The Assassins of Thasalon Read online

  “Would you release me from my oath to you?” Adelis asked Jurgo.

  Jurgo pursed his lips. “Do you wish me to?”

  “I’m… not yet sure.”

  “I can only remark that I likely couldn’t hold you if you wished to go. Except by chaining you to a dungeon wall, which would limit your use as my officer. Not to mention offend my court sorcerer. I understand Learned Penric can make short work of such shackles.”

  Of all shackles, agreed Des. Pen managed a tight smile, not sure where Jurgo was going with this.

  “Making my refusal your pretext if you want to stay is the only way I see it could work,” sighed Jurgo. “Seems roundabout, for you.”

  “Sir.”

  Jurgo sat back with a snort. “Well, when you are sure, see me again.” His eye fell on Penric. “And where do you stand in all this?”

  All this conspiracy. “This is as sudden to me as it is to you,” Pen temporized. “My wife and her mother—and I—would wish to support Adelis in all things, but that doesn’t necessarily mean at his side. Cedonia is their birthplace, but I do admit that my own experiences there didn’t incline me to love it.” Only starting with the broken skull, the sojourn in the bottle dungeon, and the near-drowning. And that had just been Pen’s first week.

  Gria was eyeing him with new interest. He’d come to collect a general; was he now envisioning a bonus sorcerer? Evidently so, for he said, “Learned Penric, and all of General Arisaydia’s family, would be most warmly welcomed by the princess and Lord Nao.”

  Leaving the duke to lose his best general and his best sorcerer at one blow? By Jurgo’s frown, this consequence did not please him.

  Not that he could hold Penric against his will, either.

  “Still,” said Adelis, “I must speak with my sister and her mother before I choose my course.”

  Gria looked startled. “These women will not make your decision for you, surely!”

  Adelis gave him a rather sour side-eye. “No, but my decision will affect them, and me in turn. Idrene has already been held hostage once against me by Methani, rescued only by great daring, and Nikys would have been, if Learned Penric hadn’t managed to smuggle her out of Cedonia along with me. Both are as deep in my affairs as he is, and for far longer. Their advice is fully informed.”

  “Hm.” Gria sat back, conceding the brief debate. Really, he hadn’t much choice.

  Jurgo tapped his thick fingers on his desk. “General Gria, may I offer you and your traveling companion the hospitality of a room in my palace tonight, while General Arisaydia takes his counsels. Ah, not in the dungeon, I promise you.”

  Not least because this palace didn’t possess a dungeon, though Pen supposed Gria didn’t know that. But Jurgo must certainly hope for opportunity of more interrogation.

  “We’ll be going nowhere today, regardless,” said Adelis. “It’s here or the fort for you, and the food is better here.”

  Secrecy might be better served by the pair staying at some quiet inn matching their disguises as merchants. Diplomacy not as well, though, and interrogations ran two ways. Gria must have wished for this too, for he said, “We would be very grateful for further opportunity to talk, my lord duke. Thank you.”

  Jurgo waved acknowledgement of both the spoken and unspoken. Adelis wouldn’t be the only man thinking hard tonight, Pen imagined. The fraught meeting broke up with more polite exchanges, Gria and his aide were put in the hands of Stobrek for their billeting, and Adelis and Pen made their way out.

  * * *

  As they recrossed the central atrium, Adelis murmured, “Your place next, I think.”

  “Very well.”

  They exited onto the sunny stairway, where the guards once more braced to salute the general. As he returned the military courtesies, a woman in a palace servant’s tabard glanced up at them, scrambled from the steps she’d been scrubbing, pulled her bucket aside, and lowered her face in a shy bow. The guards ignored her. Adelis barely glanced at her, offering only a polite nod.

  Des’s full Sight burst upon Pen’s mind unasked-for: the sentries’ diligent souls, Adelis’s colorful dark complexity, and—

  Pen, she’s a sorceress!

  Only the slight twitch of her right hand betrayed her murderous intent. The bolus of chaos, invisible, ill-formed, but well-aimed, was only just intercepted at Adelis’s head by Des’s demonically fast reactions, dissipating in a silent boil of air while Pen was still drawing breath to shout a warning.

  The young woman, her own Sight operating in turn, gaped in dismay at Penric and his passenger and cast a second desperate throw, more quickly intercepted. Des caromed it into a cobble, which heated and fractured. The erstwhile scrubwoman gasped in fright, turned, and ran, her skirts flaring around her ankles.

  Starting down the steps after her, Pen was distracted back by the muffled yelp and thump of Adelis falling. He wheeled again to take a speedy survey; Adelis’s brain had been rattled by the nimbus of the near-miss, but thankfully nothing ruptured. Adelis tried to force himself to his feet, thwarted by his dizziness back to his hands and knees. His eyes and mouth widened as he fought nausea.

  Pen barked to the startled guards, one of whom was starting forward with some dim intention of offering aid, “That woman was some sort of hedge sorceress! She just tried to kill General Arisaydia. One of you—” Blast it, the woman had already vanished from the square. “Go after and try to see where she went, but don’t get close to her.”

  The pair exchanged horrified looks at this confusing command; what Pen took to be either the braver or more junior man gulped and complied, having witnessed which narrow street she’d bolted into. Pen turned back to Adelis, who’d managed to sit up on the steps.

  “Bastard’s teeth, what was that?” He put a shaking hand to his scarred forehead.

  “You’ve seen me use animals as chaos-sinks?”

  Adelis nodded in memory of Penric’s more notable slaughters, then winced in regret at the motion.

  “Same idea.”

  “You’ve always insisted to me that sorcerers can’t kill people. Or you can’t, anyway.” Adelis glowered at him, as though he took this for a lapse on Pen’s part.

  “Almost. They can only kill once, then their demon is stripped from them by the god through their victim’s death. If the sorcerer is very strong-willed, they can force their demon to its destruction that way, sacrifice it, but then they are done. It’s like a bow with only one arrow.” He added after a moment, “Not a Temple skill. Tamed Temple demons are considered much too valuable. And are potent enough to resist. A new, weak elemental, on its first rider, wouldn’t know how.”

  Like casting a child onto an enemy sword, Des snarled. Pen had never felt her more upset, seething within him to the point of throwing his body into tremors. The guard and Adelis perhaps took it for Pen’s own shock, just as well.

  Summoned by the sentry’s bellow through the door, a gaggle of other palace guardsmen had poured out, swords drawn, looking around wildly for the enemy and seeing no one. They were followed by the guard commander and, in a few moments, Master Stobrek, both breathless.

  As Adelis was still seated clutching his head, the guard commander braced his own man: “What happened?”

  The guardsman said unhappily, “There was this scrubwoman. The general fell down, and Learned Penric shouted that she was a sorceress, and had attacked him. She ran, and Ermo went after her. But we didn’t see a thing!”

  “They couldn’t have,” Pen excused them to the commander. “You’d need to be a Temple sensitive, or otherwise Sighted.” As I am went unspoken.

  The commander’s mouth compressed at this unenlightening account. “Did you recognize her?”

  The guardsman shook his head. “She was dressed as a palace maid.” As good as a cloak of invisibility even without her magics? He described her, accurately but uselessly. The woman had been well-looking enough, ordinary for this region—dark hair and eyes, peninsular skin alloyed with islander bronze, lighter tha
n Adelis. Mid-twenties at a guess. A common appearance would be an asset for a spy.

  Pen’s flashing glimpse of her face and her soul had found determination, fear, distress, anger, but, oddly, not vengefulness. What did you make of her, Des?

  A reluctant pause; Des was still fuming. Murderous enough. But no, it didn’t feel personal.

  How very strange.

  The scout sentry came trotting back, looking hangdog. “I’m sorry, General, Learned Sir. I lost her.”

  Adelis hissed through his teeth. “Well. Perhaps she’ll be back. She still has her one arrow, right?”

  “Yes, maybe,” said Pen. “But what was she?”

  “Where have your wits gone begging? Cedonian assassin, of course. Probably employed by Methani’s cabal, having yet another try at me. This would be the, what, fifth, if I haven’t lost count.”

  Penric only knew of three earlier ones. Adelis had been keeping his own counsel, not unusual for him. “Unless there’s someone else around here you have seriously offended.”

  Adelis shrugged, unpersuaded.

  “Is the duke in danger?” Master Stobrek asked anxiously. At this, Adelis flinched. The guard commander went alert. More alert.

  “I… don’t know,” said Penric. “Her target was Adelis, plainly. She wouldn’t have wasted her one shot on a side-victim.”

  “You’re assuming there is only one such assassin,” Adelis observed through his hands.

  “Ah.” Which was why Adelis was the strategist, and Penric was not.

  “If I increase the guard,” the commander began, and stopped.

  “Armed men are no protection against this,” Pen agreed. “She only needs to get within sight of her target. There’s merit in keeping the duke inside, though, and all strangers away from him, until this is settled. But if I go out to search for her,” Pen said more slowly, “I wouldn’t be where I’m wanted if she circles back to the general.”

  “Do we need to search for her?” said Adelis. “I am my own bait, surely. Wherever I am.”

  Implying the assassin wouldn’t go to Penric’s house if Adelis wasn’t there? Pen didn’t want to count on that, and Adelis’s notion of more such assailants was horrifying. He barely quelled the impulse to dash home through the streets at once to protect his family, which was also Adelis’s family, hence the danger. And hang the duke. Dutiful Adelis might have a dilemma making that choice, but Pen had none.

  There was only one of Penric, which suggested that to avoid this fork he’d better collect everyone he needed Des to guard into one place. Send for Nikys and Florina and Idrene to come here?

  Tap another sorcerer for the duke, said Des impatiently.

  Oh. Of course. “Adelis, where is Learned Dubro right now? At the fort, or training over at the Mother’s Order?”

  Adelis looked up, blinking as if his sight was blurred, which had to alarm him profoundly. “Assisting my fort physicians in our infirmary, this past week.”

  Pen turned to the guard commander. “Send a courier rider out to the fort to bring him here as swiftly as possible.”

  Adelis understood immediately. “A watchdog, eh?” A flap of his hand endorsed this suggestion, and the commander, with a look of relief, hurried off to obey. Pen tried to calculate which would be faster, fetching his family to the palace or waiting for Dubro and then going home. Given the fuss entailed in lugging his daughter Florina anywhere, it seemed to be a coin-toss.

  “Do you want to come inside, General?” asked Stobrek anxiously. “And lie down? I can send for the duke’s physician.”

  “Redundant,” growled Adelis, with a glance at Pen. “But it might be well to get off this stage.” More than a few passersby had stopped to stare at the number of guards, wondering what show they were missing.

  “Can you walk yet?” fussed Stobrek.

  “Yes,” claimed Adelis, and grunted up. This proved to be a slight fib, for despite the audience Adelis flung his arm up over Pen’s shoulder and leaned heavily.

  “Are you in pain?” Pen murmured to him as he escorted him back into the cooler atrium.

  “Headache. Seasick.”

  “Understandable. She was aiming for your brainstem. If she’d connected, you’d have dropped in convulsions and died in minutes. The miss just gave you a mild concussion.” He added after a moment, “She was no physician-sorceress, nothing like one, but she’d had instruction from someone who knew what they were about. And leaving no poison to be discovered.”

  “Are you thinking of the co-regent Ragat’s untimely death?” asked Stobrek, hovering at their side for this transfer, and listening intently.

  “It does suggest itself.” Had those secret autopsy reports that Adelis had so hankered after touched on these uncanny possibilities?

  A pause, while porters fetched chairs for them both, and the guards stood around looking uncomfortably useless. Pen waved them back. Stobrek scurried off to report all he’d gleaned of the incident to his master, and dissuade him from coming down to check, exposing himself to his general’s zone of risk.

  Adelis, settling, muttered, “I don’t like this. Knives, swords, I can see coming, and back myself against. And have.”

  Pen wondered anew about that fourth attack. He doubted Adelis had lost count. Did this explain his stiff cuirass today? “This wasn’t that different from a real arrow from ambush, though.”

  Adelis’s lips twisted dubiously at the comparison.

  “Come, you’ve seen this once before, remember? Five years back, with Kyrato of Patos and me on that mountain pass, when we were first escaping out of Cedonia. Though in that case, it was an act of blind panic on Learned Kyrato’s part, as he was losing the fight. He had to have known better.”

  “Oh. Yes. But he didn’t lose his demon, did he?”

  “He didn’t manage to kill me,” Pen said dryly. “Quite.”

  “It felt like this?”

  Rather worse. Pen shrugged. “His demon was very young, or he couldn’t have attempted it, even powered by his terror.”

  Adelis, frowning, wondered aloud, “Could you kill like that? Once? In a panic, like Kyrato?”

  “I doubt it. Des is strong enough to resist me, if I wanted to. And I’m strong enough to resist her, if she wanted to. We’re very well balanced, that way.”

  “…So what if you both wanted to?”

  “Well,” said Pen after a long moment. “That would be the time to start praying to my god, I expect.”

  “Hah.”

  That wasn’t a joke, Adelis.

  Chapter 2

  Penric dispatched one of the duke’s pages, known to Nikys and Idrene, to instruct his household to stay inside with the doors locked until he could return and explain it all. It seemed an inadequate defense. Ordinary locks wouldn’t stop him and Des, after all. He thought back on the hedge sorceress and her untrained elemental. It appeared to have taken only scant imprinting from her, suggesting it had been not long aboard. How many skills did the pair possess? Apart from the one just demonstrated, informed but crude.

  Des, what did you make of that demon? What had it come from, could you sense?

  She considered. It had been in a ferret, or some like weasel. Nothing before that but the Bastard’s hell. The pool of formless chaos from which demons sprang, or leaked. All elementals entered the material world as similar blobs of unformed spirit, dependent for both their existence and their ensuing shape upon the succession of creatures or persons in whom they took up residence. Desdemona’s own chronicle had started with a wild mare and then a lioness, extending through ten successive women over two centuries, making her very shapely indeed.

  Why, thank you, she preened.

  Despite his tension, Pen’s lips quirked up.

  The mechanics of how the sorceress had obtained the elemental held no mystery; she had only to kill the host animal, or have it die or be killed in her presence, for the demon to jump to this much more enticing human home. Given the small size of the beast, not a challenge for her. Pen h
ad heard of one woman who’d accidentally caught such an elemental from a chicken while slaughtering it for her family’s supper. It had later been dug out of her by a dedicated saint of the Bastard, whose task it was to clean up such mishaps for the Temple.

  So had this acquisition been accidental, or on purpose? If the latter, at least one other spiritual sensitive must have been involved, to identify and secure the animal carrying the elemental—not a trivial task. Pen couldn’t imagine a saint of any god lending aid to this, and there were no Wealdean shamans in this region that he knew of, so that left another sorcerer, Temple or hedge. A hedge sorcerer might get up to such unsupervised chicanery; Pen didn’t like to think of a Temple one doing so. But… Thasalon.

  Given her target, it had never been likely that the murderess was working at her own inspiration. So was she mover or moved?

  Pen, said Des slowly. I don’t think that was her first demon.

  After her one shot, going back to be reloaded like a crossbow with a fresh bolt?

  As god-gifts went, the Bastard’s demons were notably ambiguous, like most of His gifts. So Pen would hesitate to name this a sacrilegious misuse of a holy benefaction. Out loud. But the hairs wanted to go up on the back of his neck as he contemplated just how such a wasteful scheme might rivet His attention.

  He’d reached this point in his ruminations, and a state of muted frenzy, when the clatter of hooves outside the palace doors heralded the return from the fort of the courier and his charge. Both Pen and Adelis looked up in impatient hope.

  Pen jumped to his feet as Learned Dubro trudged within, staring around with admiration at the ducal architecture. The scraggy old man had been an Orban soldier, then a farmer, before his late-life acquisition of his own demon had thrust him unexpectedly into his new calling. Within him, his demon Maska frisked with enthusiasm at the outing, his imprinting as a loyal farm dog still lingering.