Vaughn Heppner - Assassin of the Damned

Behind the hellish light, I spied elfin features. They eloquently spoke of horror and pity.

I tried to speak.

Lorelei knelt beside me, and her hand dipped toward my face, hesitated, dipped closer and then hovered. She clutched her shining ruby in her other hand.

“You’re too big for me,” she said. “You’ll have to crawl.”

A whispering laugh was all I could manage. I was too ghastly to touch. She was too dainty to dirty her fingers on the likes of me. I couldn’t fathom her presence here.

I began to slither, using my burnt elbows to propel myself an inch at a time. The passage through the door had stolen most of my remaining strength. I despised my groans. I lost the ability to sense my surroundings. I crawled because it was my only meaning. I crawled because Erasmo had lured me to a swamp and there had stabbed me in the guts. He’d left me for dead and others had sought to use that. I crawled because instead of burning me, he had buried me because he had once seen tears in my eyes. Erasmo had beaten me too many times. If I stopped, he won everything.

But I didn’t stop. I crawled past barrels in a cellar. I crawled up stairs, through corridors.

“That way, Gian,” someone shouted. “No. Left, left, your other left.”

I crawled blindly and spilled down steps, and I felt cooling rays upon my face. I lay as one dead and soaked the rays. It gave me peace. It eased my hurts.

“Darkling, you must crawl back into the shop. If you draw upon too much of the Moon Lady’s power at once, she’ll be able to trap your will.”

I struggled up, leaning against the Alchemist Shop. Moonbeams still bathed me. I had no idea how long I’d been lying here.

Lorelei crouched nearby, with concern upon her face. “You must heal by degrees,” she said, “just like you did in the swamp.”

I nodded, thinking I understood. So I arose stiffly, with pain, and shuffled back into the hated building.

***

Healing by degrees meant healing a little each night.

“I counsel you to wait until you have all your strength, all your abilities, before you meet Orlando Furioso again.”

Lorelei and I sat in the dungeon of my former palace. Rusty chains adored the walls. A rat-nest was a rack’s lone tenant. Lorelei told me she’d escaped out of the castle that grew after she’d learned the priestess of the Moon had departed. She’d then raced to Perugia.

“By my arts, I realized the Lord of the Night had departed this place,” Lorelei said. “In his pain, Erasmo failed to cover his trail and I found the Alchemist Shop, the stairs, the cellar and the tunnel to the door. It’s been difficult, but I’ve kept it open these past weeks on the assumption-on the hope-that you were too stubborn too die.”

Apparently, I owed her my life.

One portion of the tale troubled me-this long passage of time. The evidence supported Lorelei, but it was still very strange. I’d entered the ruins of Perugia at the beginning of spring. Now it was summer. Yet I’d only been on the doomed Earth less than a day.

Lorelei tried to explain. “How long does a journey take moving from this Earth to the doomed one? By your reckoning, it was a moment of time. But the actual journey took much longer. There is also the possibility that time moves differently on that Earth than ours.”

I shook my head.

“Maybe a minute there is half a day here,” she said.

“That seems contrary to reason,” I said.

“What it means,” Lorelei said, with growing enthusiasm, “is that the Lord of Night has been gone for months. During those months, his grip upon his minions weakened.”

“They must have believed he died,” I said.

“Exactly,” Lorelei said. “And that began a subtle positioning for power. It’s as if the king had died and the sons began jockeying for nobles or hiring mercenaries. What it also meant was a weakening of Erasmo’s grip over his subjected cities. The priestess of the Moon discovered that, and she decided to strike. I think she believed you’d failed. She thus left to exhort the subjected princes to form a league and storm the Tower of the East.”

“But Erasmo returned,” I said.

“Badly wounded,” Lorelei said.

“You say he’s a powerful sorcerer. Can’t he simply heal himself?”

“Ordinarily, that’s true. But you wounded him with the deathblade.”

A fierce grin stretched my lips. “The knife smokes when I cut people.”

“The wounds smoke, not the knife.”

I studied Lorelei, although with just one eye. The burns on my forearms and face had scabbed in a ghastly manner. When she spoke, Lorelei looked elsewhere. She presently played a card game called ‘Solitaire.’ Her dainty fingers flipped a card, a ten of spades.

“How is it that you know so much about Darklings?” I asked.

“If you live long enough, you hear just about everything.” She laid down another card.

“Why can’t Erasmo heal from my deathblade?”

“I didn’t say he can’t heal,” Lorelei said. “But with your blade…it’s harder to heal, even for a Lord of Night.”

“What is the deathblade?”

Lorelei shook her head as if to say she didn’t know.

I scratched at a rough edge on the table. Lorelei had been at the door between worlds to keep it open for me. She’d been at the castle when I’d decided to leave, playing cards in the warrens. She’d warned me about healing too fast lest the Moon Lady absorb my will. In my years as ruler of Perugia, I’d learned to suspect too many fortunate occurrences.

Lorelei was small, dainty, with elfin features and a quick smile. Her jester’s attire seemed to fit her well. She tucked her hair under the belled cap and her chin came to a pretty point. Yet she was an Immortal. She had survived the ages and would therefore reasonably be tougher than her appearance would warrant. What schemes took place under her jester’s cap? What occupied an Immortal’s thoughts? What would an Immortal want?

I laid a half-healed hand over hers. She looked up, and I saw her battle the distastefulness of my touch.

“If you’re not the Moon Lady,” I said, “you’re here to do her biding.”

She tried to jerk her hand out from under mine. I gripped hers so she could not.

“You’re wrong,” she said, “although I’m pleased to see that you’re becoming suspicious. For someone like you, it’s as needed as breathing.”

I did not breathe. Did she insult me? “What is the deathblade?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s impolite for a gentleman to call a lady a liar. Yet what if the lady lies?”

“I’m here to help you,” she said.

“Just how does one become an Immortal?”

“That’s much too personal to explain.”

I tightened my grip.

“You’re hurting me,” she said.

“It’s an odd thing. But every sorcerer and sorceress I’ve met has tried to use me. Maybe Immortals possess greater cunning and let the pawn believe he makes his own choices. The thought…troubles me. Whether I’m the prince of Perugia or the Darkling, I refuse to be anyone’s lackey. From the first, I’ve wanted answers. I still want them.”

I let her go.

She stood so her chair scraped the floor and she turned away.

“Do you know what else is interesting?” I asked. “It concerns the priestess of the Moon. Is she a fool? Having met her, I doubt it. She must have known you helped me. How otherwise could I have found the secret corridors, never mind the Pool of Memories? In any Italian city, that would have been considered treason and the culprit would have hanged. Is the priestess too queasy to commit justified bloodshed? Is the woman who buys corpses afraid of dealing death? Now consider your punishment. She locked you in a room, allowed you to practice spells. I combine that with the realization that you know much about Darklings and even more about the Moon Lady. Do you know that Erasmo offered me life if I’d join him? He wanted knowledge concerning the Moon Lady. Now that I’ve had time to think, I wonder if the Moon Lady is secretive. She must be secretive if her very own priestess doesn’t know about the hidden corridors in her castle.”