Villains by Necessity (64 page)

%%%stupid pompous prince, of Trois no less, bloody Elfhuggers, and he would have to spend his time in the spe cial hell for assassins who died before completing their mission, and what a long and painful way to go, too ... arrows, why couldn't it have been a good clean sword blow, or dragon breath, or something ... his conscious ness fled.

When he woke again, his first thought was pain, the next, anger. The arrows still cut him, and his wounds were aching from the infection and salt. He wasn't even dead yet! Stupid Fenwick couldn't even kill him when Sam gave up. Azel, blast you, dark lord whom I've served so long, where is your release? Do even you abandon me?

Sam rolled onto his back, gasping and choking with nau sea. He couldn't see, but his assassin senses again felt no danger. He gripped the shaft of the arrow that grated in his hip, and worked at it. Barbed? No. Good. Trust a hero ... He slowly and carefully pulled it out and passed out silently from the pain.

When he came round again, a few minutes later, he pushed the arrow in his shoulder straight out the other side, just as he had been taught. He managed to stuff some of the crenelations of his tunic into the wounds, and then went down for another nap.

When he woke again, about a half-hour later, his mind was beginning to clear, although his wounds were swell ing. He finally began to wonder where he was, and what he could do about it. He managed to open his crusted eyes and looked blearily around. All was whiteness that hurt his eyes and made it hard to see anything. He squinted, tried to focus.

The first thing he saw was himself, pale, bloody, and battered. His zombie-like self-care had probably saved his life; the bloody arrows lying beside him were tipped with lethal blades, the first of which would surely have punctured his vital organs had he moved about much more. But he would still be dead soon if he couldn't find some way to clean himself, and get food and water.

Water ... there was a possibility. He could sense a faint %%%dripping noise, and the room he was in ... a room, yes.

White marble. Large room, perhaps ... he shifted a bit, listened to the echoes ... fifty or sixty feet square? Neu tral air, no smells but his own salty reek. Light, no source. And a dripping sound.

He rolled onto his good side and looked about. The sound came from the center of the room, where a large white marble fountain of simple design rose from the floor. It was in the shape of two bowls, one about twelve feet in diameter supported on a short column above an other that was slightly larger. The water dripped slowly from the top level to the one below. On one leg and one arm, Sam dragged himself to the fountain. The lower level, he noted with cynical satisfaction, was only damp, steeply sloped so that the drops ran down to the base and whatever pumping mechanism lay within. He'd have to stand up to get the water, typical. As he paused for breath, he noticed something odd about the rhythmic fall of water. It took him a moment to figure it out; it was a beat quite similar to that of a human heart... it perfectly matched his own, slow, stumbling pulse, in fact.

He pulled himself into a semi-upright position by the rim of the upper level of the fountain, and scooped a few mouthfuls of cold water from the top level. It didn't much matter if it was poisoned or not; there were no exits out of this room and he'd die soon anyway without water. The liquid was cool and good, however, and helped ease his burning throat. A few splashes made his wounds sting, but further cleansing would be necessary.

He slowly pulled himself into a standing position, and looked down at the upper bowl of the fountain, which reached his waist. The water was clear and still, and some trick of the light showed a very sharp reflection, fully col ored down to his bloodshot hazel eyes and sodden tunic, torn and twisted so that it revealed the birthmark on his shoulder. The sight was rather unpleasant, and Sam reached into the bowl to stir the water and break up the image, but as his hand touched the surface, the hand of his reflection seemed to come loose from the water, and grab his wrist. With a snarl, Sam's reflection yanked him into the pool.

"Well, they can't be allowed to just slip away! Towser, get your mages together and get rid of this storm." Fenwick was back in control, ordering his Company to begin sweeping the unflooded passes for signs of the renegades.

Lumathix took to the air on his scorched wings to try to spy them out from above, while Fenwick, Tasmene, and their retinues took shelter under a ledge.

Soon after the Company had abandoned the eagleshaped tower, a faint flash of white appeared where the assassin had vanished. Mizzamir stood there and looked up at the rain, frowning. With a wave of his hand, the drops suddenly parted, falling past as though an invisible umbrella protected the mage. Satisfied, Mizzamir stooped, and looked carefully at the inscriptions in the stone. They were still glowing slightly. He couldn't enter the Test through the normal way, that was certain ... but perhaps he could open it, briefly? He could open portals between worlds, after all. He was the most powerful wizard in existence; made even more so in these glorious days, when the power of Good was so strong that even novice mages of Light could cast spells that once were much beyond them. Certainly this ancient magic Test must have loopholes somewhere. All it would take would be a brief open and twist, to expel the magic and "real" contents from the magical fabric of the Test; the assassin, and the Segment. Then he could rescue both. Well worth the effort, he decided and he began to lay out the runes and objects needed for the spell, weaving a circle of power around the faintly glowing entrance to the Test.

Sam's footing was bad, and he was weakened from his wounds. He fell into the bowl. Instead of falling into water and landing on the stone bottom, he fell on top of something that fought and kicked. The water seemed to cool his wounds somewhat and gave him an extra burst of energy. He fought back, the water in his eyes. At last he and his opponent separated and surfaced. The water was about three or four feet deep, with an oddly flat bottom.

He viewed his opponent with surprise and amazement.

Instead of a water-monster that had, through his feverish hallucinations, seemed to take on the form of his reflection, what was standing in the pool and facing him now, panting and dripping, was a mirror image of himself. The image was cast in solid reality, right down to the clothing and the wounds ... except that both his own wounds and those of his opposite seemed to be somewhat healed ... as though the damage he had originally sustained had been divided equally between them when the image had come into being.

He had only a moment to marvel at this before the image drew a dagger, identical to one of his own Liteflite Shadrezarian blades, and lunged at him. Sam did not wait for the attack, but back-flipped out of the pool, stumbling slightly but recovering. The image climbed cautiously out of the fountain and approached him.

"Who are you, and what the shades is going on?" Sam asked, watching warily as the other Sam shifted his grip on the dagger.

"I suppose you'd call me your darker side," said the figure, "except that you and I both know there isn't much else to you. So, I'm just another you ... what better opponent to test your fighting skills?" The blond man had Sam's own voice, and the strangeness of it gave him chills. However, it was the words that made his eyes open wide.

"Test me? Am I in one of the Tests?"

"That's right. Surprised?" The figure almost grinned at him. "And I'm just as strong as you, just as fast, just as deadly ... I wield the fire too, as you've probably guessed ..." Sam had indeed; the way the other moved was distinctive; "Except darker. I'm everything you should be..."

With a motion too fast to follow, the other threw his %%%dagger. Sam dodged, but the blade flew up, hit a pillar, flashed back, and before Sam could move it had sunk deep into his calf, making his dodge turn into a roll. "... and," said the other, drawing another blade, "I never miss, either."

Sam dodged the next blade, and its rebound, and it went purring off into the rafters. Then he threw one himself, the one with a camelian in the pommel. The other dodged it easily, having almost second-guessed where he would aim. Got to watch that, Sam noted. Sam dodged again as one of the daggers came back at him, and his opponent ducked behind a pillar. Sam realized that missile combat would be futile, so, a dagger in each hand, he leaped after his identical self.

The other tried to duck, but Sam had been expecting that, and grabbed accordingly. They went down in a tangle of black cloth, silently struggling. Sam sensed something, and wrenched the other over just as the other tried to do the same. Sam had a pillar to brace against, though, so he won, flipping the other over on top of him. He heard the faint thunk as one of the flying daggers took the other in the shoulder. The other then used this position of leverage to knee him very hard in the groin.

His reaction threw the other about ten feet to land rather awkwardly on the wet slippery marble around the pool. Sam spent an instant curled up, breathing fast to flood himself with fire and adrenaline to block the pain.

When the footsteps came closer he jumped up like a startled cat, and just managed to dodge the second airborne dagger. The other had apparently had time to draw and poison a third dagger; a faint sheen of blue oil glistened on the blade. Sam looked at it.

"We're immune to blue poxwort toxin, darker self," he admonished. His darker self looked at the blade and sighed.

"Right, I'd forgotten."

"It's all right... I would have done the same thing."

"Of course. Well, maybe the poison's no good, but I don't recall as we're immune to steel, anyway." So saying, %%%he flung the blade. Sam tried to dodge, but his already wounded calf betrayed him, and he took the blade in the foot. The poison stung briefly, but he'd spent years adapting his body to all the toxins he'd ever use, carry, or encounter. The other was on him in an instant, a birchwood dagger going for his neck. Sam grabbed the arm and wrestled with it.

"Two hits for one, Sam ... I seem to be winning," said his other self.

"Game's not over yet, Sam," grunted Sam, and with a mighty twist he sent the dagger twisting out of the other's hand. He then grabbed for the neck, but the other jerked out of his way and they both rolled to the left as the carnelian dagger
spanged
off the floor where they had been. The exertion widened recent wounds, and they both became bloodstained. There was no time to draw weapons in this close combat, but there was no need; every assassin spends the entire first few years of training learning nothing but body combat, long before ever being allowed to pick up a weapon. Sam, realizing he was in a fight for his life, opened his heart and blood and will to the fire, letting the flames take him and lift him to ride where he would. His last clear image was of the sudden dilation and burning of the other's hazel eyes, and a sudden hardness come into the face ... Is that what it looks like? he wondered, and then he was gone.

They sprang apart and drew weapons, the other moving slightly to avoid the returning flash of the thrown dagger. They circled, wary as cats, a stab here, a jump there, never a connection. It seemed to Sam that his opponent knew what he would do before he did it... at one point Sam thought of feinting to the left and then coming in with the right, and then as his opponent slashed for his left Sam turned and countered as the blade suddenly changed hands and lunged for his right. He jumped away as the flying dagger flicked past once again. The two men circled each other.

We're cautions, Sam thought, through the fire. I'm cautious.

We're too alike... but we must be different somehow %%%... he is my dark side... what would my dark side be least likely to do? Or most likely to do? He didn't get a chance to think-his dark side lunged at him, daggers flashing.

Sam ducked under and came up with his own, managed to get in a lucky jab in the shoulder, and grabbed at the other by a leg, tossing him aside. The other Sam landed oddly, and there was a splash of blood. Sam's hunter instincts saw it and tensed. He'd managed to widen the wound in his enemy's hip with that wrenching throw.

Mizzamir looked at his preparations with satisfaction. A ring of glowing stones outlined the Test gateway, and a few candles burned under his rain-shield. With a pleased nod, the Arch-Mage raised his arms, called up his mighty magic, and began to chant in a deep, powerful voice.

His opponent was up in an instant, and ready for what would have been Sam's killing blow. He slashed expertly with his shortsword and cut a large gash across Sam's chest. Only Sam's quick turn saved his jugular. Sam staggering back from the blow, leaned against a pillar, clutching at his chest and making bubbling noises. The flying dagger came at him again, and he ducked to avoid it; it clattered off the pillar and flew away into the rafters. Sam opened one eye slightly; his opponent, he knew, had run out of good throwing daggers, and Sam was exhibiting all the characteristics of a lung wound, an easy kill. So easy, in fact, that it would be best and most satisfying to his darkest killing instincts to stick the wide long blade of the shortsword in from close range, to watch the face twist in the rictus of death and feel the satisfaction of a kill. The other Sam approached carefully, sword at the ready, as Sam gasped and gurgled and spat, his legs shaking, strength apparently failing.

The other approached to close range-Sam could smell the sourness of his own familiar blood and sweat- and with the fire dancing in his eyes, raised the blade to strike...

Sam grabbed the sword with one hand, twisting it away, and with the other he jabbed his flattened hand up and in, like a blade itself, through the hip wound on his opponent's side, breaking through flesh and membrane and closing at last upon a mess of slimy intestines ... and froze.

They looked into each other's eyes. Sam saw in the other's expression that realization of death, with his own eyes showing the same look he had seen so many times before; not even a fear, just a sudden knowing, like looking into the world beyond that of the living. The intestines and blood vessels in his grip trembled slightly. Sam stood there, with his hand inside his own belly, as it were, and looking into his own fire-lit eyes, and holding his own life in his hands.