Assassin’s Fate

Alaria responded with a frightened keening that kept pace with Kerf’s thudding against her.

‘The girl, Bee. Did she come through? Is she alive?’ Dwalia demanded.

I kept my silence. I had wriggled my sore arm free, and although my injured shoulder protested, I was groping to discover the confines of our prison. Stone beneath me. To the left of me, Kerf’s body. To my right, a wall of stone as far as I could grope. When I reached up I could brush my fingertips against more stone. It was worked stone, smooth as a polished floor. I explored with my feet. More stone. Even if I’d been alone in this space, I could not have sat up. Where were we?

The tempo of the Chalcedean’s jerking was speeding up and with it his open-mouthed gasping.

‘Alaria, feel around. Did the girl come through?’

‘She … must … have. Oh! I dragged myself through by … holding on … to her.’ Alaria’s voice was going smaller and higher. The Chalcedean continued to heave himself about. ‘It’s disgusting!’ She wailed. ‘He’s mouthing my face. He stinks! Stop it!’ She shrieked but the Chalcedean began to grunt under her.

‘Can you feel her? Is she alive?’ Dwalia persisted.

I lay still. Despite Kerf’s passionate rocking, I felt her groping hand. I held my breath. She touched my face and then my chest.

‘She’s here. She’s not moving but her body is warm. Vindeliar! Make him stop this!’

‘I can’t. I’m sick. I’m so sick.’

‘Vindeliar, you’d best recall that I and only I give you your orders. Alaria, be silent!’

‘So many of them were in there,’ Vindeliar groaned. ‘They were all pulling at me. I’m so sick.’

‘Be sick silently!’ Dwalia snapped.

Alaria was gasping in horror. She did not speak again but I heard the small weeping sounds she made, and the deep groan of the Chalcedean when he finally reached some sort of satisfaction. She tried to wriggle away from him, but I felt his arm muscles tighten and knew he held her there. It was as well for me. I did not want her to roll off him and onto me.

‘Feel about, as much as you can,’ Dwalia commanded. ‘Can anyone feel an opening in this tomb?’

It was a poor choice of words. ‘Tomb,’ Vindeliar repeated and gave a trailing moan of despair.

‘Silence!’ she wheezed at him. ‘Feel about over your head. Is there any opening?’

I heard them moving in the darkness, heard the scraping brush of fingers against stone, the scuff of boots scraping more stone. I remained still.

‘Anything?’ Dwalia demanded of the darkness.

‘No,’ Alaria responded sullenly. ‘Only stone, everywhere I touch. I can barely lift my head. Have you any room next to you?’ The Chalcedean’s muscles had gone slack and, by his stentorian breathing, I deduced he had fallen asleep. Madness was, perhaps, a mercy in some situations.

‘Would I allow Vindeliar to lie on top of me if I could be anywhere else?’ Dwalia demanded.

A silence. Then Alaria suggested, ‘Perhaps you should take us back to where we were?’

‘Unfortunately, as the Chalcedean emerged, he pushed me to one side and shoved Vindeliar on top of me. He now lies on top of the portal stone. I cannot reach it from where I am.’

‘We are packed like pickled fish in a cask,’ Vindeliar observed sadly. More softly he added, ‘I suppose we will all die here.’

‘What?’ Alaria demanded in a half-shriek. ‘Die here? Starving to death in the dark?’

‘Well, we can’t get out,’ Vindeliar responded morosely.

‘Be silent!’ Dwalia ordered them, but it was too late. Alaria broke. She began weeping in gasps and after a few moments, I heard Vindeliar’s muffled sobs.

Die here? Who would die first? A scream started to swell inside my chest.

That is not a useful thought, Wolf Father rebuked me. Breathe. Quietly.

I felt panic swell in me and then be quashed under his sternness.

Think how to escape. Do you think you could enter the stone alone? Could you reach under the Chalcedean and open the passageway to return us to the forest?

I’m not sure.

Try.

I’m afraid to try. What if I get stuck in the stone? What if I come out alone somewhere?

What if you stay here and starve? After, of course, the others go mad and attack one another? Now, try.

When I had slid off Kerf, I had landed on my back. I wriggled to one side. I had to roll onto my sore shoulder to do so. And it was that hand and arm that I had to try to wedge under Kerf and Alaria’s combined weight. I tried to do it slowly, sliding my hand under the small of his back where it did not press so hard against the stone. I made a small sound of pain and Alaria’s sniffling stopped. ‘What’s that?’ she cried, and reached down to me. ‘She’s moving. Bee’s alive and awake.’

‘And I bite!’ I reminded her, and she snatched her hand away.

Now that they knew I was awake, there was no point in being secretive. I shoved my hand as far under Kerf as it would go. He shifted slightly, pinching my arm under him, then belched and went back to snoring. My shoulder burned as I worked my hand deeper under Kerf, scraping it over gritty stone. I heard my own fearful panting and closed my mouth to breathe through my nose. It was quieter but I was still just as terrified. What if I touched the rune and was suddenly sucked in? Could it drag me in past Kerf? Would he and Alaria fall in with me, as if I had opened a door under us? The terror put pressure on my bladder. I blocked it. I blocked everything except the effort of pushing my hand across stone. The stone surface under my fingers suddenly became a small indentation. I cautiously explored it with my fingertips. It was the rune.

Do you feel anything? Can you make anything happen?

I tried. I didn’t want to, but I pushed my fingers into the rune and rubbed the tips against the graven lines of it. Nothing. Nothing happens, Wolf Father.

Very well. We should think of something else, then. His words were calm but beneath them I felt his simmering fear.

Dragging my arm out from under Kerf was more painful than pushing it beneath him had been. Once my arm was free, I knew a sudden surge of panic. Everything was touching me – Kerf’s warm body, the unyielding stone below me, the stone alongside my body. I desperately needed to stand up, to stretch, to breathe cool air. Don’t struggle, Wolf Father insisted. Struggling only makes a snare go tighter. Be still and think. Think.

I tried, but everything was touching me. Alaria was weeping again. Kerf was snoring. His ribs moved against me with every breath he took. My tunic had twisted around me, binding one of my arms. I was too warm. I was thirsty. I made a small noise in the back of my throat without intending to. Another sound rose in me, a scream that wanted to get out.

No. None of that. Close your eyes, cub. Be with me. We are in a forest. Remember the cool night smells of a forest? Lie very still. Be with me.

Wolf Father pulled me into his memories. I was in a forest. Dawn was coming and we were snug in a den. Time to sleep, he insisted. Sleep.

I must have slept. When I awoke, I held tight to the calm he had given me. I had nothing else to cling to. In the blackness, I measured the passage of time by the behaviour of my fellow prisoners. Kerf awoke when Alaria became hysterical. He put his arms around her and crooned to her, perhaps a Chalcedean lullaby. She stilled after a time. Later, Dwalia burst into shrieking impotent fury when Vindeliar pissed on her. ‘I held it as long as I could,’ he wailed, and the smell of urine made me want to piss as well.

Dwalia whispered something to him, her voice as soft and deadly as a snake’s hiss, and he began to sob.

Then his sounds stopped, and I decided he slept. Alaria was quiet. Kerf began to sing, not a lullaby but some sort of marching song. He stopped abruptly in mid-verse. ‘Little girl. Bee. Are you alive?’

‘I am.’ I answered because I was glad he had stopped singing.

‘I am very confused. When we walked through stone, I was certain we were dead. But if we are not dead, then this will not be a good way for you to die. I think I could reach your neck. Would you like me to strangle you? It will not be fast, but it is a faster death than starving.’

How thoughtful. ‘No, thank you. Not yet.’

‘You should not wait too long. I will become weak. And it will be unpleasant in here soon. Piss. Shit. People going mad.’

‘No.’ I heard something. ‘Hush!’

‘I know my words are sad to hear, but I only seek to warn you. I may be strong enough to snap your neck. That might be faster.’

‘No. Not yet.’ Not yet? What was I saying? Then, from far away, a sound. ‘Listen. Do you hear that?’

Alaria stirred at my words. ‘Hear what?’ she demanded.

‘Do you hear something?’ Dwalia snapped at me.

‘Be silent!’ I roared at them in my father’s angry voice, and they obeyed. We all listened. The sounds were faint. Slow hooves clopping on cobblestones. A woman’s voice lifted in a brief sing-song chant.

‘Is it a prayer?’ Alaria wondered.

‘It’s an early pedlar. She sings, “bread, fresh baked this morning. Bread, warm from the oven”.’ Kerf sounded sentimental.

‘Help us!’ Alaria’s desperate scream was so shrill my ears rang with it. ‘Help us, oh help us! We are trapped!’

When she finally stopped shrieking for lack of breath, my ears were ringing. I strove to hear the bread-woman’s song or the clopping hooves, but I heard nothing. ‘She is gone,’ Vindeliar said sadly.

‘We are in a city,’ Kerf declared. ‘Only cities have breadmongers at dawn, selling wares in the street.’ He paused for a moment and then said, ‘I thought we were dead. I thought that was why you wished to come to the fallen palace of the dead duke, to be dead here. Do breadmongers still sing when they are dead? I do not think so. What need have the dead of fresh bread?’ Silence greeted his question. I did not know what the others were thinking, but I pondered his previous words. A fallen palace. How much stone was on top of our tomb? ‘So we are not dead,’ he reasoned laboriously, ‘but we will be soon if we cannot escape. But perhaps as the city awakens, we will hear other people. And perhaps they will hear us if we shout for help.’

‘So be silent for now!’ Dwalia warned us. ‘Be silent and listen. I will tell you when to shout for help, and we will all shout together.’

We waited in suffocating silence. From time to time we heard the muffled sounds of a city. A temple bell rang. An ox bellowed. Once, we thought we heard a woman calling a child. At that, Dwalia bade us all shout for help with one voice. But it seemed to me that the sounds were never very close, and I wondered if we were on a hill above a city rather than in the city itself. After a time, Vindeliar pissed again, and I think Alaria did, too. The smell was getting worse – piss and sweat and fear. I tried to imagine I was in my bed at Withywoods. It was dark in the room. Soon my father would come to look in on me. He always thought I was asleep when he looked in my room late at night before going to his own bed. I stared up at blackness and imagined his step in the corridor. I was beginning to see dots of light from staring into the blackness so long. Then I blinked and realized that one of the dots was now a narrow stripe.

I stared at it, not daring to hope. Slowly I lifted my foot as far as it would go. It blocked part of the light. When I lowered my foot, the light reappeared, stronger.

‘I can see light,’ I whispered.

‘Where?’

‘Near my feet,’ I said, but by then the light had started to slink in. I could see how uneven the blocks were that confined us. Worked stone, yes, but tumbled in a heap around us rather than something built.

‘I can’t see it,’ Dwalia said, as if I were lying.

‘Nor I,’ Kerf confirmed. ‘My woman is in my way.’

‘I am not your woman!’ Alaria was outraged.

‘You have slept on top of me. You’ve pissed on me. I claim you.’

My lifted foot could barely reach the slot of light. I pointed my toe and pushed. I heard gravel fall outside our prison and the crack widened slightly. I rolled onto my side as much as I could and pushed against Kerf to slide myself closer to the light. I could press my whole foot against the stone below the light, and I did. More and larger rock shards fell, some rattling against my boot. The light grew stronger. I kicked at it savagely. The shaft of light enlarged to the size of my hand. I battered my feet against it as if I were dancing in a hill of biting ants. No more gravel fell. I kicked at the stone that roofed that wall, to no avail. I stopped when I had no strength left and became aware that the others had been shouting questions and encouragement. I didn’t care. I refused to let Wolf Father’s calmness reach me. I stared up at the dimly lit ceiling of my tomb and sobbed.

The Chalcedean moved, shoving me aside to lift his arms past his head to brace them against the stone. He groaned and suddenly shifted hard against me. His hip pushed into my ribs, wedging me against the walls so I could scarcely breathe. Alaria was squeaking and squealing as he pressed her against the ceiling. He drew up his knee, crushing me harder and then with an audible grunt, he kicked out suddenly and hard.

Grit fell and rock dust sifted into my eyes and up my nose and settled on my lips. Kerf was still pinning me and I could not get my hand to my face to rub it away. It stuck to the tears on my cheeks and settled between my collar and neck. Then, as the dust was settling and I could almost draw a clean breath, he did it again. A vertical line of light was suddenly added to the first one.

‘It’s a block of stone. Try again, little one. This time, push, not kick. I’ll help you. Put your feet down low, at the bottom of it.’

‘What if it all falls on us?’

‘A faster death,’ Kerf said.

I wriggled and slid my body closer to the line of light. I bent my knees, set my feet low on the block. The Chalcedean shifted his big boot between and slightly above my feet. ‘Push,’ he said, and I did. Stone grated grudgingly but it moved. A rest, and then we pushed again. The crack was a hand’s-breadth wide. Another push, and the stone fetched up against something. We pushed three more times before the stone moved, and then it slewed to the left. Another push and it was easier. I shifted my body to get more purchase.

The afternoon sunlight that had found us was fading toward evening by the time the opening was large enough for me to wriggle out. I went feet first, squirming blindly out of a gap barely large enough for me to pass, scraping skin off my hip and tearing my tunic. I sat up, brushing dust and grit from my face. I heard the others shouting, demanding that I move more stone, that I tell them where we were. I ignored them. I didn’t care where we were. I could breathe and no one else was touching me. I drew deep breaths of cool air, and wiped my sleeve across my gritty face, and rolled my good shoulder. I was out.

‘What can you see?’ Dwalia was furious with desperation. ‘Where are we?’

I looked around me. Ruins, I supposed. I could now see what our tomb had been and it was not at all what I had thought it was. Great blocks of stones had fallen, first one pillar to the floor and then a great slab of stone had collapsed partway across the fallen pillar, and then other pieces of stones had tumbled around them. Only good fortune had kept them from smashing completely flat against the Skill-pillar embedded in the floor. I looked up the evening sky past the jagged remains of walls, and down at more etched runes. There was another Skill-pillar here, set into the floor. I stepped gingerly away from it.

The others were shouting contradictory orders at me: to fetch help, to say what I saw. I didn’t respond. I heard the temple bell ring again in the distance. I took three steps out of sight, squatted and relieved myself. As I stood, I heard stone grating and saw the Chalcedean’s legs emerging from the enlarged opening. I hastily pulled up my leggings and watched as he braced his feet and levered the stone away. Shrieks from inside of ‘Be careful!’ and ‘You’ll bring it down on us!’ went unheeded.

‘I should run,’ I whispered to myself.

Not yet, Wolf Father whispered in my mind. Remain with the danger you know. The Chalcedean has mainly been kind to you. If we are in Chalced, you do not speak the language or know their ways. Maybe luck will favour us and the stones fall on all the others. Hide and watch.

I moved back amongst the tumbled stones and crouched where I could see but not be seen. Kerf wriggled out on his back, kicking and scraping and grunting as he heaved himself along. He emerged powdered with grey dust and grit, looking like a statue called to life. His hips freed, he shifted onto his side, twisting like a snake to manoeuvre first one shoulder and then the other out, and sat up, blinking in the late afternoon light. His pale eyes were startling in his grey stone face. He licked dust from his lips, his red tongue another oddity, and looked about himself, then stepped up onto a block of stone and surveyed the scene. I crouched lower.

‘Is it safe?’ Alaria called, but she had already thrust her feet out of the opening. Smaller and lither than the Chalcedean but just as dirty, she squirmed out without waiting for any answer then sat up, groaning, and wiped rock dust from her face. ‘Where are we?’ she demanded.

Kerf grinned. ‘Chalced. I am almost home. I know this place, although it has changed greatly. Here we once mourned my grandfather. The duke’s throne was at the end of a great hall. Over there, I think. This is what remains of the old duke’s palace after the dragons brought it tumbling down around his ears.’ He sneezed several times, wiped his face on his arm and then nodded to himself. ‘Yes. The duchess proclaimed it an evil place and swore it would never be rebuilt.’ He frowned slightly, as if summoning the memory was difficult or painful. He spoke slowly, almost dreamily. ‘Duke Ellik vowed it would be the first structure he raised again, and that he would rule from it.’

Alaria struggled to her feet. ‘Chalced?’ she whispered to herself.

He spun to her and grinned. ‘Our home! My mother will be pleased to meet you. She has longed for me to bring home a woman to share the tasks of the household with her and my sisters and to bear my children.’

‘I am not your wife!’

‘Not yet. But if you prove yourself a hard worker and a maker of strong children, then perhaps I shall wed you. Many prizes of war become wives. Eventually.’

‘I am not a prize of war!’ she declared.

Kerf shook his head and rolled his eyes, bemused by her ignorance. Alaria looked as if she wanted to shriek, scratch him or run away. She did none of those things, but turned her attention to the next pair of feet emerging from the stone tomb.

Vindeliar’s feet were kicking and scuffing as he tried to emerge. ‘I’m stuck!’ he cried in a panic-stricken voice.

‘Get out of my way!’ Dwalia’s voice was muted. ‘I told you to let me go first!’

‘There wasn’t room!’ He was already tearful. ‘I had to go first, to get off you. You said, “get off me”, and this was the only way I could get off you.’

She cursed him, her obscenities muffled by stone. Vindeliar did not seem to be making much progress. I took advantage of the noise to retreat farther from all of them, behind the round of a fallen column. From there I could peer back to see what was happening, but not be seen.

Vindeliar was wedged. He drummed his heels helplessly on the ground as if he were a child having a tantrum. Stuck. Good, I thought savagely. Let him be the plug that bottles up Dwalia forever. Despite any kindly feelings he had toward me, I knew he was the real danger to me. If I fled, Dwalia could never catch me. But if Vindeliar set the Chalcedean on me, I was doomed.

‘Brother! My brother! Please move the stone and free me!’

I didn’t make a sound as I crouched there, watching with one eye. Kerf stepped over to the stone. ‘Ware the dust!’ he called to Vindeliar and stooped to set his shoulder to the blocking stone. I heard it grate against the ancient floor and saw smaller stones and grit vanish in a crack that opened in the top of the rockpile as he did so. Dwalia screamed but the rocks that fell would do no more than bruise her. Kerf seized Vindeliar’s thick legs and dragged him out. Vindeliar jammed for a moment and howled as Kerf grunted and pulled him out anyway. I saw him sit up, grey with dust and with a bleeding scrape on the side of his face.

‘I’m free!’ he announced as if no one else would know it.

‘Get out of my way!’ Dwalia shouted. I did not wait to see her emerge. Ducking low, I crept away. I threaded my way through the maze of fallen stone, silent as a mouse. The slanting sunlight of a spring evening created shapes from the shadows. I came to a place where a fallen wall leaned against a collapsed column like a stone tent and crept into it.

Stay hidden. It is easier for them to see motion and hear your footsteps than to search this rubble.

I was alone, and hungry and thirsty, in a city far from home where I did not speak the language.

But I was free. I’d escaped them.

FIVE

The Bargain

A snake is in a stone bowl. There is soup around it. It smells bad and then I know it is not soup. It is very dirty water, full of snake-piss and waste. A creature comes to the bowl and suddenly I see how big the snake is and the bowl. The snake is many times longer than the creature is tall. The creature reaches through bars around the bowl to scoop up some of the dirty water. He slurps some of the filthy water and smiles with an ugly wide mouth. I do not like to look at him, he is so wrong. The serpent coils in on itself and tries to bite him. He laughs and shuffles away.

From Bee Farseer’s dream journal

As comfortable as the Elderling robes might be, I did not feel decently clad for my meeting with the keepers until I was in my own clothes again. As I snugged my leather belt tight and buckled it I noticed I had gained two notches of travel since I’d left Buckkeep. My leather waistcoat would function as light armour. Not that I expected anyone to knife me, but one never knew. The small items in my concealed pockets would expedite any deadly task of my own. I smiled to realize that someone had unloaded my secret pockets before my garments were laundered and then restored all to their proper location. I said nothing to Spark as I tugged my waistcoat straight and then patted the pocket that concealed a very fine garrotte. She quirked her brows at me. It was enough.

I vacated the room to allow Spark to attend to Lady Amber’s dressing and coiffing. I found Lant ready and Perseverance keeping him company and chased a foggy memory of a conversation between the two and then let it go. Done was done. Lant no longer seemed to fear me, and as Chade’s instructions to him to watch over me, well, that would demand a private conversation.

‘So, are we ready?’ Lant asked as he slid a small, flat-handled knife into a sheath concealed at his hip. It startled me. Who was this man? The answer came to me. This was the Lant that Riddle and Nettle had both admired and enjoyed. I understood suddenly why Chade had asked him to watch over me. It was not flattering but it was oddly reassuring.

Perseverance had a worried frown. ‘Am I to be seated with you at the dinner? It seems very strange.’

In the space of a few months, he had gone from being a stableboy on my estate to being my serving man. And companion, if I were truthful. ‘I don’t know. If they send you and Spark to another table be sure to stay close to her.’

He nodded grimly. ‘Sir? May I ask you something?’

‘What is it?’ I asked guardedly. I was on edge for our meeting with the keepers.