The Thieves of Blood: Blade of the Flame - Book 1 (12 page)

“Oh,” the shifter said, as if something profound had just occurred to him. Then his eyes rolled white and he collapsed to the deck, his ruined brain making a wet sucking sound as gravity drew it away from Ghaji’s blood-smeared axe-head.

Ghaji didn’t pause to savor his victory over the shifter. He turned to check on the tattooed man, and good thing, too, for the wounded thief was on his feet and moving toward Ghaji, his features twisted into a mask of rage, Diran’s dagger still embedded in his shoulder.

Ghaji waited for the man to get closer, and when he was near enough, the half-orc stepped aside from the railing. Unable to stop his approach, the tattooed man slammed into the railing, pitched over, and fell toward the water, bellowing his anger and frustration. His bellow didn’t last long, however, for it was cut off as soon as he plunged into the sea.

Still holding his axe, Ghaji stepped back to the railing and looked over. A series of ripples spread out from where the tattooed man had sunk. Ghaji watched, waiting for the man to swim back up to the surface, planning to offer him the same choice he’d given the shifter. Ghaji waited … and waited …

A fountain of bubbling froth broke the surface, and an instant later the foamy white turned crimson. The tattooed man’s head bobbed above the water, and his mouth opened wide to scream. Before any sound could come out, the maw of a large grayish-white shark much larger than the one Flotsam had caught rose up behind the man and snapped its jaws down on his head. The shark then disappeared beneath the water, taking the
tattooed man with it and leaving behind nothing but a roiling mass of blood and seafoam.

Looks like the shark Flotsam caught wasn’t the only one plying the waters around Nowhere, Ghaji thought. He had a sudden thought and turned to look at the dead bodies of the shifter and the half-elf. The corpses needed to be disposed of, so why not a burial at sea? Maybe the big shark had a few hungry friends.

Ghaji started toward the bodies.

I
nteresting?”

Diran looked up from the large book spread open on the table before him. Makala stood on the other side, leaning forward, hands pressed to the smooth, polished surface of the table. She was wearing a low-cut white dress, and the way she was standing afforded Diran an excellent view. He tried not to look, especially because he suspected Makala
wanted
him to look, but he couldn’t help sneaking a quick glance. Makala smiled.

“It’s diverting enough,” Diran said, instantly regretting his choice of words. Ever since he’d passed his final test almost a year ago, Makala had taken to teasing him in ways that made him uncomfortable, and he didn’t want to make it any easier for her by providing straight lines like that.

For once Makala let the opportunity pass.

“What is it?”

“A history of the Lhazaar Principalities where I spent my early childhood. I suspect much of it’s hyperbole, especially the
more recent sections devoted to the exploits of the explorer Erdis Cai, but …” Diran trailed off as Makala burst out laughing. He scowled. “What’s so amusing?”

“You,” she said, her tone half-affectionate, half-teasing. “You always were something of a bookworm, but you’ve been spending so much time in here lately that you’re starting to talk like one of these musty old tomes!”

Diran couldn’t help smiling. “I like it here in the library. It’s quiet and peaceful, and it provides an opportunity for me to gather my thoughts. It’s somewhat like meditation for me, I guess.” He shrugged. “Besides, you know Emon encourages us to spend as much of our spare time reading as possible.”

“I know. ‘There is no such thing as useless information, my darlings.’” She did a passable imitation of Emon’s voice, and though Diran had heard her do it before, he laughed just as he always did.

“Sometimes I think you’re more suited for the life of a scholar than that of an assassin,” Makala said, clearly teasing now.

Diran didn’t rise to her bait this time, for truth was, he sometimes thought the same thing himself.

The library was the second largest room in Emon Gorsedd’s manor home, the first being the room where the warlord’s charges trained in the deadly arts of assassination. Emon was a firm believer that a well-honed mind was an assassin’s most important weapon, so he collected books and scrolls on every subject conceivable, and he expected his disciples to master the knowledge contained in the written word just as he expected them to master their blade work.

The library’s walls were lined with bookshelves that reached all the way to the room’s high ceiling almost thirty
feet overhead. Numerous ladders were stationed throughout the library to provide access to reading material stored on the higher shelves. Painted on the ceiling was a detailed mural of the great dragons that represented the three parts of the world: Siberys, the Dragon Above; Khyber, the Dragon Below; and Eberron, the Dragon Between. Polished mahogany tables with soft leather chairs were spread throughout the room, but while there usually were at least two or three others present reading and doing research, today Diran and Makala were the only ones. In the middle of the room was a round table with an intricate map of Khorvaire carved into its surface. Whenever an assassin’s mission took him or her far enough from the manor grounds, Emon would always brief them on their travel route using the map table. Though he’d passed his final test, Diran had never been assigned a mission that took him that far away from home, but perhaps one day soon …

“I bet I can think of something more interesting to do than reading history.”

Makala came around to Diran’s side of the table and sat on the arm of his chair. She crossed her legs, the motion revealing that her white skirt was slit up the side to her mid-thigh. This time Diran didn’t even try to pretend that he wasn’t interested in the sight of Makala’s bare leg.

“What sort of things?” he asked.

Makala leaned forward and closed the book Diran had been reading. She then turned back to him and said, “I was thinking of something like this.” She put her arms around Diran’s neck and kissed him. The kiss was long and slow and altogether wonderful. Diran had no idea how long the kiss lasted; he only knew that he was sorry when it was over.

Makala pulled away, but she kept one arm draped over his shoulders.

“You’d better be careful,” Diran said. “Quellin might suspend both of our library privileges if he catches us like this.”

Quellin was an elderly scholar whom Emon employed to oversee and maintain his collection of volumes. He was a quiet man with a sour disposition who acted as if Khorvaire would be a much finer place if all the people vanished overnight so there’d be no one to get fingerprints on the vellum pages of his precious books or mis-shelve them once they were finished reading. There was something else about Quellin that bothered Diran, though he couldn’t quite pin it down. Sometimes Diran would catch the elderly scholar looking at him with an expression of dark amusement, as if the man harbored a secret that he couldn’t wait to share.

Since Diran was quiet and always careful with the books, most of the time Quellin left him to his own devices. Sometimes, like today, he’d even step out of the room for a time while Diran read. Where the old scholar went and what he did, Diran didn’t know and didn’t care. He was just grateful not to have Quellin hovering about, just waiting for him to crinkle or, Sovereigns forbid, tear a page.

“I think Quellin has more important tasks to attend to right now than come check on his favorite reader. C’mon.” Makala slid off the chair arm, then took Diran by the hand and pulled him onto his feet.

“What are you up to?” Diran said suspiciously.

Makala gave him a sly smile. “You’ll see.”

She continued pulling Diran by the hand, leading him toward the back of the library. He had no idea what she had in
mind. There was nothing in the back of the room except a wall of bookshelves crammed with reading material, but Diran didn’t care. He felt a mounting excitement with each step further that Makala led him, and he knew that at this moment he’d follow her into a nest of basilisks if she asked.

When they reached the back row of shelves, Makala stopped and released Diran’s hand. “You see that thick volume on the middle shelf … the one with the gold filigree on the spine?”

“Yes.”

“Remove it.”

Diran’s earlier ardor began to wane. The last time Makala had led him somewhere was during his final test. There were no other rites of passage for Emon’s students, at least none that he knew of, but this situation was starting to feel all too familiar. Still, he did as Makala asked and pulled the volume she’d identified off the shelf. As he did so, he glanced at the title:
From Beyond: Extraplanar Entities and Otherworldly Manifestations
. He didn’t recognize the author’s name, but the title was intriguing.

Makala reached past Diran and slid her hand into the space the book had occupied. She reached all the way to the back of the shelf and then pushed. There was a soft click and she quickly withdrew her hand.

“Step back,” she warned, doing so herself.

Diran did likewise, and the bookshelf swung slowly outward to reveal an open doorway beyond, with stone steps leading down into darkness. He supposed he should’ve been surprised, but he wasn’t. He’d been a ward of Emon Gorsedd too long to be surprised my much of anything.

“I take it we go down,” he said.

“Of course. Put the book back on the shelf first, though. We
don’t need it anymore. The door will close when we set foot on the third step.” She smiled. “Besides, Quellin would have a fit if you left it lying on the floor or worse, brought it with you.”

Diran slid the volume back into its proper place on the shelf then followed Makala through the doorway. As soon as Makala’s foot touched the third step from the top, the door-shelf began to swing closed. There was no light in the stairwell, and when the door closed all the way, they were left in complete darkness.

“Too bad I don’t have a lantern on me,” Diran said.

“We don’t need any light. The way is safe and we don’t have far to go. There’s no railing, but it helps if you put both hands on the walls as you go down.”

He heard Makala’s footfalls as she started down the stairs. As she’d advised, he stretched out his arms, touched his hands to the walls on either side of him, and followed. Diran counted the steps, something that had been ingrained in him by Emon’s training. After the thirteenth step they reached the bottom.

Makala’s hand found his in the darkness and she gave him a gentle squeeze.

“We have but a short hallway to cross, then we’ll reach another door. I can’t tell you what lies behind it, but I can tell you this: be strong.”

Diran felt her lips brush his, then she released his hand and started down the dark hallway. After only a second’s hesitation, Diran followed. Twenty steps later, he caught up to Makala. He heard the click of a door latch, then bluish-white light spilled into the hallway. Diran squinted to keep his eyes from being dazzled after walking through total darkness. He didn’t close them all the way, though. He’d been trained better than that.

The light was soft but enough to reveal the details of the
hallway, the open door, and Makala, who stood in the doorway, a solemn expression on her face. The hall was made of gray stone, the door oak with thick iron bands around the edges. Diran knew this place lay beneath Emon Gorsedd’s home, but as to what it was, Diran hadn’t a clue. He’d never heard anyone speak of an underground chamber, had never suspected its existence.

He looked at Makala for some hint as to what he should do next, but she just continued looking at him without expression. No real help there, but then, he supposed he didn’t need any. He walked past Makala and through the open doorway.

Inside was a large chamber with smooth rounded walls and a domed ceiling. Light came from globes of mystic energy that hovered in the air near the walls. Curved wooden risers lined the walls on both sides of the chamber, and sitting on them were men and women, all looking at him with the same impassive expression Makala had worn. Many of the people were unfamiliar to Diran, but there were many that he recognized. All of them were older than he—some quite a bit so—and all of them were Emon’s “children,” as the warlord liked to call them: assassins who plied their trade for whatever clients Emon chose. Emon himself sat among them on the right side of the room, front row, center. There was an empty place beside Emon, and Diran had a good notion whom it was reserved for. His suspicion was confirmed when he heard the door close, then Makala walked past him and sat down next to Emon. The master assassin, unlike all the others, didn’t affect a neutral expression. He was smiling broadly, looking for all the world like a proud father.

In the center of the chamber was a large obsidian table. The blue-white light of the mystic globes gleamed off its highly polished surface, making the table seem to glow with its own
internal power. There were runnels carved along each side, and Diran didn’t want to guess what they were for.

Standing behind the table was the librarian Quellin, though instead of his normal tunic and leggings he wore a hooded black robe. The old man usually displayed little emotion other than irritation or impatience, but the eyes beneath his bushy white brow shone with eager anticipation, and the mouth set in the midst of his full ivory beard was stretched into a dark smile. It was the first time Diran could remember seeing a smile of any kind on the librarian’s face, but the most striking feature in the chamber lay behind Quellin. It was an altar that rose nearly to the ceiling, carved out of the same black stone as everything else in the chamber. Six figures rose from the altar’s base, the statues rendered in crude detail, but no less recognizable for it. These were stone images of the Dark Six, gods of foulness and evil all: the Devourer, the Fury, the Keeper, the Mockery, the Shadow, and the Traveler. As with the table, the light from the globes played across the statues, gathering within their eyes and making it seem as if the Six were alive and staring at Diran, curious to see what he would do next.