The Archon's Assassin (60 page)

“Go!” Shader shouted at Rhiannon.

She cast a worried look further along the promontory. Shadows were gathering, swelling toward them, and the beat of drums or feet rose to a deafening crescendo.

Shader’s legs were burning with exertion. Every breath drew fetid smog into his lungs. But he was almost there. Almost…

Nameless reached the portal, pushed Rhiannon through before him.

The tide of shadows was almost upon the dwarf. Shader could see differentiated shapes within it: winged demons with ebon swords; armored corpses, all mottled bone and rust; and towering above them, goading them with flaming whips and eyes like lightning, pallid giants with fangs as long as daggers.

Nameless took one step into the portal, held out an arm to Shader running toward him.

“Go!” Shader yelled, and Nameless stepped into the light.

Two more steps, one—

The portal blinked out.

Shadows flew overhead. Whips cracked, and the demonic army bore down upon Shader with the force of a tsunami.

“Jump!” Cadman yelled from the glass vial. He instantly started chanting, and the gladius responded with aureate brilliance.

The smell of rot rolled over Shader. Black blades came at him, rusted axe heads fell—

“Jump!” Cadman screamed.

And this time, Shader obeyed, turning from the horde and flinging himself head-first into the black river.

THE ARCHON’S ASSASSIN

The Perfect Peak, Aethir

T
he plane ship ride back from the Great West was silent. It was a wake for Galen, and for Shader. No matter how much Shadrak threatened, the homunculus Mephesch said nothing could be done. The accelerator had burned out, and more than that, an entire contingent of Hagalle’s soldiers was on its way. While it was at least possible Shader might have survived, he was lost to them. Lost forever.

When they reached the Perfect Peak, Aristodeus seemed indifferent to the news. He made a pretense of mourning Galen, but he could barely bring himself to say Shader’s name. If anything, he was relieved. Relieved that his doppelgänger had perished, while he was still very much alive.

Alive, and back in control.

Two homunculi carried the crystal casket containing the black axe across the control chamber and set it on a table beside Aristodeus’s armchair.

The philosopher sipped tea from a china cup, as if this were an everyday occurrence for him. As if he really didn’t care about the result. He’d done his part, no doubt: hatched the plan, tried a new strategy. If it didn’t work, it was no skin off his nose. It was becoming clear Nameless was no more than a tool to him. A pawn. They all were.

The dwarf stood rigid before the casket, glowering through the crystal at the axe that had ended his old life as assuredly as the lives of those who’d fallen beneath its twin blades.

Rhiannon watched from her perch on the edge of a workstation.

Shadrak remained by the cubicle they’d entered by, where he could keep everyone in sight, but he kept a special eye out for the philosopher. It was a shogging effort not to put a hole through that bald head right then and there.

“Ready?” Aristodeus said to Nameless, setting aside his teacup and standing.

“You’re sure about this?” Nameless asked. “Sure it will be safe? Maybe everyone should leave, in case it goes wrong.”

“The theory’s sound,” Aristodeus said with a dismissive wave. “Either the three artifacts combined will grant you the power to destroy the axe—”

“Or?” Rhiannon said.

“Or they won’t, and we maintain the status quo. After all, the helm provides a buffer against the axe’s influence. You see,” he said to Nameless, “it’s a win-win situation. I don’t gamble with people’s lives, whatever she might say.”

Rhiannon’s eyes iced over. She was as close as Shadrak to killing the scut.

“How do I open the casket?” Nameless said.

Aristodeus snapped his fingers.

A homunculus stepped up to the crystal, tapped away at his gray slate, then slunk back again.

“You don’t,” Aristodeus said. “Just put your hands in.”

Nameless raised the gauntlets, splayed the fingers, looked at them long and hard.

“Enough!”

The Archon appeared in a whirling conflagration. His hooded robe was aflame with fire that did not burn, and his face was an explosion of brilliance.

“Not now,” Aristodeus said. “You agreed, remember?”

“Not to losing Ludo, I didn’t. Nor his dragoon guard. Nor any of the others, not even your Shader.”

“Even Albert?” Shadrak said.

The Archon turned on him. “I’ll deal with you later.”

“All things come at a cost,” Aristodeus said. There was sorrow in his voice, but how much of it was genuine was anyone’s guess.

“No,” the Archon said, switching his ire back to the philosopher. “Not this time. The cost has been too high. It stops here.”

“So much for nonintervention,” Rhiannon said. “Might as well get me back my daughter, while you’re at it.”

“You’ll get everything you deserve, woman,” the Archon said, “when that sword you bear drags you kicking and screaming back to the Abyss. You failed me. Failed me utterly. My favored one is dead, and you will wear the guilt of his passing for as long as you live.”

“She will not, laddie,” Nameless said. “Or are we going to have a disagreement?”

“Do not think to challenge me, dwarf. That armor you wear, those gauntlets, the Shield of Warding: they might make you mighty beyond belief among mortals, but they were crafted using Supernal lore. I
am
a Supernal.” Flames gouted from him as his voice took on the cadence of thunder. “I can snuff you out with but a thought.”

“Then do it,” Nameless said. Nonchalantly, he lay down his axe and turned back to the casket. His hands sank into the crystal as if it were water.

“No!” the Archon stormed. “I forbid it!”

Nameless hesitated for a second, and then his iron-clad fingers encircled the haft of the black axe.

Silence fell.

Even the Archon seemed to wait with bated breath.

Slowly, inch by inch, Nameless drew the black axe from the malleable crystal of the casket. He held it before the great-helm’s eye-slit, studied it, as if he dared it to do something.

“That’s it,” Aristodeus said. He licked his lips, circled away to Nameless’s left. “Focus now. Grip it tight. Use the full force of the gauntlets to break the haft. Don’t worry if it kicks back: the armor will protect you. And if it tries something else, something magical, you have the shield to soak it up. Concentrate now. Everything you’ve got. Everyth…”

Nameless turned. Crimson burned from the eye-slit of the great helm. In his hands, the black axe throbbed, and flames of fuligin flared about its length. Inky threads crossed over to the gauntlets, the armor, the shield, and even the helm.

“You see!” the Archon said. “Its evil spreads like a contagion. Did I not warn you?”

“Deception,” Aristodeus breathed. “But I was certain.” He visibly wilted, looked around for support, but found none.

“The axe is Supernal, too,” the Archon said. “Crafted by the homunculi under the direction of the Demiurgos himself, and far greater than anything forged by his cowering son. It harnesses the power of the other artifacts; uses it to overcome the wards of your scarolite helm. You leave me no choice.”

He raised a porcelain hand. It blazed with argent.

“Yeah,” Shadrak said, drawing both pistols. “And you leave me no choice.” He opened fire.

The bullets melted before they made contact, and the Archon countered with bolt after bolt of silver lightning. Shadrak backflipped out of the way, but where the Archon’s blasts struck the floor, they sent up chunks of debris, and the force of the explosion slung him across the room. He hit the wall hard, dropped both guns, but he wasn’t finished yet.

Nameless roared—a spine-chilling, demonic howl of madness. The black axe came up with murderous intent, but the Archon turned on him and unleashed a storm of lightning. Nameless blocked with the axe, but the lightning arced around it, formed a sparking net about the dwarf. Nameless fell to his knees as the net began to contract.

Shadrak was up and running at the Archon, reaching into the never-full bag at his shoulder.

Holding the net of lightning steady with one hand, the Archon took aim at Shadrak with the other. Silver streaked, but Shadrak tumbled beneath it and came up holding Blightey’s skull. Mottled jaws clacked, hellish eyes hungered with crimson ire—

—And the Archon screamed.

He raised his blazing hands to shield his face, and the silver web fell away from Nameless.

The skull ignited with its own conflagration, and Shadrak let go, flinging himself out of harm’s way.

For a moment, there was a frantic war of flames, but Blightey’s fire was stronger, more demanding, insatiable. His ruby eyes glared, scorched, excoriated. In their scathing light, the skull appeared to leer, as if the Liche Lord knew he had won.

With a cry of rage, the Archon blazed hotter than a small sun. Fissures of quicksilver ran through Blightey’s skull, but still he didn’t waver in his death-locked gaze.

The Archon shrieked, as the fire beneath his cowl stuttered and went out. In its place there was blackness. The blackness of oblivion. The skull jerked toward it, as if tugged by some invisible force. Its jaws opened wide in a silent scream, and then it shot into the darkness beneath the Archon’s hood and vanished. The Archon’s empty robe dropped to the floor. Within seconds, it was nothing but ash.

“No,” Aristodeus said. “What have you done? You’ve destroyed the balance. The Archon was the only thing checking the Demiurgos.” He trembled like a man who’d at last lost control.

And then Nameless powered into the philosopher, flung him aside like a rag doll. Before anyone could think to act, he let out a harrowing cry and ran at the wall of the control room.

“Stop him!” Aristodeus cried as he tried to rise, but sagged down again.

Shadrak whipped out a pistol, got off a shot, but it bounced off an armored calf. A second ricocheted from the backplate.

Nameless launched himself at the wall and swung the black axe in a terrific arc. With a boom like an exploding star, the axe head sheered clean through scarolite, and smashed a hole out onto the bleached dust of the Dead Lands hundreds of feet below.

Nameless turned to face Shadrak. The red glare from the eye-slit cried murder, and Shadrak took a step back. The fire giant’s gauntlets trembled on the axe, as if the dwarf were exerting tremendous pressure restraining it.

“Friend,” Nameless said. His voice grated with the effort of getting that single word out.

But Shadrak understood. He nodded, and lowered his gun.

Then, with a howl of utter anguish, Nameless leapt through the hole in the wall.

Shadrak cried out. He rushed to the opening, glanced down.

Nameless landed in a squat, recovered as if it were nothing to fall so far, and set off at a sprint toward the Sour Marsh.

Rhiannon reached Shadrak’s side, peered out with him. “What’s he doing? Where’s he going?”

Aristodeus staggered to join them, clutching his ribs. He took in Rhiannon and Shadrak with a look of pure horror. His face was as ashen as the bone-dust below. When he spoke, it was in a voice devoid of hope; the voice of a man who’d thought himself smarter than everyone else, and then realized he’d been hoist by his own petard.

“We must warn them. Warn the dwarves. The butcher is returning to Arx Gravis.”

The story continues in

Shader: Book 5:
Rise of the Nameless Dwarf

GLOSSARY

ABEDNAGO,

Homunculus. Member of the Sedition.

ABYSS, the

The creation of the Demiurgos. A realm of deception, demons, and tortured souls. The Abyss is accessible from Aethir via the gorges that lead down to Gehenna. Hangs over the mouth of the Void like a gaseous spider web.

ADEPTUS

Nousian clerical title, beneath Exemptus but above a priest.

AEONIC TRIAD, the

The three Supernal beings who fell through the Void: the Archon, Eingana, and the Demiurgos.

AETERNA

The Eternal City in Latia. Heart of the Nousian Theocracy.

AETHIR (EE-theer)

The world created from the Cynocephalus’s dreams, one side (Malkuth) light, the other (Qlippoth) dark and populated with creatures of nightmare.

AIN (Ay-in)

Father of Nous.
The Source. The Concealed of the Concealed. The Supreme Being in Nousianism.

ALBERT

Assassin from Earth and colleague of Shadrak the Unseen. Former Sicarii, now a Night Hawk in New Jerusalem. An accomplished chef and poisoner.

ALPHONSE LA ROCHE

See the Gray Abbot.

AMIDIO PODESTA

Captain of the
Aura Placida
until deposed by Cleto (book 2:
Best Laid Plans
).

ANCIENTS, the

The people of the pre-Reckoning civilization on Earth.

ARABOTH

Paradise. The future world. The afterlife in Nousian belief.

ARCHON, the (Arkon)

Supernal being. Servant of the All-Father. Believed by the Templum to be an angel of Nous. Carried an enchanted Sword through the Void—
Vade in Pacem
. Used it to cut the Cynocephalus from Eingana’s womb.

ARISTODEUS (Aris-toe-day-us)

A philosopher, originally from Graecia on Earth.

ARNOCH (Arnok)

Mythical lost city of the ancient Dwarf Lords.

ARX GRAVIS (Arx Grah-vis)

“The Heavy Citadel.” A dwarven city within a ravine.

AURA PLACIDA
, the

The ship Shader traveled back to Sahul from Aeterna aboard.

BALADIN

Legendary hero of the Elect.

BALLBREAKER’S BLACK ALE

Strong dwarven dark ale, brewed in Arx Gravis.

BARDOL SHIN

Investigator of the Templum Judiciary. Killed in Sahul by Deacon Shader in Book 1:
Sword of the Archon
.