gods, but are they somehow more deserving of death for them? And am I deserving of life at their expense?

“But those who preyed on children, specifically those I could ensnare, I decided to sacrifice. I had attached myself firmly to the family by then. I was safe and secure enough to be able to plan my sacrifices. I learned how to spot those who were most deserving and contrive some method of employing the root. My techniques had become refined over the years. All I had to do, for their portion of the ritual, was get them to hand me the root, and that was sufficient to begin the process. One or two a year were adequate to keep the cramps at bay. I kept living, and the child predators kept appearing and then dying, mysteriously. By the reign of the Third Prince, the city was the safest in the land for children.”

“All while keeping you alive,” Malbarus said, nodding.

“But it was not without consequence,” said Lulea. “I did what I did out of a desire to survive. As the years went by, I learned—far more than a mere adult did. Age brings a certain wisdom born of experience,” she explained. “Great age goes beyond that. When you see babies grow into their dotage and die, over and over again, it gives you perspective. And when your own life is dependent upon the deaths of others, it changes your perspective yet again. Surely you can appreciate that, as an assassin.”

Malbarus considered. He had been a killer since before he’d had to consult a barber. He made the coin that provided him food and shelter by his willingness to slay others. Certainly a soldier or a watchman might say the same. But he only got paid when there was a corpse to show. Only an executioner or a butcher could say that. And he had to admit that Lulea was correct. When your life was dependent on your willingness to deal death to others, it set you apart from your fellow man.

“I can,” he said, with a deep sigh.

“How many?” the little girl asked. “How many lives have you taken?”

“You think I keep track of them?” he asked, amused.

“Of course you do,” she agreed, evenly. “We all do. To celebrate our achievement or to keep account of our guilt, we all keep track. How many?” she repeated.

Malbarus gave another deep sigh. “Seventy-one. You will make seventy-two.”

Lulea looked at him with a mixture of respect and revulsion. “You must be very good, then. Most men in your profession score no more than thirty or so.”

“The Bloody Prince’s overthrow was…productive,” he explained, quietly.

“Of course,” she nodded, sympathetically. “One of the bloodiest eras I’ve lived through. I kept the family out of it as much as I could. I could foresee what that psychopathic fool’s reign would come to within a year of his taking the throne. But it did give me ample opportunity to find my own victims.

“By then I’d long established the rules under which I would sustain myself. No longer would any mere hapless victim do. I’d lived too long, and developed too elaborate a moral perspective to capitulate to mere survival. I’d made my peace with my eventual death even then. But there were ample men of evil bent around, back then. Plenty who fulfilled my strict requirements.

“Then the Regent came to power,” she went on with a sigh, “and we enjoyed a period of peace and decency again. Hard times, for killers like us,” she said with an unearthly chuckle. One did not expect self-awareness and cynicism to fall from the lips of a child, but Lulea was no child—that was clear to Malbarus. Indeed, he sensed a kindred spirit, of a sort. One who had her lethal vocation thrust on her by circumstance, not inclination.

“So what happened?” he prompted.

“The worst possible thing…and perhaps the best,” she said, staring sadly into space. “The ancient root at the center of my ritual was taken from me. It went missing a while ago. Someone took it from this very room. It was a bit of a relief, actually,” she admitted. “Every time I sacrificed someone, it made me feel a bit less…human. More of a monster. Part of me wished the entire bloody thing was over with. I’ve long outlived my usefulness, I reckoned. No one even speaks the language that was my native tongue anymore. My dearest friends have been dead for centuries. Every love I’ve risked having has expired, like cut flowers.”

“It sounds as if you have a lonely life,” conceded the assassin, sympathetically.

“I can never have children,” she said, sadly. “Not without accepting my own death in the attempt. I can never have position, power, or status, in this child’s body. Love? I’ve had love—wonderful love—but have always been denied its fulfillment by my damnable curse. And the wealth I’ve accumulated over the centuries—well, while it can purchase influence and accomplish great things, such a treasury is, in itself, a shackle. Not all the silver in the world can buy happiness,” she said, philosophically.

“So I’ve made myself ready for my long-overdue death,” she concluded. “And it was a timely decision. Since the root was taken from me, I consigned my fate to gods that I’ve long quit believing in. My health has been declining ever since. My fate would be left up to them, I decided. Either I would die, as I expected, or I would not. Perhaps the time when I could simply mature, age normally, and die is long gone. Magic is like that. Or the root would be returned, I could complete the ritual and continue…persist,” she corrected. “Either outcome would validate my choice of sacrifices over the centuries.”

“That’s a curious judgment from someone who has become dependent on sacrifice,” Malbarus observed. “You killed because you had to. All life is dependent on death to survive.”

“Of course,” agreed Lulea. “That doesn’t make it easier to bear. Once I had some control over it, I developed my standards and refined them over the years. I tried to turn necessity into virtue by selecting the absolute worst among us as the victims, and then justified my continued indulgence as a service to the city, as much as a self-preserving rationalization. Your total is seventy-one? Mine is far greater: nine hundred and eleven. Nine hundred and eleven souls who were consumed to keep me alive. Thankfully, only forty or fifty were innocents, by my estimation. The rest fulfilled my particular moral requirements for consuming them.”

“One would hope that such a ratio would be taken into consideration, in the afterlife,” he reflected. Not many he’d slain had been innocent. But he knew for a fact that some had been. He tried not to think about how many.

“It’s out of my control,” shrugged Lulea. “When the root was taken from me, I had little other choice. I consigned myself to death, unless some miracle intervened. That fateful night has finally arrived,” she said, looking out the window. The first pale light of dawn seemed to be forming on the distant horizon.

“It won’t be long, now,” he said, tiredly.

“I know,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “It’s hard, consigning your fate to the gods after so many centuries of plotting and planning to sustain yourself at all costs. But at the end, to what point do you persist? Losing the root was perhaps a good thing. It gave me the opportunity to gain perspective before I die. It forced me to face the ultimate, and I confess it has been exciting, awaiting the outcome.”

“Even if it’s your death?” he asked, curious.

“Especially if it’s my death,” Lulea replied, clutching the ancient doll to her chest protectively. “Putting your life in the hands of fate is…exhilarating. I am an old, old woman, Malbarus. Passing old. I am ancient. I have seen all that humanity has to offer and watched each new generation spring forth convinced by its innate optimism that life will be better, in the future. But every generation produces as much vileness as it does joy. All I could do, in the face of that, was remove the worst sorts of people from society and hope that it would have an effect. That, alone, gives me some solace, now.”

“And what kinds of people have you been sacrificing?” he asked, genuinely curious. As he considered the long, long life of Lulea, and took her words as true, he recognized just what a tortured soul must be trapped within that child’s body.

She fixed him with a direct gaze. “For centuries, now, I have chosen my sacrifices almost exclusively from those who would slay children for coin,” she stated.

“A despicable act,” he agreed. “And one forbidden by the codes. I applaud your decision. But there aren’t many who would qualify, I would imagine.”

“Not many, thankfully,” she agreed, suddenly looking down. “And when I have encountered them, I have acted swiftly. And even with satisfaction, until my root was taken from me. I confess a bit of guilt for that. When you slay the unjust and irredeemable, especially for some higher purpose, you would think that you could do it without remorse. But the guilt remains. Indeed, it compounds. Surely you can see that.”

Malbarus nodded. “Aye, I can. There’s only a few in my ledger I don’t feel some regret for. And some I will carry a burden for until I die. Innocents, caught in the wrong place. But most I slew were deserving of it.”

“I hope that grants you some solace,” she said, gravely. “Look, the dawn comes. The time is almost at hand.” She clutched the doll more tightly to her chest.

“Would you…would you like me to spare you suffering?” he offered, suddenly. “I know ways to make it painless.” He was feeling tired, after the long night’s conversation. This job was taking far longer than he was used to.

“I appreciate the offer,” Lulea said, sincerely. “I have no doubt that it is made out of genuine mercy. But it won’t be necessary.”

“You think your death will be painless, then?” he suggested.

“Perhaps,” she said with a shrug. “Perhaps not. But neither is of concern. I left my life on the tides of fate. A little pain at the ending would not matter. Thankfully, I will not have to contend with that.”

“You have poison, then?” he asked, curiously.

“I do, but it won’t be needed. You see, my root has come back to me,” she said, holding her doll out for him to see. The ugly, ancient little toy seemed to stare at him with its eyeless face. “You see, when I first came to the city, I knew that I could not ensure my survival if I kept a mysterious object hidden. Nor could I bear to part with it, even for a moment. So I had it made into the head of this doll,” she explained, tenderly touching the eyeless face. “Something no one could fault a little girl for carrying. And something no one would suspect as a lethal weapon. Who concerns themselves with a child’s toy?”

Malbarus raised his eyebrows in surprise. “The doll is your root? Then…you can undertake your ritual and preserve your life?” He somehow felt relieved at the idea. Lulea’s ancient spirit might have been prepared for death, but he had to appreciate the philosophical approach she had cultivated over her long, long life.

“I already have,” she said, softly, staring intently at the doll. “Indeed, it began the moment you tucked her under my arm. The spell is very specific, and very direct. The closer my sacrifice is to me, and the longer, the quicker the effect.”

Her words hung in the gloom like a cloud as Malbarus realized what she was saying.

“You…I…I am the sacrifice?” he asked, incredulously.

“You have killed children,” she reminded him, gently. “You’re one of the few left in the city who have. I’ve made certain of it. Indeed, your last three subjects have been paid for by me—each of them killers of children. I will not abide such filth in this city,” she said, resolutely. “Only, each of them did it for…sport, or ego, or pure perversion. They did not do it for coin. Just you, Malbarus. You’re the only assassin in this city who has slain children for money. You may regret it, you may abhor it, but you did it. You wear your guilt like a cloak. You, alone, fulfill my requirements for sacrifice.”

“I…you know I can slay you in an instant,” he said, suddenly feeling fear. Indeed, his last three jobs were on particularly despicable men, he recalled. He’d researched them all thoroughly before he acted. In one case he would have done the job for free. “I can—”

“You can take two steps and fall to the floor because you are enfeebled,” Lulea informed him. “Believe me, I’ve seen the spell happen far too many times to think otherwise. We are long past the point where you have enough vitality left within you to chase a little girl around the room. You’ve been growing weak from the moment you gave me the doll. Every moment you spent speaking with me stole months from your life. You were dying before you took that seat. You likely can barely move your limbs. That’s why I spent so long telling my story,” she explained. “To keep you from noticing your own growing weakness.”

“You…lie!” he accused as he tried to lift his arms from the chair. They felt uncommonly heavy, he realized. Moving his legs even a bit was a chore. He tried to muster the will to push himself to his feet, but after a few moments of struggle he realized, to his horror, that even that simple act was beyond him.

“I do not lie,” she reminded him. “I’ve told you the truth from the beginning, every word. The spell is irreversible. Once it activates, it cannot be stopped. Your death will bring me months and months of further life—and for that I am grateful,” she acknowledged. “But I am also correct. You will be dead soon because you slew four children during the reign of the Bloody Prince, and took the coin for it. My ‘uncle Sioari’ was there, though you wouldn’t know him as such. He witnessed what you did. And the anguish you bore over the despicable act.”

“It was not my fault!” Malbarus insisted, weakly. It seemed as if his very lips were unwilling to move, so drained did he suddenly feel. “I was ordered—”

“You were ordered to leave no witnesses, and you didn’t,” agreed Lulea. “You did what you felt you had to do—no matter what. It was the most important portion of the code the Prinsted Company followed. You obeyed, but then you objected…and you were cast out of the company as a result. That demonstrates a noble level of character, for a hired killer,” she praised.

“I…had…no…choice!” he said, his voice sounding feeble in his own ears.

“I know, Malbarus,” Lulea agreed, sympathetically. “The Bloody Prince was not your subject. You were only aiding the Prinsted man who had that commission. A traitor to the company, perhaps, but he accepted the commission and was required by the code to fulfill it. You could not know that the Princess and her children would be there in the chapel.”

“They were supposed to be in the country!” he whimpered, both alarmed by his own predicament and haunted by the memory of that horrible night. “I was merely keeping watch! I was only supposed to—”

“Ensure that there were no witnesses—as the code insisted. Alas, the Bloody Prince’s oldest daughter was a friend of mine, back then. Not a smart girl, but a brave and dear girl. And my dear uncle—my nephew, many times removed—was a courtier who witnessed the commission being given by the man who held the unofficial position Baracur now holds. There’s always a man like him at court,” she said, with a cynical snort. “When the Regent gave him the commission to slay the Bloody Prince—”

“Wait—the Regent arranged the commission?” Malbarus asked, incredulously.

“Our noble, virtuous, realm-preserving savior?” sneered Lulea. “Of course he did. It was a coup d’état. He convinced your master to go against the Prinsted Company’s loyalty to the Prince and slay him. And he arranged for the Prince’s family to return to the palace, that night. To ensure that his entire family would be slain—by you—and there would be no rival claimants to the throne. The pretty Princess. The four young children, so handsome and strong. He killed them all, by your hand, all save the infant the Regent took from the country estate as a justification for the coup…and the purge that followed.”

Malbarus knew she spoke the truth. He had never known who had authored the awful commission that his master took. He had agreed to participate out of a sense of loyalty and professionalism, without knowing the nature of the commission. He’d trusted his master to follow the codes. Now it made sense that the mysterious client who’d hired him was the man who would become the Regent. He felt betrayed by that, somehow.

“I give you full credit for leaving the company, after that,” Lulea continued as she watched him struggle. “It was a terrible thing that was done that night, and a terrible thing to do to you. I understand that. It’s a measure of your nobility that you left. That saved your life,” she reminded him. “The Regent’s men spared no others of Prinsted Company. Only you.

“But there comes a time when we must face accountability for what we have done,” the little girl said, more sternly. “And you have slain children. As well as a great many others. By any objective measure, you are evil, Malbarus.”

“So…are…you!” he said, his lips barely moving now.

“Oh, I’m a monster,” she agreed. “I’ve known that for centuries before you were born. I have more blood on my tiny little hands than all of my sacrifices combined. And I am content with that.” She sighed. “I was telling the truth when I said the root was taken from me. It was. By my ‘uncle.’ He made certain to set up a commission that would flush you out…but only if you were willing to slay another child,” she said, condemningly.

“You…were…dying!” he gasped.

“We are all dying, from the moment we are conceived,” admitted Lulea. “I will die someday. But not today. Dawn is breaking, my friend, and your life will be gone before the sky is lit. I’ve seen it hundreds of times before. I know you think you were undertaking a mission of mercy, on my behalf, but the truth is it was I who was willing to grant you grace. You have borne the deaths of the little Princesses and Princes for too long. It stains your soul especially black to kill a child.”

“I’d…make…an exception…now!” he said, every word a struggle. He could feel his life slipping away. The only solace he took in his death was that Baracur would not collect his fee. Perhaps the merchant would, indeed, commission a requiem for him. That brought him a grim sort of amusement as his breath became more shallow.

“I’d expect nothing less,” nodded Lulea. The little girl sat up and pushed the shutters open fully, letting the cool air in. “You likely feel this is horribly unfair. But we must all face an accounting. Even me, someday. But not today.

“Now gaze one final time at the sun, Malbarus,” she pronounced. “Remember their faces. Remember their names. For it will be the last time you will be forced to do so. And be content that you died to ensure that I would live to slay any others who would act in such an abominable manner. We don’t deserve to live among decent people. We’re monsters,” she said, glancing back at the dying assassin. “Now watch the dawn…and marvel at its beauty.”

But Malbarus was already gone.