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"The Assassin's Apprentice" is told in first person present tense and has been heavily edited.
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Chapter 16
"If we don't," I whisper, "we'll be caught for sure and hung for thievery."
My mind races for ideas. As I always do when puzzled, I look around me for inspiration. That's when I see it, a movement from inside the museum. I prod Talen in the ribs with my elbow.
"I see it too," he says. "But, how did they get past that t-thing?"
"I-I don't know," I answer, and then I have an epiphany. "But I bet they didn't feed it."
I can feel Talen's eyes on me even though I can't see him.
"Wait here," I say. "I've got an idea."
"Be careful, Kian," he cautions. "One strike from that stinger means death."
I move cautiously away from him, trying my best to be absolutely silent. I also pray that my sweating body remains undetectable. I'm relieved when a slight breeze blows away from the beast even though I've no absolute certainty that the magnificent creature can detect me by any means other than sight or noise.
Following the curve of the wall, I eventually come across the guards in white mail armor. I study them a moment and approach like a cat stalking a mouse. Someone has taken a great deal of care in making them appear alert.
They're not dead, but drugged.
I grab one of them and settle him down easily. I unbuckle his breastplate and slide it to the ground. Then, I slit his throat and move my feet back so as to not get any blood on myself. Recalling my anatomy, I plunge my dagger into his ribcage and cut away, looking for his heart. After a minute, I find the thing, but gods is this grisly work. I pull it free, still beating, and secure it in a cloth bag before returning to Talen.
"Are you all right?" he asks. "You're dripping in blood for god's sakes."
"It's not mine," I say in a matter-of-fact tone.
That shuts him up; I only wish I could see the expression on his face. Maybe I want to see if he fears me. I've never frightened anyone in my life. But I've killed four people now in the same night, so obviously, things change. And each kill is getting easier to do. This last one was butcher's work, really. He could just as easily have been a goat.
I pull out the man's heart and take out my vial of caasak. The heart feels eerily hot in my hand and blood still oozes from it. Our hiding place is so dark, I'll need to rely mostly on instinct. A single spilled drop is fatal. I decide to switch gloves because the blood makes my fingers sticky.
"Please step away from me a bit," I warn Talen.
He obliges.
With expertise, I administer two drops of poison into the heart and then put the caasak away. Next, I creep to the edge of the foliage and toss the blood-soaked bundle out onto the ground.
The manticore responds by cocking its head and strides over to it to paw at the package. Though his face appears human, the creature has a maw filled with sharp needle-like teeth. It lowers its sniffer to the ground, punting the package with its chin, and licking the outside with a serpentine tongue.
A moment later, the poison takes effect. The airborne toxicity of caasak surprises even me. Within a few seconds, the creature collapses. Its tail uncoils. It howls once before black foam streams from between its lips.
Talen hurries from his hiding place and joins me. "That's quite splendid," he says with a spring in his step. "I'm going to ask you about that stuff later. Just be warned."
"And I won't tell you anything," I reply. "You don't need to be playing around with it. It requires extreme concentration and training just to handle."
"And you think you're the only one capable of that?"
"That's not what I mean," I say defensively.
I can tell he wants to argue with me, but this just isn't the time or the place.
I gesture for him to enter the museum through one of the narrow little side windows. I move over to the door and check it to see if it's locked. As I suspect, the lock's already been picked. As a precaution I oil the hinges. Then I unsheathe my katana and use the handle to push on one of the doors. It swings inward with ease. I only need a few inches clearance to slide in, and I'm careful to avoid touching anything with any part of me that might have blood on it.
I slip into the shadows, carrying my blade before me. Up ahead, in the next gallery, I spy a light shining down upon a table where a satin cushion's been placed. The light has golden sparkles in it so I know magic's involved.
More importantly, the cushions hold five sacks of jewels.
I settle in next to a large sarcophagus that I'm sure is just a display piece for some exhibit (rather than the real deal) and I watch. The room is not empty, but it takes me a while to spot the first person. Later, I count two more, as well as the rope they used to descend from the ceiling. One of them grabs a hold of it and test the golden light by thrusting one end toward the edge. The light incinerates the exposed portion of rope, not even leaving enough dust to choke upon.
"There has to be another way," one man sneers. He's wearing an eye patch, and he walks with a slight limp. I note that he's in his mid-forties maybe even early fifty's.
Could this be the Black Prince that the others spoke of before I killed them?
While I wait, I look for Talen, but of course I don't see him. I wouldn't have desired him as my boyfriend if I didn't think he was exceptional. But, it would be nice to at least know if he made it inside.
At my first opportunity, I lift myself from my hiding place and approach the room with the jewels in it. My feet fall silently on the polished marble floor, and I stoop to avoid the frame of a gargantuan velvet picture of ferns and trees embracing an otherworldly sunrise.
Once clear, I slide behind a statue of the Goddess Khaal. It stands atop an aquamarine plinth. It holds her in such a way as to make her appear as if she's just risen from ocean foam. Her face is striking in its detail, from the fine, unmoving lines around her mouth to the exquisitely rendered features of her alabaster skin. The work is beautiful, and I recall the legend of the water goddess with clarity. It is said that all the waters of Wynwrayth did not used to be blue but were in fact as clear as a teardrop in your hand. But dissatisfied with a colorless sea, the goddess took from her eyes the deepest blue and gave it to all the waters of the world. Thus, artists always depicted her with clear eyes, or in the case of this sculpture, having no eyes at all.
In front of me, one of the guards walks over to the statue and sits down on the marble plinth. He's so close; I can smell the stink of his festering armpits. The Black Prince and his other assistant study the dilemma before them. "Call me when you figure it out," the guy with the smelly armpits says.
The Black Prince glances up from the sparkling golden light and regards his henchmen with a searing contempt. Then he turns back to the light and the bags of jewels.
With his attention averted, it's easy for me to place my hand over smelly's mouth and slit his throat. This assassin business is bloody work. His life flees and his body goes limp in my hands within just a few seconds. Unfortunately, his left arm drops and strikes the marble floor.
I'm not expecting this.
He's wearing a ring on his wedding finger, and the gold makes an audible clap as all gold does, when it hits something else. Under any other circumstance, I might pause long enough to admire it, but this isn't the time for such appreciation.
The Black Prince holds up his hand.
"Spugnois?" he calls out. "If this is some trick, I'll slit your throat myself."
He turned to his other lackey and moves his fingers rapidly in the cant.
~Go check it out.~
Typical coward, I think to myself. Send others to do your work. I let Spugnois drop and pick up my katana, readying myself for battle from the shadows.
The other man withdraws a serrated knife and steps cautiously into the corridor where I wait for him. I brace myself against the wall and push myself up onto a narrow ledge, holding my weight carefully suspended between my backside and my feet. He's studying the ground, I presume, for traces of blood. When he's in position, I leap down on him and cut him across the back.
He cries out, slashing at me with his knife.
I kick him against the statue and lop off his head, sending a fountain of blood spewing about the floor and onto the walls of the gallery.
Deftly, I roll away from him and face the man called "One Eye," by some and "The Black Prince" by others.
He regards me with fear, backing away from the table, waving his weapon protectively in front of him. "And we meet again, Constantine, but under much different circumstances. Before, it was you who bested me, who took out the life from my left eye. But I've studied with the world's best and have now collected over forty kills."
I look on him with silence.
He swallows nervously. "Oh, I don't want to kill you Constantine," he gloats. "Merely to leave you as you left me: with half the world to see. To leave you scarred and hideous to behold." He pulls off his eye patch, revealing the empty socket, the sunken and useless scarred flesh, and the cut that almost claimed his life some three years ago.
He starts to grin.
I notice a movement rise up behind the Black Prince of Ladika. Before I have a chance to react, Talen creeps up on him and loops a garrotte around his neck. One Eye, still grinning, snatches at the piano wire, but it's too late. Blood flows over his shirt and Talen drops him like a sack of wet mice. "I'm sorry Kian, but he's talking entirely too much."
I run over to him, seeing a bit of blood appear on his shirt. Talen rolls up his sleeve and shows me a small cut he must have gotten in the scuffle, but for the most part, he's fine.
"That was incredibly stupid," I chastise him. "What if the blade had been poisoned? You'd be dying right now."
"It wasn't poisoned, I'm not dying, and I saved your life," Talen says. "This was the Black Prince of Ladika, and by my last count, he had more kills than you. That makes him more dangerous, and I wasn't about to lose my boyfriend tonight to the likes of him."
I shake my head. "It doesn't matter. You got hurt. I wouldn't have gotten hurt."
"You don't know that," Talen says, covering his arm once more.
I pause. Really, I'm infuriated because the Black Prince was supposed to be MY KILL. But I'm not about to admit this. However, the next instant just confirms that I should know better than to keep my true feelings hidden from Talen.
"You're just mad cause I killed the uber baddy and you just killed his henchmen," Talen taunts.
Now he looks entirely too smug. I'll never live this down. "I'm not, and he isn't...correction, wasn't an uber baddy. So don't even brag about this. And I would have killed him just as fast only you didn't give me a chance."
"And I suppose you just want me to wait around while you figure out a way to kill someone when I can do it perfectly well?"
"There's no arguing with you," I reply; my cheeks feel hot. Then my eyes fall once again to his bloody sleeve. "Let's bandage you up before it gets infected." I start to reach for him but he moves his arm away.
He says, "No time. It just smarts a bit. Grab the jewels and let's get out of here."
I look at him, my eyes softening. "Talen, stop kidding around. Let's get that cut dressed."
He nods. "I-it isn't exactly pleasant, but it can wait. Honestly, Kian, I'm fine."
I swallow, realizing that I probably wouldn't react like this if he wasn't my lover. It's not appropriate, so I force myself to treat him professionally and walk over to the table. It takes only a moment's thought before the obvious occurs to me. I reach under the table where the golden light can't shine and pull on it, hence removing it from the trap. I put the jewels in a black sack and tie it off twice. As an afterthought, I grab an ivory case off of the satin cushion.
This is for Constantine.
Talen sees me take it, but I'll be damned if I'll raise a hand against my friend. Constantine can go fuck himself if he thinks that will happen.
I turn back to Talen, but he's already testing the rope which still hangs from an open skylight above.
"Why didn't we think of this?" he asks.
I shrug my shoulders and climb the rope after Talen, snaking it around one leg and pulling with my hands. He's a remarkable athlete, and before I even realize it, he's disappeared over the lip of the skylight above me. I reach up and grasp hold of the ceiling to pull my dangling body the rest of the way up. I see him a few feet away. He, like me, is crouched over and breathing heavily from the exertion. Deftly, I cut the rope and drop it onto the floor below.
"We can't leave without Ambrell," I tell Talen.
He agrees.
I can smell a faint taint in the air and realize he's bleeding more than he wants to let on. I hand him a clean cloth, and he presses a bandage to his side where he's also been knicked. "Should we go back after Wriln and Logren?" he asks. My eyes fall to his waist where I see he's packed away a curious looking book that he must have found in the museum. It looks bound in ancient leather. When he notices me eyeballing it, he quickly turns away.
I think about his question for a moment. "We might need Logren's strength. And Wriln's proven himself to be very useful."
Talen winces. "It's settled then. Let's go and get her."
I take the lead, walking to the edge of the roof. I see a motion from the guard tower wall and freeze in place, waiting for the sentry to pass. We don't have much time before someone notices that the manticore's dead. I leap off the building and land with sure feet on the stones below, and I hardly make a sound. Talen grimaces and leaps after me, landing with the same skill. Both of us vanish quickly into the overgrowth and scale the wall once we find it. I let him go first, giving him a boost on my shoulders. I wait a moment for him to position himself atop the guard walk. Then he lowers his right hand, and I leap up, take hold of it, and pull myself up.
On the other side, we stop to catch our breath.
Someone cries out in the dark, and I hear a bell ring on the other side of the museum wall. The alarm's been raised.
Talen and I look at each other and take off at a sprint, stopping to cling to the shadows at any noise or sign of someone approaching. We avoid the park, hoping to foil pursuit by skirting around it to where Logren and Wriln patiently await.
Wriln, I believe, spies us first. "Ycome, ycome," he says excitedly.
Logren puts a heavy hand on Talen's shoulder.
"It's all right," Talen assures him. "It's only a couple of flesh wounds." He turns to Wriln. "Take us to the old temple down by the sea." The small furry man nods and slides back into the hole we'd squeezed through earlier.
"Ys," Wriln says. "Fyllow Wriln m' Lordynges."
We descend into the depths once more, this time choosing a different passage through the earth. As an alternate, it's also dry, but it's also obstructed with large ornate spider webs. There's nothing like the feeling of webs brushing up against your face in the dark to send chills down your spine.
Soon, I see a light from somewhere ahead. As I draw closer to the source, I note that it comes from a large crack in the roof. Directly above us are many voices raised in prayer, but one rises above all. In a low whisper, Talen informs me we are underneath the old temple. When I listen carefully enough, I indeed can hear the roar of the sea.
The ocean must be very close.
"Arise," a female voice commands, "arise, spawn of Zandine, Lord of Illusion. Arise servant of the hereafter. I call to thee in the name of Darkness and bind thee to this earth. I, Kahket, of the Black Hand, give to thee and thy kine the required sacrifice of thirty souls. Now, ye must answer my summons and of the task I shall put to ye!"
The earth shakes a bit; dust filters down upon my face from the crack above. Then, I see ice form on everything. The air grows chill as if all the moisture is being pulled from it. Despite the sudden onset of cold, we're all riveted, listening to the sound of Kahket's chanting.
Then there follows a tremendous silence.
"Curses to thee, sorceress," a hideous voice replies. It's unlike anything I've heard before, seemingly a combination of three or four dialects. "I shall rend thy flesh from bone and the horrors I shall heap upon thee will be known as the torments of infinite pain. Haughty witch, I obey thy summons and to the prayer of Zandine. Speak, and let this meeting come to an end!"
"Constantine has come to this city. He's brought with him the legacy of 'Bloodbane'. I command thee to bring him before me and to tell me what I must know of the lost island of the Unslaking Thirst."
There's a brief silence.
"Nay, witch. Constantine is not within the city, nor has he come this night to bring thee the map and the tome. The soul of the Black Prince feeds us and his failure is sweet in his blood. The agony of his screams are never-ending!"
"Impossible," Kahket declares. "Who's done this deed?"
There's the sound of teeth scraping over scales, and I want to move but a vast pressure on my mind makes me unable to think or act.
"He's a hunter, witch," the voice taunts. "You shall know him in time. As for the island, the eye of blood shall break the enchantments that keep it hidden from the world. What you seek lies there still, as it has been for ages past."
"Tell me where I can find him... this hunter!"
"Look to the earth. I have spoken."
It seems like something releases me then, and I stagger backward into Talen's arms.
I see shadows flickering against the wall from topside as figures dart back and forth in pandemonium following the visitation of the thing with no name.
Kahket curses. "Look to the earth, it says. I spill the blood of thirty men, and I'm given riddles? I need those jewels. I should never have trusted that blundering oaf calling himself the 'Black Prince' of Ladika." She paces back and forth in the dirt above me. "Someone bring me my hairbrush. I always think better when I'm brushing my hair."
"Yes mistress," a male voice says.
Talen grabs my hand and indicates that Wriln has uncovered a small breach in the tunnel; it leads into darkness. I follow behind Talen with Logren behind me. We creep in the darkness for a hundred paces until we find a dimly-lit octagonal room that's only four feet across. A little light seeps through cracks embedded in the limestone walls; above my head's a large boulder. This octagonal chamber must be a well of some kind, probably used in a rite of baptism having to do with the sea goddess.
Talen scrambles onto the rock face, placing his fingers in nooks along its well-worn surface. After a moment, he gazes down at me, ear pressed to one of the cracks in the wall. "I hear Ambrell," he says. "She's close."
"Is she alone?" I ask.
"Hard to tell," he says. "I'll try to get her attention."
Talen removes a dagger and pries at one of the cracks, loosening the sand and dirt with his dagger. Slowly, a little more light starts to spill in.
"Ambrell," he calls out. Unsuccessful, he chances a slight whistle.
"Talen," I hear her answer. "Is that you?"
"Yes. We're underneath the large rock."
"You've got to get me out of here, Talen."
"We're trying. Say, can you describe the room to us."
I hear her sniff, wiping her nose. "It's small, there's a well of some kind. The ceiling's fallen down, and I can see the stars. The walls are polished marble. I can't climb them, and it's more than a hundred feet up. There's no one else here, though a guard is posted on the other side of the door."
Talen sighs. "She's alone." He put his dagger away and presses his hands against the ceiling. "No good, it's too heavy."
I move to help him when Logren stands up, stretching his full height. He lays his cadel in the dust and braces his hands against the rock. Grinding his teeth together, his muscles ripple under his flesh. Slowly...incredibly...the half-giant slides the rock to one side.
Talen winks, hops into the room above. A moment later, she appears next to him at the lip of the well. She jumps and I catch her. "Oh, Kian," she says, throwing her arms around my neck. "I was so scared."
Talen joins us, and a moment later, Logren moves the rock back into place.
"Elliot is dead! Swift lives still, but I don't know where they're holding him. When we were brought in without the jewels, Kahket went absolutely livid. Lyran's deathly afraid of her."
"Are we going to get Swift?" Talen asks.
I pause, biting my lip. "No, we cut our losses here."
Ambrell turns a pasty white, but she holds her tongue.
I turn to Wriln. "You need to get us out of the city in the fastest way possible."
The gleeful furling claps his hands together. "Trust Wriln," he says, "Trust me lordynges."
And with that, he turns back toward the tunnel from whence we emerged and disappears into the darkness.
We follow in his wake.
I shall post Chapter 17 next week