Juliet McKenna - The Assassin's Edge

“It’s not so bad,” I said, offhand.

“I’d still rather not.” Pered’s usually insouciant eyes were shadowed with more than the dark of the night. “But I don’t suppose we have a choice.”

“Walking away from a bad run of luck only guarantees your losses,” I said lightly. “Staying to play is the only way to come out ahead.”

“Even when someone doubles the stakes?”

An ear-splitting whistle saved me from having to find an answer to that. I saw ’Gren waving at me, oblivious to annoyed glares from those he’d startled from sleep.

“Time to go,” I told Pered bracingly.

We walked around the scored and soiled sand where a pit had hastily been dug for corpses attracting too many crabs and flies for anyone’s peace of mind. Picking our way past snoring heaps of blankets and upturned boots, we reached the rough-hewn cabin that the raiders had helpfully built for us. I caught Darni looking at us from an efficient shelter rigged from oilskin but ignored him. The last thing I wanted was his abrasive intrusion into this.

’Gren was by the door, eyes bright with anticipation, fair hair all but colourless in the half-light. ”She says they should all be asleep by now.”

“I wouldn’t argue with that.” Usara came up yawning and we all went inside. Guinalle stood by some board salvaged from the wrecked pinnace and set on two hastily lashed trestles. Ryshad and Temar were setting out stools. The cabin smelt damply of green lumber with a musty undertone of stale sweat. Lamps threw shadows over gear discarded by pirates hopefully too dead to intend reclaiming it. The acrid heat of burning oil caught in the back of my throat.

Guinalle looked up. “Let’s begin.”

I sat beside Ryshad, Temar and Pered on the other side of the table. Everyone showed varying degrees of reluctance, apart from ’Gren at the end whose enthusiastic eyes were fixed on the noblewoman still standing at the head of the board.

“We must find out all we can about these Elietimm without alerting them. The best way to do that is to skim their dreams. To do that, I need a strength in the aether that I’m just not finding, not with the ocean all around and lacking the usual resources of the shrines.” Apart from these somewhat unnecessary explanations, Guinalle was as self-possessed as I’d ever seen her, no trace of the hysteria that had seized her earlier. “With you all to help me, we should manage.”

I sincerely hoped so. Back in Vithrancel, the placid belief of Mistress Cheven, Master Drage and all the rest provided a solid foundation for Guinalle’s enchantments. Out here, she had mostly mercenaries and sailors sailing just close enough to the wind not to be hanged for pirates themselves. I’d noted precious little piety in either contingent.

“Livak has some knowledge in the lesser uses of Artifice as well as her Forest instincts. Ryshad should share something of your training, Temar, thanks to the Artifice that linked you.” Guinalle favoured D’Alsennin with a smile that evidently surprised the lad.

I reached for Ryshad’s hand beneath the table. Only I knew the full depths of the horror he’d known when Temar’s trapped mind had broken through the confining enchantment, fighting blindly to take Ryshad’s body for his own.

Guinalle continued, perhaps setting all this out for Usara’s benefit, more likely to instil some confidence in the rest of us. “I’m still not sure how but it’s undeniable Sorgren has been proof against assault from both Sheltya and Elietimm in the past.”

“No one comes looking inside my head without a by your leave,” shrugged ’Gren.

“I’m just here to make up the numbers, am I?” Pered’s quip was a little forced.

Guinalle looked steadily at him. “You’re an artist; you see beyond the immediate and the physical. That’s much the sensitivity demanded of an adept. Just concentrate on following my lead.”

She sat and held out her hands to Temar and Ryshad and we joined in a circle. Ryshad’s strong grip held my off hand and ’Gren’s blunt fingers gave my knife hand a gleeful squeeze. I narrowed my eyes at him in mute warning but all I got was a cheery wink. Temar and Pered were fixed on Guinalle who had closed her eyes. Temar did the same and after a moment, so did Ryshad. I considered it but couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Guinalle caught her breath and opened her eyes. I shut mine guiltily.

“I’m sorry, Ryshad.” Guinalle shook her head. “Your mistrust of Artifice is too strong.”

Ryshad’s face betrayed an instant of chagrin. He dropped Guinalle’s hand before giving mine a courtly kiss. “I’m sorry, everyone.”

“You can keep watch with me for anything going awry.” Usara was by the door, all the while watching Guinalle intently.

“What do we do if it does?” I heard Ryshad mutter under his breath as he went to join the mage.

“Let’s continue, shall we?” Temar set his jaw and held out demanding hands.

’Gren and I shuffled our stools to draw the circle tighter. Guinalle began a low incantation as soon as her hand touched mine and the crude cabin faded around me much as the Eryngo had done. The others were clear enough but everything outside our linked hands was as indistinct as smoke. This time I didn’t see a new place but rather a face. It hung in the air between us, motionless, expression slack in sleep. It was the woman, Yalda, the silver gorget that marked her as enchanter among the Elietimm bright around her neck.

Guinalle opened her eyes. “Concentrate on her.” In some distant recess of my mind, I could hear the first incantation still binding us with its rhythms but Guinalle was somehow separating her thoughts into several, separate threads, each with its own focus. Was this the secret to Higher Artifice, I wondered, no more complicated than remembering the roll of the runes at the same time as anticipating an opponent’s next wager and all the while keeping a weather eye out for the Watch?

I still wasn’t sure I wanted to learn this Higher Artifice though. Emotions swirled around our circle. Pered had framed the girl in the imagined oval of a miniature frame, picking out details to paint like the gathering creases at the corner of her eyes. ’Gren was comparing her, none too flatteringly, to a golden-haired dancing girl of his acquaintance and I did my best to ignore his speculations about what lay beneath Yalda’s nightgown. Temar saw her only as an enemy, determined to secure whatever knowledge might aid our cause.

All that was to be expected. What unsettled me was Guinalle carefully masking her hatred, lulling the girl’s sleeping mind with an insidious charm that she spread to net first the man Moin and the younger Darige. There was none of the brutality the Elietimm had used on Parrail but I knew beyond doubt that Guinalle’s revenge could more than repay them for his murder, if she so chose. I made a mental note never to play against the demoiselle for money or favours and then wondered if everyone else knew I’d thought that in that instant.

Guinalle began a new incantation quite different in pitch and pace and new images hung in the empty air. The fluid, distorted shapes were nothing like the vividness of scrying or bespeaking and I wondered what Ryshad and Usara might be seeing.

The images slowly coalesced to a grey stone keep on a rise above a harbour cutting sharply into a meagre, dune-swept coast. I couldn’t help a sharp intake of breath as I recognised the place where Ryshad, Shiv and I had been held prisoner, caught in our fruitless quest to rescue poor Geris. Me, Ryshad, Shiv and Aiten. Aiten’s was another death we owed these scum.

“Do not rouse them with your anger,” Guinalle chided me soundlessly. The image drifted to show us the garden within the keep. It was much as I remembered it; no mere pleasaunce but closely planted with vital crops while glasshouses on all sides reared plants too tender for the harsh climate. The chill I felt owed nothing to the cold winds of the far north. Fear, pure and simple, was raising the hairs on the back of my neck but, to my surprise, I realised this wasn’t my dread.