The Archon's Assassin (51 page)

THE MOAT

N
ameless glared up at the curtain walls either side of the barbican while he waited for Albert to pick the lock. In his experience, outer doors like these, heavy and iron clad, were usually barred from the inside, but the poisoner had to have his own way.

Rhiannon watched over Albert’s shoulder, as if she could hurry him up through force of will. She had the black sword out and ready, eager for the fight; eager to make up for what she’d failed to do. It looked an evil weapon to Nameless, little better than the false
Pax Nanorum
.

“No sign of them still,” Galen said. “I don’t like it.”

Nameless felt his looming presence behind; stifled the impulse to turn. He had nothing to fear from the dragoon. Did he?

Ekyls growled, maybe in agreement with Galen. The savage prowled about the crest of the hill they’d climbed, an open invitation for who or whatever was inside to come out and fight.

For once, Bird stood with the group, rather than taking off and doing his own thing. Nameless didn’t know whether to be thankful or concerned. He was a shifty shogger, to be sure, like the rest of his cursed race.

“Guess they didn’t like the taste of my axe last time round,” Nameless said, doing his best to sound grim and dour. Let on he was worried, let on he was suspicious, and it might be all the encouragement these so-called friends needed. Nothing like the scent of blood to reveal hidden intentions.

Galen grunted. Likely, he’d seen through the ruse. He’d been there, back at the forest of spikes; knew what really happened. Truth was, Nameless was relieved the black-garbs hadn’t come streaming out of the barbican a second time. Relieved, but also bewildered. Why hadn’t they come? There’d been no end to them before. What if they were holed up inside, waiting for the companions to enter, and the doors to close behind them?

“How long’s this going to take?” Galen said.

Albert cursed under his breath. “Hold on. It’s no easy matter, a lock this size.” He rummaged about in his pack for a bigger pick.

Rhiannon tutted, and that drew a scathing look from the poisoner.

“There are wards on the door,” Bird said. He was staring at the wood, eyes flicking left to right, as if he were reading.

“Do I need to care?” Nameless said.

Bird made a series of sweeping gestures with a claw-like hand, and muttered incomprehensible words. When he’d finished, he said, “No. They are gone.”

Albert stepped back from the lock. “
Voila
.
”

“Eh?” Galen said.

“It’s Gallic for, ‘You may thank me for my brilliance.’”

Galen put his shoulder to one of the doors, but it didn’t budge.

Nameless pressed his gauntleted hand to the wood and shoved. It flew open as easy as a tent flap.

“See,” Albert said. “No bar. Told you.”

“But there’s a portcullis just inside,” Nameless said. A wrought-iron lattice from ceiling to floor, and whatever mechanism opened it somewhere on the other side.

Albert sighed and shook his head.

Done with wasting time, Nameless strode up to the portcullis and took a grip low down, as if he were dead lifting. Still not used to the power of the gauntlets, he heaved a bit too much and sent the portcullis flying upward with a clash and a clang. He half-expected it to come crashing down again, but when he looked up, he could see the metal was buckled beyond repair and lodged in the vertical grooves cut into the walls that housed it.

“Who needs wards with subtlety like that?” Rhiannon said, but if she objected, she didn’t let it stop her from striding ahead.

The barbican opened up onto a courtyard that formed a snow-capped island around the keep. The outer walls blocked what little sunlight eked its way through the cloud cover, and threw long shadows over the ground.

Nameless had to jog to keep pace with Rhiannon, who headed straight for the bridge that crossed a narrow moat encircling the keep.

The courtyard was deserted, and there was no movement atop the walls. Even the perimeter towers seemed devoid of life. The black-garbs had known there were intruders amid the forest of spikes the day before, and Shadrak had seen shapes on the walls through those goggles of his. The fact there was no one in sight now only served to make Nameless paranoid. He felt like a mouse walking into a trap, with Ludo as the cheese to bait him.

He slowed as he reached the bridge and angled a look at the moat below. He’d always been nervous around water, because he couldn’t swim. He’d never learned back in Arx Gravis; his ma had died before she could teach him, and the training of infants was woman’s work for dwarves. Besides, the only significant body of water had been the Sanguis Terrae and the canals it sent like veins throughout the lower levels of the ravine city. According to the Annals, its source was deep down in Gehenna, and shog only knew what kind of effluent floated up with it from the realm of the homunculi.

The moat oozed black. A large fin broke the surface and arced back under. On the other side of the bridge, Nameless could see more fins circling, and once or twice, stubby snouts bristling with serrated teeth burst free of the tar.

“Keep up,” Rhiannon called from the far side. She was already in front of the door to the keep, a slab of stone three times her height and wide enough to drive a cart through. At its center was a massive carving of a lion’s head, jaws parted not in a roar but a scream.

Nameless focused on that image of anguish so he didn’t have to think about the moat and the things swimming within its murk.

Galen passed him, as urgent as Rhiannon to find Ludo. He’d have seen it as a failing, too. After all, he’d been charged with the adeptus’s protection long before she had.

Ekyls followed on his heels, and Albert was next, practically skipping over the bridge as if it were on fire.

Nameless risked another look down at the dark sludge, found himself imagining what it would be like to be ripped apart by those jaws. He lurched, and steadied himself with a hand on the railing. The bridge juddered, and for a moment, he thought he’d misjudged his newfound strength again. He could have sworn he heard mocking laughter, the distant roll of thunder. There were voices, too: whispers, snide remarks; people talking about him. They coalesced into a single voice, calling out his name.

“Nameless!”—It was Galen. “The bridge!”

The surface beneath Nameless’s feet shuddered, and then he heard it crack. A line appeared between his feet and started to widen as the bridge split in two, each section dropping away toward the moat. He lunged for the side nearest the keep, reached for Galen’s outstretched hand… and fell.

THE LIMITS OF MERCY

L
udo was spreadeagled naked on a rack, head toward the ceiling, streaks of blood smearing his forearms and shins. He twisted his neck as first Shadrak and then Blightey entered. His eyes widened at the sight of the Liche Lord’s armored frame, and then he frowned in confusion.

Seeing the adeptus like that brought home the full horror of Shadrak’s helplessness. Even if Blightey permitted him to draw a weapon, what would be the point? Even if he could have penetrated the Liche Lord’s armor, the skull was all that was left of Blightey, and that was invulnerable. The body was as expendable as an old coat. Destroy that, and the skull had already shown it could fly. And if it needed another set of arms and legs, it had plenty more headless bodies waiting upstairs.

First rule in any situation, Shadrak reminded himself, trying to reclaim an iota of professional calm: locate the exits.

There was a door on the far side, opposite the one they’d entered from. He gave it only a cursory glance; didn’t want Blightey to know he’d seen it. It was bound to be locked, and even if it wasn’t, he suspected his legs wouldn’t obey his command to flee.

Beside the rack holding Ludo, a thing like a man stood. It was flayed head to toe, nothing more than blood-slick muscle and sinew. Tatters of flesh failed to hide the pulsating black heart in its warped and twisted ribcage. Bloodshot eyes bulged from mushy sockets, perpetually terrified.

It dipped its grotesque head at Blightey and backed away, trailing crimson across the flagstones. Gore dripped like melting wax from its fingers, and Shadrak made the connection: the blood smears on Ludo’s limbs were not his own; they were the marks from where this thing had touched him, held him down, and stretched him out.

“Sorry to keep you,” Blightey said to Ludo as he clattered and creaked into the chamber. He propped the great sword against a wall. “I took the opportunity to change.”

From hooks in the whitewashed walls, all manner of implements hung: pincers and prongs, saws and hammers, clubs and flails. There was a selection of manacles and thumbscrews—all the regular gear the guilds employed when someone crossed them, or they needed answers no one wanted to give. There were bullwhips, a cat-o’-nine-tails; there was a brazier filled with hot coals, a set of scalpels laid out on a wooden bench; rats in cages—these ones were living; glass tanks containing snakes, spiders, and scorpions. In one corner, an iron maiden stood. Its door hung open, revealing wicked-looking spikes inside. A gibbet hung from the ceiling; something rotted within. Clamps and bear traps were scattered about the floor, along with chains in sloppy piles. Stacked neatly against a wall were half a dozen stakes like the ones outside the castle.

“Ah, I though you might notice them,” Blightey said with a touch of pride in his voice. “It’s something of a passion. You saw my little display on your way up, I take it? I’ll teach you how it’s done, if you like.”

Ludo rolled his head forward and angled a look down at Shadrak. His eyes bulged above his glasses—he still wore his glasses, if nothing else. His black cassock was folded neatly upon a chair with his sandals on top. His Liber lay open on the bench nearest the rack. Bloody prints smeared its pages.

“We were practicing
lectio
together,” Blightey said, “until you interrupted us.” To Ludo, he said, “Do you still call it
lectio
?
Lectio divina
? I do, but I’m so out of touch, I expect the nomenclature’s changed since my day.”

The flayed monstrosity shuffled toward the book, but Blightey waved it back. “You are no longer needed. See?” He held up his hands. “Quite capable of riffling through the pages myself now.”

“Pray,” Ludo gasped. He licked dry lips and swallowed thickly. “You pray
lectio
.”

“Not me,” Blightey said. He looked at Shadrak with raised eyebrows. “Do you pray it? No? Thought as much.” He turned back to Ludo. “He doesn’t pray it, either. But let’s just call it a semantic difference.” He turned back to Shadrak and whispered, “That’s how you talk to these academic types. They love words like ‘semantic’.” Then to Ludo, he said, “What’s that other word you scholars are always slinging about? ‘Disjunction’. Yes, that’s it. Always makes me think of torn ligaments for some reason. Now, my little homunculus,”—he placed icy fingers on Shadrak’s shoulder—“help me out, if you will. Frater Ludo here—it is Frater, isn’t it?”

“Adeptus,” Shadrak said, almost to himself. “He’s an adeptus.”

“Is he now?” Blightey said. “Well I never. They all look the same with their clothes off. But as I was saying, I could use your help on this. The adeptus and I were having a little chinwag about scripture. I stand accused of doctoring it and obscuring the original meaning, and he thinks I have the wherewithal to remember which bit came from where so that I can—what’s the academic word for it, Ludo?—deconstruct it and reveal what he terms the ‘Golden Thread’. Well, I’m buggered if I can recall the warp and woof of what I did, so we embarked upon a debate about what is really essential to the spirit of said original. We had reached an impasse, and I was hoping you might adjudicate.”

Shadrak’s brain was a scramble. He clutched in vain at threads of thought that might tell him what to do. His fingers twitched over his guns, but he could not draw them. He wanted to run—after all, Ludo had gotten himself into this mess—but his legs wouldn’t obey. Every word Blightey spoke, every piece of utter crap, captivated him. He had to listen, just like he’d had to listen to the bard’s spellbinding music at the Griffin all that time ago, and yet every instinct screamed at him to cover his ears, close his eyes, and curl up into a ball.

“Take this, for example,” Blightey said. He picked up Ludo’s Liber, licked his finger, and thumbed through it till he found his place. “‘Of mankind, we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.’ Now, the adeptus here says this can’t be part of the Golden Thread, and yet I say it is the truth, and so it must be.”

The chains holding Ludo to the rack clinked as he struggled to shift position and failed. When he spoke, he kept his voice soft, as if he were exercising patience with a slow student. “There is a pattern of giving, of generosity, of love that runs throughout the scriptures. This is what constitutes the Golden Thread. Before your alterations, there was one unified holy book.”

“Was there?” Blightey said, with a conspiratorial wink at Shadrak. “Was there now? A single tome extolling the virtues of love? Theologians liked to think so, but even back then, it was an exercise in picking and choosing. I should know: I was like a boy in a candy store myself, memorizing all the phrases that brought me comfort, and studiously ignoring those that didn’t. It was only after life itself had tutored me in the truth that I afforded the other passages equal attention. How, for example, do you account for this—I’m quoting from the original—? ‘And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.’ Or how about this? ‘And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation.’ Or this: ‘And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.’ Does that sound golden to you?” he asked Shadrak. “The scriptures I recall were more gristle than grist, but we understood that. In the midst of the black death, or the Shoah, or the cold reign of Global Tech, the scriptures held up a mirror to life in all its cruelty. If anything, my modified version softened the image.”