The Archon's Assassin (42 page)

Oh, Nous—

The set of the jaw, if you took away the beard. Shader’s widow’s peak that would one day thin into baldness.

Ain
—

Even their height, their skill with a blade. Only the accent was different.

“Physically, they are the same,” the Archon said. “And they are the same soul.”

Oh no. Please, no.

Rhiannon’s head was a hive of stinging insects. She tried to grasp a thought, a word, some tangible chunk of reality. Storm winds skirled about her skull.

“From the same womb,” the Archon said. “With the same father. Conceived at the same time.”

But Aristodeus was Graecian. Shader had been raised in Britannia. Hence the accent. But how? How could they be the same? They couldn’t even be twins: the philosopher was old enough to be Shader’s grandfather.

The glare from the Archon’s cowl dimmed to a benign glow. “He visited his own birth, snatched the babe, and gave it over to the care of foster parents in Britannia.”

Jarl and Gralia. Shader’s mother and father. The warrior and the luminary.

“But,” she stammered. “But if he took the baby,”—if he took himself; had himself raised as Shader—“he shouldn’t exist, should he?” The life he’d led would never have happened. But then, how would he take the infant, if there was no Aristodeus to take it?

The Archon shook his head. “It is the kind of paradox the Demiurgos loves. I warned Aristodeus at the time, but he would not heed me.”

“So, it’s a trap. Shader’s a trap. An illusion. Another deception.” Like Dave the Slave.

“An abomination, yes,” the Archon said. “A desecration, even. But he is quite real. They both are, at least for now. What you see of Aristodeus is real, too, as far as the flesh goes. But the ground of his soul is tormented, running in circles, yet he does not even know it. I suspect, were his true essence—that which is mired in the Abyss—ever to converge with Shader, the paradox would be unbound, and only one would remain.”

“So…” Rhiannon’s mind was a racing maelstrom. “Does that make Shader Saphra’s father?” She was half-joking; but it was the joke of a woman who’d lost her grip on sanity.

“Genetically,” the Archon said. When she frowned she didn’t know what that meant, he added, “Same parents, same person, same flesh. So, yes: that which impregnated you was Shader in all but memory and experience.”

Shog.

Shader… A father. And yet he’d never… at least not to her knowledge, and not with her. Almost, on one or two occasions, but not quite.

But how could she tell him? Should she? And what about Aristodeus? She knew with absolute clarity that if she could have brought them together, Shader and the philosopher’s core or essence, she’d have done it. Done it and hoped the one still breathing was the one who deserved it most. She had no doubt that was Shader.

Then she had another thought: “What if I kill him? What if I cut the bald bastard into pieces? What then? Would Shader die, too?”

“I do not think so,” the Archon said. “But we stray from my purpose in telling you all this. Sometimes it takes an avalanche of knowledge to restore clear sight. It is my hope that you can see now why you must get Saphra away from Aristodeus. At least then you may in some small way mitigate her doom.”

Her doom
?
“What do you mean, ‘her doom’?”

“Every action, every use of power comes at a cost. Did I not say this before? Saphra’s conception is a tangle of violations, and the laws that govern the worlds cry out for restoration. Order has been perverted. Time has been turned in on itself. Ancient balances have been disturbed, and all this draws the gaze of the Demiurgos. He sees in her his likeness. He would have her for his own.”

“Between a rock and a hard place,” Rhiannon said. “Damned if I do, damned if I don’t, is that what you’re saying?” When the Archon didn’t answer, she pressed on. “If I leave her with Aristodeus, he’ll use her for Ain-knows what end; but if I get her away from him, the Demiurgos will come to claim her? So, what’s he been waiting for? I’ve raised her for four years and there’s been no stink of sulfur.”

The fire in the Archon’s hood was now no more than a pearly haze. “My brother is a master of the insidious.”

Even as he said it, Rhiannon felt the weight of the black sword at her side. Her drinking, her cutting, her nights away. Her endless excuses and rejections. They would all take their toll, sooner or later. Saphra was a sponge, soaking it all up, owning it, personalizing it, feeling that she was to blame.

“Saphra,” she croaked. Then louder, “Saphra!”

She hefted the sword in two hands and ran at the glass wall. The homunculus inside looked up, shock written all over his gnomic face.

But before she could strike, the Archon drifted between her and the glass. Porcelain fingers grasped her wrists, and slowly, little by little, she lowered the sword.

“Won’t that cost you?” she muttered. “Wasn’t that a direct action?”

“Sometimes it is necessary to cede a little ground,” the Archon said, though he swiftly released her. “The girl is too well guarded here. The homunculi are small, but their lore is vast. And the philosopher will be expecting you to try to take your daughter.”

“Good. Least he’ll know why I’m going to cut his shogging head off.”

“He is too skilled,” the Archon said, like Rhiannon needed reminding. “You will require the aid of others to get Saphra back.”

“Who? Shader? Nameless?”

“Shader, perhaps, but there is one other who could help: Adeptus Ludo.”

The priest with the big ears? What could he do? “You’re joking, aren’t you? No disrespect, but Aristodeus would run him through in the blink of an eye.”

“You misunderstand me,” the Archon said. “Ludo is precious to me. Perhaps the most gifted of all the Nousians. Certainly, he is the closest to the truth. Should he find it, a new spring will revive the Templum, restore it to what it ought to be: a bulwark against the Demiurgos. A mind like that might sway even Aristodeus, were he granted a chance to debate. And if he should fail, then by all means, turn to Shader for aid, if he will give it.”

If he will?

“But not Nameless? Why not Nameless?” He was her best bet, any way you looked at it. Shader might best Aristodeus in a duel, but Nameless would positively crush him.

The Archon seemed reluctant to answer. Finally, he said, “If the opportunity presents itself. But let’s hope it does not come down to that. Ludo is your best hope, and yet he has been placed in peril by Aristodeus’s madcap quest. I cannot lose him to the evil lurking in Verusia. You must go after the others. Ward him, with your life if necessary.”

“You want me to babysit your favorite? So, that’s what this is all about? You don’t give a damn about me or Saphra. You’re desperate, aren’t you? Afraid to act yourself, and afraid to lose one of your pawns. What is it you want him for? The next Ipsissimus?”

The Archon’s fire went out for an instant, then it blazed back white and hot. “He must purify the Templum, excise the errors sown by Blightey. It can be a rock again. A last bastion against deception.”

“Then maybe you should ask Shader. According to Baldy, he’s already on his way there.” She scabbarded her sword and folded her arms across her chest. “Because he might just give a shog.”

“Shader’s purpose in Verusia is unknown to me, and in any case, I fear he may be too late. Go, Rhiannon. I can send you there in an instant.”

“And how’s that not acting directly? You sending me there? You get to play with magic, what does your brother get in return?”

“I have fathomed the consequences and found them favorable. Such a minor act will strengthen the Demiurgos only slightly. And think, when you return, you will have Ludo’s mind to pit against the philosopher’s. That, and the might of grateful companions. But if you do not go, I fear Ludo will do something foolish. He has the intellect of a genius, but the wisdom of a child. He is an idealist, who sees no limit to what might be accomplished by love. I fear he does not know the full extent of Otto Blightey’s evil, of his uncompromising cruelty. More than that, he could not guess that it is utterly willed; that Blightey is as familiar with the ways of love as any luminary, yet it is the familiarity that breeds contempt. Perhaps more troubling, is the Liche Lord’s belief that he is beyond redemption, that there is no going back, whatever Ludo believes about the limitless mercy of Ain. Though I do not share his reasoning, the Liche Lord is a far more accomplished theologian than any the Templum can boast. Greater even than Ludo.”

The pure fire of the Archon’s cowl blazed to engulf him. He gave way to a ball of radiant whiteness that swirled bigger and bigger, until its center seemed to merge with snow. Mist hung thickly between the trunks of pines, and high above, the sun wavered with the pallor of sickness from ashen skies.

Tingles of dread clawed their way up Rhiannon’s spine, yet she was drawn, in spite of herself, toward the vista.

“Go, Rhiannon,” the Archon’s voice sounded from far off. “Keep him safe, and your daughter will be restored to you. Have faith.”

Reflexively shutting her eyes, she stepped over the threshold. Cold bit into her shins, soaked through her britches. Her eyes snapped open. She’d plunged into snow up to her knees. Almost instantly, she panicked and tried to turn back, but the Archon’s fire had gone. Where it should have been, a dense pine forest rolled away into the distance. The sun leered down at her, and the cloying mist whispered her name. She started to draw Callixus’s sword, but stopped as the Archon reappeared before her.

He gestured that she should look behind. When she turned, she saw a scatter of people dressed in furs trudging toward her on snow shoes. In the distance beyond them, against the slate-gray clouds, she could just make out a castle on a hill.

She spun back to the Archon. “What is that place? Who are those people?”

The cold in her shins seeped into her thighs, her belly, her arms. Save for the crunching approach of the snow shoes, all she could hear was the thump, thump, thump of her own heart. There was no other sound. Nothing. Like the life of the forest had been smothered.

“Remember,” the Archon said. “Faith is ofttimes dark.”

“Shog faith! Get me out of here! I’ve changed my mind.”

The Archon sighed and pulled back his hood.

Rhiannon threw up her hands, but too late.

The force of the conflagration flung her to the ground. Everything turned white. At first, she thought she was face down in the snow, but she couldn’t have been: the cold was greatest at her back.

“Keep Ludo safe,” she heard the Archon whisper inside her mind. “And look to your reward.”

She thrashed about on the ground, trying to find him, but all her remaining senses told her he was gone. She started to whimper, a cry that welled into a scream.

Hands grabbed her, lifted her roughly. She blinked furiously, tried to see, but all remained white.

She was bustled along at a brisk pace, feet dragging furrows in the snow. She had no sense of direction, where they were taking her, who they even were. Ice clutched at her stomach, wound its frosty fingers around her ribs.

“Ain help me,” she whispered over and over again as the horror started to sink in.

She was blind.

VICTIMS OF THE LICHE LORD

Verusia, Earth

C
uriosity might have killed the shogging cat, but Shadrak couldn’t help it: he needed to see; needed to know he was right; needed to know what made this Prior tick. Because Ludo was almost certainly right: how many lords of the castle could there be in Wolfmalen? It had to be Blightey, and the spikes skirting the curtain walls were his handiwork.

Galen hadn’t stopped muttering to himself since they left the settlement. He took the lead up the incline that rose in slopes and steps to the castle.

Albert seemed more concerned about the cold, and the ruinous effect trudging calf-deep in snow was having on his Gallic trousers.

Ekyls scampered beside him, refusing the hardship, refusing the bluish tint that had seeped into his skin.

Ludo’s long legs were made for the deep snow, but his spectacles kept frosting over. He repeatedly took them off to wipe the lenses on his cassock.

Nameless trailed the group, trudging sluggishly, axe slung carelessly over one shoulder, like he’d seen this sort of thing a thousand times and really couldn’t be bothered.

Shadrak had to work at it to keep ahead of him. He was by far the shortest, and the snow came up to his thighs. He spotted a depression to the left of the footprints the others left for him to follow in. Didn’t take much to figure the snow might be thinner there. He fought his way toward it, lifting one foot high, setting it down again as far in front as he could manage; repeating with the other.

“Laddie?” Nameless called from behind. “What are you doing?”

“Better ground,” Shadrak growled through gritted teeth.

He lunged for the depression… and plunged into snow up to his waist. He let out a torrent of curses that had Galen turn round and scowl. Ludo backed up to offer him a hand. The cold was too damned leaching to climb out by himself, so Shadrak felt no shame in taking it.

Thankfully, the higher they climbed, the more the snow thinned out. Cold damp clung to his britches, but it was getting easier to walk.

Scudding clouds marbled the white ground with shadows. Up ahead, the sun lent a sickly corona to the castle’s highest tower.

A skirl of the breeze brought him the whiff of putrescence: pungent, rank, tainted with the stink of blood and shite. It only got worse as they drew closer. A couple of hundred yards from the spikes, and he had all the confirmation he needed. They were bodies all right. Bodies impaled arse to mouth on wooden poles whittled to vicious points.

“By all that’s holy!” Galen bent double, heaving and puking. Time he was done, his breakfast was a spatter of yellow and brown all over his crimson jacket. Tears bled from his eyes, and oysters of snot clung to his mustache.

Leaving the dragoon to clean himself up, Shadrak pressed on ahead, vaguely aware the others were following at a reluctant pace.