The Vondish Ambassador

Chapter Twenty-One

“You cost us a good job,” the would-be assassin said, approaching Emmis warily and keeping the exposed blade of his stick pointed at Emmis’s heart. “We could have lived half a year on what that Lumethan madman was paying!”

Emmis tried to think what he could do. Charging the man here in the open street, the way he had in the entryway of the house on Through Street, wouldn’t work; there was plenty of room for him to dodge, and he would be charging directly onto the point of that sword-stick.

He could turn and run, yelling; he might be able to outrun the man, and shouting might rouse someone to his aid. His attacker was tall, though, and those long legs might mean speed. Emmis had eluded him before, but the circumstances had been rather different.

Still, flight seemed like the best choice — but then he heard a sound behind him. He turned to see a man in a brown tunic emerging from Coronet Street, a man who held a dagger in each hand.

The other assassin. He was trapped between them.

Emmis drew his belt-knife; at the very least he didn’t intend to make this easy for them. He turned his back to the wall of the nearest shop, glancing quickly back and forth between his two foes.

The tall one with the stick was moving in quickly, blade raised to strike; Emmis readied his own knife to attempt a parry.

And then the stick suddenly snapped in two, and the attacker stopped in mid-lunge in an utterly unnatural fashion. The piece of stick with the blade went spinning harmlessly aside, and the handle was ripped from its owner’s grasp.

“Honey!” a hideous voice growled. “He has promised honey! No harm must come to him until he has kept his vow!”

The tall man staggered back, stunned; on the other side the man in the brown tunic said, “Magic!” and turned to run.

Emmis hesitated for only an instant, then stepped forward and grabbed the disarmed man’s tunic with one hand, while his other held his belt-knife to the man’s throat. Behind him, he heard running footsteps fading as the other man fled.

“Keep your hands well away,” Emmis snapped, pressing his blade hard enough to indent his foe’s skin, but not to draw blood. “Don’t try anything — and if your friend doubles back, you’re a dead man.”

“All right,” the tall man said. “All right!”

“The thing that broke your stick is called Fendel’s Assassin,” Emmis growled, pushing his face up close to his attacker’s. “It’s still here, watching and listening, and it can rip a man’s head off with its claws.”

“I believe you!” He clapped a hand to his face, and Emmis noticed for the first time that he had a fresh gash on his cheek, half-hidden by his beard. The creature’s claws must have slashed him there.

Emmis shuddered. “Now, who are you, and why did you attack me?” he demanded.

“Kelder of Newgate — I swear, my name’s really Kelder. Some foreigner was in the Hundred-Foot Field looking for someone who could kill this Vondish ambassador, and Tithi and I, we’ve been trying to make a name as bonebreakers, so we volunteered for the job, but then you turned up instead of the target and stirred up the neighbors and we ran for it before the guards showed their faces.”

“So why are you here?”

“You cost us a job! The foreigner in the robe wouldn’t pay us, or give us another chance — he even tried to demand the earnest money back, said he’d hire a wizard instead, that magic was more reliable than a pair like us. We’ve got our reputation to think of; we had to kill you and the Vondishman, and anyone else who got in the way, or no one would ever take us seriously again. So Tithi followed you to Lower Street, then fetched me, and we were trying to pick you all off one by one. We followed that guard to see what he was up to and then ambushed him on his way back, and then you came out next and we...”

Emmis suddenly felt sick. “What guard?”

“The one who was at the door earlier.”

“You mean Zhol?”

“How would I know his name? He was a guardsman. Breastplate, red kilt — he had a sword as well as his club, but he didn’t have time to draw it, I got him in the throat from behind while Tithi had him distracted.”

“You killed a guardsman?”

“I told you, we were trying to make a name for ourselves!”

The sick shock Emmis had felt at the news of Zhol’s murder was turning to fury. “Oh, there’s a name for people who kill guards, all right! The name is idiot! You kill a guardsman, you’ve made ten thousand sworn enemies who won’t rest until they see you hanged!” He pressed his knife harder, and drew a thin line of blood. “Where’d you leave him? You’re sure he’s dead?”

The man’s terrified expression suddenly changed, and the hand that had been held to his cheek suddenly dropped to Emmis’s wrist; the other hand, which Emmis had stopped watching, came up in a fist and slammed into his belly.

Kelder, if that was really his name, was strong for someone so thin, but six years working on the docks had made Emmis strong by any standard; the punch to the gut hurt, but he did not double over, and the grip on his wrist was not enough to loosen his hold on his belt-knife. He pulled with his left hand and pushed with his right, trying to force the blade into the man’s neck.

But then something else moved. As Kelder drew his fist back for another blow, his arm twisted unnaturally to the side, and Emmis heard bone snap. Kelder gasped in agony.

“No harm must come to him until he has kept his vow!” the creature’s voice repeated.

Kelder let out a sob of pain and rage and tried to step back, but Emmis was still clutching his tunic. He released his hold on Emmis’s wrist.

“Please,” he said.

“Where is he?” Emmis hissed, still holding his knife to the other man’s throat.

“What’s going on here?” a new voice demanded. Emmis turned his head — not far enough to take his eyes entirely off Kelder, but enough to see who was speaking.

It was a guardsman, not one he recognized, in the familiar red kilt and gray breastplate; he had his truncheon in hand. He carried no sword, but a small tin lantern hung from his belt, the mark of a night watchman.

It wasn’t lit, though — Merchant Street had enough torches that it wasn’t needed.

“This man says he killed a guard,” Emmis said. “I’m trying to get him to lead me to the body.”

“What’s wrong with his arm?” the guardsman said, eyeing the pair warily.

“I broke it,” Emmis said.

“He didn’t break it!” Kelder said. “His invisible monster did!”

Emmis glared. “Does that matter? Guardsman, he says he killed one of Lord Ildirin’s elite guards, a man named Zhol, and I want him to lead me to the body. Zhol may not be dead; he might need help!”

“I didn’t kill anyone!” Kelder announced. “This man attacked me!”

Emmis sighed. Kelder’s instinct for self-preservation had obviously kicked in, and he had realized that if he admitted to killing Zhol he would indeed be hanged.

“He slashed my cheek and broke my arm and held a knife to my throat!” Kelder embellished.

“Guardsman, he attacked me,” Emmis said. “And I’ll be happy to accompany you to a magistrate and let him and his hired magicians sort it out.”

“I don’t have time for that,” Kelder insisted. “I’m a respectable citizen of Ethshar, and this ruffian broke my arm! I need a witch!”

“A witch can tell who’s telling the truth,” Emmis suggested.

For a moment Kelder’s expression slipped from pain and righteous anger to guilty terror; then he caught himself. “I’m sure,” he said. “But right now I need someone to set my bones, or heal my arm. Perhaps a warlock or a wizard would do?”

“What was that about an invisible monster?” the guardsman asked.

“It’s called Fendel’s Assassin,” Emmis said. “It’s a long story, and Zhol might be lying somewhere bleeding to death.”

“This Zhol’s a guardsman?”

It finally registered with Emmis that this particular guardsman was not exactly quick-witted, or at any rate would never qualify for Lord Ildirin’s escort. “Yes,” he said, “and this man knows where he is.” He turned to Kelder. “And he had really better tell us now where Zhol is, or I’ll tell the invisible monster to break his other arm.”

Kelder looked worried, but did not reply immediately, so Emmis added, “I think the monster would also like to know that Zhol had the honey I had promised it.”

“Honey?”

The guardsman started at the inhuman voice that came from empty air. Then Kelder was torn from Emmis’s grasp and dragged upright until his toes barely touched the ground. “Tell!” the creature said.

“Aggkh!” Kelder said.

“Perhaps you should lower him so he can talk,” Emmis suggested.

The guardsman frowned at Emmis. “You’re a warlock?”

“No,” Emmis said, exasperated. “I’m not any sort of magician, but I did promise this thing the honey that Zhol was carrying. Now, where is he?”

“Alley!” Kelder said, as the grip on his throat loosened. “Alley near Southmarket!”

“Lead the way,” Emmis said, sheathing his belt-knife.

“Wait a minute...” the guardsman began.

“We don’t have a minute!” Emmis shouted. “Zhol could be bleeding to death!”

Kelder suddenly crumpled to the ground as the creature released him. “Lead,” that ghastly voice said.

“Lead,” the guardsman agreed. “Come on, you.” He prodded Kelder with his truncheon.

Kelder screamed as his broken arm folded under him; Emmis started back, but the guardsman reached down and grabbed the fallen assassin by the shoulder and hauled him upright. “Which way?” he demanded.

Kelder whimpered, and pointed.

The three men — and presumably the invisible monster, though Emmis couldn’t be sure of that — made their way through the late-night streets, with the guardsman supporting the reluctant Kelder, who directed them down Merchant Street to Cut Street Market.

They saw a few people as they walked, but always at a distance; the few who noticed the three men generally took one look at the guardsman hauling a captive and decided they would rather be somewhere else.

The market, when they reached it, was deserted and dark — hardly surprising, as Emmis estimated it must be about midnight by now.

“He came here first,” Kelder explained, “but of course everything was closed, so he went down Embroidery Street. Listen, I really think...”

“Shut up,” Emmis told him.

This, he realized, was not at all the most direct route to Southmarket, or presumably to where Zhol was; instead they were retracing the route that the guardsman had taken, with the pair of would-be killers following him. He didn’t bother to protest, though — having gone as far out of their way as Cut Street Market, the route from here was probably about as direct as one could get in Ethshar.

As they marched south on Embroidery, and then turned east on Carriage Street, Emmis kept urging the other two to go faster. “It’s his arm that’s broken, not his leg,” he pointed out.

“I’m in pain!” Kelder protested.

“So is Zhol, if he’s still alive.”

“I don’t think he is,” Kelder said, with a wary glance at the guardsman’s face.

Emmis glared at him. “You better hope Zhol is still alive,” he said. “It’s the only way you’ll escape the noose.”

Kelder looked unconvinced; he clearly thought he and his partner had killed Zhol. Emmis still held out some hope, though; the pair were obviously not very good at their job, or much of anything else so far as Emmis could see, so they might well have misjudged how effectively they had dealt with Lord Ildirin’s guard.

When Carriage Street dead-ended in a T intersection in a neighborhood Emmis had never seen before they turned south again for a block, then east, then south on what Emmis thought might be an unfamiliar stretch of West Avenue, which curved down the slope to Southmarket.

“Shouldn’t we have my arm tended to first?” Kelder whined.

“No,” Emmis said. “Would you rather worry about your arm, or your neck?”

Kelder just whimpered in reply.

Emmis wondered whether Kelder was really suffering as much as he appeared; he knew the man was a liar, but surely he had the sense to see that his best chance of survival was finding Zhol alive, and would understand that dawdling was counter-productive.

Or was it, from Kelder’s point of view? Perhaps he was hoping someone would intervene on his behalf — his partner Tithi, for example.

Or the Lumethans. Emmis frowned, and started looking around more carefully at the alleys and rooftops. Tithi probably didn’t have the nerve to attack two grown men, even if he didn’t think the invisible monster was still around, but he might have had the nerve to find the Lumethans and ask for their help.

Hagai was a theurgist, and the other two might be magicians, as well, for all Emmis knew. They might be a real problem if they did come to Kelder’s assistance.

Southmarket, when they finally reached it, was as dark and almost as empty as Cut Street Market had been; a few stalls stood along the sides, but all were securely closed up for the night, with heavy bars and sturdy shutters guarding whatever might be inside. There were parts of the city that stayed bright and active all night, but they were in Camptown or Westgate, not here in the respectable neighborhoods of Southmarket and Freshwater.

“This way,” Kelder said, pointing east.

Emmis began to wonder if the scoundrel was really leading them to Zhol at all. Perhaps this was all a diversion of some sort? Were Tithi and the Lumethans and an assortment of hired thugs besieging Ithinia’s house even now, trying to kill the ambassador?

No, that was absurd, Emmis told himself. No one would attack the home of a powerful wizard — well, no one but an equally powerful magician, and Emmis doubted that any of the Lumethans qualified. When he had met them at the Crooked Candle they simply hadn’t had the air of authority, of power, that high-order magicians always seemed to have.

But even so, he wondered what was happening back on Lower Street. Was Lar still a stone statue in Ithinia’s parlor? Were Ildirin and Ahan and Shakoph worried about Zhol and himself? What had Ildirin wanted to discuss with the Guildmaster?

Kelder had led them out of the market and up Circus Street — Emmis remembered it from a long-ago day when he and his sisters had met up with a friend’s cousins in Freshwater, then cut through Southmarket on the way to a performance at the Arena, the eight of them laughing and teasing one another.

It looked very different by night, but he still recognized it.

But then they turned north onto... Canal Avenue, was it? Emmis wasn’t sure.

“There,” Kelder said, pointing. “That’s the alley. Tithi lured him in and I stabbed him.”

The guardsman started to say something and to shove Kelder forward, but Emmis ignored them and ran to the narrow opening Kelder had indicated.

The alley beyond was almost totally black; there were no lit windows, no torches, no moonslight, and the dull glow reflecting off the overcast did little to help.

“I need a light,” Emmis said, peering into the gloom. “Give me your lantern.”

“It’s not lit,” the guard said, as he awkwardly unhooked it from his belt, using just one hand because his other was still locked onto Kelder’s shoulder.

“I’ll manage.” He took the lantern, then fished in his belt-pouch for flint, steel, and tinder.

As he knelt in the mouth of the alley, struggling to strike a light, he listened closely, hoping to hear breathing in the darkness around the corner, breathing that would mean Zhol was still alive.

Even better, perhaps, would be if Zhol was not there at all, if he had recovered enough to make his way out of the alley to find help — but if he wasn’t there, how would they find him? If there was no sign he had been there, would that mean he had recovered, or that Kelder had lied?

Then the tinder caught, and he opened the lantern and carefully held the spark to the wick within. It caught, and light flared up.

Emmis lifted the lantern high, and peered into the alley.

Zhol was there, lying face-down in the dirt — and in a pool of dried blood.

There was no question at all — he was dead.