Villains by Necessity (36 page)

It was all her fault! And she was probably the most powerful member of the party right now, with Valerie incapacitated and Sam the Invincible wise to their treachery ... she would have to die first. %%%Sam didn't even bother to use his assassin skill of summoning his latent fire-energy. Vermin like these didn't need or deserve that sort of special treatment. He quickly checked his equipment, armed himself with a blade in each hand, and Shadowslipped.

He stepped out of the darkness behind a wall, and unluckily met the first rays of the morning sun and Kaylana's piercing green eyes at the same time.

He flinched away from the biting sharp light, struggling to maintain his purpose but having trouble sinking a knife into the heart of the owner of those impossible green eyes. If the fire had been leaping in his blood he wouldn't have hesitated, but he hadn't summoned it...

Kaylana, though she did not know its origin, saw the killing intent in a pair of strange gray eyes that squinted from a wrapped mask of silk cloth. She did not question, only countered. A will strong enough to face down a starving beast, a gaze older than the steel and cities of men bored into Sam's brain.

Though only an instant passed for the other companions, as they startled at the assassin's sudden appearance, it seemed to the two combatants an eternity; Kaylana cold and still as a mountain glacier, Sam trembling with pent-up killing force and fighting his shrinking agony of the growing sunlight.

At last he withdrew, fighting himself back, forcing himself to be calm, to act normal. This is not the time ... wait, wait, until later in the darkness, or when they sleep and the eyes cannot see...

The daggers slipped back into their sheaths, and Sam slumped limply, tugging his mask down to shade his eyes.

"Una, sorry," he heard himself mutter. "I thought you were someone else."

"Indeed," said Kaylana coldly. "I felt much the same.

Are you wearing Valerie's amulet, Sam?"

Sam stiffened, paranoia flashing anew in his brain. Kill them! Kill them now! "Amulet? What amulet? Oh, that.

No, of course I'm not wearing it. Don't be stupid. Come on, let's get out of here." He set off at a brisk pace down %%%the road, the others exchanging glances as they followed, except for the dark knight, who turned his helmet to give the assassin a long look. Then he sheathed his great black sword and followed. Kaylana felt the lies and strangeness in the assassin's words and mind, but kept back, and did nothing; caution must be her watchword.

They marched out into the sunshine, down a dusty road with fields of grain growing gold on either side, despite it being still the autumn of the year. At last they passed the edge of the cultivated lands, and a short ways later, came to the edge of Cranch Sealake Channel. There was a little shipping and fishing town there, not much more than a harbor for the city of Martogon further up a northflowing river. They spoke to the dockmaster, and booked passage on a small craft that would take them to the far side of the water, to the land of Natodik and the next leg of their journey.

"This are a nice change," commented Arcie. The others were inclined to agree. After long days of travel and being hunted, it was a relief to let someone else worry about where they were going.

Cranch Sealake was not actually a lake, but rather a wide, rounded channel separating the lands of Natodik and Kwart. The deep blue waters rose and fell in a strange tidal pattern that seemed to have little or no connection with tides elsewhere. Rumor had it that this strange tidal behavior was caused by the slow breathing of a huge behemoth that dwelt on the channel floor. In these enlightened times, of course, the whole thing was regarded as a foolish superstition ... but that didn't stop the captain of the Roslilia from surreptitiously tossing a basket of sweet loaves and flowers overboard as they neared the center of the lake, to appease the monster and hopefully keep it in slumber.

The Roslilia was a small, well-built ship, two-masted, with white sails and a water-nixie carved into her prow.

Fouse, the captain, ran the route from the lakeport near Martogon, across the water north to the seaport of Starhold %%%He normally took few or no passengers, but these folk had paid a nice sum to be taken there immediately, instead of waiting for one of the other ships that left at different hours.

The party had a pair of small rooms below deck, although Robin found the cargo hold better suited to his needs. His four legs enabled him to balance quite well on the rolling deck, and he got the impression of really traveling, seeing new things, new lands. He spent much of his time up on deck, tuning his harp as it reacted to the salt spray, and trying to write verses-both for his own use and to convince the villains that he really was interested in their adventures. Right now, though, these villains had dragged up cushions from one of the cabins and were sitting about, enjoying a bottle of wine chilled in the ocean, off-handedly playing a game of cards, and talking.

"I dinna know," said Arcie to Sam, peering over his cards at Blackmail, who delicately held a fan of cards in his huge dark gauntlets. "Are that cheating? It truly are impossible to tell if he's bluffing or nay." Arcie glanced over at the assassin, who was still wrapped in his black mask, gray eyes glinting out from the folds. "O' course, you aren't much different."

"Don't complain, Arcie ..." muttered Sam, his voice muffled. He tossed a silver stellin into the pot. "I'm in."

"I as well," replied Valerie from within her hood, adding a small gold spangle. She looked different, Sam noticed ... then realized that the black raven that was so much a part of her costume was missing. A quick glance around located it perched behind the Barigan's chair, peering over his shoulder with intense interest. Sam smiled to himself in his mask, despite his cold loathing. A very clever trick, that. The ship's crew had fixed the sails and the ship was heading along at a good clip, while the crew cast confused glances at the strange group playing Bunker's Aces on the deck, using wineglasses to keep the cards from blowing away in the wind.

Valerie watched Sam try to take a sip of his wine, fumble with the scarf, then set the glass down untasted. %%%"Why don't you take that thing off, assassin? It's not like you're going to be working on board ship," she asked. Sam stiffened imperceptibly and answered coldly.

"I happen to like it, thank you. It keeps the sun out of my eyes." Kaylana, who could not begin to fathom the many and varied rules of Bunker's Aces and instead was amusing herself by peering over the deck and counting porpoises, turned around at this.

"You know, Sam, I suspect something is the matter with your eyes, a touch of cataract perhaps. I noticed it the other day."

"Aye, the lassie's right," agreed Arcie, casually palming a card out of his sleeve. "I noticed it too ... yer eyes look a tad cloudy." Actually, he thought to himself, they look like they're made of lead, but no sense worrying the man.

"Nothing wrong with me," muttered Sam. "I can see just fine."

"Oh?" asked Kaylana. "Can you tell me what you see over there?" She indicated a general area of water off the forward port side. Sam stood up and looked.

"Of course," he scoffed. "It's a fair-sized white boat.

Now quit bothering me, Kaylana," he growled, and sat back down. Kaylana tapped her staff thoughtfully. This was a far change from the assassin of only last week who had been one of the first to pull out of the near-certain intergroup conflict in the Fens. She decided to let it pass for now. Arcie too seemed to notice his friend's discomfiture and decided to try and bring him out with a bit of conversation. Sam had always liked to give long melancholy monologues about the justification for his profession ... maybe the chance to do so now would cheer him.

He looked around. The sailors for the most part had gone down into the galley for their evening meal, leaving a skeleton crew on deck who were watching wind and weather and not paying attention to the group of card players. Safe enough. Valerie folded with a shrug and sat back as Arcie cleared his throat and addressed the sullen assassin. %%%"Sam, you got us into a bit of trouble back there, with the guards, ye know ... just for mine own curiosity, as your employer, would you mind explaining why you did something so stupid?"

For a moment, Arcie thought the assassin wasn't going to answer. But then a cold, soft voice spoke up from the shadowy folds of black silk.

"When I was young, five years old or so, I don't really know how old I was, or even how old I am now. The Guild was never really sure ... but anyway, I lived with my mother in one of the scrappiest firetraps in Bistort.

You know, over down in Turglin Street? Near the corner of Tanner's Alley."

"But there's nowt there now," said Arcie. "It all burned down a long time ago, and the mayor were going to put up lots of new buildings, but was busy with other things for so long that eventually it just sort of were cleared away and added to the open market area."

Sam nodded. "That's right. But when we lived there, it was a tottering collection of termite-and-rat-infested timber.

The mayor was going to tear it down anyway, and build new houses and shops and things ... we were afraid, because if he did we'd be out on the streets in the cold. He never got around to it, though ... that was old Felspot, of course, not quite like the new folks and all the whitewashing and whatnot." Sam sighed, and-toyed with his wineglass. He wasn't sure why he was bothering to tell them all this. Perhaps simply to take his mind away from the driveling stupidity of the card game, or perhaps because it didn't matter anyway; if things worked out correctly, as they were sure to, every one of those listening here would be dead and floating to the bottom of the sea before dawn tomorrow. He went on.

"My mother was always weak, always sick ... I don't think she ever recovered from the strain of having me, probably some cold winter when she'd likely been starving for weeks. She wasn't quite clear in her head sometimes, either. She could never remember who my father was, nor where he'd gone, nor what he looked like. But %%%she loved me, and took care of me as best she could. I had to grow up fast, there, and as soon as I was able to I helped out-scrounging for food in the gutters, begging for coins in the streets... you know the usual sob story."

Arcie nodded. He'd given more than one thin waif wandering the twilight alleys a couple of coins out of sympathy, a weak spot based in his rather domestic Barigan nature that the other parts of him snickered at. Valerie rolled her eyes and looked away, but Blackmail had set his cards aside and listened in silence. The assassin's quiet voice seemed to cut through the rush and slap of water against the hull like a cold breeze, a mist from the paths of time, tinged with his new strange bitter coldness and also an older, softer sorrow that had always earned him a reputation for melancholy. The voice and its words seemed to reach back into their own pasts, touching on tragedies long buried in the darkness, long forgotten but still as deep as tears.

"My father, whoever he was, left us penniless. Mother couldn't get a job; she was too weak for most labor and too ... confused a lot of the time to do any intellectual work. So I brought home the bread, or cheese rinds, or whatever, especially when she took a turn for the worse one winter." Sam stretched out his long black-clad legs and peered up at the dim blue evening sky.

"I came home one evening and found her and some out-of-town drunk in the back room. He'd beaten her nearly senseless and raped her half dead. The place was a shambles. He was still... slapping her, yelling, naked, and she was bloody all over, bruised, and making the most terrible sound I'd ever heard, like a drowning puppy. It was quite a shock to a five-year-old boy. I suppose the smart thing to do would have been to run away ... but I didn't feel scared, just cold, standing in the shadows by the doorway. And then... then I felt something, I can't describe it. No one who's not an assassin can really understand the feeling of fire in the blood. I moved, I grabbed the leg of a stool that had broken off, all jagged, and then I just sprang. I don't know how it happened, %%%how a little underfed boy could get the better of a man seven times his age and a dozen times more his weight and skill... but all there was, was cold fire and thrashing and blood and shouting, and we fell down ... he thrashed, and knocked over our one clay lamp, and it hit the floor and burst into flames as we fought. Then he went limp, blood pouring out of this hole the sharp end of the stick had made in his throat. I was shaking, tried to get my mother to get up, to get out of the house, because the flames were leaping up the walls. But she just lay there, making that terrible, despairing noise, that noise that tore into my chest like jagged ice and left huge rips in my heart ... and I heard her sobbing,"Not again, not again ...' and then she made a choking sound, her eyes not seeing me, glazing over, still...

"The flames were roaring then, burning the tinder-dry wood, and smoke was everywhere. I staggered away, the heat was blistering my skin, the dead man on the floor smelling like a funeral pyre. I tried to lift my mother's body, thinking in that stupid way kids have that I could save her ... but it wasn't any use, and I finally had to stumble out of the room. I'd just made it to the front hall when the whole building collapsed, burning timbers fall ing all around me, dropping with me two floors down to the street level."

Sam paused, and sighed. "Obviously, I survived. I was half-buried under burning rubble, blinded, choked with smoke. I'd probably have died in the rest of the blaze ex cept for the fact that Miner and Fradagar happened to be heading back to the Guild and, seeing the flames, went to watch. They saw me fall out of the building and pulled me out of the burning logs. They took me back to the Guild, dressed my wounds, fed me, and then trained me as one of their own. They said later they saw in me the potential and the cold fire that makes us what we are and felt they could do no less. They felt it unsafe to let someone with the mak ings of an assassin walk the streets without the training and discipline of the trade." Sam clicked his tongue in idle thought. "So, that's the basis of the reason... ever since, %%%when I think of that night, and of that sound my mother made as she lay there dying ... When the circumstances occur, I allow myself one kill without a client, without payment... an assassin is quick and sure, and the most merciful death there is when he chooses. But no one, and no lady in particular, should have to suffer as my mother did that night."