Assassins' Dawn (10 page)

“Let’s finish this.”

They wrapped the body in an extra nightcloak and began the long trek back to Claswell’s dwelling. The body, a limp weight, swung loosely between the two.

It was still early night when they passed the Irast city gates—two huge doors of black malawood swung to and secured, a symbolic defense. The taverns just inside the gates were full of drinking customers and the shops still had their display windows open to the streets, holos flaring above them in a visual cacophony. The lanes and pedestrian ways were crowded, but all moved aside for the Hoorka and their burden. Faces turned from the business of buying and selling, the more curious following for a time, though no one attempted to hinder them. No sane person would insult Hoorka-kin. Once they passed a band of jussar, young ruffians as yet unattached to any guild but too young to be termed lassari. Their bare chests glittered with fluorescent patterns and vibros hung conspicuously at their sides, but they, too, let the Hoorka pass. The assassins walked slowly, without speaking, their eyes glaring at the path ahead and not to the gathering crowd behind them. The people of Irast, after a curious stare, moved quickly aside.

When they finally deposited the body of Dausset at the gate of Claswell’s home, they had attracted a sizable number of the denizens of Irastian nightlife. There were scattered catcalls directed to the opaqued windows of the Claswell manse; cries of amused derision, for Irast was a small town and many were privy to this particular piece of gossip. The crowd, rapidly growing larger and more pleased with its attempts at wit, parted to let the assassins by as the Hoorka turned to go, then closed in again. They clamored excitedly around the corpse and hooted their contempt for Claswell’s cowardice in the face of cuckoldry. As they began to pound at the gates and a ragged chorus began—a popular song with the words altered to suit the situation by some quick mind in the crowd—the Hoorka left, as calm and unemotionally as they’d come.

(For is it not the sixth code-line that states that the signer of a fulfilled contract be made a matter of public knowledge—that the Hoorka will hide the identity of neither slayer nor slain? For the Hoorka are but weapons in the hands of another, and the murder will not lie before their conscience, but that of the contractor. And it is also true that the contractor may himself become the subject of a Hoorka contract. Revenge is a powerful emotion.)

The Thane and Aldhelm spoke of nothing but trivialities during their return to Underasgard. After eating and bathing, they retired to their rooms to sleep. The Thane’s rest was fitful. Specters without faces haunted his dreams. And then there were faces: his own face, an old, old visage channeled and furrowed by too much time; he danced a macabre arabesque with the swollen and malevolent mask of Vingi in the dank caverns of the ippicator. Vingi laughed at the odd appearance of the five-legged beast, mocking it as an animal unfit to live, unsuited to its environment and unable to cope with change. Then, together, they smashed the skeleton to broken dust. And in the darkness, he could hear the giggling mirth of Hag Death.

•   •   •

The spires of the Port were gilded by the early sun. Far off on the flattened expanse of earth that served as Neweden’s link to the worlds of the Alliance, ground vehicles bore the phallic cylinders of storage units to the waiting freighters at the edge of the landing field. To one side of the Port stood the buildings of Sterka—nearest the Port, the hostels, the bars, and places of varied entertainment for the crews of the Alliance ships coming in and out of Neweden. Across the field from the city stood the ornate and intricate architecture of the Diplo Center. It was a varied if not beautiful scene by morning, and m’Dame d’Embry, the Alliance Regent of the Diplos on Neweden, gazed long at it before opaquing the window and turning back into her rooms.

She often compared Neweden to Niffleheim, and Neweden sometimes had the best of the comparison. Neweden had the rough grace of untitled and little-known regions to recommend it, a crude pastorality that the more urban and urbane worlds lacked. Crowded worlds and aesthetics that turned to dry dust in the eyes seemed to go together—it had been decades since she had been awed by the sight of Niffleheim’s metallic surface.

The room had already taken the sleeping plate to the ceiling, where the plate functioned as a lighting unit. Music drifted in polyphonic eddies from the walls—a harpsichord concerto by Hagee, an obscure Terran composer—and a holo of d’Vellia’s soundsculpture
Gehennah
, half-size, loomed in the corner nearest the comlink. In her dressing gown and without the bodytints that had once been fashionable (and which she still wore, unaware or simply uncaring that they were no longer in favor), her body reflected its age. The eyes were caught up in a finely-knit spiderweb of lines, her face had a patina of grayness, and when she moved it was with a certain sureness that is missing in a younger person’s step, the kittenish ungainliness of youth. She didn’t bother to treat her hair—it was dry and whitened. The flesh on her body had a laxness, a sag, as if it had once confined more bulk than she now possessed. But if d’Embry had lost physical fullness, she was compensated by an avid spirit; as if in leaving, the flesh had cast off and left behind the energy it once encompassed. The snared eyes were undimmed and lively, the gnarled hands strong and agile. She was a legend in Diplo circles, the grand-dame of Niffleheim, and she had resisted all well-meaning attempts to retire her from active duty with a fervor that had impressed, awed, and irritated the Niffleheim authorities. As a Diplo, she was effective; as a political in-fighter, without peer.

And she was nearing the end. Inside, she knew it. Perhaps another ten standards before the drugs, implants, and mechanical aids could no longer keep that body together. That gave her drive, and if she was occasionally brusque and quick, she attributed it—in her mind—to that fact. She had little time to waste on foolishness.

“Comlink,” she said to the empty room.

“M’Dame?” The screen of the comlink flared and settled into a blue-gray background that flickered slightly. D’Embry moved to the mechanism and, running her hands across the keyboard there, pressed a button. Light surged and letters raced across the screen. “Neweden status bank,” chimed the comlink in a neuter voice, echoing redundantly the words printed on the screen.

“Report from local time 21:30 to the present. I want an emphasis on governmental problems. Briefly. You know what I’m after.”

The comlink voice changed to a woman’s contralto, evidently that of a staff Diplo. “M’Dame, one moment please.”

“Certainly.” D’Embry tapped the carpet of the room with one bare foot, noticing that the carpet needed to be trimmed again—it had grown too high for her liking. She made a mental note to have the Maintenance Department groom the rug.

“Sorry for the delay, m’Dame. I note here that at 22:00, the Li-Gallant received a committee of guild-members sympathetic to his guild’s rule.” The woman’s voice continued as an accompanying text appeared on the screen. “Topic of their discussion is unknown, but the conjecture is that it concerned consolidation of support after the Assembly meeting of yesterday afternoon. Query?”

“No.” D’Embry’s voice was dry, and she cleared her throat. “Continue, please.”

“22:15. Gunnar and Potok were seen in the pastures of their guild holdings outside Sterka. They refused to speak to the news services. Query?”

“No. Give me a general update, quickly.” She used a side panel of the comlink to order her breakfast, then asked the room to elevate a chair. She sat, then spoke as the woman on the link began to speak again. “Cancel that last request. My mind’s already cluttered with enough useless facts for the day. What of the Hoorka?”

“We understand that they fulfilled a contract last night in Irast. A copy of the completed contract was sent to the Center from Underasgard in compliance with your request. Query?”

“Put the contract on visual, please.” D’Embry scanned the contract without truly reading it. She glanced at the names of contractor and victim, her lips pursed in a moue of distaste, but the names were simply a random arrangement of letters that meant nothing to her. Her fingertips tapped the console of the comlink. The gray paint was worn to bare metal where her hands rested. “Negate,” she said, and the screen cleared.

“Please come on visual yourself,” she said. The screen flickered and then filled with the head and shoulders of a young woman, her hair short at the sides and long down her back in current fashion, her eyelids and lips touched with a faint scarlet sheen that seemed to burn with a tepid fire. “Ahh, Stanee,” d’Embry said. “Good morning.”

The face smiled. “Thank you, m’Dame. Anything else I can do for you?”

D’Embry waved the question away. “I hate the coldness of the words on the screen after a while, so you’ll excuse the visual contact. I simply get an urge, now and again, to see to whom I’m talking. A whim, child, nothing more.”

Stanee’s smile remained fixed. It seemed the predominant feature of her face. “Certainly, m’Dame.”

“Do you have the figures for Sterka last night?—not the gory facts that get attached to them in this barbaric place, just the figures. And I’ll probably ask you to stop halfway through them, so don’t be overly perturbed at your record-keeping being unappreciated.”

Stanee looked down, below the camera’s view. The head and shoulders on the screen moved as her fingers raced over controls. Without looking up, she began reading. “Sterka continent: killed by bloodfeud, three. Assaults, twenty. Incidents that might lead to guild conflicts, four reported . . .” The list went on, number after number sifted from the chaff of the night.

“Enough,” d’Embry interrupted finally. She sigh-smiled and shook her head at Stanee. “Enough for now. Did it ever occur to you that this is a world with damnably little to recommend it—with the exception of ippicator skeletons and some pretty but unspectacular scenery? Ahh, never mind, never mind.” She waved a hand in the air. “Just the normal morning grumpiness. Have a flimsy sent to my office to look over later, will you? You can cram into it all those boring details that I know you’ve been dying to give me, neh?”

Dutiful laughter. “Yes, m’Dame. Is that all?”

“For now. End,” she said in a less personal tone of voice. The comlink cleared to a blank blue-gray. “Off.” The screen darkened and went black as it eased into its niche in the wall, out of sight.

D’Embry went to the window and cleared it again. The sun had risen higher in the sky, pursued by high cumulus clouds, and the light had gone from the honey-thick yellow of the dawn to the whiter, more penetrating glare of full day. The buildings basked in warmth, throwing sharp-edged shadows across the plain of the Port. A freighter rose, its attitude jets throwing off hot gases to waver the air. The ship hovered low over the Port for a moment, and then arced into the Neweden morning, leaving a dirty trail that the wind wiped across the sky. In the city, dark specks of birds wheeled in alarm.

The Port was alive with workers and Alliance personnel beginning a new day. For them, another day of relative sameness. The daily problems came and went without ever being eliminated.

M’Dame d’Embry sighed deep within herself and slapped at the window controls. She watched the glass turn slowly smoky and then deep purple-black, inking out the view of the Port. She leaned against the wall in reverie for a moment or two, forcing her mind to come to full alertness. Finally, rather desultorily, she began to dress.

•   •   •

The sun warmed the soil of the hills, but the heat and light of the sunstar failed to disturb the cool night that lingered below ground. The caverns of Underasgard, eternally cloaked and ever-mild, paid little attention to the vagaries of the surface.

For Hoorka-kin, however, the rising sun heralded a Rites Day, a day full with the worship of their patron gods. Kin spoke quietly to one another, the kitchens served only cold bread and milk, and the apprentices were kept busy ensuring that all nightcloaks were pressed and clean. A hurried calm held the caverns, a busy laziness. The Hoorka gathered slowly in the Chamber, the largest of the caverns they inhabited, and took their seats before the High Altar.

The Thane, sitting to the utter rear of the Chamber, watched the assembly as if rapt. His mind, however, dwelt elsewhere. He was only marginally aware of Valdisa’s warmth at his side, of Cranmer’s fidgeting, of Aldhelm’s curt greetings. He distantly nodded to the journeymen and apprentices as they entered. When the ponderous chords of the chant of praise rose, his lips mouthed the words and his voice sang, but he heard nothing.

“I love the feel of your body.” Valdisa smiled, faint lines appearing at the corners of her mouth. Teasing, her eyes danced.

The Thane rolled over on his back so that her roving hands had access to all of him. His gaze moved from her face and down the lean tautness of Valdisa’s body. He stroked the upper swell of her breasts softly, and smiled as her eyes closed.

“Damn you,” she said, a velvet growl, and her hand found him. Laughing, they kissed. Still laughing, she straddled him.

The chanters had finished the descant. Ric d’Mannberg began a short reading from the annals of She of the Five Limbs, one of the more violent passages. His droning voice spoke of kin slaying kin, of disembowelments and cannibalism. The Thane woke from his reverie and found Cranmer engrossed in the account of She. “You find this fascinating, scholar?” he whispered.

Cranmer leaned toward the Thane, whispering in return. “Only in the sheer number of gods with which Neweden, for all her poverty, is, ahh, blessed with having. It’s staggering. All the various guilds, and few of them sharing the same patrons . . . Neweden must have been a crowded world during the days of these gods.”

“Until She of the Five Limbs banished most.”

“For an ippicator, even one of such power, that must have been an amazing feat.” Cranmer glanced at the Altar, where d’Mannberg had closed the book and nodded in salutation. “And I notice that your attention wanders, Thane. I’m curious—your true father was an offworlder by birth, and came to Neweden’s religions as a convert. Do you believe, or is it simply convenient?”