Into the Labyrinth (12 page)

“Ciang will see you this morning,” said the Ancient when he deemed Hugh capable of understanding his words.

Hugh nodded, not quite capable yet of replying.

“You will have audience in her chambers,” the Ancient added.

Hugh’s eyebrows rose. This was an honor accorded to
few. He glanced down ruefully at his wet and slept-in clothes. The Ancient, understanding, offered to provide a clean shirt. The old man hinted at breakfast, but Hugh shook his head emphatically.

Washed and dressed, the throbbing in his temples receding to an ache behind his eyeballs, Hugh presented himself once again to Ciang, the Brotherhood’s “arm.”

Ciang’s chambers were enormous, sumptuously and fancifully decorated in the style elves admire and humans find ostentatious. All the furniture was of carved wood, extremely rare in the Mid Realms. The elven emperor Agah’ran would have opened his painted eyelids wide with envy at the sight of so many valuable and beautiful pieces. The massive bed was a work of art. Four posts, carved in the shapes of mythological beasts, each perched on the head of another, supported a canopy of wood decorated with the same beasts lying outstretched, paws extended. From each paw dangled a golden ring. Suspended from the rings was a silken curtain of fabulous weave, color, and design. It was whispered that the curtain had magical properties, that it accounted for the elven woman’s longer than normal life span.

Whether or not that was true, the curtain was marvelously lovely to look on and seemed to invite admiration. Hugh had never before been inside Ciang’s personal quarters. He stared at the shimmering multicolored curtain in awe, lifted his hand and reached out to it before it occurred to him what he was doing. Flushing, he started to snatch his hand back, but Ciang, seated in a high-backed monstrosity of a chair, gestured.

“You may touch it, my friend. It will do you some good.”

Hugh, recalling the rumors, wasn’t certain that he wanted to touch the curtain, but to do otherwise would offend Ciang. He ran his fingers over it gingerly and was startled to feel a pleasurable exhilaration tingle through his body. At this he did snatch his fingers back, but the feeling lasted and he found his head clear, the pain gone.

Ciang was seated on the opposite side of the large room. Diamond-paned windows, which stretched from ceiling to floor, admitted a flood of sunlight. Hugh walked across the bright bands of light spanning the ornate rugs to stand before the high-backed wooden chair.

The chair was said to have been carved by an admirer of Ciang’s, given to her as a present. It was certainly grotesque. A skull leered at the top. The blood-red cushions that supported Ciang’s frail form were surrounded by various ghostly spirits twining their way upward. Her feet rested on a footstool formed of crouching, cringing naked bodies. She waved a hand in a gracious gesture to a chair opposite hers, a chair which Hugh was relieved to see was perfectly ordinary in appearance.

Ciang dispensed with meaningless pleasantries and struck, arrow-like, at the heart of their business.

“I have spent the night in study.” She rested her hand, gnarled and almost fleshless but elegant in its movement and grace, on the dusty leather cover of a book in her lap.

“I am sorry to have disturbed your sleep,” Hugh began to apologize.

Ciang cut him off. “To be honest, I could not have slept otherwise. You are a disturbing influence, Hugh the Hand,” she added, looking at him with narrowed eyes. “I will not be sorry to see you go. I have done what I could to speed you on your way.” The eyelids—lashless, as the head was hairless—blinked once. “When you are gone, do not come back.”

Hugh understood. The next time there would be no hesitation. The archer would have his orders. Hugh’s face set hard and grim. “I would not have come back in any case,” he said softly, staring at the cringing bodies, bent to hold Ciang’s small and delicate-boned feet. “If Haplo doesn’t kill me then I must find—”

“What did you say?” Ciang demanded sharply.

Hugh, startled, glanced up at her. He frowned. “I said that if I don’t kill Haplo—”

“No!” Ciang’s fist clenched. “You said ‘If Haplo doesn’t kill
me
 …!’ Do you go to this man seeking his death or your own?”

Hugh put his hand to his head. “I … was confused. That’s all.” His voice was gruff. “The wine …”

“… speaks the truth, as the saying goes.” Ciang shook her head. “No, Hugh the Hand. You will not come back to us.”

“Will you send the knife around on me?” he asked harshly.

Ciang considered. “Not until after you have fulfilled
the contract. Our honor is at stake. And therefore, the Brotherhood will help you, if we can.” She glanced at him and there was an odd glint in her eye. “If you want …”

Carefully she closed the book and placed it on a table beside the chair. From the table she lifted an iron key, which hung from a black ribbon. Extending her hand to Hugh, she allowed him the privilege of helping her to stand. She refused his assistance in walking, making her way slowly and with dignity to a door on a far wall.

“You will find what you seek in the Black Coffer,” she told him.

The Black Coffer was not a coffer at all but a vault, a repository for weapons—magical or otherwise. Magical weapons are, of course, highly prized, and the Brotherhood’s laws governing them are strict and rigorously enforced. A member who acquires or makes such a weapon may consider it his or her own personal possession, but must apprise the Brotherhood of its existence and how it works. The information is kept in a file in the Brotherhood’s library, a file which may be consulted by any member at any time.

A member needing such a weapon as he finds described may apply to the owner and request the weapon’s loan. The owner is free to refuse, but this almost never happens, since it is quite likely that the owner himself will need to borrow a weapon someday. If the weapon is not returned—something else that almost never happens—the thief is marked, the knife sent around.

On the owner’s death, the weapon becomes the property of the Brotherhood. In the case of elderly members, such as the Ancient, who come back to the fortress to spend their remaining years in comfort, the deliverance of any magical weapons is easily facilitated. For those members who meet the sudden and violent end considered an occupational hazard, collecting the weapons of the deceased can present a problem.

These have sometimes been irrevocably lost, as in cases where the body and everything on it have been burned in a funeral pyre or tossed in rage off the floating isles into the Maelstrom. But so prized are the weapons that once the word goes around that the owner has died (which it does with remarkable swiftness) the Brotherhood is quick to act. All is done quietly, circumspectly. Very often grieving
family members are surprised by the sudden appearance of strangers at their door. The strangers enter the house (sometimes before the body is cold) and leave almost immediately. Usually an object leaves with them—the black coffer.

To facilitate the passing on of valuable weapons, members of the Brotherhood are urged to keep such weapons in a plain black box. This has become known as the black coffer. It is thus natural that the repository for such weapons in the Brotherhood’s fortress should have become known—in capital letters—as the Black Coffer.

If a member requests the use of a weapon kept in the Black Coffer, he or she must explain in detail the need and pay a fee proportionate to the weapon’s power. Ciang has the final say on who gets what weapons, as well as the price to be paid.

Standing before the door of the Black Coffer, Ciang inserted the iron key into the lock and turned it.

The lock clicked.

Grasping the handle of the heavy iron door, she pulled. Hugh was ready to assist her if she asked, but the door, revolving on silent hinges, swung easily at her light touch. All was dark inside.

“Bring a lamp,” Ciang ordered.

Hugh did so, catching up a glow lamp that stood on a table near the door, probably for this very purpose. Hugh lit the lamp, and the two entered the vault.

It was the first time Hugh the Hand had ever been inside the Black Coffer. (He had always taken pride in the fact that he had never needed enhanced weaponry.) He wondered why he was being accorded this honor now. Few members were ever permitted inside. When a weapon was needed, Ciang either fetched it herself or sent the Ancient to do so.

Hugh entered the enormous stone-lined vault with quiet step and subdued heart. The lamp drove the shadows back but could not banish them. A hundred lamps with the brightness of Solarus could not banish the shadow that hung over this room. The tools of death created their own darkness.

Their numbers were inconceivable. They rested on tables, reclined against the walls, were sheltered beneath glass cases. It was too much to take in all at one glance.

The light flashed off the blades of knives and daggers of every conceivable shape and type, arranged in a vast, ever expanding circle—a sort of metal sunburst. Pikes and poleaxes and spears stood guard around the walls. Longbows and short were properly displayed, each with a quiver of arrows, undoubtedly the famous elven exploding arrows so feared by human soldiers. Rows of shelving contained bottles and vials, small and large, of magical potions and poisons—all neatly labeled.

Hugh walked past one case filled with nothing but rings: poison rings, snake-tooth rings (containing a tiny needle tipped with snake venom), and magical rings of all sorts, from rings of charming (which grant the user power over the victim) to rings of warding (which protect the user against rings of charming).

Every item in the Black Coffer was documented, labeled in both the human and elven (and, in certain rare cases, dwarven) languages. Words to magical spells—should any be needed—were recorded. The value of it all was incalculable. Hugh’s mind boggled. Here was stored the true wealth of the Brotherhood, worth far more than all the barls and jewels of the elven and human royal treasuries combined. Here was death and the means to deal it. Here was fear. Here was power.

Ciang led the way through the veritable maze of shelves, cabinetry, and cases, to an unimportant-looking table shunted off to a distant corner of the room. Only one object rested on that table, an object hidden under a cloth that might once have been black but, covered with dust, looked gray. The table appeared to be chained to the wall by thick cobwebs.

No one had ventured near this table in a long, long time.

“Set the lamp down,” Ciang told him.

Hugh obeyed, placing the lamp on a case containing a vast assortment of blow-darts. He looked curiously at the cloth-covered object, thinking there was something strange about it, but not certain what.

“Look at it closely,” Ciang ordered, echoing his thought.

Hugh did so, bending cautiously near it. He knew enough about magical weapons to respect this one. He would never touch it or anything pertaining to it until its
proper use had been carefully explained—one reason Hugh the Hand had always preferred not to rely on such weapons. A good steel blade—hard and sharp—is a tool you can trust.

Hugh straightened, frowning, tugging on the braided strands of beard dangling from his chin.

“You see?” Ciang asked, almost as if she were testing him.

“Dust and cobwebs over everything else, but no dust or cobwebs anywhere on the object itself,” Hugh replied.

Ciang breathed a soft sigh, regarded him almost sadly. “Ah, there are not many like you, Hugh the Hand. Quick eye, quick hand. A pity,” she ended coolly.

Hugh said nothing. He could offer no defense, knew that none was invited. He stared hard at the object beneath the cloth, could make out the shape by the fact that dust lay all around it but not over it—a dagger with a remarkably long blade.

“Put your hand on it,” Ciang said. “You may do so safely,” she added, seeing the flash in Hugh’s eye.

Hugh held his fingers gingerly above the object. He wasn’t afraid, but he was loath to touch it, as one is loath to touch a snake or a hairy spider. Telling himself it was just a knife (yet wondering why it was covered with a black cloth), he rested his fingertips on it. Startled, he jerked his hand back. He stared at Ciang.

“It moved!”

She nodded, unperturbed. “A quivering. Like a live thing. Barely felt, yet strong enough to shake off the dust of centuries, strong enough to disturb the web-weavers. Yet it is not alive, as you will see. Not alive as
we
know life,” she amended.

She plucked away the black cloth. The dust that caked the edges flew up, formed a nose-tickling cloud that caused them both to back off, wiping the grime and the horrible clinging wispy sensation of cobweb from face and hands.

Beneath the cloth—an ordinary metal dagger. The Hand had seen far better-crafted weapons. In shape and design, it was exceedingly crude, might have been made by some smith’s child, attempting to learn his parent’s craft. The hilt and crosspiece were forged of iron that appeared to have been beaten into shape while it was cooling. The
marks of each hammer blow were plain on both hilt and crosspiece.

The blade was smooth, perhaps because it was made of steel, for it was bright and shiny in contrast to the hilt’s dull finish. The blade had been affixed to the hilt with molten metal, the traces of soldering plain to see. The only things that made this knife at all remarkable were the strange symbols etched on the blade. The symbols were not the same as—yet they were reminders of—the one traced on Hugh’s chest.

“The rune-magic,” said Ciang, her bony finger hovering above, carefully not touching the blade.

“What does the thing do?” Hugh asked, regarding the weapon with disdain mingled with disgust.

“We do not know,” Ciang answered.

Hugh raised an eyebrow, regarded her questioningly. She shrugged. “The last brother to use it died.”

“I can understand why.” Hugh grunted. “Trying to go up against a mark using a kid’s toy.”

Ciang shook her head. “You do not understand.” She raised her slanted eyes to his, and again there was that strange glint. “He died of shock.” She paused, looked down at the weapon, and added, almost casually, “He had grown four arms.”