I Know Not (The Story of Fox Crow) (16 page)

      I felt the animal stir, my fingers itched for a weapon. My voice was a knife that I flung across the space between us, “Know what?”

      She retreated from me, holding out a hand to stay me where I was. Her face mirrored her goddess: a bottomless well of pity. Fangs whirled inside my chest, chewing at my humanity with the need to kill, maim, be feared and thus be safe. “If you truly do not remember, Crow, it is better you should forget. But I do not think your past will lose you as easily as you did it.”

      Then she was gone, I leapt to the door, but when I heard the lock snick to enclose her in the sanctity of Aelia’s room I knew the conversation was truly over. My skin flushed and chilled at the same time. The thought of going in and beating the knowledge out of her flitted around in my head like a bird caught in a castle. As little as a few days ago, the thought would have been a serious consideration, by which I mean I would be planning it already, but now I simply shot the thought and let it twitch and go still on the floor of my mind.

      I was changing, every single day, and I did not understand it. All I knew is that the sheer weight of inertia was pulling me in one direction and I found myself swimming in the other. I was exhausted, becoming unsure, in a word: conflicted. The only thing I was sure of was in conflicts somebody died. My hands went to my belly where a scar rested silently, a testament to the last time I had lost focus at the wrong time.

      I set my jaw and determined that if I died at least I would have the satisfaction of watching my life replay in front of my eyes. Then at least I would know who the hell I was. It was the least I deserved.

      I sat down to the corpse just as Theo and Godwin met in the main room. I noticed that only Theo was wearing his mail and tabard though both of them carried identical letters in their hands. I started to ask why he would chose to paint a target on himself, and then it became unnecessary as the pieces became a full picture. He saluted me, and I stood to return it with a fair amount of snap. He nodded to me, obviously trying to convince himself that he was, indeed, brave enough to go through with this. I clapped him on the shoulder, and then Godwin as well to not leave him out. They left the apartment like men, without a word until-

      “Ride fast. Don’t let Godwin spare the horses at the cost of your lives.”

      My first thought was:
Who said that
?

      The second was:
You did, idiot
.

      Theodemar, a man who was about to make himself a target so that the man who followed him would have a better chance to succeed, smiled and nodded again.

      I wouldn’t
. My face burned, my stomach twisted, and my heart sank, because I knew this was the most honest thought I have had since the Shadow Wood. He was a far better man than I, and I wasn’t sure I liked how that made me feel.

      Then he was gone.

      I stared at the closed door for a long time before I cursed myself for a moon-eyed puppy. I had to roll up my sleeves to avoid soaking my new shirt to the elbows in bodily juices. No matter what you see on stage, death is always a messy affair.

      Many hours later, I was sure I was close to gleaning all the information I could from the corpse. That is to say: I found nothing unusual for an assassin except an odd key. I opened the front door to our apartment, almost causing Jon to void himself where he stood, and used the key to both unlock, then lock, the bolt. That was how she had gained such easy access to this place, in the heart of The Sage. Still, it was much more intricate than others I had seen for this inn. I pocketed it for later consideration.

      What was of more interest to me at the moment was the killer’s multitude of weapons whose nature was stealthy killing. I made note of each, as well as where and how they had been hidden on the body. Miller soon appeared again, but as my face contorted in a snarl he hiked a thumb in a random direction, “Sun will be up soon. I have to relieve Jon.”

      I nodded and swallowed a nasty comment about how neither the rising or setting sun had anything to do with the direction his thumb had indicated. Unfortunately, he took my lack of insult as an invitation to sit down at the table.

      “If she’s an assassin, why isn’t she wearing black?”

      Words swam out of the cloud and out of my mouth, ghostly things that echoed with other voices, “Black is too absolute. It stands out at night, pushing you out of the background. You need things that are dark, but dark in the same way the world around you happens to be.”

      He fingered the rags that had been tied around her limbs and tools, “Why the scarves?”

      The fog was pregnant with pain, pounding in the back of my head and given license by lack of sleep, “If a shadow looks like a man, you will know it is a man. If the shadow is broken by a lighter swatch, it no longer has the outline of a man and your eye will pass over it. Plus, they silence equipment, act as bandages, masks, garrotes, and some of the longer, reinforced ones are climbing lines.”

      He pointed at a few relatively large clay vials on the table, “What are these?”

      I rubbed my eyes, determined to not be in pain, “Sleeping poison mixed with chicken blood.”

      He made a face, “Who would be stupid enough to drink chicken blood?”

      I gave him a look, carefully crafting it to express the precise amount of insult, “It’s for dogs.”

      He found a long, thin blackened silver flask, sealed with multiple layers of hard, red wax. “Poison?”

      I nodded, still gingerly going through the bloody clothes, “Pastes. Probably sea snake venom, Redcap livers, or maybe pressings of the Death Cap mushroom. You pop the cap and stick your dagger in. It comes out coated.”

      He wrinkled his nose at the waste of so much money, “Seems fancy for poison. Why not make it out of clay?”

      “What happens when you fall on the pouch?” Miller shrugged, “Sharp, poisoned shards.”

      That shut him up for a few more minutes, long enough for me to discover two more long, thin heart pins hidden in the assassin’s boot lining.

      “What are those for?”

      I mimed stabbing with one, “Between the ribs. Into the heart.”

      “But it’s so thin…”

      I sighed and he dropped the subject. Instead he picked up a piece of waxed and folded paper. As I liberated a thin, razor sharp disc of metal from under the heel of assassin’s boots he unfolded it. He stared at the black goo for a second before silently folding it back up. I glanced up at him, but he was determined not to ask. He was so determined it hung in the air like an obscenely disgusting fart, demanding attention.

      “Tobacco tar. Used in strong tasting foods.” I said.

      He smiled in victory, “How much?”

      “That’s enough to kill everyone in this apartment.”

      “How fast?”

      “You wouldn’t get to the main hall from this room. Even if you ran.”

      “Wait, it kills you? Tobacco is healthy!”

      And the night’s exertions were finally burning my patience down to a nub, “And a chiurgeon’s lancets can pierce a heart. Anything that can heal, can kill.”

      He picked up nasty little blade attached to a discreet iron collar and turned it around in his hand, “What’s this thing?”

      “Ring knife,” I said from around clenched teeth, head pounding.

      He stood as he slipped the collar over his finger with the blade pointed outward and made to punch the air with it. I rose from my chair and held out my hand like a father taking a toy away from a child, “Here.”

      He handed it over and watched me slip it on correctly, with the blade faced inward. I mimed the weapon’s proper use in the air with bloody hands, but Miller just shrugged and shook his head. “It’s too small to do any real damage.”

      That’s when I finally lost patience. The haze of pain cleared, and every moment gained a perfect, crystal clarity. One long, angry step brought me around the table. He started to retreat, but a well timed foot caught his leg and put him off balance. That’s when my hands snapped out like cobras. Left clapped to the side of his head, but Right – wearing the ring – was resting on the artery on his neck.

      It would be so easy
.

      His eyes flew wide and he tried his best to freeze in mid air, but after a moment he began to fall again. His arms flailed and I alternatively pulled and pushed him, spinning him around until I was behind him. Left covered his mouth with Left and right slapped into his throat, blade barely pricking the skin over his windpipe. If he swallowed it would cut him.

      So easy
.

      I spun the ring on my finger, then pushed him away, keeping him off his feet so Left could wrap around under his left arm and wrench him to the side. Right traced along his belly, then slapped him on the inner thigh and under his arm. I released him to the floor. He was shaking slightly as he checked himself for damage. Instead he found handprints painted in the assassin’s blood on vital areas, each marking a possible death earned from a blade smaller than his thumb.

      And the cold realization of the moment punched me in the face. I was standing over him, sweating with denied release. I felt every inch the monster, but when he spoke, it shocked, shaken, but without rancor, “Can you teach me to do that?”

      “You haven’t finished your sword work yet.”
Is there a word for wanting to clap someone on the back, kick them in the crotch and stab them in the face at the same time?
“Go wash yourself off and take your turn at guard.”

      He bounced to his feet and did as he was told. Jon came in from outside, walking as if recently dead. I’m pretty certain he dropped to his bed without removing the smallest piece of uniform. I washed as well and plopped onto the seat by the door where I had waited earlier that night. Dawn was, indeed, coming but sleep would not take me. Or maybe it is more truthful to say I dodged its grasp. There was so much to consider, so much that could go wrong. I was constantly reining in dark impulses that were becoming more and more powerful. I had to out think and out plan gods knew how many assassins, mercenaries and at least one Grand Noble. On top of it all two boys – MEN! – were riding into very real danger on the road, and there was nothing I could do about it.

      Somewhere, a long time ago, I lost the ability to hope, and I am not sure I ever could pray. A vision flooded my mind’s eye: Theodemar, broken and bloody on the road. Sudden tears stung my eyes and I squeezed them shut against the alien feel of their wetness. And that was it, a simple stumble that sprawled me in the dark forest of my mind, allowing sleep to catch me like a demon and ravage me all day and into the next night.

11 

The Shadows of The

Great and The Good

Aelia had pled being sickened with fear at the thought of near death and had waved off dinners with the other Grand Nobles on that pretense. She was not afraid, though, she was furious. She stormed about her confines, raging at the unknown employer of the midnight visitor. She was prepared to wage war and in my mind, prepared to enter the negotiations.

      That was good because tonight was the first of three grand banquets being held to honor the gods of the guests. Since it included contact with the dwarves, it was the start of the end to this deadly dance. Below, an army of servitors finished rushing about, oblivious to me as they put the final touches below.

      The Great Central Hall of The Grand Sage was no less richly appointed than our rooms, artwork and furniture either carved in a classical style, or in actuality antique works (I was betting on the latter). It was an open hall for the entire three stories to where leaded glass windows crowned the roof in a dome worth more than a dozen soldiers would see in a lifetime of service. During the day, this was a happy, lively place that captured the essence of daytime and sprinkled it down upon the meals of the great and the good. At night, with the three chandeliers and fourteen sconces lit, the windows became mirrors behind which I could hide, as well could an assassin.

      Below, the nobles began filing in with horrible slowness, taking places at the table without a thought to how quickly my posterior was losing all feeling against the freezing stone. At this moment, all I had to do was wait. I could say I waited like a hero, calmly and coolly, but that would be a lie. Have I mentioned that stealth was a good portion of patience? Have I mentioned I am not a patient man? Have I mentioned it was cold? Have I mentioned that there was an assassin coming? Good, now you’re all caught up with my state of mind.

      I shuffled back and forth in my crouch as little as possible, tensing and loosening my muscles to keep them from stiffening up. No such luck. The night crept in closer as the formalities (temporarily) ended down below and the meal had begun its tortured pace. Nobles like to punish themselves with long, drawn out banquets where each bit is served in courses. Each course is just enough to get you really hungry for the next, and has its own rules and etiquette.

      The worst thing was the endless time alone in the dark gave me little to dwell upon other than Theo and Godwin galloping into danger at my word. If we were in luck, some enterprising guard in Aelia’s employ had decided to chase her down taking the direct path and the boys had already met up with them. To say I believed that would be a lie. Rather than dwell on that, I tried to focus on the job at hand.

      I was only here to test a theory. It was a good theory. If I was right, I was saving Aelia’s life. Again. If I was a little wrong I was saving some other noble’s life - which I must hasten to add is not strictly a reason to not do it. At least not by itself. I signed into the heavy muffler that diffused the steam of my lungs and slowly turned my head from side to side.

      The ornamental façade on the corners of the castle, done up to exaggerate the block–pattern of the stone, had provided a sure ladder onto the roof. The exaggerated merlion blocks around the edge of the roof provided all the shelter I needed, which is not to say as much as I desired. On every side, soldiers walked in bored circles, in cautious pairs, and kept watch outwards in all directions. If any of them even paused to glance inward, I was just a not-human shaped splat in the lee of a big rectangular stone. If you have ever wondered why castles are normally unadorned brutish things with few places to hide, now you know.

      I took a long coil of rope from under my light cloak and opened the loop enough I could slip it over the ornamental stone. Then I simply sat the coil down in the snowy shadow at the bottom and hoped I would never have to use it. It did give me a slightly less frozen place to put my butt. Mentally I inventoried my weapons, which was an impressive list but did not include the Phantom. I sorely missed it, but while I could contort myself to press into the shadows, A length of steel that reached from my elbow to the ground was not going to fit just anywhere. I had borrowed the Assassins short sword instead, and I felt somewhat naked for it.

      Right now Aelia was in the feasting hall, warm and bursting with fine food and better drink as beautiful music tickled her ears, and the ears of all the damned, stupid, inbred nobles. Don’t mind me, I’m just a little bitter about having to try to stay warm, not an easy proposition on a copper–tiled roof in the middle of winter. I had to stay still, and it had been so long since I had climbed to the top of the keep. All I had to remind me of the hotness of exertion were the dull pains and the freezing sweat caught in my clothes. And it wasn’t as if I could wear my fine travelling cloak up here, or even a heavy fur surcoat. I was clothed in various alternating dark and light shades, rags tied to break up the outline of my body so something human easily became separate splashes of snow and darkness in the winter night. The shirt was light and loose, tightly bound to my limbs with rags of lighter or darker colors. Great for hiding, but if you think you can climb even a stupidly adorned castle in the middle of an icy winter wearing clothing that qualifies as warm, then you have another thing coming. The likely thing you have coming is a fall to your death, but I’m sure you deserve worse. At least the thick climbing gloves kept my hands from icing over.

      I knew it would be today that the next assassin would strike. Don’t believe me? Well allow me to marshal my arguments:

      1) It was the first event where everyone was guaranteed of being present. Protocol required it. Once a strike was made at one of these things, it’s not like there would be a lot of chances at the others as additional security was brought to bear. That meant now.

      2) It was the perfect place to put a shot. You are hidden from below by the mirror effect of the glass and shielded from the towers and outer wall by the decorative gargoyles atop equally useless merlions that ringed the main keep’s roof.

      3) The key to the Aelia’s apartment proved that the assassin’s guild had inside help. Now I was just testing out the idea -

      A puff of escaped breath erupted from beside me like the roar of a mute dragon. I froze and squinted as a shape clad in dirty white and sooty dark rags slowly and silently clambered onto the roof, provided a ladder by the same artistic moldings I had used. The very same, in fact.

      Whoever he was, he knew his business. He moved like an optical illusion, easily dismissed as he crept across the snow patched copper roof to the dome of glass.

      He only exposed himself once when he had to shift the crossbow off of his back and lay it on the roof. I tensed, half hoping, half terrified that some nameless guard would see him and raise a cry - bringing retaliation down on us both as they responded as only guards can…

      Where are the guards
?

      It was true. The guards were gathered at the corner towers of the outer wall, accepting mugs of steaming goodness from servants.

      Working like lightning, the assassin pulled down his mask, exposing an unshaven face as he spit out a wad of goo into his hands. He split it into two chunks and pressed the ends of a rag into each glob. One he pressed onto a glass panel, the other he pressed onto a copper plate of the roof. Any kind of wax or resin kept warm in his mouth would harden almost instantly, and tether the pane to the roof, keeping it from falling in and alerting his prey.

      Some of the soldiers were gulping greedily, honestly trying to get back on duty before they were missed. They would not be in time.

      Back on the roof my opposite was working as invisible and quiet as a wind full of arrows. Instantly his dagger was in his hand, and he was expertly prying out the lead caulking that held the pane to the metal frame.

      I stole a quick glance at the guards, most of whom had not near finished their pints.

      I was amazed at the assassin’s speed and clarity. He worked quickly, efficiently, without pause or doubt. He popped the pane outward and it fell neatly into his hand to be set on the roof. No gap between this and laying down to use his feet to cock the crossbow. A bolt seemed to magically appeared in the notch as he saddled closer to the dome and prepare for firing.

      He was an artisan and this was his art. It was beautiful, magical, a ballet of poison and blade and pain. I admired him and sat in awe. Well, that’s not exactly true. Still, he shouldered the weapon and prepared to fire, the climax of his silent symphony. Of course, that’s when my Right hand closed in on his throat from behind and Left - the cheeky bastard, used my dagger to keep the crossbow from pointing through the opening he had created. His whole body clenched and exclamations ran through his head loud enough I could hear them leaking out of his ears.

      “Who hired you and who is your target?” I whispered in his ear.

      Dear reader, you have followed my adventures. You have seen my dauntless bravery, endless wit, and unending luck. If you have marked them well, then you know exactly what happens next: The bastard grabbed Right with one hand, grabbed Left with the other, and let the crossbow fall to the roof, where it went off and sent the bolt into the night. He shot to his feet, dragging me with, and then planted one boot directly on the arch of my foot. I yelped and let him go. Let go of him, and my dagger, damn it.

      Below and on all sides, they carried on unawares, but my opponent he drew forth a short fighting blade and lunged, his face contorted in abyssal fury. I drew my own short sword with one smooth motion and batted his thrust aside. He reversed this motion cleanly and came at me again, sending our weapons to kiss again and again like the stuttering ring of a mad bell.

      I fully understood his rage. As much time as I had spent getting up here and into position, he would have had it worse. I have no idea how he made it over the outside wall with so many guards, nor how many hours he had waited out in the darkness for the perfect opportunity to strike, nor how often he had practiced for the perfect kill I had now ruined beyond salvage. He focused on me to the exclusion of all else, strikes no longer coming in single swipes, but in legions of hateful flying teeth. He was good, in fact, I daresay that he was far more skilled with his truncated blade than myself. It limited my options greatly.

      The thick gloves made delicate blade work difficult. My dagger was on the snow and getting further away every moment. I missed the Phantom Angel more, because it would be useful just now, and less, because the very second I reached for it across my back he would have spit me like a rabbit. The moment I stopped blocking his blows and tried to land one of my own I’d lose a limb. If I tried to move in to grapple he’d have me parting company with my head. Our blades continued to scream at one another like alley cats as he backed me up step after step, coming ever closer to my original hiding place on the corner. I gave ground before his endless fury, even as his rage sapped his endurance faster than the most intense battle. I felt my foot slip off the edge of the roof. He struck again and again, given vicious energy by the nearness to the end.

      He abandoned all pretense of skill and gripped his weapon with both hands as I went to one knee. He smashed against the fragile steel wall I hoisted in my defense, over and over, each blow ringing deeply in my soul. Even through the gloves my hands were weakened and stinging. Then, without warning his downward blow reversed and the upstroke cast the sword from my hand. It sparkled and sang goodbye to me as it fluttered into the open air of the dark night.

      But his victory was not without cost. Steam erupted from him in bright clouds, highlighted by the distant moon. His breath, like mine, came in ragged gasps and his eyes boiled with rivers of molten hate as they cooked me.

      “What now, fool?” he spat through clenched teeth.

      “Now that the guards have their bows?” He spun, in a circle, every direction bristling with steel headed death as I lunged leftward for the rope I had secreted at this corner, “Escape.”