The Queen's assassin

Chapter Twenty-Three

Outside it was already dark, although the time was barely late afternoon. Huge fat flakes of snow fell. From the window Sardec could see the ships’ lights reflected in the oil-coloured sea beneath them. They seemed to be mocking him.

“I could not book us passage, Lady Asea,” said Sardec. “I am sorry.”

“Don’t be. At least you were seen looking, which is important. Our enemies will believe that we are stymied, and that they have us where they want us.”

“Possibly because they do, Milady.”

“Perhaps,” she said.

“If we cannot get out by ship, and I am convinced that even if we could hire one we would not get far, how are we going to get out — fly?”

“Keep your voice down, Lieutenant. It is entirely possible we might just do that.”

“You have managed to rediscover one of the lost spells of Al’Terra?”

“They were never lost, Lieutenant. It’s simply impossible to channel enough power to work them in this world, not without the use of certain forbidden practises anyway.”

“You are surely not suggesting…”

“Not now, and not ever, Lieutenant. You are going to have to trust me a little bit longer.”

“You have had a plan since we came here?”

“I have.”

“Why did you not tell me?”

“I thought you would be more convincingly desperate if you did not know.”

“You were correct.” Despite her deception Sardec found his heart had started to lighten. They might get out of Harven after all.

“At the moment I am afraid we have another problem,” Asea said.

“What would that be?”

“My protege has not returned. I made it quite clear he should be back before dark.”

“He may be in a tavern somewhere. I know some of our men are.”

“I have already sent servants out to check.”

“They cannot have gone through every tavern, Milady. I am sure he will turn up soon.”

“I wish I shared your confidence, Lieutenant.”

The Quan floated in. There was no other word to describe the way it moved. Its feet, if it had any feet, did not touch the ground. It drifted slowly. The air around it shimmered, as if a translucent integument surrounded it. Rik thought of the sorcerer Alaryn’s description of the bubble in which he had visited the undersea city. Was this a device that worked like that only in reverse? Were those bubbles of water drifting over the Quan’s cloak? Did some sort of sorcery draw whatever nourishment the creature’s lungs needed from the air and filter it into a cocoon of water?

Malkior stood in the door and gave him a last regretful glance. “Truthfully, I wish things could have turned out differently,” he said.

“I’ll bet you do.”

“Do you have any last words you would like me to communicate to Asea? I will be sure to let her know them just before I kill her.”

“I doubt you will get close enough to use your magic on her the way you did on me.”

“On the contrary, I know my way around the embassy quite well. I have often been Ambassador Valefor’s guest there.”

Rik remembered how Lord Elakar had been killed and his heart sank. The Shadowblood Lord already knew his way into the heart of the embassy. He could get there any time he liked. There was no way he could warn Asea. The way the Quan drifted closer reminded him that he had his own problems.

“Goodbye,” said Malkior, closing the door on his way out. Rik felt a strange tearing sensation in his skull, and a queasiness such as he had felt near the Shadowgate Tamara had used back in Harven. It seemed that Malkior really had left him to his fate or most likely gone off to kill Asea. The Quan drifted closer to Rik. The cloak bubbled. It removed its mask. Rik bit back a scream.

Its face was not in the least human. The thing it reminded him of most was a squid. The head was greenish, leathery, bulbous. The eyes were moist and oddly human, the bottom half of the head was a mass of writhing tentacles. As they moved he saw that at the base of each was a leech-like mouth. Nasty white polyps emerged from the orifices. He had a feeling that he was soon going to find out exactly what they were for.

Malkior had left him with the concealed knife. He felt certain that was not entirely an accident. He let it drop into his hand and aimed a swift stab at the Quan. Fast as he was, it was faster. A tentacle erupted from under the cloak, and looped itself round his wrist. The thing was a mass of muscle. He could not move his hand against its strength. The tentacle constricted. Suckers bit home. He dropped the knife.

The Quan lunged forward. Water bubbled over Rik where its strange shimmering cloak touched him. A mass of tentacles stroked his cheeks, his forehead, his lips. Alien eyes bored into his own. Pain blistered his face. There was grinding sensation as lamprey mouths bit into flesh and bone, a horrible agonising feeling as something burrowed into his flesh. He remembered the white polyps. They had reminded him of corpse worms. Now they seemed to be slowly eating their way into his brain.

As quickly as it came the agony began to fade, as if there was something in the bite that had an anaesthetic quality. A wave of coolness radiated out from where the tentacles stroked his flesh. They bulged and contracted obscenely, as if they were pumping blood from his face. He tried to breath, but his mouth filled up with salt water from the thing’s cloak. It came to him then, that death was real and the end of his life was very close.

The pain returned, redoubled. Not just blood but his very life force was being drained out of him. He sensed the presence of the creature that was killing him in his mind, its alien thought processes mingling with his own. A flood of memories long buried surged up, tentacles of thought riffled through them, like a burglar searching a chest of drawers for some precious object. Not finding what it wanted, the Quan tapped more memories.

Triumph. The thing had found what it wanted and needed. Images of Serpent Men and a huge green tower flashed into his mind. They were not quite as Rik remembered possibly because the vision of this creature was somewhat different from his own.

The sensation of being drained increased. He realised that the Quan was not only going to devour his life and his blood, it was going to take his thoughts and memories too, even though it could not fully understand them. There was something in him it wanted, and to get that thing, it was going to reduce him to a mindless, drooling husk.

No.

He refused to die this way, like his mother. His will stirred within him, rebelling against the horror and the fear of death. He reached down into himself and drew upon his rage and pain. He focused it incoherently, half-instinctually, drawing on the training he had received from Asea, and forged it into a blade. He lashed out at the Sea Devil. Much to his own surprise, and more to the Quan’s he hit home. The draining sensation receded as the Quan’s mind recoiled. It was not used to its prey fighting back like this.

Having assessed the situation and gauged the strength of its foe, it returned to the fray, striking at Rik as he had struck at it. Rik tried to block but it was like wrestling with a squid. The Quan attacked on too many fronts for him to deal with. They were fighting spirit to spirit, and it seemed like once more he was on the verge of drifting free from his body.

He recalled the initiation ritual Asea has put him through. He retreated into himself, till it seemed that he floated bodiless in the strange place between worlds, where he had made contact with the Deep. Confident, the Sea Devil followed him. Now, though, they were in Rik’s world. He was no longer a drowning, pain-wracked morsel of flesh trapped aboard a water-logged hulk. Here he was a power. This was his dream world, the place where his spirit touched the Deep.

He imagined a burning blade in his hand and armour around his body. Both appeared. He struck at the Quan. Its psychic scream echoed around the other space. It did not give up. It became larger, a titanic monster big enough to pull down a ship. Rik responded in kind, becoming a giant on the same scale. He made his blade hot as the sun. It slashed through the Quan’s covering of water, evaporating some of it, leaving a great seared wound in place. Berserk now, the Quan came back at him, a mass of leech-mouthed tentacles smashed into his armour. Where each of them hit he felt life drain from him. The bites were cold as steel left in winter ice.

He made his own blade hotter, tried to imagine it was like those gaping mouths, able to draw strength from its victim. The blade bit home again and a warm hot surge of strength flowed back into him, and along with it came a mass of strange memories. Images flickered through his mind.

He saw a city of glowing coral deep below the sea, where hundreds of the Quan rippled through the water. Monstrous creatures, a hundred times larger than they, circled spewing seed-like spawn into the water, only one in a thousand of which would survive to adulthood. He saw the vast shining monsters of the ocean depths and the secrets of sunken cities.

His blade bit home again, and more strength flowed into him, warming him. The bites of the tentacles seemed small feeble things now. More and more memories surged into him. He could not process them all, or comprehend even a tiny fraction of them. He tasted raw flesh, raw fish, the orgasmic bliss of draining a mind dry, the flood of thoughts and sensations and memories. He realised that in some small way, a part of all those the Quan had devoured was still within it, and some tiny shred of each victim’s memories had become its own. These he understood, and the tidal wave of horror nearly broke his mind. He endured the deaths of hundreds. He was distracted for a moment, and felt the Quan begin to break free.

Instinct told him that he could not allow that. If the connection between them was severed now, it could kill him in the flesh. Through the pain and the blizzard of stolen memories, he forced himself to act, forging a net of spun thought to catch the beast and draw it back to him. He struck it again and again with his sword of flame, draining more power and more memory from it, until he could strike no more. He knew he was fading and put everything he had into one last blow.

A tidal wave of energy and memory surged over him, smashing him down into darkness.

He woke to find himself sprawled over the slimy wet corpse of the Quan. He felt strange, different, changed. He felt tainted, as if something else had slipped into him, as if by killing the Quan he had somehow become like it. Hundreds of voices whispered to him. He tried to block his ears but the whispering continued for they were in his mind. He wondered if he was sane, if he could ever be sane again after what he had just experienced.

One thing he realised. He was filled with an awesome power. He invoked the healing spells Asea had taught him, and his flesh almost burned with their energy. His lungs cleared. He felt stronger and better than he had done in years. He smiled. That at least was positive.

A hundred voices clamoured desperately in his mind. Thousands of thoughts and memories bubbled up. He wrestled with them, forced them down. With his newly acquired strength it was easy. He felt like a god. He knew he had enough energy to work any sorcery. He had taken it from the Quan. He supposed in his way he had become a Thanatomancer.

He could see how people became addicted to it and the sense of power and well-being it gave. He considered the other spells he knew. His thoughts seemed to have a new clarity. He invoked the spells that would lend him strength and speed. His muscles flexed and bulged. Power flowed through his veins like a drug.

He reached down and picked up the Sea Devil. It was astonishingly light. Whatever sorcery allowed it to move on the surface undoubtedly reduced its weight. He pushed it aside and picked up his knife. He checked the shackles holding him. They were old, and their locks were far from complex and he was a thief from Sorrow. Using the tip of his knife he sprang the mechanism and was free.

He forged a spell-chain in his mind and sent the energy rippling out through his body. The power of his senses became magnified. He could hear whispers in the furthest corners of the hulk, knew that there were guards waiting in the corridor. They were waiting to let the Quan out. He lifted the floating corpse, placed it in front of him and banged on the door. It opened. He pushed the corpse forward so that it impacted on the guards, then stepped forward and killed them both with his knife.

It was easy. They moved so slowly compared to him. Their flesh split like that of a melon. He sprang out into the corridor. More men waited there. Some of them had pistols. He raced forward while they were still confused. Once, twice, three times his blade struck home. Three men died before they even realised what had happened. He picked up a cutlass, stuffed pistols in his belt. He was going to take revenge on some people for what had been done to him.

Yes, yes, went the voices. He forced them down. He could afford no distractions.

He stepped out onto the deck of the hulk. The screams from below had warned the guards on deck. They raised their weapons and raced towards him. He laughed, struck aside one man’s sword arm and buried his dagger in his throat. With a smooth motion he lifted the corpse and hurled it at the remaining guards. He followed it and was among them, killing as he went. Strange exultation and an urge to feed filled him. All of the voices wanted it. He fought that down too. He did not have the time or the knowledge. He hoped he had not the desire.

Within minutes he had cleared the hulk. It appeared he was the only prisoner. Now he wondered how he was going to get off. They were a long way out in the harbour and he could see shapes swimming in the water around the ship. More Quan, he knew. Swimming was not the answer. He searched until he found the small boat tied to the stern of the hulk.

He had no idea whether the Quan would attack him while he was in the boat, but he was going to have to risk it.