The Vondish Ambassador

Chapter Twenty

Emmis glanced uneasily out the parlor window. How long did it take to buy a jar of honey? Zhol had been gone for hours, surely. Even Lar and Lord Ildirin had apparently run out of things to say; in fact, Lord Ildirin appeared to have dozed off in his chair, though Emmis would not put it past the old scoundrel to be faking.

Lar, of course, was still wide awake, with Ahan keeping a close watch to make sure he stayed that way.

A sound from the hallway brought Lar, Ahan, and Emmis alert; Ildirin slept on, untroubled. Emmis rose and peered around the doorframe.

The front door was still closed; he turned the other way to see Ithinia approaching, a crystal goblet in one hand and her wizard’s dagger in the other.

The wizard spotted Emmis. “Is the ambassador ready?” she demanded.

“Yes, I think so,” Emmis replied, glancing over his shoulder at Lar. The Vondishman was rising from his seat.

“I’d prefer he not be sitting when I do this; I’m not sure how much he’ll weigh, and I don’t want him to break my chair.”

“I’ll tell him,” Emmis said, turning.

“I heard,” Lar said. “Ahan, would you please wake Lord Ildirin?”

Emmis stepped aside and let Ithinia pass by him into the parlor; as he did, he glanced at the front door.

What had happened to Zhol and his honey? If the petrifaction spell was ready, then it must have been almost three hours since the guardsman headed off toward Cut Street Market, and it couldn’t be more than a dozen blocks away!

But right now, he wanted to see the spell. He had never seen anyone turned to stone before. There were statues here and there around the city that were rumored to have been alive once, the work of a magician rather than a sculptor, but Emmis had no idea whether any of those stories were true, and he certainly hadn’t observed any of the transformations.

And he wanted to see what Fendel’s Assassin did. He wanted to be there to help if something went wrong.

So he turned away from the door and followed Ithinia into the parlor.

Lord Ildirin was blinking in his chair, still a bit fuddled; Ahan was standing beside him with his bandaged hand on the hilt of his sword. Emmis would have thought the truncheon would be more appropriate, as Ozya, the guard on Games Street, had explained, but Ahan seemed to think otherwise. Perhaps Lord Ildirin’s special guards followed different rules.

Lar was standing in front of his chair, looking pale — the long wait, the knowledge that the invisible assassin was after him and probably in that very room, the prospect of being petrified even temporarily, obviously had the Vondishman scared. Still, he stood straight and unflinching, facing the wizard. He had left his hat on a small table, though; he was probably worried that the plume would shatter if turned to stone, Emmis thought.

Then he grimaced at his own foolishness. The man had taken the hat off hours ago, not long after they first arrived, because there was no reason to wear it in Ithinia’s parlor. Worries about the plume had nothing to do with it.

Guildmaster Ithinia was standing facing the ambassador; her fine white robe had acquired gray smudges here and there, especially on the lower part of each sleeve, but still looked quite elegant. She stood as tall as Lar, Emmis noticed — tall for a woman.

In her right hand she held a dagger, point down — an old dagger, the blade darkened with age, the edges shaped into odd, subtle curves by countless sharpenings, the leather grip visibly worn and shaped by use to fit Ithinia’s hand. The dagger had been elegant once, if not extravagant, after a fashion Emmis had seen occasionally in family heirlooms at least a century or two old. This knife had clearly been around for a long time, and seen heavy use; Emmis wondered if it was a legacy from some beloved ancestor, or whether its age gave it special potency.

In her left hand was a crystal goblet that held perhaps half a cup of something brownish. The goblet was of good quality, but appeared new and unremarkable; Emmis knew he could find a hundred like it in the Old Merchants’ Quarter.

“Are you ready, Lar Samber’s son?” the Guildmaster asked, in a loud, carrying voice.

Lar swallowed. “I am,” he said.

“Then let us see what Fendel’s Assassin makes of this!” She swung her arms together, the left dropping below, the right rising above, and plunged the dagger into the goblet.

The instant the tip of the blade touched the brown liquid Lar straightened up as if stung. His pale face turned unnaturally gray — not the gray of terror or ill health, but the gray of stone. His hair followed a split second later, and then his clothing, and then Lar was gone, transformed into a lifeless statue.

The transition was soundless, and for a moment the room was silent as Emmis, Ithinia, and Ildirin all stared at the petrified foreigner.

Then Ithinia pulled the dagger out of the goblet. She turned and set the crystal vessel down, very carefully, on a table, then pulled a cloth from her sleeve and wiped her dagger clean. She looked around the room.

“Is he... Is the creature still here?” Emmis asked.

“Yes,” Ithinia said. She held up the dagger, and Emmis could see that the tip was glowing faintly blue, as if catching blue light from some unseen source.

“Why?”

“Did you give it the honey you swore you would?”

“No, not yet.”

“Perhaps it wants its honey, then,” Ithinia said. “Or perhaps it doesn’t think he’s dead.”

“But — but he’s stone!”

“Granite, to be exact.” She eyed the statue thoughtfully. “But he’s not really dead, and I’d guess the killer knows it.”

“Well, it does now,” Lord Ildirin said, annoyed. “You just told it!”

“Oh, it never believes anything a human says about such matters,” Ithinia said, unconcerned. “That’s to prevent anyone from tricking it, from talking their way out of assassination. It has its own standards.”

“But he’s stone!” Emmis protested. “It must just be waiting for the honey I promised it.”

Ithinia shook her head. “Let me try something,” she said. She reached into a pocket of her robe and brought out something Emmis couldn’t see, pinched between thumb and forefinger. She stepped up to the statue that had been the Vondish ambassador.

Emmis wanted to shout at her to get away, lest she break it, but he knew that was absurd. She was a wizard — not just a wizard, a Guildmaster, whatever exactly that meant. She surely knew what she was doing.

And Lar was stone now, anyway — what could hurt him?

Ithinia flung the pinch of whatever it was into the statue’s motionless face and said something, words that not only weren’t Ethsharitic, but didn’t sound as if they should be coming from a human throat at all. She gestured, an odd twisting motion that ended with her fingers spread wide, palm up, then said one final alien word.

Again, silence fell, as everyone stared at the statue.

Then they all heard, very clearly, the sound of claws scraping on stone.

The scratching continued for what seemed to Emmis like an eternity; he stared at the statue’s throat, watching worriedly for a mark on the hard gray stone.

He had thought the creature would consider Lar to be dead, but obviously that hadn’t happened. It hadn’t even thought he was sleeping, but now it did, now that Ithinia had done whatever it was she had done, and in accord with its instructions the monster was trying to wring Lar’s neck.

Just one attempt, Lord Ildirin had said — but how determined an attempt? Would the thing keep trying until it did gouge the stone? What would that do when Lar was restored to life?

Then at last the scratching stopped, and Emmis let out his breath. He hadn’t realized he had been holding it.

“There,” Ithinia said. “It’s done.” She held up her dagger again, and frowned.

The tip was still glowing blue.

“It wants the honey Emmis promised it,” Ildirin said.

“So it appears,” Ithinia agreed. “That’s inconvenient. I don’t think it would be wise to turn Lar back to flesh while the assassin is around. Ordinarily it would only try to kill him once, but ordinarily it would vanish if that first try failed.”

“What if it succeeded?” Emmis asked.

“Oh, then it would report back to the wizard who summoned it. Then it would vanish.”

“How can you tell whether it’s vanished?” Ildirin asked. “It’s invisible!”

“There are ways,” Ithinia said, gesturing with her dagger. “I’m not the only one who knows simple detection spells. Fendel’s Assassin has been in use for centuries, and there’s been plenty of opportunity to experiment with it, and learn just how it does and doesn’t work.”

“Then why hasn’t anyone ever tried petrifaction before?” Ildirin demanded. “Emmis is a clever lad, but surely there have been other clever people involved in all that experimentation!”

“Of course there have,” Ithinia retorted. “Someone may have tried Fendel’s Superior Petrifaction before, and I just hadn’t heard of it. Or it may be that the particular combination of circumstances we have here has never arisen when someone clever was around, or it may be that the victims found equally clever and more effective ways to deal with the killer. As I said, there are no certain defenses against Fendel’s Assassin, but there are a dozen ways around it if the wizard casting the spell hasn’t been careful in his instructions. The Cloak of Ethereality, for example, would probably be more useful than petrifaction under most circumstances.”

Emmis turned to stare at the wizard. “Then why didn’t you use that?” he said.

“You didn’t ask,” Ithinia said. “Lord Ildirin wanted me to use Fendel’s Superior Petrifaction, so I used Fendel’s Superior Petrifaction.” She turned up an empty left palm. “Besides, there would be difficulties with the Cloak of Ethereality in this case; the circumstances are not quite the usual situation. And just for my own curiosity, I wanted to see whether the Petrifaction would work — which, as you saw, it didn’t, until I also cast a simple sleep spell, Felshen’s First Hypnotic. You should be glad that the assassin wasn’t told to smash in your friend’s head with a sledgehammer — I doubt even granite would hold up to that. And you might want to thank me for taking the trouble to use granite — white marble is the standard stone for this spell, and it’s not clear whether that would have survived. Sandstone is even easier, and the Vondishman’s head would not still be attached if I had used that.”

Emmis swallowed. “Thank you, Guildmaster,” he said.

“Now, I would suggest you give the thing its honey. Didn’t you send one of the guards to get some?”

“He hasn’t come back yet,” Emmis said.

Ithinia was obviously surprised by that. “Where did you send him? Southgate?”

“Cut Street Market,” Emmis told her.

“Cut Street?” She shook her head. “They close early this time of year, and I’m not sure you’d find honey there in any case. Southmarket or Westgate would be better, if you insist on a proper market, or if you want somewhere closer, one of the shops in Allston or the Merchants’ Quarters.”

“Oh,” Emmis said. “I didn’t know.”

“Apparently Zhol didn’t, either,” Ildirin remarked.

“Or something happened to him,” Emmis said.

Ildirin cocked his head. “Zhol is one of my guards; he’s carrying a sword and a club and knows how to use them both. What would happen to him on the public streets?”

“I don’t know,” Emmis said. “But he hasn’t come back, and it’s been hours.”

“Perhaps he came across some matter that required his attention,” Lord Ildirin said. “A disturbance he felt it necessary to deal with, for example.”

Emmis glanced at Ahan. “Would he do that, though? I mean, would he intervene, instead of going on with his errand?”

“He’s a human being, and a guardsman; who knows?” Ildirin said, showing an empty palm.

Emmis looked uneasily at his petrified employer. “Guildmaster,” he said, “are you sure you can’t spare me any of your own honey, so that we can get on with this business?”

“Quite sure,” she said. “I checked my supplies; I have scarcely a spoonful remaining, as it happens. In fact, I would appreciate it if you could buy a jar for me, as well.”

“Oh,” Emmis said.

“There’s a wizards’ supplier named Tanna on Ginger Street, in Spicetown, who carries a dozen varieties of honey,” Ithinia said. “She’s expensive, of course, but if you need honey made from a particular flower, or by a particular strain of bee, or whatever, she’s the best source.”

“I just need ordinary honey, don’t I?” Emmis said. “I’ll try the Old Merchants’ Quarter. It’s a bit closer.”

“As you please.”

“I would suggest you leave immediately,” Ildirin said. “Before everyone’s in bed.”

“Now?” Emmis stared at him. “But everyone is probably already in bed! I was thinking it could wait until morning — I do have until noon...”

“I do not want your petrified friend cluttering up my parlor all night,” Ithinia said.

“And I’d like a chance to speak to the Guildmaster in private,” Lord Ildirin said. “If all else fails, there are all-night sweet shops in Camptown, for the whores and soldiers, and you could buy a bag of honey drops.”

“Oh.” Emmis looked from Ildirin to Ithinia and back; neither face seemed welcoming. “All right, then, I’ll go.”

“Hurry back with the honey,” the wizard said.

“Zhol might be back any minute.”

“Or he might not,” Ithinia said. “Go.”

“Can’t you find him, with your magic?” Emmis asked.

“That’s a good question,” Ithinia said. “I may find out while you’re gone.”

Emmis sighed. “Yes, Guildmaster.”

A moment later he stepped out the front door onto Lower Street, and shivered — the night air was chilly, and a sharp breeze was blowing from the east. Emmis thought he could smell the peculiar and distinctive odor of the Old City on the wind.

The remaining guard on the door, a man called Shakoph, gave him a worried look. “What’s going on in there?” he asked.

“The spell worked,” Emmis said, “but we need that honey to make the creature go away.”

“Zhol isn’t back yet,” Shakoph said. “I don’t know why.”

“I know,” Emmis said. “And we’ll worry about that once we’re done with the ambassador’s assassin, but right now I need to go find honey somewhere.”

Shakoph looked along the empty street, and up at the overcast night sky. “Good luck with that,” he said.

“Thank you,” Emmis said. He turned west, and headed toward the Old Merchants’ Quarter at a brisk trot.

He had gone about a block, just past the intersection with Old East Avenue, when he heard voices behind him. He glanced over his shoulder.

Someone was talking to the guard at Ithinia’s door, a man in a nondescript dark tunic; it was hard to see details in the faint, patchy light that came from the windows and lampposts.

It wasn’t Zhol, Emmis saw — just some passerby, probably curious about what a guardsman was doing there. Nothing to do with Emmis or Lord Ildirin or the ambassador, surely. Emmis turned west again.

He had gone another five blocks and turned the corner onto Merchant Street when he heard the footsteps behind him. He paused, and looked around.

Merchant Street was lit by well-spaced torches, much as Arena Street was on the other side of the New City, but it was largely deserted at this hour — Emmis thought it must be almost midnight, and most merchants and their customers were long since abed. A cart creaked faintly in the distance, down toward the Palace and the Grand Canal, and far up the slope to the south he could hear a woman’s laughter, probably coming from an open window somewhere.

And in the shadows of Lower Street, where he had just come from, he could see a tall, thin figure carrying a walking stick. Emmis frowned.

Then the figure stepped out into the torchlight of Merchant Street, and Emmis got a good look at him — tall, thin, curly hair, pointed beard...

“You!” he said, backing away.

“Me,” the man with the sword-stick said, raising his weapon.