The Archon's Assassin (32 page)

“Do you honestly think I’d entrust the upbringing and education of my daughter to you? She is far too precious for that.” He might just as well have said, “far too important.”

“You don’t care about Saphra,” Rhiannon said. Her voice came out as little more than a whisper. “What is it you want her for?”

“And you do?” Aristodeus leaned in and jabbed the smoking bowl of his pipe in her face. “You care? Mind showing us how you care?”

She shook with the restraint it took not to leap at him and tear his shogging face off. The trembling hit her chin, her cheeks, her lips. She felt the sting of tears building but refusing to fall. She couldn’t let them. Wouldn’t.

Ludo laid a hand on her shoulder. She slapped it off without thinking. She’d not even heard him approach.

“Sorry,” he said, flinching, as if he’d touched a naked flame. “Forgive my presumption. May I?” He nodded toward Aristodeus.

Rhiannon stared at him blankly, but the priest rounded on the philosopher and pushed his glasses down to the tip of his nose.

“This talk of good versus evil, the Liche Lord and all that, is all very well, but what about the moment we are in? What about practical morality? I, for one, would be in much better conscience if you would deign to answer the young lady’s question.” Ludo turned a look on Galen, who was nodding as if he agreed, then suddenly came to attention with a red flush to his cheeks. The shogger had gone along with Aristodeus’s humiliation of her, but now it was clear Ludo didn’t approve, he did his best to look impartial.

Aristodeus glowered at Rhiannon, rubbed his beard thoughtfully, and nodded. “You wish to see her?”

She felt the tears coming, forced her wide grin and showed her teeth. “Demand is the word you’re looking for.”

He sneered at that. “My wish is your demand, eh? I’ve no issue with you seeing—”

“You’re nothing like him, you know that,” Rhiannon said. “Nothing like Shader. You might have trained him, tried to mold him, but he’s everything you’re not.” Even now? Even with a bottle tucked inside his boot? That wasn’t her point, though. She was just saying it to rile Aristodeus.

He knew it, too, and dismissed her with a roll of his eyes.

But Ludo wasn’t finished. “I’ve a question of my own, if you don’t mind.”

“Well, I do,” Aristodeus said.

“Me, too,” Shadrak said. He was picking under his fingernails with the tip of a razor star. He cocked his head to fix Aristodeus with a look that said he wasn’t shogging around.

“What?” Aristodeus said through his teeth. “What is this, ask Aristodeus? If it’s knowledge you want, go to New Jerusalem, enroll in the Academy, if they’ll take you.”

Shadrak’s gaze didn’t falter as he slid the razor star back in his baldric.

After a tense moment, Aristodeus looked away.

“What this is,” Shadrak said, whipping out a pistol, “is a promise. Tell me what I want to know, or I blow your shogging brains out.”

Aristodeus started to roll his eyes again but stopped when Shadrak cocked the trigger.

“Excuse me for grabbing your attention,” Shadrak said. “Now, what I don’t get, is how the fire giant’s gauntlets, a suit of armor belonging to Otto shogging Blightey, and the other thing—”

“Shield, laddie,” Nameless said. “In Gehenna, isn’t that what you said?”

Aristodeus pinched the bridge of his nose, took a long breath in. “It’s more on the cusp of the Abyss, but yes, close enough.”

“Whatever,” Shadrak said, waving the barrel of his pistol. “But how do you know they’ll work? I mean, so far, all I’ve seen is old dwarfy here with the strength of ten men, but even with that, he can’t get the bucket off his head.”

“Twenty,” Nameless said. “Or half a dozen fire giants, I’d say.” He flexed his bicep, as if that were evidence.

Shadrak’s eyes flicked to Nameless then back to Aristodeus. “My point is, why should any of us put ourselves at risk—I mean, the scutting Liche Lord, for shog’s sake—if there’s no gain?”

“There is for me, laddie,” Nameless said.

Shadrak shook his head. “How do you know? How do any of us know this is worth it? Tell me,” he said to Aristodeus. “Convince me as to why I should go to Verusia.”

Aristodeus eyed him coolly now, as if he’d seen a way to turn the tables. “Oh, you have your reasons, Shadrak. Don’t you?”

Whatever was communicated between them elicited a scowl from Shadrak, but he holstered his pistol and muttered under his breath.

Rhiannon caught Albert with a half-smile on his face, but he quickly lost it when he saw her looking. Instead, he clapped his hands and drew everyone’s attention.

“Well, I for one am not averse to a trip to the Schwarzwald. I’ve been meaning to go to Verusia since my Gallic days. They have this black bread, you see—”

Aristodeus cut across him the second he realized Albert had nothing of value to add. “It’s not the helm that’s at issue here.” He gestured across the chamber at the crystal casket. “It’s the axe. I could remove the helm right now, if I wanted to. But if I did, I suspect we’d all be dead in an instant, wouldn’t you say, Nameless?”

Nameless turned away, and his shoulders slumped.

Aristodeus sighed. “I had hoped to avoid this. It’s a hard enough burden without him being constantly reminded of it. You want answers,”—he scanned everyone in the room, lingering a little longer on the homunculus in the feathered cloak, who was now listening attentively—“then fine. The helm insulates Nameless from the power of the axe. Without it, he is defenseless. He’ll become a monster again, a butcher.”

“If he does…” Shadrak said, then closed his mouth. He tapped both pistols holstered at his sides so he wouldn’t have to say it where Nameless could hear.

Aristodeus shook his head and waved his hand. “No, no, that wouldn’t work. You’d have as much chance as…” His eyes flicked to the dwarf and back. “It just wouldn’t work.”

“Destroy the axe, then,” Galen said, looking round to see who thought he’d just had a brilliant idea.

“Can’t be done,” Aristodeus said. “At least, not by any mundane means. It’s of Supernal construction. The axe is the stuff of deception, like the homunculi themselves, begotten by the Demiurgos. These three artifacts are similar: the stuff of the Cynocephalus, the son of the Demiurgos. They are, in essence, Supernal beings, living things with their own personalities, and their own powers. Together, Mephesch believes they can destroy the axe, and then I can remove the helm.”

“So, they’re alive, then,” Rhiannon said.

“That is what I said, yes.” Aristodeus didn’t even look in her direction. He merely sighed, as if she were the class idiot.

“And you plan to use them, like you use everyone else?” Like he used her, and her daughter.

Ludo caught her eye, and he half-smiled with what she took to be sympathy. She opened her mouth to say something, to tell him where he could stick his sympathy, but he spoke first, and it wasn’t to her.

“Three artifacts, you say, and the black axe makes four. Is that all there are?”

“No one knows,” Aristodeus said.

“Maldark had a hammer,” Nameless said. “At least, according to the legends.”

“He did,” Rhiannon said. She’d seen what it could do. “It was like an earthquake when he struck the ground with it.” It made her wonder about her sword—Callixus’s sword; how had that been forged? And by whom?

“And then there’s the
Pax Nanorum
—the real Axe of the Dwarf Lords,” Nameless said. “Not that evil copy.”

“That is a myth, Nameless,” Aristodeus said with a show of sorrow. “I suspect it was inserted into the Annals as part of a long-term trap to get you or someone else to go into Gehenna to retrieve the black axe. It’s no more real than the Lords of Arnoch, or any of the fairy stories Earth-folk tell themselves to make them feel special, important, higher than the beasts.”

“So, it’s true, then,” Nameless said. “My people are nothing but the discards of Sektis Gandaw. All the stories, all the glory…”

“Bags of chemicals like the rest of us,” Albert said. “Welcome to the real world.”

“Shut it, tubby,” Rhiannon said.

The look Albert gave her told her he had her marked. She swallowed the lump in her throat, dismissed him with a murderous glare of her own. Apparently, he saw right through that and inclined his head, giving her a tight-lipped grin.

“All cultures have their legends,” Aristodeus said, “their foundation myths. Gives a sense of unity, or purpose.”

Ludo yawned loudly and covered his mouth. “Sorry. Must be the heat in here.”

“Heat?” Aristodeus said. “But the air conditioning is…” He stopped short as he caught sight of the priest’s smile.

“You know, science has its legends,” Ludo said. “Philosophy, too. We all have our frames for making sense of the world around us, but identifying them says nothing about what is true and what is not.”

“Are you wanting to debate me?” Aristodeus said.

Before Ludo could answer, Shadrak said, “No, he’s wanting you to shut the shog up before I debate you with my scutting fist up your arse.”

“Darling,” Albert said. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Aristodeus pounced at Shadrak like a rapid dog. The midget backflipped once, twice, three times until he was clear, and came up in a fighting crouch with a dagger in either hand.

The homunculus in the feather cloak was on his feet, eyes riveted to Shadrak. Galen’s hand went to his saber, but he was looking to Ludo for what to do. The old priest simply put his head in his hands and sighed. Albert raised an eyebrow and folded his arms across his chest. If he’d had a chair, Rhiannon could have seen him sit in it, put his feet up, and order a drink for the show.

“We’ll go,” Nameless said. It was quietly spoken, but stilled the room like a thunderclap.

“Why?” Shadrak said. “What’s the shogging point?”

“I ask myself that every morning,” Nameless said, “before I get out of bed. And to be honest, I’m starting to doubt there’s an answer. But what I did back there, to that poor bastard, Sartis…” He sighed within the great helm, and a long silence ensued. Glances were exchanged, but no one dared to speak. “It demands some meaning. It demands completion. Otherwise, I have to concede old baldy’s point, and the day I do that is the day I stay in bed and never get up.”

What had he done? Rhiannon wondered. She looked to the others for a hint, for an answer, but no one met her gaze.

Aristodeus relaxed, and Shadrak sheathed his knives but continued to glare.

Nameless shifted the weight of the axe on his shoulder, looked down at the gauntlet covering his free hand. He waggled the metal fingers, clenched them into a fist, then dropped his hand to his side.

“Fine,” Rhiannon said, “then I’m coming with you, as soon as this wanker gives me back my daughter.”

“This is why I am reluctant to grant her wishes, gentlemen,” Aristodeus said. “I have impressed upon you the unparalleled dangers of this quest, and yet she feels it appropriate to bring a child along. Hardly the responsible action of a doting mother.”

And there it was: the slightest chink, the merest opening, and he was on it, turning every word, every action, every situation to his advantage.

“You piece of shit,” Rhiannon said. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

Ludo came between them. “But he is right, I fear.”

Rhiannon whirled on him and raised her hand to strike. Galen strode toward her, but Nameless cut across his path and hit him in the breastbone with the palm of his gauntleted hand. Galen flew across the room and smashed into the wall. He sagged to the floor, muttering and dazed.

“Lassie,” Nameless said, showing no concern for Galen climbing to his feet and swaying back toward them. “I don’t like this any more than you do, but stay here, for your girl.”

Why?
Rhiannon wanted to shout.
It’s not like I even wanted her?
She flinched internally, clutched at her belly as if it had been mangled out of shape. She knew what it was, knew it was tearing her apart. Her head resented the girl, despised her; but her body, her flesh, the substance of what she was… And it wasn’t Saphra’s fault. She was beautiful. She was everything a daughter should be. Surely, nothing else mattered. So, why did it hurt so damned much?

Nameless didn’t know that; couldn’t have known, and yet, the way he gripped her shoulder, gently, despite his newfound strength, Rhiannon felt he did know. Felt he knew her inside out. If it had been anyone else—even Shader—she’d have recoiled from the vulnerability, closed herself off to his empathy. But instead, his touch steadied her, made her feel she was not alone.

Barely able to breathe, she tried to gasp a response, then simply nodded.

“Good,” Shadrak said, “then let’s shog off before I castrate the bald tosser and feed him his own fruits.”

Galen grunted and lunged at Nameless, but Shadrak stuck his foot out and tripped him. Before Galen could rise again, Ludo crouched down beside him and whispered something in his ear. The dragoon didn’t like whatever it was, but stood and dusted himself down. To his credit, he gave a curt nod to Nameless, and an even curter one to Shadrak, then he touched his forehead in the Nousian manner. Rhiannon had seen that sort of thing before at the Templum of the Knot. She’d seen it from Shader, too. Nousian humility, imposed with iron discipline on those with the least aptitude for it.

Aristodeus straightened his robe and made an effort to look unfazed, as if he were squarely back in control. “I find myself in agreement. Too much time has already been wasted.” He turned to Rhiannon. “Bezaleel will take you to our daughter, but she is not to leave the Perfect Peak. I cannot have you placing her in danger again.”

Bezaleel stepped into Rhiannon’s peripheral vision, as if he’d been back and waiting for a long time.

“Put her in danger!” Rhiannon said. “It’s not like I knew there were bloody werewolves on the Downs!”

“Now, there’s a point,” Aristodeus said. “Bezaleel, take her to my study first. We should run some tests. I’ll join you shortly.” He turned back to the others.

Bezaleel ushered her away. “Always someone else’s fault, eh?” he whispered. “That’s how he thinks. If he knew about the wolves, he expects you to as well. Doesn’t seem to understand that we’re not all omniscient.”