Shadowdance 05 - A Dance of Ghosts (32 page)

His eyes fell on the book that lay open before him. It was stained with blood, but the lone paragraph on its pages was still legible. Based on the pen and inkwell on the desk, Haern assumed the writing to be Luther’s. The script was tight, carefully controlled, and reading it did little to illuminate matters.

Tonight he comes, I know it. I would pray, but what god would answer? I condemn a city to save a nation. Perhaps Karak would be proud after all.

No answers, just as Delysia had promised. Only death and betrayal. His only hope now was to find Thren, assuming the man even stuck around to be questioned. He felt a momentary rush of panic, thinking of Delysia lying dead by the exit to the building, and he pushed it down. For her to die while he was crawling up from the pit, to die while waiting for him to return from a place she’d begged him not to go …

“Luther?”

He turned around to see a boy no older than twelve carrying a lit candle in one hand, five more unlit in the other. The boy stood just before the body of the dead guard, his jaw hanging open. Haern swore, leaping toward the door in hopes of stopping him before he could escape and sound the guard. But the boy had no desire to run. The candles dropped from his hands, and before Haern could reach him, he’d already drawn a slender dirk from his belt and begun shouting at the top of his lungs.

“Intruder! Intruder! Intr—”

Haern batted aside the meager weapon, and momentum unchanged, he slammed into the boy with a sword leading the way. The boy’s cry halted as he doubled over, a sword buried to the hilt in his gut. Haern stared right into his eyes, horrified by the sight. There was no doubt, no sorrow, no confusion … just rage.

No different than I was at his age,
thought Haern, and he felt a chill as if a ghost had crossed over his grave.

Cries from below quickly echoed the boy’s warning, and Haern swore again. He had to get out of there now, before they could overwhelm him. He flew down the stairs, trying to push the memory of the boy’s dying face out of his mind. At the floor beneath, he found the door open and a man standing before it. He was stout and not very tall, but he held an enormous sword in one hand, its blade wreathed with black flame. Contrasted against the plain white bedrobe he wore, the sight would have been comical if not for how the paladin nearly skewered Haern as he ran down the steps.

“Who sent you?” the man asked, pulling back for another thrust as Haern dodged the first.

“Luther did,” said Haern, hoping to confuse him. Based on the glare he received, Haern decided he’d hit a nerve, and the burning blade slashed down with all the man’s might. There wasn’t much room in the stairway, but Haern was more than agile enough to slide to the side, the fire and steel cutting the air before him. The sword smacked into the stone steps, immediately charring the red carpet and cracking the step in two. Haern gave him no chance to recover, his right arm swinging out so his sword opened the man’s throat. A follow-up kick sent the body tumbling, the sword clattering along with him. Haern winced at the cacophony it created. If there was anyone in the Stronghold who hadn’t realized he was inside, they knew now.

No time, no time, no time.

Haern ran, wanting nothing more than to see those beautiful oak shelves full of books. Instead, he found two more men armed with swords rushing up the stairs, the blades of both paladins wreathed with flame.

“Sorry, can’t stay long,” Haern said as he lunged with both weapons. He knew they would successfully block the attacks, and when they did he felt a tingle in his hands, as if the sting of the flames had traveled through the steel of his swords, through the hilt, and into his flesh. It kept them back, though, just enough that he had room to leap headfirst into the library. He rolled along the carpet, then skidded to a stop so he could turn and fight. He had room now, and every intention to use it.

“You will suffer for this insult!” one of the paladins cried, and Haern grinned at him.
Suffer? No, not today.
He attacked the man just as he tried to rush through the doorway, sabers a blur. The paladin tried to block, and there was no moving that dark blade, no forcing its position like he might against a normal opponent. But Haern had speed, and due to the surprise nature of the combat, neither paladin had their armor to rely upon. When the paladin tried to counter as a way of buying himself some space, Haern blocked it with ease, then stabbed him through the belly. As he doubled over, the other paladin shoved the body forward, using it to keep Haern from attacking while he was limited by the doorway.

“Karak guide my hand,” said the paladin as he grabbed the hilt of his sword with both hands. The dark fire around its steel grew stronger, and the very sight of it made Haern’s head ache. He moved to attack, but the fire flared, and without knowing what it meant, Haern fell back. So badly did he want to flee to the wood carving, but if any caught sight of where he was going, there was too much of a chance they could decipher where he might exit. Better they thought he vanished like a ghost than into a cramped tunnel in their very walls.

“Karak be my strength.”

The paladin swung, and it was as if he wielded an inferno with his hands. Haern retreated until his back was to a bookshelf, bumped it, scattered books to the floor.

“Karak be my victory!”

A massive downward chop, but Haern was already moving. The sword hit the stone, the books erupted in flame, and then came the smoke. Haern slid to one side, then pushed off into the air. Twirling, all cloaks and swords, the paladin could only guess where to position his blade in defense. He guessed wrong.

The man’s body crumpled to the ground as Haern landed. He was given no chance to celebrate nor retreat, for more men were running into the library, all wielding swords or axes. Knowing his time had long since run out, Haern did not engage them, instead racing toward the fire and knocking more books into it. As the smoke billowed, Haern grabbed one that was already aflame, the violet fire consuming it eerie to witness and powerful in its heat, and then hurled the book into another shelf. It caught as if doused with lantern oil.

Deeper toward the back of the library he ran, dodging desperate swings as the men rushed into it. They were trying to be methodical, sealing off the exit and lining the far wall so that there’d be no aisle he could hide in, but that only gave him more time. He knocked over another shelf, then assaulted a paladin that had been chasing him. Their weapons clashed, and though all feeling was gone from his hands, Haern still managed to slice out his heel, then finish him with a stab to the neck in passing. From the other side, he heard men shouting, asking where he was, and debating what to do about the flames that were leaping from bookshelf to bookshelf as if containing a life of their own.

Keep on arguing,
thought Haern as he raced for the enormous wood carving and his escape.

Just before he reached, it a burning blade swung into his vision. On instinct, Haern dropped to his knees, the sword searing the air above him. The heat was incredible, terrifyingly so. Whirling about to face his opponent, he found an older man with gray hair, his black armor decorated with the silver skull of a lion. His strength was incredible as he pulled the enormous sword back around for a second swing, faster than most men could wield a dagger. Haern knew blocking was impossible, and trying to time the swing right, he dove underneath, hoping to come out of his roll beside the man and stab him in the neck while he was vulnerable.

Except as he dove into the roll, the sword dipped, swung with only one hand. Coming up for the stab, Haern found a mailed fist already waiting. It struck him square in the face, blood blasting from his nose.

“
Karak!
” cried the man, and suddenly, that fist felt like the hammer of a god. The blow rocked through his body, straining his bones, filling his throat with a scream that sounded far too horrific to be his own. Legs suddenly resisting him, he dropped to one side, limbs curiously asleep. Trying not to panic, he glared up at the older paladin, who knelt down before him.

“You’re either a brilliant man or a fool,” said the paladin as arms grabbed Haern from all sides. “In our dungeon, we’ll see which of the two you truly are.”

Something hard hit him from behind, and then the darkness took him.

T
he last thing Alyssa did that night, as she did every night, was remove her eyes. Despite the insistence of the craftsmen who’d formed them, despite her own fingers that could confirm their smoothness, she still felt as if they were covered with a thousand jagged slivers that sliced into her vacant eye sockets. Only once had she tried sleeping with them still in, and she’d awoken halfway through the night to find her fingers digging into her sockets, which were wet with tears.

There were no servants with her in her room, Alyssa at last left in solitude. They’d check on her occasionally, she knew. At the foot of her bed, resting atop a table, was a brass bell she could ring if she ever needed anything, not that she ever did. She was blind, not an invalid, and whenever she needed something, she left her bed, walked across the cold floor, and opened the door to ask the servant waiting outside. She remembered when Melody first suggested the bell, except the bell was to have been hooked to a rope hanging beside her head. She’d threatened to set the entire bed on fire if she ever discovered such a set up.

What I’d give to have seen their faces,
Alyssa thought as she set the eyes into a glass with a thin layer of alcohol at the bottom.
They must have thought me out of my mind.

It wasn’t that much of a stretch, really. She’d long felt the eyes of her enemies circling her. Now without her own, she knew it was only a matter of time before they closed in, snatching at whatever they could get. Her only hope rested in people like Zusa and John Gandrem protecting her interests, and even then, they faced an impossible task.

Alyssa removed her robe and slid naked underneath the silken sheets. They were cold, and she shivered, arms crossed and knees drawn to her chest, as she waited for them to warm. Her breathing steadily slowed, and head sunk into a giant feathered pillow, she tried to relax. Yet she couldn’t. Something bothered her, even as the rest of her body warmed. A window, she realized. The quiet of her room was not complete, the soft rustle of air she felt on her cheek not supposed to be there. Sitting up with the blankets pulled to her chest, she addressed the darkness.

“Who is there?” she asked. “Say your name now. If I hear any other noise, I will scream for my guards.”

“Your senses are to be commended,” said a deep voice at the foot of her bed. “Given what I know of your personality, you might have been a fine member of my guild in a different life.”

“Who are you?” she asked, though in the pit of her stomach she felt certain she already knew.

“Come, now, surely you can guess?”

Spoken with such confidence, such condescension.
You are a child to me,
that voice said,
just a silly, stupid child,
and it annoyed Alyssa to no end.

“There are plenty in this city with the skill to sneak past my guards,” she said, hoping to deflate him the tiniest bit. “Is there a reason you think you are special?”

The intruder laughed. Controlled. Amused. A predator’s laugh.

“I need not think it,” he said. “I
know
it, and you do too, don’t you, Alyssa? The moment I spoke to reveal my presence, a chill ran down your spine, and with an absolute certainty came to you a name. Please, say it, and don’t lie. It proves nothing if you lie.”

Alyssa swallowed.

“Muzien,” she said. “Muzien the Darkhand.”

The elf clapped, and she wondered if the servant outside her door would hear it. Pulling the blankets tighter about her, she slid her free hand underneath her pillow, to the dagger hidden there.

“See, was that so hard? Now spare me your sarcasm and petty attempts to insult me while hiding your fear. We have things to discuss, you and I.”

“I will have no business with you,” Alyssa said. “And if you’ve come to kill me, just do it now. I will not beg for your amusement.”

“Amusement?” Again Muzien laughed. It was from a different direction than before, and when he spoke again, the location had changed once more. He was moving about her, constantly forcing her to readjust his mental position in her head. Anything to make her uncomfortable, she realized, as if being naked and helpless were not enough to accomplish that.

“My dear, if I wanted amusement, I would have gone elsewhere. Tonight is business, whether you wish it or not.”

Her fingers closed about the dagger’s hilt. With her blankets raised, her actions should have been hidden. There was no chance she could strike him when ready, but if he were to make a move on her, thinking her helpless …

“Get on with it, then,” she said, raising her voice the slightest amount. If only the servant outside would hear her voice, realize she spoke with someone when she was supposed to be alone.

“Gladly.”

So close to her right ear she felt the heat of his breath on her skin. Her entire body tensed, and in that half second, she felt a tug on her blankets and movement beneath her pillow. Before she could react, Muzien ripped the dagger from her hand. A soft thud told her it landed on the carpet below, far out of reach. She thought to dive for it anyway, but a hand closed around her throat and slammed her back down atop her pillow.

“Now is a time to listen,” the elf whispered into her ear, “not make foolish plans to attack me, nor vain attempts to alert the servant outside your door. I killed her, Alyssa. She’s bleeding out in your closet as we speak, so before someone notices her absence, you and I must come to an understanding. Have I made myself clear?”

His grip tightened, and though she opened her mouth to answer, she could not make a sound. Her hands clutched at his wrist, fingernails scratching hard enough to draw blood, yet it relented not the slightest amount.

“I asked, Have I made myself clear?”