The Assassins of Thasalon Read online

  “You would be Miss Alixtra. I’m Iroki. I’m here to take away your demon. I’m right sorry about all this.”

  “So am I,” whispered Alixtra. But she only bent her face to her knees and waited, trembling but as rigid as a queen, too proud to beg, waiting for the headsman’s ax to fall. If the terrified demon within her had owned a heart, Pen thought it would have been beating like a hummingbird’s wings.

  Iroki went down on his own knees, level with her, and placed his palm atop her head as solemnly as an archdivine bestowing a blessing at a name-giving ceremony. As the Presence began to build within him, Des retreated no further than Alixtra had, holding her demonic perceptions available to Pen like a woman reaching out her hands in the teeth of a gale.

  Pen grasped her back. Hold hard. Though I will protect you was an utterly empty claim in this moment, he could at least say, I will stand by you.

  You always have, she agreed.

  The weasel-demon shrieked like an animal dying in a night woods, then, suddenly, went still. Like a waiting queen.

  In a voice not his own, as resonant in this cell as the reverberations inside a bass drum, Iroki said, “Take better care of My gift this time, child. You’re going to need it.” The sense, but not the sound, of an immense belly-laugh, tidal, oceans deep.

  And then, as vast as the Presence, the somehow vaster Absence. The emptiness left was like a room stripped of its very air. One would weep for the loss, if one could only breathe.

  Iroki had fallen to his haunches with his back to the wall beside Alixtra, gasping, green eyes gone wide and glimmering in the lantern light. He gulped out, “Uh. Uh. I expected it to be different this time. Didn’t expect it to be that different.”

  Her demon remained within Alixtra. Frozen, quivering, but alive and whole as it had ever been. It was Pen who felt flattened, as if run over by the trundling carriage of a siege engine.

  In a mouse-squeak voice, Alixtra quavered, “What… just… happened?”

  Pen realized he was the only person in the chamber who had been through this before, if from a different and then more-ignorant vantage. In an upstairs room in the Martensbridge chapterhouse of the Bastard’s Order, realms and years away to a man, but maybe only on the other side of a coin to a god. The words from another saint, never forgotten, came back to him now.

  “It means, Congratulations. You’re a sorceress.” He swallowed. “It’s likely the most mixed of blessings. But when the god Himself speaks like that to you, it means you’re bloody well supposed to stay blessed.”

  Chapter 6

  Penric wanted to sit down, but gods not in this pit of darkness. He hauled Iroki to his feet. “Come with me for a minute. We need to talk.”

  “But—” Iroki gestured uncertainly at Alixtra, crouched panting and wild-eyed. “Not sure we should leave her like that.”

  “I’m very sure we shouldn’t, but we need to talk. We’ll come back.” Pen bent down to Alixtra. “We’ll be back. Soon. Fairly soon. I promise.” He barely kept his mouth from adding something fatuous like Don’t go anywhere, though he made sure of that by pulling up the ladder again after them. He propelled Iroki outside and around to the sunlit side of the old fort where he’d conferred with Dubro that first morning, and sank, sat, collapsed cross-legged to the dusty pavement. The sun was still high, the sky was still blue, blue, blue, and still overhead. The ground was still under him. Good.

  Iroki flopped next to him, his knees in no better order than Pen’s. Maybe worse. “Was that what was supposed to happen?” he asked plaintively.

  “Supposed to? Clearly. What usually happens? No. Pulling a corrupted demon from a person is more usually like pulling an elemental from your animal hosts, except with more articulate screaming. I’ve seen something like this only once.”

  “When?”

  “When I was nineteen, and the white god gave Desdemona into my keeping. Chance help me, I was younger and knew less than Alixtra in there.” He reflected. “Desdemona knew vastly more, though. My demon held the learning of four great Temple divines and six other extraordinary women already in her hands. She wasn’t just my textbook, she was my library. Alixtra’s weasel-demon knows nearly nothing. Except how to be a weasel.” He added, “And how to kill. Once. Not a very useful skill. Gods what a, a, a, I don’t even know. Waste. Sacrilegious waste.”

  “The god was…” Iroki paused a long moment, finally choosing, “Wroth. Huh. Now I know what that word means. I don’t think my Temple tutors in Dogrita really grasped the full of it.” And after another moment, “Not wroth with the assassin, though. Her, I think He liked.”

  Both murderers and executioners fell under the Bastard’s cloak, yes. Very confusing god. “Well, He did give her a pretty big present. I’m not sure she understands that yet.”

  “Do you?”

  “I…” I do and I’m terrified. Pen pushed that back to, “I think we may take it that the god didn’t spare her just so she could be hanged. Therefore He means her to do something.”

  Iroki gave him a long, shrewd look. “Not just her, I think.”

  “Ah.” Pen bent forward and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Did you get anything more definite?”

  Do we want there to have been? Des muttered uneasily.

  Iroki tilted his head back and squinted into the blue. “Maybe we should ask Alixtra herself?”

  “We hardly need to ask. She wants her child back safe.” The words fell out of Pen’s mouth without hesitation. Maybe out of his parental soul as well. Whichever, he was fairly sure he couldn’t snatch them up and stuff them back inside, however much he wanted to. “Oh, gods, we’re going to Thasalon after all, aren’t we.”

  Iroki said cautiously, “Uh… we? You, her, your two demons?”

  Pen gave the saint a side-eye. “The boy Kittio is being held prisoner in the palace of the most powerful and corrupt minister in Thasalon, under the eye of his powerful and corrupt tame Temple sorcerer, possessed of a powerful and, I have no doubt, by-now-corrupted demon. Because one couldn’t hang around inside the head of a man like that for years and not be. If there was a saint of our Order in Thasalon that the god could maneuver into place to take care of Tronio, I’d think He would have by now. So a local saint is not something I should count on picking up after I arrive, like a crossbow bought from a weapons shop.”

  And oh gods why did his accursed mind insist on racing ahead like this? He pictured himself instead rolling around on the floor in front of the white god like a two-year-old having a tantrum, I doan’ wanna go to Thasalon, I doan’ wanna go to Thasalon…

  Well, no, he actually did want to, someday, but his vision had always been of touring historical sites and visiting all the great temples and libraries, and attending the famous theaters and horseraces. Not… whatever this was going to entail. Seeing the insides of famous imperial prisons, for example.

  It could be worse, Des said darkly. We could have gone with Adelis. Who do you imagine would be in charge of the traveling carnival then?

  Des liked Adelis, but she had a point.

  “You want me to go with you?” said Iroki, sounding appalled. “I’m just a poor fisherman. I’ve never been farther from Pef than Dogrita. And Vilnoc, now.”

  “Our god is the same everywhere. His white hand should uphold you equally in Orbas or Cedonia or Darthaca or on the moon, for all I know.” And what would the company of a saint of the god of all chances do for the luck of a journey? Alas, Pen had read enough unfortunate history to know that saints died just the same as other men. Maybe a bad plan to count on such providence.

  As Pen shoved himself to his feet, Iroki said cautiously, “So… what’s next?”

  Pen gestured him up. “First, we get the woman out of that dank stone hole. Take her to…” Not a municipal prison, no. And not home, Bastard avert. “The Order’s chapterhouse. Get her settled. You stay by her while I go talk to Jurgo, and then… eh.” The possibilities tangled in front of Pen like Nikys’s threads after the cat had been
at them. “Chapterhouse first, anyway.”

  Back at the fort’s front door, he stopped to speak with the guard sergeant. “I’m moving the prisoner. Secretly. But continue to hold your posts as if she were still in there, at least until your own commander tells you differently. Is there a side exit?”

  The sergeant looked taken aback, but it had been made clear that the duke’s sorcerer was the man in charge of the dangerous captive, so he didn’t demur. Thankfully. Pen was far too keyed up to deal with a pointless argument. “Postern’s on the south wall, barred from the inside,” the guard advised. “There’s a lot of the merchant’s rubbish piled around it, though.”

  “Perfect. Thanks.”

  Pen and Iroki descended the cellar stairs once more, and then the rope ladder.

  Alixtra was sitting cross-legged against the wall, still looking stunned. She had stopped shuddering. Pen plopped down before her. He was nearly sure he’d stopped shuddering, too, though he couldn’t vouch for Des.

  “So. Here’s where we stand. You need to go to Thasalon to rescue your son from Minister Methani. I need to go to Thasalon to bring Blessed Iroki before that fool Tronio. We’re going to combine forces.”

  She jerked back in astonishment. “Am I… not to be executed?”

  “The white god says not. I don’t care to argue with Him. Do you?”

  Mutely, she shook her head. Her breath caught. “Wait. Kittio—you will help me save Kittio?”

  “That will be my part of the bargain. Your part—if I’m to be your sponsor, teacher, and accountable for your actions—is that you must place yourself unreservedly under my authority and obey my instructions. It won’t always be clear why at first, but it will later.”

  Iroki warned her a bit dryly, “Learned divine, that one. I daresay there’ll be theology lectures.”

  Pen’s lips twitched. “I’ll see what I can fit in. But I’ve never been closer to Thasalon than its eastern suburbs. You know both the city and the inside of Methani’s palace, intimately. We’ll be dependent on your knowledge and good faith.”

  “You want me to defect to Orbas’s side? Like General Arisaydia?”

  “Right now, I’m not asking you to be on any side but Kittio’s and your own.” Pen considered. “Afterward will be another question. I’d point out that while you’ve committed three confessed murders in Cedonia, you haven’t actually committed any in Orbas.” Attempted murder was also a crime, but this wasn’t the moment to dwell on the finer points. “Other destinations may open up to you. But there is no course of events that I can foresee that will make it safe for you and your son to stay in the empire.”

  She looked utterly bewildered. Pen couldn’t blame her. “You’ve received a god-given chance in the most literal fashion I’ve ever witnessed. Don’t spurn it.”

  Iroki held out a hand. Falteringly, she took it, and, shaky as a new colt, clambered up.

  * * *

  They found the old postern door behind a stack of crates, boosted them out of the way, and slipped through into a shaded alley. Alixtra clapped her hands to her eyes and choked back a whimper of pain. Pen gave her a few moments to adjust. She peeked past her fingers in the dazzling afternoon light, alternating with leaking water through squeezed lids. His own escape from the endless dark of such a stone pit had been at night, to his eyes’ benefit. If likewise into a town that had been enemy territory.

  A few passersby flitted past the mouth of the passage, but no one was presently watching from above. Pen wondered if he was playing to an empty reviewing stand. Des, would you recognize that bravo from your glimpse on our roof?

  Maybe. His soul was a common-enough type. He’s not nearby now, anyway.

  “Your escort,” Pen said to Alixtra. “Rush, Rash, whatever his name was.”

  Pimple, Des suggested. Pen ignored this, but was resignedly afraid the nickname was going to stick in his memory anyway.

  “Rach,” Alixtra said.

  “Do you think he’s still around by this point? Or would he have run off—either home to report, or deserting?” Was Methani the sort to kill the messenger in a fit of pique when his plans went awry?

  A surprised stare. “I thought you’d caught him.” A catch of breath. “Did he escape?”

  “I, ah… misled you a trifle about that. My apologies. No, we’ve not found him yet.”

  But it wasn’t indignation at Pen’s deception that tensed her. “Oh, gods, no. If he gets back to report my arrest, what will they do to Kittio?”

  “He might wait around for news of your execution first,” Pen pointed out in reassurance, of a sort. “Or be hoping for another try at Adelis by more ordinary means, if he still thinks the general’s in Vilnoc. Would he? Like you, so as not to return empty-handed?”

  “Maybe? Though he didn’t like my second try, said we should just leave. I don’t think he’d linger long.” She straightened up and rubbed at the wet trails down her cheeks. “None of this was in the plan.”

  She seemed more dismayed by learning her late courier was still at large than she had been by being told he’d been netted. Was the lack of loyalty mutual? “Hnh.”

  When Alixtra stopped blinking, Pen led his peculiar party out into the streets of Vilnoc. The old fort was not very far from the main Temple square. A few turns beyond this, they found the Vilnoc chapterhouse of the Bastard’s Order.

  The core of the chapterhouse was, as not uncommon, a charitably bequeathed old merchant’s mansion, with new sections built on over the years for its further purposes—administration, not worship, though it did boast a private altar dedicated to its Patron for the use of its inhabitants. Entering the vestibule, Pen was reminded of his first arrival here five years ago as a stranger seeking the house’s shelter: as displaced as Alixtra, more destitute, and scarcely less bedraggled. Granted he’d carried no murders on his conscience, but he imagined he could have matched her for theft.

  Or surpassed her, Des agreed. Smugly.

  But Pen had also borne his Temple rank and learning, and Desdemona; treasures within that could not be riven from him, coin for any portal. These doors had certainly opened wide for them.

  The porter leaped up at once to greet him. Knowing Pen well by now, he did not look askance at his grubby companions, though he gave Iroki a keen glance before dashing off to fetch the house’s mistress.

  The chapterhouse’s chief arrived so swiftly, she must have been on the watch—oh, of course, the courier from Dogrita would have reported in when he’d arrived with the horses. She made no mistake of the fisherman’s identity, certainly, offering him a deep obeisance.

  “Blessed Iroki. Your presence honors our house. We are wholly at your service. I’m Learned Sioann, head here.”

  She didn’t quite add, For my sins. Her hair was more white now than the gray it had been five years ago, matching her summer vestments, similar to Pen’s but with its long skirt serving in place of male trousers. The plaque hanging pendant from the silver chain around her neck, enameled with the Order’s seal, marked her duties. She was as able an overseer as the head of any other order in town, and, despite or more likely because of managing the odd lots that fell into the Bastard’s bag, even more briskly organized.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” said Iroki simply. Dogrita, apparently, had inured him to such attentions, and his return tally of the gods was an honest blessing that didn’t even hint I’d rather be fishing. “We’ll be happy for your help.”

  She surveyed Alixtra, still in her dark men’s garments and smelling like a prison, and murmured up at Pen, “Another of your strays, Penric? They are always so interesting.”

  Pen cleared his throat. “More so than usual this time. Learned Sioann, may I make known to you Madame Alixtra. She has contracted a wild demon that we have just been instructed she is to keep.”

  Sioann’s eyes went to the saint; it took only a moment for the coin to drop. “Oh.” Even she swallowed. “Isn’t this backwards, rather, from the normal Temple procedures for inducting a sorcere
r?”

  “It happens that way more often than you’d think,” said Pen. “But it does mean Madame Alixtra has a lot of catching up to do.”

  Sioann smiled at Alixtra. “Well, you couldn’t have fallen into better hands for that than Learned Penric’s, I assure you.” As Alixtra blinked at this, she added more slyly to Pen, “By chance, was it?”

  “We’re thinking… not,” Pen admitted. “Parsimony perhaps.”

  “Hm!”

  “She’s had an extremely difficult time of it lately, and has become separated from all her belongings. She’ll need a bath, fresh clothes, whatever she wants to eat. An upstairs room with a window in which to rest. Because of the untrained elemental, best she’s given privacy, and Blessed Iroki will need to look after her till I get back.”

  Sioann’s smile widened at this program. “All easily done. I look forward to furthering our acquaintance, Madame Alixtra.”

  Alixtra got as far as echoing, “Thank—” before her throat choked upon her confused clot of emotions. It dawned on Pen that she was only now realizing that she was not being delivered by a horrible trick to some surprise execution after all. Normal people carrying on with unthinking kindness must be as shocking as sudden sunlight to such dark-adapted eyes, because she blinked back the same tears.

  Distressed refugees were nothing new to Sioann, for she merely gave Pen a firm nod, putting her arm around Alixtra’s shaking shoulders and murmuring, “Yes, let me guide you upstairs, dear… If you would be so obliging as to accompany us, Blessed.”

  “They’ll take good care of you here,” Pen promised Iroki. “I’ll be back… I’m not sure when. Later. But I should know more by then.”

  Iroki cast him an encouraging wave. Pen’s stride lengthened as he headed out the door and turned toward the palace.

  Chapter 7