Crown Thief

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Even for a master-assassin like Synza, descending to my level took some time.

While he worked his way down, I concentrated on sitting up. All the while, I tried to ignore the body beside me. I didn't doubt he was dead; no one could fall like that, make a sound like that, and not be. But while having a dead killer next to me might be better than having a live one there, his presence still made my skin creep.

Sitting proved as difficult as anything I'd ever tried to do. My injured right arm was worse than useless. The faintest tremor became a seismic shock of pain. Since all of me was hurting already, that just made me want to pass out or to vomit. Passing out was actually a promising option, but vomiting certainly wasn't. The possibility of doing both together was enough to keep me grasping to consciousness.

By the time Synza reached me I was half sitting, half laying, propped on my one good arm. If I kept still, the pain was bearable. I couldn't possibly defend myself — but then, I was facing a professional murderer, unarmed, with one arm likely broken, on a ledge above a sheer cliff face. Under the circumstances, dying with a shred of dignity would be a laudable achievement.

Given how powerfully I wanted to soil my trousers, I suspected even that might prove beyond me.

Synza dusted himself casually with one hand, as though climbing down cliffs was the kind of petty inconvenience he encountered on a daily basis. He covered the distance between us in two neat strides, stopping before the body that until recently had been either Stick or Stone. Synza observed the still form at his feet carefully for a few seconds, before nudging it gently with his foot. When it didn't stir, he gave a slight nod, as a teacher might respond to a bright student. He looked at me.

"You're an impossibly lucky man, Easie Damasco," Synza said.

"You obviously don't know me very well." I hadn't been sure I could stretch to an entire sentence. That small success made me unreasonably proud.

"But then, no man ever considers himself lucky, does he?"

Synza drew a short, thin-bladed knife. I knew without doubt it was the one he'd just killed with, yet there was no spot of blood on it now. It returned the morning sunlight in a flash of shimmering silver. Synza looked at it with something resembling curiosity. With his free hand, he flicked the tip of the blade, sending a shudder down it like a breeze over water.

"No one has ever survived my attentions before," he said. "To do so not once but three times is beyond absurd. If I hadn't been going to kill you anyway, I'd have to do so simply to make a point."

"Which would be?" I managed.

"That some things are inescapable. And that I'm one of them."

Synza didn't sheathe the knife. Nor did he look as though he was about to use it. In fact, it was as if he'd momentarily forgotten he was holding it. His eyes were flitting between the body at his feet and me. A small, convulsive smile played over his lips. "I shouldn't have done that, you know," he said. "There will definitely be consequences. But oh, what a pleasure! The great Stone, finest killer in all the lands. Not so, it seems."

Well, that cleared up whom the body at my feet belonged to, at least. Slowly, delicately, Synza tipped the prone figure over with the tip of one boot. On its back, splayed limbs cocooned in complex motley, it looked more grotesque and less human than ever. Synza knelt down, put his knife to Stone's throat, and with his other hand began to peel back the chequered mask. He wasn't looking at me, yet I had no doubt he could register my slightest movement. I tried hard not to make any, though my good arm was starting to shudder under my weight.

The mask seemed to resist a little before coming off. It revealed a thin, sharp-contoured face, more yellow than the bronzed brown typical of Ans Pasaedans. The eyes were so narrow that even open they'd have been little more than slots in that sallow flesh. Those facts aside, it was a visage that made no great impression. In death, unmasked, the royal assassin looked more pathetic than terrifying.

"Not that I'd ever brag," Synza said. "Only you and I will know. Which means, of course, that very soon only I will know."

He stood and, with gentle pressure from his foot, tipped Stone's corpse towards the edge. It didn't take much effort before the body gained its own momentum. I heard small stones skitter, heralds of the larger object in their wake. The body sagged, and then fell from view with sudden, alarming speed. Dirt burst from the edge like a cloud of angry wasps.

Synza looked at me once more. There was amusement in his eyes.

"I suppose you'll have some questions."

In fact, at that precise moment, my mind had been frantically calculating the possibilities for survival if I were to throw myself off the cliff. If Synza wanted questions, however, it seemed wise to come up with some. Every moment he was talking was a moment he wasn't killing me. Yet my mind was blank. My natural verbosity had vanished like dew under a midday sun.

I'd never imagined there'd come a time when not talking would place my life in jeopardy.

I hunted frenziedly through my memories of our previous encounters, desperate for anything that might have piqued my curiosity. There was only one thing I could remember wondering over, and it was so obvious and mundane that I couldn't imagine it being what Synza was after. I could find nothing better though, and moment by moment, the humour in Synza's eyes was shifting towards impatience.

I picked my words carefully. "What order did Mounteban give you, back in Altapasaeda?" I tried to sound genuinely curious rather than merely petrified. "You could have killed me a thousand times over between there and here. You could have done it easily in Aspira Nero or at the ferry port."

"Yes, there it is. The crux of our unfortunate relationship. There are venues no good assassin would ever consider, of course; knifings in bars or busy streets are the province of cutpurses and petty thugs. However, in this instance, it's fair to say the instruction was unfortunate, not to mention counterproductive. My master's dictum was: Kill him. But make sure no one sees you do it."

An order that would have made perfect sense in a room crowded with people Mounteban didn't want to alarm, none at all once I'd made a run for it. "Easier said than done," I ventured. Actually, it didn't sound hard at all. It sounded like something that would only be difficult if you were the kind of person who purposefully made their career difficult — if, for example, you took satisfaction from seeing your victim's face in their very last moments. But if ever humouring someone had seemed like a sensible idea it was then.

"I was incautious, I admit. Had I not revealed my presence to you on the walls of Altapasaeda, we wouldn't be where we are now. You'd have died a swift and painless death and I'd be elsewhere, pursuing some no doubt infinitely more productive goal."

"I'm sure we'd both have been much happier," I hazarded.

"I hope that wasn't sarcasm. You can sit up, you know."

As Synza had evidently noticed, my good arm was quivering like a reed under my weight. Gratefully, I levered myself forward and shifted into a crouch.

"You look as though you're in considerable pain. Let me know when it becomes unduly bothersome." Synza gave the dagger another experimental tap. This time I thought I could hear the faintest chime, like a finger dragged round the rim of a glass. "For once, I have no particularly timescale in mind. Within realistic bounds, I see no reason why you shouldn't have a say."

"Thanks," I said, "I think I'm managing for the moment. I still have a few questions I'd like answers to."

Truth be told, I didn't have even one. However, I'd never lacked for imagination. Surely my fertile subconscious wouldn't fail me now? Except that it felt as though a hundred scurrying rats were ringing bells in my head, and that wasn't a sensation conducive to making up questions, even to keep insane assassins from slitting my throat.

It occurred to me that the details of our journey through the Castoval and then Ans Pasaeda were of importance to Synza. Perhaps the only way he'd been able to justify his repeated failure was to reimagine it as a cat and mouse chase of dramatic and unlikely twists and turns. To me, it had rarely been more than a nuisance. How could I explain that in recent weeks, people trying to kill me had practically become an accepted frustration of life? How could I say that these days I was generally terrified of something, and he'd just happened to be the most frequently recurring source of alarm?

I couldn't. If it was important to Synza that our runins gain the proportions of some mythic duel of wits, then all I could do was play along.

"You were unlucky in Paen Acha," I said, striving for a tone of professional indifference.

"There's no such thing as luck," snarled Synza. "As I said, I was careless. Please don't imagine you can pander to my ego."

I strove to keep my voice steady — and not to point out how he'd just contradicted himself. "I'm just offering my opinion. It was a chance in a thousand that Alvantes startled me at that precise moment."

"A chance I should have accounted for. Do you really imagine such factors can't be predicted, with sufficient care? How did you ever manage as a thief?"

"Not so well," I admitted.

"Hmm. At least you admit your failings." Synza mastered his irritation with a visible effort. "Anyway. Before we go further, don't you think you ought to thank me?"

I'd just started to get to grips with inventing questions, and now here was a fresh conundrum. What could Synza possibly believe I had to thank him for? He'd been trying to kill me for days, and he certainly hadn't failed through a lack of effort. He'd killed Stone, but that had hardly been for my benefit. Even letting me live while he rambled psychotically didn't seem enough to warrant gratitude.

I dredged my mind to think what else had happened recently that might hint at a professional killer interfering in my affairs.

Yet the instant I realised, it seemed obvious. "You killed the guard in the palace," I said.

"Of course I did."

"Thank you," I added, remembering how we'd arrived at the subject. "That can't have been easy."

"Penetrating the most protected building in the land? Disposing of a guard unseen whilst inside its environs? It certainly wasn't."

It was clear he was itching to tell me the details. Was this really the same composed and silent killer I'd once found so unnerving? He was no longer composed, and he certainly wasn't silent. Nor did he seem to be on anything approaching the right side of sane.

"I'm curious," I said. "What were you doing there?"

As I'd predicted, Synza began to reply almost before the question was out of my mouth. "Rumour in the city was that the guard-captain of Altapasaeda and a companion had been imprisoned, pending their execution. What a maddening twist! Getting into the palace was a chore, even for me. Fortunately, the guard was good enough to let me know where they were keeping you before I relieved him of his duties. I waited in a nearby passage to calculate my next move… and before I knew it, your friend Alvantes was blundering past. After I'd checked your cell and found that you'd also vanished, what could I do but follow and hope he'd lead me to you?"

If I'd had any thoughts of trying to keep him talking, I was wondering now if I'd ever get him to shut up. It was as though a dam that had been in place for years, perhaps his entire life, had suddenly and irrevocably ruptured.

I decided it might be better if he didn't know he'd crept past me not once but twice in the prison corridors. I went for ambiguity instead. "You must have been close."

"If I hadn't had to work my way round the outside of the courtyard, I'd have had you at the stables. By the time I realised you'd blundered within my reach, you'd blundered out of it again. It took me time to pick up your trail once you'd fled the palace. Again, I was near. But who could have imagined Alvantes's fool of a father had been careless enough that the King would send out Stick and Stone? Saved from the attentions of one assassin by the intervention of two others!" Synza chuckled hideously. "As I suggested at the opening of our conversation, you are an impossibly lucky man. And as I further intimated, your luck has finally run out."

So that was it? He was happy to keep me breathing so long as I was listening to his rambling exploits, but now he had them off his chest, my services were no longer required? "Wait," I said. "Are you really telling me you broke into the dungeon to kill me so nobody else could kill me first?"

"Of course. How else could I possibly fulfil my orders?"

"I think Mounteban might have let that one slide, under the circumstances."

"This isn't about Mounteban!" Synza roared.

I tumbled back. My rucksack ground hard against my spine, but I barely noticed. Suddenly my heart was thumping in my ears. The rage in his face, normally so expressionless, made me want to crawl off the cliff just to avoid him. He was trembling with fury, head to toe. I couldn't tear my eyes from the slender-bladed knife in his hand, shaking now like a ship's mast in a storm.

Synza took a step towards me.

Then, more slowly, he dragged the knife down to his side, as though he were only partly in control of his own body. He exhaled, scrunched his eyes and clenched his fists, held like that for a long moment.

Synza opened his eyes. "This isn't about Mounteban," he repeated, softly. "This is about professionalism. Something I pride myself on, and in which I've inexcusably failed. What is there to do but put right what I can?"

"I can appreciate that," I said distractedly. Now that I wasn't in immediate fear for my life, I was fully aware of how excruciating was the pain in my back. Something was digging there, a sharp-edged circle pressed into my flesh. And I'd remembered what it was. That knowledge sent a flush of heat through my whole body, a sensation precariously balanced between hope and panic. All this time, I'd been thinking I was helpless…

"Frankly," said Synza, "you exhausted my patience. Who knew such a thing was possible? I grew indiscreet. Though I take some comfort from the fact that Alvantes and yourself will certainly be blamed for my more careless deeds, the fact remains that I've failed my master — failed for the first time in thirty years." He smiled — and the knife in his clenched fist came up once more. "But I tell you this… it will be worth it all to hear you scream."

"Well, that's something, I suppose."

I could see that my cheerfulness threw him. "Shall we to business then?" he said.

"I agree. Absolutely."

This time, Synza eyed me with undisguised curiosity. "I confess I wasn't expecting such enthusiasm."

"To business. And our first order of business should be the extremely good reason you have not to kill me."

"Oh, Damasco. I hope you don't intend to spoil the moment by begging." Synza looked genuinely dejected. "Hasn't this exchange been amicable so far? What a pity to shame yourself now. You can't outbid Castilio Mounteban. Even if you could, you couldn't. You have nothing that could interest me. You never have had and you never will."

"I don't doubt it," I said. But I do have something I think will interest Castilio quite a lot. Far more than my head. Something, in fact, that he'd find so intensely interesting he might even overlook just how long it's taken you to follow his order."

"You run the risk of wounding my feelings. I've made no secret that my performance in this matter has been unsatisfactory. But that is a concern for me and my master only."

"Still, a little added incentive couldn't hurt. Say, if you were to take me back alive, with the one thing he wants most in the world. The thing I'd been planning to take him anyway, to bargain for his protection. Since we're here, I don't see why the negotiations shouldn't start a little early."

"I struggle to know whether you're entertaining or annoying me," said Synza. "Very well. For the sake of ending our unduly long acquaintance on an agreeable note, why don't you explain?"

I began to shrug my pack from my shoulders.

"I don't need to tell you that you shouldn't make any sudden moves," he added. "Or that no move you make could possibly be sudden enough."

The average tortoise would have been unlikely to describe my movements as sudden; but I slowed even further, inching the straps off by degrees. Once they were free, I laid the pack on the strip of tousled grass between me and the edge. If I still wasn't sure how I could turn my one hole card into a genuine bargaining tool, common sense suggested that placing it in jeopardy was a good start.

I unbuckled the pack's straps, folded back the flap, loosened the drawstring within. I reached inside, drew out my bundled cloak and placed it delicately beside the bag. I didn't need to look to know I had Synza's interest. Making my movements all the more deliberate, I peeled back the layers of cloak and clothing as though they were the skin of some impossibly delicate fruit.

I only looked up when the first glint of gold was revealed. Now I had his attention, all right.

"Is that what I think it is, Damasco?"

"If you think it's the royal crown of Altapasaeda," I said, "the one object that could consolidate Castilio Mounteban's authority over the city beyond doubt or question, then yes, it's what you think it is."

"How did you… no, that's a redundant question. You're a thief and, as I've observed more than once now, improbably lucky. Let that be explanation enough. Give it to me now."

I picked up the crown with my good left hand — but instead of passing it to Synza, I held my arm straight out behind me. "I could do that," I said. "Or I could just let go."

"Not before I got to you."

"Maybe."

"And not without abandoning your only hope of bargaining for your life."

"Is that what we're doing, then?" I asked. "Bargaining?"

"Perhaps we are." His tone was grudging.

I shifted closer to the edge. "I think I'm going to need something a little more definite than 'perhaps'."

"It's all you'll get with such transparent bluffing."

"You're really willing to chance it?"

"Perfectly so."

This wasn't going well. Then again, what had I expected? Synza was right. I was bluffing, it was obvious, and it was getting me nowhere. I was tempted to hurl the crown off the cliff, just to reclaim a shred of dignity before my inevitable demise.

The thought must have shown in my face — because unexpectedly, Synza said, "Since the advantage is in every way mine, however, why take chances? Bring it to me, and we'll discuss the possibility of your continuing existence."

"What guarantee do I have?"

Synza sighed with mock weariness. "None at all. I could make you a promise you'd have no reason to believe, if it would make you feel better. You have my word that we'll discuss the matter. It's all you'll get."

Fair enough. I had no intention of giving him the crown anyway. I just wanted to get closer, while anger and frustration were blunting his killer instincts. The crown might not be heavy, exactly, but it had some heft. Anyway, this was my one and only option. Synza would certainly spot an attack, probably faster than I could conceive it. His knife would be acquainting itself with my guts in a flash. It was a chance, though. If nothing else, it was a chance.

"With your right hand, please."

There went my chance.

"I hurt my arm," I said, sounding even more pathetic than I'd intended. "It's useless."

"Nonsense. You've suffered a slight fracture. If you should survive the next few minutes, and if you're careful, it will heal within a week. If you weren't such a coward in the face of pain, you could use it perfectly well."

I almost asked how he could possibly know such a thing. Then it struck me that if anyone would understand the intricacies of the human body, it was a man who'd spent a lifetime studying how to damage it in imaginative ways.

I tried to flex my fingers. Pain thundered up from them, nailing itself in my shoulder. But my fingers moved, if slightly. I tried again. The pain redoubled. So did the degree of movement. Synza was right, damn him. If I could only endure the excruciation, the arm was useable.

Gritting my teeth, I transferred the crown from my left hand to my right. That meant clasping my fingers all the way, and that meant a rush of liquid fire, as though every drop of blood from the tips of my fingers upwards had spontaneously combusted. I was determined not to give Synza the satisfaction of hearing me scream. However, the whimper I made instead was far from manly.

I kept my arm as outstretched as I could stand. Now the crown was suspended over thin air — and my threat was suddenly far less empty. In fact, it was all I could do not to drop it.

I took a short step forward. Synza put his free hand out. The knife was in his right, forcing him to use his left. One pace would bridge the gap between us.

"I give you the crown and we'll talk?" I asked.

"We'll talk."

"About you letting me live?"

"Absolutely." He made no effort to hide his impatience.

I edged forward. "You promise?"

Synza reached for the crown, still just barely out of his reach. "I promise."

I shuffled another short step. "On Mounteban's life?"

"On Mounteban's…? For the love of…"

I hit him in the face with the crown.

It might have been the weakest blow ever struck by one grown man upon another. It definitely hurt me a thousand times more than it did him. Still, Synza looked inordinately shocked. He licked a trickle of blood from his lower lip. "Did you really just…?"

I hit him with all my strength. This time, I used my good hand and aimed specifically for his jaw. I felt it crunch like a bag of grit.

"You did."

He lurched towards me, knife first — or rather, towards where I'd been the barest instant before. Synza wasn't the only one who could move fast when circumstances called for it. Now there was no Easie Damasco where he expected me to be. Now there was only my outstretched leg.

If he'd been even remotely calm, I'd never have got away with it. That made the bewildered anger contorting his face all the more satisfying.

I only got to enjoy it for a moment.

Synza spun into a crouch, in one long-practised defensive movement. It was graceful, elegant — and performed on the verge of a sheer drop. Further, it was a sheer drop that a body had been kicked off not so long ago. The ground was already loose and broken.

Synza realised it just before I did. But not in time to stop himself. A hunk of dirt and stone shuddered and sank. It happened to be the only thing supporting his left foot. The chunk of cliff edge tore free in an explosion of dirt, and disappeared.

Synza's foot followed. Then his leg. Then the rest of him.

The last I saw was his face. There was no fear in it, no anger even — just a look of the most profound frustration.