Juliet McKenna - The Assassin's Edge

“You really should learn to swim,” commented Halice.

I stuck my tongue out at her. “It’s hardly a necessary skill for a travelling gambler.” Vanam is as far away from any ocean as it’s possible to get in the erstwhile provinces of the Tormalin Empire.

Sitting, I took an unobtrusive grip on the thwart. As Larn leaned into his oars I studied the far bank of the river. The all-entangling vegetation had died back from the stone ruins over the winter and had yet to reclaim them. That laid all the more starkly bare the decay of Kellarin’s first colony, founded generations before Vithrancel was even thought of.

More than attitudes and priorities separated the colonists and the mercenaries. Temar D’Alsennin and his hopeful followers had crossed the ocean an astonishing thirty generations ago, turning their backs on the dying days of Tormalin’s Old Empire. From their wistful recollections, all had seemed paradise for the first couple of years but then they’d suffered the first fatal onslaught of the Elietimm, ancestors of those same Ice Islanders who’d plagued both sides of the ocean for the past few years. Those early settlers who hadn’t been slaughtered fled upriver, hiding themselves in caves discovered while prospecting for metals. Ancient magic had hidden them all in a deathless sleep until the curiosity and connivance of the Archmage had unearthed the incredible truth, lost for so many years thanks to the Chaos that followed the death of Nemith the Last.

I’d enjoyed witnessing the discomfiture of Hadrumal’s conceited wizards when the ancient magic of Tormalin had proved to be nothing to do with their own mastery of air, earth, fire and water. I’d been intrigued to discover the same aetheric enchantments could be worked through those ancient songs of the Forest Folk, whose blood ran in my veins thanks to my wandering father’s fancy alighting on my maidservant mother. On the other side of the coin, that Artifice had been able to lock those colonists helpless and deathless in the shades between this world and the next still gave me the shudders and then there was Ryshad’s distrust of Artifice. I wasn’t so interested in it to risk losing him. I realised I was absently twisting the ring he had given me round and round on my finger.

As always Halice’s thoughts were more immediately practical. “Why’s Ryshad so set on making bricks? Isn’t there enough stone here to keep him happy?” She nodded at bright scars marking the age-stained grey masonry. Beyond using the place as a quarry, most colonists had no use for these uncomfortable reminders of years lost while they lay insensible under enchantment.

“Not with him and Temar insisting that everyone’s cesspit is stone lined,” I told her. “Have you seen all the warehouses, market halls and workshops they’re planning?” I’d been shown the drawings, in exhaustive detail; every footing to be set firm with stone and topped with all the bricks Werdel could turn out. Vithrancel’s past would underpin its future as D’Alsennin took the lead in turning his face to the here and now rather than the long lost past.

I got carefully out of Larn’s boat on the far side. Breeched and booted, we easily gained on Catrice’s mother, her strides hampered by the petticoats rustling beneath her hurrying skirts.

A lofty hall appeared round a turn in the gravel path, surrounding wall newly repaired in sharp contrast to the tumbledown ruins on either hand. This time-worn dwelling had been built by the long-dead Messire Den Rannion who’d invited the colonists on their ill-fated venture. It had been their first sanctuary in that confused season when Planir had reawakened them. We had all fought with our backs against these walls, mercenaries, mages and ancient Tormalin alike when the Elietimm had attacked, determined to kill any rival claimants to this land. Guinalle, more formally Demoiselle For Priminale, had tended the wounded in the ancient steading using her life-giving Artifice in despite of Elietimm enchantments. By the time the sufferers had either died or recovered, Guinalle had quietly had the place re-roofed and the perimeter wall made secure. No one had had any luck since suggesting the highest-born surviving noblewoman of the original colony move herself across the river, which at least kept the stink of boiling medicaments away from the rest of us. As an apothecary’s customer whenever I had the chance rather than a devotee of the still room, I’d never realised quite how much pungent preparation woad needed.

“You can do the talking,” I said to Halice.

Halice shook her head. “You can’t blame her on Ryshad’s account for ever.”

“I don’t,” I said indignantly.

Halice shot me a sceptical look. “A blind man in a fog can see how he mistrusts Artifice.”

“I’ve done more than half the scholars in Vanam to unearth lost aetheric magic,” I protested. “I brought back no end of lore from the Forest and the Mountains last year.”

“You still walk stiff-legged around Guinalle because of what happened to Ryshad,” said Halice mildly.

My dismissive noise came out rather more non-committal than I intended. Drianon be my witness, I occasionally caught myself watching Ryshad as he slept, wondering if any trace of the enchantment that had enthralled him remained. The bodies of the colonists had been sealed away in the Edisgesset cavern when Guinalle worked the enchantment that locked their true selves, the very essence of their lives, into rings, jewellery and, in Temar D’Alsennin’s case, into his sword. Those vital tokens had been sent back to Toremal to summon aid but the few who escaped the destruction of Kel Ar’Ayen found their Empire in the toils of anarchy. No rescue had ever come.

I didn’t know how body and consciousness had been separated. The thought of what Guinalle called Higher Artifice gave me gooseflesh. Eventually—and the scholars of Vanam continued to argue with Hadrumal’s wizards as to why—these sleeping minds had stirred the dreams of whosoever chance or some god’s fancy had left holding the artefact. The first hints of the lost colony’s true fate had emerged from the contradiction and exaggeration of legend.

But Planir the Black, fabled Archmage of Hadrumal wasn’t ever one to leave things to chance or even to Saedrin himself. He’d made sure Ryshad was given Temar D’Alsennin’s sword, hoping similarities between the two men would form a bond to reach across the shades and bring back the answers Planir wanted. It had worked, after a fashion, but I still considered the way Ryshad’s body had been possessed by Temar’s questing mind too high a price.

But only fools argue over a hand that’s been played out. All those runes had been gathered for drawing anew and I planned to make the best of my luck and Ryshad’s.

We followed Catrice’s mother through the darkly stained gate now reinforced with pale new timber. The courtyard of the ancient steading was busy; Guinalle wasn’t alone on this side of the river. Masons cleaned stone reclaimed from the ruins and men studied a plan, pegs and cord for marking something in their hands. I recalled Ryshad mentioning a kiln wanted hereabouts to burn rubble into lime for his precious mortar.

The outraged matron ignored everyone as she hurried into the wide hall. “Demoiselle, Demoiselle, a moment of your time, if you please.”

We followed and I wrinkled my nose at a faint smell of paint. Looking up I saw the roof had been repanelled since my last visit, its decoration begun. The first pious scene completed showed Saedrin sorting his keys by the door to the Otherworld while Poldrion poled his ferry of newly dead across the river that flows through the shades.

I looked for Guinalle and found her by a long table covered with a pungent array of greenery dotted with early flowers in blue and yellow. A woman a touch below my own height, she was neatly made with a trim waist to balance rounded hips and a bosom to catch a man’s eye. Dressed in the same work-stained broadcloth as the other women, the golden chain that girdled her nevertheless marked her rank, carrying a chatelaine’s keys, knife and small mesh purse. The women sorting herbs for immediate decoction or bundling sprigs for drying looked up with ready curiosity at Catrice’s mother. The busy hum of conversation took on a speculative note.