The Sword of the South - eARC (28 page)

The song—if song it was—ended in a wild flurry of perfect notes, and Kenhodan sagged forward across his harp, drained and spent. He was torn by a terrible desolation, his heart ripped by grief and an inexplicable sense of crushing guilt, and tears streaked his face as he crouched over the harp like a wounded animal, gasping, and stared at the wizard.

“You
know
,” he whispered. “You understand.”

Wencit looked at him for an endless moment, and the night held its breath. The wizard’s face was still, calm as iron, and Kenhodan sensed the effort which kept it so.

“Yes,” he said softly at last. “I know.”

“But you can’t tell me,” Kenhodan said bitterly. He was riven by the music, reeling in that strange whirlwind of loss and confusion, yet even as he thought that he realized he’d gained something, as well. He was shaken and drained, but the fissures within him seemed less yawning, as if for the first time his soul was truly his. As if even in his amnesia he’d begun to find himself at last.

“No,” Wencit said, and his voice was shadowed with warning. “I can tell you what that song was, if you wish. I can tell you that…but not why you played it.”

Kenhodan tried to see the wizard clearly, but his vision had dimmed somehow. All he could make out was the glow of Wencit’s eyes, blazing in the night, and he heard ghosts flutter in the old man’s voice. Fear touched him—a sudden fear that tried to back away, retreat once more into the safety of not knowing—but the one thing, the
only
thing, he couldn’t endure was more ignorance.

“Tell me,” he croaked.

Wencit bent his head as if all the years of his weary existence pressed down upon him. But when he raised his face once more, it wore a hard-won serenity.

“What you have just played,” he said with careful formality, “is an ancient lay. Men call it ‘The Fall of Hacromanthi.’”

Kenhodan stared at him, his thoughts swirling. That name…That name meant something…He gripped the harp, his head throbbing as if to burst, and then he staggered to his feet as another presence filled him. He towered over the wizard, glaring down at him, and his face was twisted with grief and loss and a terrible, terrible torment.

“You didn’t warn me, Wizard!” The words seared out of him, spoken by someone else in a voice of molten fury and endless grief. “You didn’t warn me about
this!
”

And then he crashed down into a darkness without even dreams.

* * *

There was no rain in Torfo and glimmering towers reared into a windy darkness that was unseasonably dry, their banners clapping like unseen hands. Starlight gleamed overhead, moonlight poured down from the heavens, and night ruled the land, but night often came unquiet to the fortress of the sorcerous Wulfra.

This was such a night, for a golden-haired woman stirred in her darkened room and sat up, pressing her hands to her eyes. She sat that way for several seconds, then lowered her hands slowly, her fingers flickering in a strange gesture, and the chamber’s candles lit as one. Baroness Wulfra didn’t even blink against the sudden light as she stared into the distance of her thoughts, and her head swung as if in search, though her eyes were closed.

She rose, her body turning, and her lips tightened as she sought to isolate whatever had disturbed her slumber. Her turning slowed and she came to rest facing north. Her hands clenched slowly at her sides, and a bleak expression crossed her stern, willful features.

She shrugged into a blue robe, blonde hair cascading over its silk, and her snapped fingers summoned a silver-blue radiance that rode her shoulder like some exotic pet as she stepped quickly out the door. Its dim glow lit a dark landing as bare feet carried her to a handle-less slab of ebony, and her eyes blanked as she spoke a word and traced a symbol. Her globe of light flared, the door sighed open, and she passed through it like a barefooted ghost.

The room beyond filled half the top of the keep. Racked scrolls and books covered three walls, and work tables bore half-unrolled scrolls or sheaves of notes in her strong, graceful hand. One corner held an alchemist’s workshop of beakers and bottled fluids, and a large pentagram—traced in silver and umber powder—filled the center of the floor. Each angle held a man-high candle of blue-black wax thicker than her own thigh and somehow subtly deformed. A desk stood under a window slit, covered in something too pale for leather and worked with strange symbols in blood-rust red. A wide-bladed knife lay on a golden salver, its blade mottled with dried stains that whispered of horror, and a black tripod in the center of the desk held a single crystal, large as a man’s head and clear as quartz, but rough shaped and unpolished.

Wulfra sank into a chair and considered possibilities. Her options ranged from the distasteful to the dangerous, and her brain ticked them off one by one as she sought to avoid the worst of them.

But there was no escape, and finally she drew a deep breath and stood, pressing her hands to the slick crystal. Her brows drew together as she spoke another word, and the chamber became very still. An indefinable chill blew past her, but she ignored it.

Lights swirled within the crystal like doomed fireflies. They hovered, then burst apart, speeding away from one another in streamers of flame. They shattered on the boundaries of the stone, spangling the room with brilliance that burst and died, and she peered past the brightness into the gramerhain as tiny scenes flickered by. They moved almost too quickly to be grasped, but Wulfra was well used to scrying and she sought a single target, clinging stubbornly to her purpose as scene after scene dissolved in flickering sprays of light.

The light froze suddenly, and Wulfra gazed at tiny images of men and horses amid dripping trees. The men spoke soundlessly in the stony depths, and water dripped into their fire in puffs of steam. The horses’ heads hung miserably, and the men wore black leather, but there were only eight of them.

Wulfra’s lips tightened as she studied their faces intently. She identified Rosper, but there was no sign of Chernion. Had disaster overtaken the hunters? Or had they split into groups for some reason?

She frowned and muttered Chernion’s name to key the pattern she’d set upon the assassin weeks before. This time the play of light was briefer as the crystal arrowed down the link, and Wulfra smiled as images formed once more. Would Chernion guess? Not that it mattered; the link could kill, as well as spy.

The image studied above an inn on an imperial high road. Five weary horses stood in the stable, and Wulfra smiled again as her viewpoint dodged into a darkened room. Chernion slept lightly, bushy brows frowning. So her hired killers had simply split to cover more than one trail. Good. Very good.

Chernion stirred uneasily, and Wulfra snapped the link and sat caressing the pale human skin covering her desk while she thought. She longed to scry for Wencit, but that would be both futile and dangerous. The wild wizard was on guard; hammering against his glamour would avail her little and might tell him entirely too much about her own thoughts. She’d been badly shaken when Wencit wrested the madwind from Thardon and turned it against him, and she had no desire to experience the same thing with a spell linked to her own mind!

She shook her head. She’d learned all she could on her own, but it was too little to discover what had awakened her, and she’d run out of excuses.

Yet it was dangerous to contact her ally. Each effort left her drained, and the time approached when she couldn’t afford that weakness. Worse than the drain, though, was the fear she couldn’t master, however hard she sought to hide it. She hated admitting that even to herself, yet there was no point pretending otherwise, and she shook herself, banishing her fear-spawned rationalizations by sheer force of will. She was no Harlich to be ruled by temerity!

She touched the chill, lumpy stone once more and closed her eyes while her lips formed the soundless words of an intricate incantation. Power welled, encasing her in a nimbus that burned ever brighter while the silent words sang in her brain. The nimbus gathered and flashed down her arms to her hands, and her long, gem-encrusted fingers vanished in a burst of bitter brilliance like the heart of the sun. It flashed from her windows, and those who saw it guessed their sorcerous mistress practiced her art once more and trembled.

Savage light engulfed the stone for long seconds before the clear depths drank the energy, sucking twin balls of flame into their glassy heart. A flurry of sparks spiraled to the bottom, and two eyes formed—yellow eyes, pupilled like a cat’s. They vanished briefly to the blink of unseen lids, then burned anew.

“Yes, Wulfra?” The cold words echoed in her brain like icicles.

“Something’s happened.” She held her thought level despite the sweat on her brow, yet his power beat at her from the stone, frightening her.

“What?” His question was like northern sea ice.

“I can’t be certain. Something woke me—a surge in the art. I don’t know what it was, but my mind was attuned to Wencit when I woke. I fear…I fear he’s discovered some new power.”

“It’s not possible for him to increase his power.” The mental whisper was cold. “He peaked long ago; now he declines. I haven’t been powerful enough to challenge him in the past, but that will change soon. I’ve studied his strengths and weaknesses with care; whatever you detected, it wasn’t more power awakening in his mind. He’s too old for that.”

“It must have been! I tell you, my mind sought him even in sleep!”

“Silence!” The voice burned in her mind, and she recoiled. “Must I teach you which of us is the master and which the student? Can’t you even understand the implications of what occurred three days ago? The old fool spent himself like a drunkard to save Bahzell’s half-breed bitch—it will be
days
before he dares to channel the wild magic again!”

The cat eyes impaled her lingeringly, and Wulfra’s veins clogged with ice.

“You were wise to report. Don’t waste that credit by reporting nonsense. It may have been his new companion, the one we haven’t identified, but it was
not
Wencit.”

“It must be as you say,” Wulfra said tightly, “but—”

“Enough.” The cold voice became calmer. “Perhaps I seemed hasty to you, but I’ve given Wencit a great deal of thought. Let’s turn to another matter. You didn’t tell me you’d employed assassins, Wulfra.”

“I didn’t think it was necessary.”

“It would only matter if they might succeed.” The voice was amused. “They won’t; any more than they’ve ever succeeded against Bahzell or Wencit. Still, I had to learn that for myself, and I doubt you’ll prove any more costly to the dog brothers than I. And they may keep him off balance if he believes they’re the best you can send against him. Don’t let me stand in the path of your initiative, my dear.”

Wulfra stared into his yellow eyes, well aware of the amused malice in his agreement. Then she flinched as his thoughts came again.

“Very well. Do you have anything further to report?”

“Not at this time,” she replied, hiding a nervous qualm as best she could.

“Good. Guard the sword well, Wulfra! It wouldn’t be disastrous if he regained it, but it
would
be…unfortunate. No one will ever wield its full power again, but it could inconvenience me even as a weapon. See that he doesn’t gain it. Farewell.”

The eyes spun into one another, coalescing into a brilliant pinprick that lingered for an instant and then blinked suddenly out of existence.

Wulfra leaned forward, arms braced against the desktop in exhaustion. Her hair was heavy with sweat, and her face glistened, but at least he’d been in a fairly good mood. The opposite was too often true when she disturbed him.

She shook herself back under control, slowing her heart and drawing a deep breath. When one reached for power, one must deal with daunting allies, she told herself. She must remember that she was using the cat-eyed wizard as surely as he used her—and it was she who had a foothold on this continent, not he.

She straightened and walked to the door, pausing to glance back at the reassuring array of equipment and the scrolls of painfully amassed knowledge. Somehow the reassurance was less tonight than usual.

She waved out the lights and the massive door closed silently behind her. She stood on the darkened landing, staring into blackness, wrapped in an inner quandary. Did the cat-eyed wizard truly believe that what she’d felt was unimportant? Or—she shivered—was he so confident only because it wasn’t he must face Wencit’s wrath?

The rest of her night, she knew, would not be restful.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Strategies and Ambushes

Rosper of the assassins cursed imaginatively as night settled once again on the dripping forest. He cursed the rain, the mud, the fog, the darkness, the trees, and—last and most imaginatively of all—Bahzell Bloody Hand. Rosper was a skilled tracker, but it scarcely mattered, for Bahzell was making no effort to hide his passage. He seemed prepared to rely slowly on speed, and his pace shamed the assassins’ best efforts. It was unbelievable that their prey could be so far ahead! Yet they were, and Rosper didn’t plan to admit to Chernion that he’d been unable even to stay on Bahzell’s heels.

His seven men sat their steaming horses silently while he vented his spleen. It was clear darkness demanded a halt, yet none of them cared to press the point. Instead, they contrived to find other places to cast their eyes.

“Get down!” he snarled finally, chopping with his arms. “Don’t sit there like a pack of Sharnā-damned fools! We’ll camp here.”

“They can’t be far ahead, Rosper,” one of them ventured. “They only have four horses, and we have three apiece. We’ll run them down soon.”

“Idiot!” Rosper’s voice was made savage by his own thoughts on that very subject. “The Bloody Hand’s a hradani—a
Horse Stealer
hradani—and any hradani can run the sun right out of the sky. Worse, the wizard’s riding a Sothōii courser, and Sharnā only knows what that cursed redhead is riding! They’re not horses—they’re devils, fit to leave any four of ours belly-up! Which is just what they’re doing!”

“But—”

“Be silent! We’ll rest until dawn, then follow those three from here to Kontovar if we have to!” He surveyed his men grimly. “Pick your best horses tomorrow; from now on, we ride them till they drop.”

He turned to glower down the dark and muddy trail, his heart pounding with rage at the chase his targets had led him. A few of his men exchanged mutters, but he chose not to hear. He didn’t need them to tell him riding so hard would soon leave them afoot, but couldn’t they see that if they failed to catch the targets soon they’d lose them entirely? This trail sped south more rapidly than Rosper had believed possible. If Bahzell stayed so far ahead of them, he might reach Sindor even before Chernion!

One or two exchanges were hard to ignore, but he kept his back turned doggedly. They’d ride better in the morning if he let them grumble now.

Rosper knew his impatience was a failing in an assassin, yet even Chernion admitted that it was what made him in comparable in pursuit. If he had to ride every horse to death, then so be it. And their riders, too, if he had to! He
would
overtake Bahzell, and a slow smile twisted his mouth as he touched his hilt and turned to his men, his anger blunted by anticipation.

“All right. Make camp and set a watch. And sharpen your swords.”

He smiled grimly and stalked a short way down the trail, as if moving that small distance towards his prey relieved some of his tension. By dawn he’d be calm and cold, he told himself, ready to begin afresh. And when he caught the Bloody Hand, someone would pay for this wallowing journey.

Master of his trade though he was, Rosper had forgotten his promise to his Guildmaster. He no longer tracked; he rode for the kill.

* * *

Chernion’s sleep was restless. Neither guilt nor compassion troubled the assassin’s mind, for ambition and pragmatism were Chernion’s constant companions…that and dread that someone might discover the secret.

The Guildmaster woke once, with the uncomfortable feeling of being watched, but the room was empty and the assassin drifted back into sleep. Yet even in sleep, that restless mind turned to Rosper. Chernion was half convinced Rosper should have been sent on to Sindor while the Guildmaster undertook his task. In fairness, Rosper was a marginally better tracker, but his hastiness had often made the Guild uneasy, and the thought of where that hastiness might lead on this mission made Chernion far more uneasy than usual.

It wasn’t that the dog brothers would miss Rosper (though they would), nor even that Rosper had proven entirely reliable over Chernion’s vexatious secret. No, the problem was that between them Chernion and he led half the strength of the Korun chapter, and whatever happened to Rosper would probably happen to those he commanded. If impatience mastered him, he and the hradani between them would leave a yawning hole in the Guild’s strength, which was bad. But there was worse, for
no one
escaped the assassins.

Chernion knew that wasn’t literally true—indeed, this wasn’t the first time the Guild had stalked both Wencit and Bahzell, singly or together, and both of them were rather obviously still alive. But failures were few enough to make it
appear
true, and that was one secret of the Guild’s success. Unfortunately, Chernion could hardly hide the loss of half the Korun chapter, if it came to that, and the loss of so many men would demand Guild vengeance…even against Wencit of Rūm and Bahzell Bloody Hand. No, if Rosper died, the Guild ─ or the current Guild
Council
, at any rate ─ would feel forced to avenge him rather than simply quietly returning Wulfra of Torfo’s down payment.

That was why Chernion had argued against ever accepting this commission. Unlike Rosper, the Guildmaster had studied the dog brothers’ own history, including the record of its failures—and the cost of its attempts—against the two targets Wulfra had hired them to eliminate. It wasn’t that Chernion
feared
the hradani or Wencit, champion of Tomanāk and wizard though they might be. It was simply that the Guildmaster recognized that there were targets…and then again, there were
targets
, and a competent and pragmatic merchant of death did well to recognize the difference between them.

There were very few merchants of death more pragmatic than Chernion of the Assassins Guild. Death was a commodity, one Chernion provided without hatred, heat, or passion to those who sought it. Some dog brothers—more than Chernion would have preferred, upon occasion—were drawn to the Guild by bloodlust, the opportunity to slake their thirst for killing and cruelty. The Guildmaster recognized that, had learned to use those sorts of dog brothers for the tasks best suited to them, but that had never been Chernion’s own way. Even those outside the Guild, who knew Chernion only as a name of terror, also knew that the Guildmaster never threatened, never descended into
petty
cruelty, or employed torture. There was no need for the assassin named Chernion to do any of those things. Merciless death handed out for betrayal and failure, yes; that was precisely the reason for Fradenhelm’s fate in Korun. Yet over the years, more than a few, both inside and outside the Guild, had survived failing Chernion, for simple terror was a chancy tool. It might inspire obedience, yet men too consumed by fear were men who would forge ahead blindly—stupidly—rather than pause to
think
, and thought was what kept an assassin alive long enough to become master of the Guild.

Chernion understood that that was what made those who failed—and survived—so useful, as long, at least, as there was no fault, no blame for disobedience or willful, avoidable clumsiness. Rosper was prepared to argue even with the master of his Guild precisely because Chernion permitted it.
Encouraged
it, at least within reason, specifically so that other dog brothers might be willing to exercise their own intelligence and modify their instructions when the mission required it rather than obey the letter of their orders slavishly lest they be punished for failing to do so. But then, Chernion was atypical in many ways. The Guildmaster was ruthlessly practical and as implacable as an East Walls winter, but never cruel for cruelty’s sake, and even the Guild’s most bitter foes recognized that Chernion was just as willing to take a target face-to-face as to strike down victims from the shadows. That was one of the things which made the Guildmaster so effective, one of the reasons the Guild’s ruling council normally sought—and took—Chernion’s advice.

But this time the Council had acted
against
that advice, leaving Chernion no choice but to accept the commission which would have been so much better left alone. The Guildmaster’s distrust of wizards was well known, but emotion, the Council had ruled, must not be allowed to cloud clear judgment. As for the Guild’s previous record against Wencit and the Bloody Hand, past failures didn’t preclude future successes, and if the Guild succeeded against two targets such as they—or even against only one of them—the dog brothers’ reputation would soar to new heights.

Besides, one or two of the Council’s members had murmured to one another, if the whispers coming out of the Church of Sharnā were true, the long-delayed moment of decision between Dark and Light might be upon them sooner than any had expected, and the Guild could not afford a victory for the Light. The majority of the dog brothers might have little taste for the wanton cruelty of the Dark Gods, but they had no friends among the Gods of Light, either. In a world ruled by the Dark, there would always be employment for assassins; in one ruled by the Light, the Guild would be hunted, hounded, and probably doomed. Which meant that the dog brothers had an interest of their own in killing Wencit of Rūm and Tomanāk’s foremost champion, and it was unlikely the Guild would ever have another opportunity like this—ever have another ally like its present employer—if it let this one slip. And so the Council had ruled against its own Guildmaster and accepted the commission.

But Chernion knew success was far from certain, and that thought—and the thought of the potential consequences of
not
succeeding—was disturbing to a prudent broker of mortality.

It was to be hoped that Rosper appreciated the investment potential he represented.

* * *

Far, far to the south, a lynx-eyed wizard contemplated his own plans and leaned back, sipping chilled wine, to reconsider his analysis. Failure was unacceptable; every judgment must be tested and retested.

The red-haired man, for instance. What was he? Certain points could be eliminated, for he was certainly no wizard! Training in the art let traces behind which literally could not be eradicated, however deeply someone might have tried to hide them. Even a working which hid them from the object of the spell himself couldn’t hide those traces from anyone who knew what to look for, and the Council of Carnadosa most certainly did. The stranger’s surface thoughts had been probed—fleetingly, to be sure; one was wise to expose one’s interest no more than absolutely necessary in anything or anyone in Wencit’s vicinity—and no whisper of sorcery had been found.

Yet there was
something
deep within him, something that whispered of danger, and the amnesia was ominous; it prohibited deep probes, for who could read blank pages? But somewhere under that blankness was iron. The man held a ominous capability which simply couldn’t be assessed, and that was…bothersome.

The cat-eyed wizard drummed on a chair arm, wondering which fool had wiped the stranger’s mind. Probably a lesser lord had stumbled upon a link to Wencit, acted in panic, and now dared not own the deed for fear of the Council’s response to his bungling. It almost had to be a Carnadosan, assuming it was the result of the art. There was no way to be certain that it was, and it was certainly possible the red-haired man had fallen afoul of one of the handful of gray wizards or warlocks of Norfressa rather than a Carnadosan. But that comforting possibility struck the cat-eyed wizard as unlikely, and he was profoundly leery of fortuitous coincidences where Wencit was concerned. One thing the Council did know, however, was that the one wizard in all the world who
couldn’t
have done it was Wencit of Rūm.

The wild wizard had been monitored for over half a thousand years, ever since the Council of Carnadosa had rebuilt from the ruins of strafed and devastated Kontovar. For the last hundred years, since the cat-eyed wizard had assumed leadership of the Council, the old wild wizard had been monitored literally hour by hour. Oh, there’d been occasional instances when he’d slipped away, like that unfortunate affair with Tremala in the Empire of the Spear. One simply couldn’t drive a scrying spell through Wencit’s glamours on those occasions when he had cause to bring them to full strength, but those occasions had been few and far between, and in all the time he’d been watched, Wencit had been near no one who even resembled the young stranger. That really left only one of the Dark Lords, and the smallest threat might have led some of the less hardy among them to destroy a man’s mind. Few realized it was wiser to leave such alone to see how Wencit would use them, for Wencit was a past master of every trick, a consummate practitioner of deep laid strategies and careful misdirection. He’d certainly demonstrated
that
clearly enough over the centuries. In fact…

The drumming ceased and the cat eyes narrowed. What if the stranger
had
no hidden significance? Suppose Wencit had simply recognized the obvious potential beneath his amnesia—amnesia which might, however unlikely it might appear on the surface, be entirely natural—and enlisted him as a useful man who could also act as a smokescreen?

The cat-eyed wizard examined the thought carefully, for Wencit was no fool. He couldn’t know of the cat-eyed wizard’s existence—too many precautions guarded against that!—but he knew the Council of Carnadosa survived, and he must also know it watched him like a hawk. That was the reason he’d so often resorted to the tricks of the stage conjurer, using misdirection to cloak his true intent. It was entirely possible that was what he was doing this time, as well—using this Kenhodan to divert attention from his true objective.

The notion was attractive, but it would be unwise to credit Wencit with
too
much duplicity. Better to conclude that the redhead wasn’t a presently active threat except inasmuch as he was in Wencit’s company. Mark him as an unknown and watch him. Eliminate him if the chance came, just to be safe, but nothing about him presently justified actions which might tell Wencit that the cat-eyed wizard himself existed. Or, for that matter, the extent to which the wild wizard’s normal glamours had been penetrated by the Council’s most recent workings.