Vergence (22 page)

He pretended to pause for a moment to take his bearings as his attention focused on the fine filaments of his casting, feeling for signs of another caster's work. While he thought it unlikely any of ability would be found here, there remained the chance that some promising fledgling, eccentric, or hireling of power might be lurking nearby.

At the guardhouse, he discovered a member of the watch leaning backwards, with shoulders against the wall, left foot on the ground, and using his spear for balance like an over-long walking stick. The man spotted De'Argent, and watched him approach with obvious interest.

“Ho, stranger, what's your business here?” he asked, adjusting a long piece of grass hanging from his mouth to speak more clearly.

“I am bearing a message for a lord. I was told to find him within the bath house,” De'Argent said, nodding in the direction of the rising steam.

The watchman had broad shoulders, thickset through the chest. Possibly a farm labourer who'd discovered an easier life. He looked dull witted, and bored.

“Where's your horse?” the watchman asked, belatedly recognising the guild colours.

“It's fit for nothing more than dog-meat,” De'Argent said, sweeping a hand down his left side to draw the watchman's attention to scuffed and muddied breeches. “It threw a shoe and lamed itself just beyond the edge of town.”

“Chucked you too, did it?” the watchman asked, grinning.

“Yes, I'm much delayed. Now which is the best path?”

Ahead, the road forked, with one path curving left up a gentle slope, and the other disappearing between a collection of buildings.

“That one'll take you there,” the watchman said, inclining his head towards the sloping path. “And don't be taking long. I've better to be doing than chasing after a stolen horse.”

As he walked up the slope, passing tired hostelries, De'Argent adjusted the glamour imperceptibly until he'd assumed the outward appearance of a prosperous merchant. Glancing back, he saw the watchman had resumed his position, leaning against the wall in the warming morning light.

The bath house nestled against a rocky outcrop near the top of the road, a collection of buildings, each in the style of its age, younger structures built around older, newer stonework built against crumbling walls.

Inside, the air felt heavy, and unpleasantly warm. Patches of mould grew around the edges of decaying plaster, and beads of water gathered on the cooler outer surfaces.

De'Argent moved unremarked through the building, the image of a fat merchant shuffling towards the hot pools, seeking relief from gout or some similar ailment. The fragment of clothing his client had provided him acted as a guide, a casting specific to the assassin schools of Cassadia, allowing him to trace a path to the owner at close range.

Lord Conant reclined in the pool, hot water swirling gently around his limbs, driving his thin bathing smock of white cotton to float up around his thighs. His head rested back on the edge of the pool, mouth open — snoring softly.

Silently skirting the pool, De'Argent knelt directly behind the old man, carefully avoiding the puddles of water on the floor, and looked down onto the sleeping face. His fingertips almost brushed the old man's few remaining hairs, and he felt an anticipatory tightening in his stomach as he studied the features below him.

Almost an exact match for the image of Lord Conant he'd been shown. The scout had employed a Perillian doppelgänger to steal a likeness, but more often than not ,such creatures would quickly lose shape, leaving nothing more than a passing impression of the original.

De'Argent carefully memorised as much of the surrounding detail as possible — the thin spirals of steam rising from the surface of the water, Conant's sour breath, the rise and fall of his chest, and the way his clothing drifted in the hot water.

Aside from his eyes, De'Argent remained completely still. Moments of such perfection were rare. To be so close and have time to preserve in such detail, to commit so much to memory before a kill, a profound blessing. Although he no longer counted the numbers, he could only recall a couple of other occasions like this.

At last, satisfied he could gain nothing more by delaying, he summoned his agent. The commission had requested death with the appearance of a natural origin. He'd chosen a malevolent deep water ephemeral for the task, practising the form necessary to bind it to his will a dozen times before setting out.

His summoning surged into the water, a brine demon flowing over the edge of the pool, and sinking to form a living layer beneath the warmer water.

As it dragged Lord Conant under, folding over arms and legs to stifle any escape, the old man woke up. De'Argent leant over the pool, his face a few hand spans above Conant's, watching the expressions change as surprise turned to panic, then desperation. He wanted to remember this too — to capture the stream of escaping air bubbles, the darting eyes.

He waited one hundred slow heartbeats after the last bubble broke the surface, and the dead man's eyes had rolled back in his head. Enough time to be sure, before driving the brine ephemeral away.

Even then he checked every part of the room. There would be no marks on the body, and only warm water in the lungs when they dragged the old man from his bath, all the appearance of a tragic accident.

Satisfied, De'Argent stepped beyond the world skin, moving faster than any prudent traveller of the between would consider safe, yet slow, by his own standards.

Quentyn

T
HE CLEAR SKY
of the Tranquillity celebrations had closed in to a featureless dull grey, a loose mist that consolidated to a thin drizzle as the day progressed. Orim made his way along the lower Ryle way, its stone paved surface slick, as if drenched in cold sweat.

Here the roads ran on either side of a central canal, and on two levels with a narrower upper road on either side. Crowded buildings the colour of dark honey, piled at least three stories high to the side of each road.

It felt much like traversing a constructed version of his homeland fjords.

Orim watched for the nineteenth marker, small brass plates used to measure out sections of longer roads at intervals of about fifty
famd
, a Haeldran measure roughly the length of a tall man.

For the last five markers, the road ran almost straight, ending abruptly in a broad open area under a high wall which might once have housed one of the cities great gates. Long since sealed up and overgrown, it sprouted vines, creepers, and an assortment of other small plants from cracks in its stone face.

The city streets overflowed with revellers, and the symor drivers had given up for the night to join the celebrations. Orim would have taken a symor on any other evening, knowing he needed to find his quarry as soon as possible. He walked as quickly as he could, pushing past groups of people streaming in the opposite direction.

He'd sought Ethal Quentyn first in the living quarters of the Genestuer orders, amongst the many buildings scattered along the length of the first claw. A lengthy, ultimately fruitless search, where nobody seemed to recall Quentyn. Eventually he'd discovered a repository where a white-robed scribe found the address for him.

In a room full of shelves holding thousands of trays, each packed with small sections of parchment, on which details of all the current members of the various orders were inscribed, the scribe had gone directly to the one holding Quentyn's.

Orim had taken the paper with the address from the hands of the protesting man, and set out immediately. It was obvious someone had inquired about Quentyn before him, and he didn't want others following.

In all his time as Ronyon to this city he'd not ventured this far along the Ryle way before. Once the main processional route into the city, it retained some of its former grandeur, marred only by the uneven, crowding buildings banked up on each side.

As he neared the end of the avenue, scanning the gaps between buildings on his side, trying to guess where to turn, his far-sense stuttered and faded. Orim cursed under his breath, hoping the man hadn't been fool enough to live near one of the great spikes.

A degree of luck, and a small bribe, led to a narrow lane where a glyph etched into the marker stone matched the second one on the paper he carried. He cursed silently for a second time. Although he didn't know the exact location of the nearby spike, it was close enough to completely suppress any casting.

Here the dwellings were built into the naturally steep sides of ancient rocky spurs along the length of the Ryle. Narrow passageways, lined with small tenements, stacked three or four level high, ran outwards through the broad stone ridges.

Orim walked carefully along the side of the path, avoiding the running drain, alert for lookouts and ambushes. Two dozen paces in the path opened out into a small courtyard, built up on all sides, with three branching passages at the far end.

But his eyes were drawn to two large men standing outside a door on the walkway of a corner dwelling a level up. They yawned and scratched in the manner of guards who'd been there a while, but not yet long enough to settle.

He moved into the shadows, checking the surrounding balconies for watchers. If he'd set these guards, there would have been a man or two with crossbows somewhere on the walkways overlooking the entrance, but a careful scan revealed nothing.

With the use of casting, the two men would have been easy to overcome. Without it, he must rely on stealth, and his blades. From where they stood, all the stairways to their level were visible. To reach them he needed to gain the balcony on the far side.

Orim glided through the shaded area under the walkway, directly beneath their feet, rounding the edge of the building, then climbed swiftly, using the bars on a low window to silently lever himself up to one of the balconies' supporting brackets.

He slowly reached out and eased his weight onto it, testing for stability, before swinging out to grasp the bottom of the walkway, and pulling himself up over the railing in a single fluid motion. Straightening, he listening carefully for any reaction from the men guarding the doorway.

Dwindling remnants of daylight angled through the mouth of the alleyway, colouring the upper levels of the buildings on his right a dull orange. From the streets beyond delighted shrieks, catcalls, and loud laughter heralded the start of the first night of Tranquillity revels.

Orim slipped a brace of heavy double-edged stiletto blades from his belt and wrist sheaths. Just over double a hand's width in length, they were robustly constructed with heavy mid sections, and honed until they were sharp enough to shave with. Poorly balanced for throwing, but ideal for close quarters in-fighting.

Grime-encrusted windows of milky glass, set high in the wall and barred from the inside with heavy wooden shutters, offered the only possible way in to Quentyn's rooms from the near side. Narrow cracks in the shutters allowed faint traces of the dim interior light to leak out, sufficient to reveal the shadows of people passing in front of the light on the other side.

Orim pressed his ear against the glass for a moment. From inside came the scraping sound of furniture being dragged roughly over the floor, and low conversation from at least three distinct voices.

He moved soundlessly to the corner with his back against the wall, blades held low. A few paces beyond the corner, the nearest of the guards stood stolidly, arms folded, staring ahead. The second guard leant back against the wall on the other side of the doorway, twisting the heel of his boot restlessly against the surface of the walkway.

They wore cuirboilli leather chest-pieces with riveted iron helmets. Their ill-fitting armour suggested members of the city guards, but their scruffy appearance and poor discipline suggested they were freebooters, enforcers or low-level mercenary hirelings in disguise.

Orim took deep quiet breaths, clearing his mind, muscles relaxed, poised, waiting for the second guard's attention to shift. On another day, he might have attempted parleying with whoever was in the room, but Vittore had been clear about leaving no witnesses.

After a few moments, the guard on the far side of the door looked away.

Orim lunged around the corner. Moving quickly through the shadows in complete silence, he struck before they noticed him. His leading stiletto, held flat and almost horizontal, punched through the side of the first guard's neck.

Orim released his grip on the blade, careening off the railing into the second guard as the man turned back, eyes widening, mouth opening.

Orim slammed him backwards, rammed his forearm under the man’s jaw, forcing him against the wall to cut off his warning shout. The remaining stiletto breached the centre of the stiff leather armour with a noise like a cracking egg shell, angled upwards through the guard's midriff.

Even as the second guard desperately pushed back, his breath rasping through a constricted throat, Orim's superior strength drove inexorably forward, forcing his head upwards.

Orim pulled the blade free, and stabbed again. With the third blow, the blade angling up under his ribs, the guard shuddered convulsively, eyes rolling up, his grip on Orim's arm loosening. An involuntary spasm passed through his frame.