Into the Labyrinth

5

“He’s arrived,” came the report. “Standing out front.” The Ancient looked at Ciang, pleading in his eyes. The formidable elf woman had only to say... No, she had merely to nod... and Hugh the Hand would be dead. An archer sat in a window above the entrance. If the elf woman, sitting stiff and upright in her chair, barely inclined her smooth, skull-like head, the Ancient would leave her presence and carry a wooden knife, with Hugh’s name carved in it, to the archer. The archer would without hesitation send a shaft into Hugh’s breast.

Hugh knew this. He was taking an enormous risk, returning to the Brotherhood. The knife had not been sent around on him[9] (if it had been, he would not have been alive at the moment), but the word had been whispered among the membership that Ciang was displeased with Hugh the Hand, and he had been shunned. No one would kill him, but no one would help him either. A shunning was one step away from the wooden knife. A member finding himself shunned had better get to the Brotherhood and argue his case fast. Thus no one was surprised at Hugh’s arrival at the fortress, though a few were disappointed.

To have been able to claim that you killed Hugh the Hand, one of the greatest assassins the Guild had fostered—such a boast would have been worth a fortune.

No one dared do it without sanction, however. Hugh was—or had been—one of Ciang’s favorites. And though her protective arm was gnarled and wrinkled and spotted with age, it was spotted with blood as well. No one would touch Hugh unless Ciang commanded it.

Ciang’s small, yellow teeth sank into her lower lip. Seeing this gesture and knowing it for indecision, the Ancient’s hopes rose. Perhaps one emotion could still touch the woman’s insensate heart. Not love. Curiosity. Ciang was wondering why Hugh had come back, when he knew his life was nothing but a word on her lips. And she couldn’t very well find out from his corpse. The yellow teeth gnawed flesh. “Let him come in to me.” Ciang spoke the words grudgingly and with a scowl, but she’d said them and that was all the Ancient needed to hear. Fearful she might change her mind, he hastened out of the room, his crooked old legs moving with more speed than they’d used in the past twenty years.

Grabbing hold of the huge iron ring attached to the door, the Ancient himself swung it open.

“Come in, Hugh, come in,” the Ancient said. “She has agreed to see you.” The assassin stepped inside, stood unmoving in the dim entryway until his eyes adjusted to the light. The Ancient eyed Hugh quizzically. Other people the Ancient had seen in this position had been limp with relief—some so limp he’d been forced to carry them in. Every member of the Brotherhood knew about the archer. Hugh knew that he’d been a curt nod away from certain death. Still, there was no sign of it on his face, which was harder than the fortress’s granite walls.

Yet perhaps the penetrating eyes of the Ancient did catch a flicker of feeling, though not what the Ancient had expected. When the door offering life instead of death had opened to Hugh the Hand, he had appeared, for an instant, disappointed.

“Will Ciang see me this moment?” Hugh asked, voice gruff and low. He raised his hand, palm outward, to show the scars that crossed it. Part of the ritual. The Ancient peered at the scars intently, though he had known this man for more years than the elder could recall. This, too, was part of the ritual.

“She will, sir. Please go on up. May I say, sir,” the Ancient added, his voice trembling, “that I am truly glad to see you well.” Hugh’s grim and dark expression relaxed. He laid his scarred hand on the old man’s bird-bone-fragile arm in acknowledgment. Then, setting his jaw, the Hand left the old man, began the long climb up the innumerable stairs to Ciang’s private quarters.

The Ancient peered after him. The Hand had always been a strange one. And perhaps the rumors about him were true. That would explain a lot. Shaking his head, knowing that he would likely never find out, the Ancient resumed his post at the door.

Hugh walked slowly up the stairs, looking neither to the left nor to the right. He wouldn’t see anyone anyway, and no one would see him—one of the rules of the fortress. Now that he was here, he was in no hurry. So certain had he been of his death at the hands of the archer that he hadn’t given much thought to what he would do if he didn’t die. As he walked, tugging nervously on one of the braided strands of the beard which straggled from his jutting chin, he pondered what he would say. He rehearsed several variations. At length he gave up.

With Ciang, there was only one thing to say—the truth. She probably already knew it anyway.

He traversed the silent, empty hallway paneled in dark, highly polished, and extremely rare wood. At the end, Ciang’s door stood open.

Hugh paused outside, looked in.

He had expected to see her seated at her desk, the desk marked with the blood of countless initiates into the Guild. But she was standing in front of one of the diapiond-paned windows, looking out at the wilds of the isle of Skurvash. Ciang could see everything worth seeing from that window: the prosperous town—a smuggler’s haven—rambling along the shoreline; the craggy forest of the brittle hargast trees that separated town from fortress; the single narrow path that led from town to fortress (a dog walking along that path could be seen by every lookout in the Brotherhood); and beyond and above and below, the sky, in which the isle of Skurvash floated.

Hugh’s hand clenched; his mouth was so dry he could not for a moment announce himself; his heart beat rapidly.

The elf woman was old; many considered her the oldest living person in Arianus. She was small and fragile. Hugh could have crushed her with one of his strong hands. She was dressed in the bright-colored silken robes the elves fancy, and even at her age there was a delicacy, a grace, a hint of what reputedly had once been remarkable beauty. Her head was bald, the skull exquisitely shaped, the skin smooth and without blemish, an interesting contrast to the wrinkled face.

The absence of hair made her slanted eyes appear large and liquid, and when she turned—not at the sound but at the absence of sound—the penetrating look from those dark eyes was the arrow shaft that had not, until now, lodged in his breast.

“You risk much coming back, Hugh the Hand,” Ciang said.

“Not as much as you might think, Ciang,” he replied. His answer was neither flippant nor sarcastic. He spoke in a voice pitched low, its tone dull and lifeless. That arrow shaft, it seemed, would have robbed him of very little.

“Did you come here hoping to die?” Ciang’s lip curled. She despised cowards. She had not moved from her place by the window, nor had she invited Hugh into her room, asked him to be seated. A bad sign. In the ritual of the Brotherhood, this meant that she, too, was shunning him. But he was endowed with the rank of “hand,” next to her own—“arm”—the highest ranking in the Brotherhood. She would grant him the favor of listening to his explanation before she passed sentence.

“I wouldn’t have been disappointed if the arrow had found its mark.” Hugh’s expression was grim. “But no. I didn’t come here looking for death. I have a contract.” He grimaced as he spoke. “I’ve come for help, advice.”

“The contract from the Kenkari.” Ciang’s eyes narrowed. Despite all he knew of Ciang, Hugh was surprised at her knowledge of this. His meeting with the Kenkari—the sect of elves who held in their care the souls of elven dead—had been shrouded in secrecy. So Ciang had her spies even among that pious sect.

“No, it is not from them,” Hugh explained, frowning. “Though they are the ones who are forcing me to fulfill it.”

“Forcing you? To fulfill a contract—a sacred commitment? Do you mean to tell me, Hugh the Hand, that you would not have done so if the Kenkari had not forced you?”

Ciang was truly angry now. Two spots of crimson stained her wrinkled cheeks, mounted up from the wizened neck. Her hand stretched forth like a claw, pointing a skeletal, accusatory finger at him.

“The rumors we have heard about you are true, then. You have lost your nerve.” Ciang started to turn around, started to turn her back on him. Once she did, he was a dead man. Worse than dead, for without her help he would not be able to fulfill his contract, and that meant he would die dishonored. Hugh broke the rules. He walked into the room uninvited, strode across the carpeted floor to Ciang’s desk. On the desk was a wooden box, encrusted with sparkling gems. Hugh lifted the lid.

Ciang paused, looked back over her shoulder. Her face hardened. He had broken her unwritten law, and if she decided against him his punishment would now be far more severe. But she appreciated bold and daring moves, and this was certainly one of the boldest anyone had ever made in her presence. She waited to see the outcome.

Hugh reached into the box, pulled out a sharp dagger whose golden hilt was fashioned in the shape of a hand—palm flat, fingers pressed together, the extended thumb forming the crosspiece. Taking the ceremonial dagger, Hugh advanced to stand before Ciang.

She regarded him coolly, with detached curiosity, not in the least frightened.

“What is this?”

Hugh fell on his knees. Raising the dagger, he offered it—hilt first, blade pointed at his breast—to Ciang.

She accepted it, her hand wrapping around the hilt with loving skill. Hugh drew back the collar of his shirt, laid bare his neck. “Stab me here, Ciang,” he said, voice harsh and chill. “In the throat.” He did not look at her. His eyes stared out the window, into the dusk. The Lords of Night were spreading their cloaks across Solarus; evening’s shadows were crawling over Skurvash.

Ciang held the dagger in her right hand. Stretching forth her left, she grabbed hold of the twisted strands of beard, jerked his head upward and around to face her—also giving her better leverage if she did decide to slit his throat.

“You have done nothing to deserve such an honor, Hugh the Hand,” she said coldly. “Why do you demand your death at my hand?”

“I want to go back,” he said in a lifeless monotone. Ciang was rarely startled, but this statement, made so calmly and flatly, took her by surprise. She released him, fell back a step, and peered intently into the man’s dark eyes. She saw no gleam of madness. Only an emptiness, as if she looked into a dry well.

Hugh grasped the leather jerkin he wore, wrenched it apart. He ripped the shirt seam wide.

“Look at my chest. Look well. The mark is hard to see.” He was a dark-complexioned man; his breast was matted with thick, curly black hair, beginning to gray.

“Here,” he said and guided Ciang’s unresisting hand to the part of his breast over the heart.

She looked closely, running her fingers through his chest hair, their touch like bird claws scraping over his flesh. He shivered; the flesh rose in small bumps.

Ciang drew in a deep breath, snatched her hand away. She stared at him in awe slowly crystallizing into understanding.

“The rune-magic!” she breathed.

His head bowed as if in defeat, Hugh sank back on his heels. One hand went to his breast, convulsively grasping the shirt and drawing the two torn halves together again.

The other hand clenched into a fist. His shoulders slumped; he stared unseeing at the floor.

Ciang stood over him, the dagger still balanced in her hand but now forgotten. She had not known fear in a long, long time. How long she couldn’t even remember. And then it hadn’t been fear like this—a crawling worm in the bowels.

The world was changing, changing in drastic ways. Ciang knew it. She wasn’t afraid of change. She had looked into the future and was ready to meet it. As the world changed, so would the Brotherhood. There would be peace among the races now—humans, elves, and dwarves would live together in harmony. The cessation of war and rebellion would be a blow to the organization at first; peace might even mean that the humans and the elves would imagine themselves strong enough to attack the Brotherhood. Ciang doubted that, however. Too many human barons, too many elven lords owed the Brotherhood too many favors. Ciang wasn’t afraid of peace. True peace would be obtained only if every elf and human and dwarf had his or her head cut off and heart cut out. So long as there was life, there would be jealousy, greed, hatred, lust, and so long as there were heads to think and hearts to feel, the Brotherhood would be there to act.

Ciang didn’t fear the future in a world where all things were equal. But this—this upset the balance. Knocked over the scale. She must deal with it swiftly, if she could. For the first time in her life, Ciang doubted herself. That was the root of the fear.

She looked at the dagger, dropped it to the floor.

Ciang placed her hands on Hugh’s gaunt and hollow cheeks, lifted his head gently. “My poor boy,” she said to him softly. “My poor boy.” His eyes dimmed with tears. His body shuddered. He hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten for so long he had lost the need for either. He fell into her hands like rotten fruit.

“You must tell me everything,” she whispered. Ciang pressed the man’s unresisting head against her bony breast, crooned over him. “Tell me everything, Hugh. Only then can I help you.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to keep back the tears, but he was too weak. He gave a wrenching sob, covered his face with his hands.

Ciang held him, rocked with him back and forth. “Tell me everything...”