The target was Jeshin Lim, the new self-styled Legate.
The Hand moved in as soon as the coming dawn allowed enough light. The Lim estate was well known to the guild. And this Lim was inexcusably negligent in not hiring more guards now that he was Legate.
Kenth’s particular talent was climbing and so he was assigned to help secure the second-storey rooms while the main party assaulted the Legate’s chambers. Their watchers had reported that the man was not taking any particular extra precautions such as sleeping in different rooms, or even securing his doors and windows.
Kenth and his brothers and sisters stole across the estate grounds, dark shadows slipping from cover to cover. No challenges arose from roving guards; no dogs barked or attacked; no Warren-laid traps or alarms burst forth with claps of thunder or blazing lights.
It seemed to Kenth that this city’s ruling class had forgotten their fear of the guild. Tonight, he decided, would restore that ancient and time-tested balance of power.
The estate’s ancient brick and stone wall was simplicity itself to scale. He found a small window terrace and popped the thin wood shutters sealing it. Within, the false dawn’s glow through the shutters revealed the room to be made up as a child’s nursery. It was empty. From here he gained the second-storey main hall. He went from room to room finding all unsecured, and all empty. It seemed that their watchers’ report was accurate: the Legate had sent all the Lim family members to another of their many residences scattered about the city and surrounding countryside.
Presumably, one would think, for their safety.
Yet at the same time all to the guild’s convenience.
Having secured the east wing of the rambling building, Kenth signed to his opposite number covering the west wing, then padded to his assigned post guarding the narrow servants’ stairs. Here he waited, tensed, fingertips on the top stair feeling for the slight vibrations of footsteps below, his ears pricked for the telltale creak of old dry wood. He waited, and waited.
And still his superior did not show to sign the all-clear.
A pink and amber dawn brightened perceptibly in the east-facing rooms.
Should he check in? But, gods, abandoning his assigned post! He would be lucky to be kept on as message-runner! Not to mention whipped to a bloody pulp. Still … so much time!
Dread and the insect-crawling passage of minutes won out and Kenth padded off to check on his opposite number across the main stairs. He leaned out to glance across the broad balustraded marble expanse. And the woman was not there!
Something lay in a dark heap at the top of the stairs.
He darted out, knelt, blades ready. It was Hyanth, dead. No sign of a wound. Magery! No doubts now — time to report.
He ran for the main chambers. The tall twin door leaves were open. He slid in, a hand raised in the alarm sign, only to halt, stunned. Everyone was dead. That is, the entire assault team lay sprawled as corpses. And on the bed, sheer sheet rising and falling, in calm sleep, the Legate.
Kenth did not even hesitate then. He went for the target, blades out.
Before he reached the big four-poster something slammed into his back, sending him tumbling forward to hit the base of the wall. He peered up dazed at a slim lithe figure wrapped in black cloth. The figure stepped over him to open the shutters of a nearby window, then grasped his shoulders and, with astounding strength, levered him out and held him there. He scrabbled frantically for handholds.
She whispered close to his cheek, ‘Take this message to your superiors, good soldier,’ and released him.
Kenth half fell, half scrambled, from stone to stone, snapping latticework and grasping at vines, and crashed to the ground. He lay groaning, his vision flashing with blazing lights. Fortunately, he’d managed to avoid landing on his back.
Report, he told himself — or thought he did. Report!
He lurched to his feet, muffling a cry of pain. Then he staggered, hunched, arms wrapped around his torso, across the grounds to the rallying point.
Rallick sat in his room in an old tenement building of the Gadrobi district. He sipped the morning’s first cup of tea while considering all that he’d learned — or, rather, what little he’d learned.
Baruk missing. Vorcan secreting herself away. Both reputed members of this half-mythic T’orrud Cabal. And in the Council an old forbidden title renewed.
A power struggle. It all adds up to a power struggle. Yet with whom? This upstart Legate?
And Vorcan’s words: No matter what happens, you will not act.
Then there’s what Raest said. Bluff. It’s a game of bluff. And what is bluff but lies, deception, misdirection?
And who does that remind him of?
He stilled, hands wrapped around the warm cup. He cocked his head, listening; the building was silent. Not in all the years he’d kept this room was the building ever silent. He stood, pushing back the chair, hands loose at his sides.
‘Who’s there?’
The door swung open revealing the empty hall beyond. Someone spoke, and Rallick recognized the voice of Krute of Talient. ‘It’s all come clear now, Rallick.’
‘What’s clear, Krute?’
‘No longer in the guild, you said … aye, I’ll give you that. But it’s all in the open now. No need to play the innocent.’
‘What are you talking about, Krute?’
‘She’s backing the Legate, ain’t she? And maybe you are too. We lost six of our best this night. But one made it out. What he brought with him made everything clear. I’m sorry you chose to go your own way on this, my friend.’
Something came sliding in along the floor. A blade: blued, slim, needle-tipped, good for close-in fighting and balanced for throwing. An exquisite weapon exactly like those commissioned by only one person he knew.
The old floor creaked in the halclass="underline" a number of men on both sides of the door. Rallick considered the window and the sheer three-storey drop.
Damn. Done in by my own precautions.
He raced through a number of other options, none particularly promising. Then he noticed a smell. A strong sewer stink.
‘Gas leak, lads!’ Krute shouted from the hall. ‘Damn you, Rallick! A trap! Make for the roof.’
Rallick remained frozen, hands close to the heavy curved knives beneath his loose shirt. The floorboards of the hall creaked and popped, then were silent. He edged towards the door, leaned to peer out. It was empty.
Gas? None can afford gas here.
He returned to his room, froze again. Something was on the table that had not been there before. A small leaf-wrapped object. He pulled open the greasy package to reveal a rolled crepe. A breakfast crepe with a delicate nibble taken from one end, as if the purchaser couldn’t bear to part with the treat without a taste and hoped no one would notice.
Lies, deception and misdirection.
So be it.
‘So you are saying that your timely arrival scared them off? Is that what you’re saying?’ Lim eyed the two estate guards, both retired members of the city watch, standing uncomfortable, and extremely nervous, before him. Somehow he was not convinced. He pulled his dressing gown tighter about himself. ‘And the mess outside?’
‘Ah! Well, in their haste to flee — one appears to have fallen.’
‘Is that so? A clumsy assassin. It’s standards that appear to have fallen.’
The guards shared embarrassed glances. One swallowed while the other clasped and reclasped a hand on the shortsword at his side.
Sighing his disgust, Lim turned away. He faced the small desk he kept in his room for correspondence and composing his memoirs. He picked up a slim gold mask among the mementos there and turned it in his hands. ‘I suppose I should hire more guards.’