«I make neither, Eldering One.» With a soft, hollow laugh, Raest's battered, withered body collapsed.
K'rul cocked his head. «He's found another body.»
Kruppe pulled out his handkerchief. «Oh, my,» he said.
Kalam gestured sharply and Paran ducked down. The captain's mouth was dry. There was something very wrong with this garden. He wondered if it was simply the exhaustion he felt. The garden's air itself rubbed his senses raw. He thought he could see the darkness pulse, and the smell of decay had thickened to a stench.
Kalam reached for his knives. Paran tensed, unable to see anything beyond the assassin. Too many trees, not enough light. Somewhere ahead flickered gas-lamps, and people were gathered on the terrace. But civilization seemed a thousand leagues away. Here, the captain felt as if he was within a primordial presence, breathing slowly and heavily on all sides.
Kalam gestured that Paran remain where he was, then slipped into the shadows to their right. Crouching low, the captain edged forward to where the assassin had been standing moments earlier. There looked to be a glade, or clearing, just ahead. He couldn't be certain, however, nor could he see anything amiss. Yet his feeling of wrongness now ached in his skull. He took another step. Something occupied the glade's centre, blockish, like a dressed stone, or an altar, and before it stood a small woman, almost wraith-like in the darkness. Her back was to Paran.
One moment she stood alone, the next Kalam rose behind her, knives glimmering in his hands. He drew back his arms.
The woman moved in a blur, one elbow driving backwards into the assassin's stomach. She twisted round and drove her knee into the man's crotch. A shout burst from Kalam as he reeled back a step, then fell to the ground with a heavy thump.
Paran's sword was in his hand. He dashed into the clearing.
The woman saw him and voiced a surprised, frightened yelp. «No!» she cried. «Please!» The captain stopped at that girlish voice. Kalam sat up. He groaned, then said, «Dammit, Sorry. Wasn't expecting you. We figured you were dead, girl.»
The woman eyed Paran warily as he approached cautiously. «I should know you, shouldn't I?» she asked Kalam. Then, as Paran came closer she raised a frightened hand between them and stepped back. «I–I killed you!» With a soft moan she fell to her knees. «Your blood was on hands. I remember it!» A fire of rage flared in Paran. He raised his sword and moved to stand over her.
«Wait!» Kalam hissed. «Wait, Captain. Something's not right here.»
With great difficulty, the assassin climbed to his feet, then prepared to sit down on the stone block.
«Don't!» the girl gasped. «Can't you feel it?»
«I can,» Paran growled. He lowered his weapon. «Don't touch thing, Corporal.»
Kalam stepped away. «Thought it was just me,» he muttered.
«It's not stone at all,» the woman said, her face free of the anguish that had twisted it a moment before. «It's wood.» She rose and faced «And it's growing.»
A suspicion came to Paran. «Girl, do you remember me? Do you know who I am?»
She frowned at him, then shook her head. «He's an old friend, I think.»
The assassin choked on something, then coughed loudly, wagging his head.
«I know Kalam,» she said. The woman pointed at the wooden block. «See? It's growing again.»
Both men looked. A haze blurred the block's edges, swelling and shifting, then vanished, yet it was clear to Paran that the thing was now bigger.
«It has roots,» the woman added.
Paran shook himself. «Corporal? Remain here with the girl. I won't be long.» He sheathed his sword and left the glade. After winding through the undergrowth for a minute, he came to its edge and looked out on a terrace crowded with guests. A low-walled fountain rose from the paving stones to his left, encircled by marble pillars spaced about a yard apart.
The captain saw that Whiskeyjack and the squad had arrayed themselves in a rough line a dozen feet from the garden's edge, facing the terrace. They looked tense. Paran found a dead branch and snapped it in half.
At the sound all six men turned. The captain pointed at Whiskeyjack and Mallet, then stepped back between the trees. The sergeant whispered something to Quick Ben. Then he collected the healer and they came over.
Paran pulled Whiskeyjack close. «Kalam's found Sorry, and something else besides,» he said. «The girl's not all there, Sergeant, and I don't think it's an act. One minute she remembers killing me, the next she doesn't. And she's got it into her head right now that Kalam's an old friend.»
Mallet grunted.
After a brief glance back at the party, Whiskeyjack asked, «So what's this "something else"?»
«I'm not sure, but it's ugly.»
«All right.» The sergeant sighed. «Go with the captain, Mallet. Take a look at Sorry. Any contact from the Assassins» Guild yet?» he asked Paran.
«No.»
«Then we move soon,» Whiskeyjack said. «We let Fiddler and Hedge loose. Bring Kalam when you come back, Mallet. We need to talk.»
Rallick found his path unobstructed as he moved across the central chamber towards the front doors. Faces turned to him and conversations fell away, rising again as he passed. A bone-deep weariness gripped the assassin, more than could be accounted for by the blood lost to a wound already healed. The malaise gripping him was emotional.
He paused at seeing Kruppe rising from a chair, mask dangling from one plump hand. The man's face was sheathed in sweat and there was fear in his eyes.
«You've a right to be terrified,» Rallick said, approaching him. «If I'd known you'd be here-»
«Silence!» Kruppe snapped. «Kruppe must think!»
The assassin scowled but said nothing. He'd never before seen Kruppe without his usual affable fa?ade, and the sight of him so perturbed made Rallick profoundly uneasy.
«Be on your way, friend,» Kruppe said then, his voice sounding strange. «Your destiny awaits you. More, it seems this new world is well prepared for one such as Raest, no matter what flesh he wears.»
Rallick's scowl deepened. The man sounds drunk. He sighed, then turned away, his mind returning once again to what had been achieved this night. He continued on his way, leaving Kruppe behind. What now? he wondered. So much had gone into reaching this moment. The sharp focus of his thoughts seemed dulled now by success. Never the crusader, Rallick's obsession to right the wrong had been, in a sense, no more than the assassin assuming the role Coll himself should have taken. He'd played the instrument of Coll's will, relying on a faith that the man's own will would return.
And if it didn't? His scowl deepening, Rallick crushed that question before it could lead his thought in search of an answer. As Baruk had said, the time had come to go home.
As he passed a silver-masked woman touched his arm. Startled by the contact, he turned to look at her. Long brown hair surrounded the featureless mask, its eyehole slits revealing nothing of what lay behind it.
The woman stepped close. «I've been curious,» she said quietly, «for some time. However, I see now I should have observed you personally, Rallick Nom. Ocelot's death could have been avoided.»
The assassin's gaze darkened. «Vorcan.»
Her head tilted in a fraction of a nod.
«Ocelot was a fool,» Rallick snapped. «If Orr's contract was sanctioned by the Guild, I await punishment.»
She did not reply.
Rallick waited calmly.
«You're a man of few words, Rallick Nom.»
His answer was silence.
Vorcan laughed softly. «You say you await punishment, as if already resigned to your own death.» Her gaze shifted from him towards the crowded terrace. «Councilman Turban Orr possessed protective magic, yet, it availed him naught. Curious.» She seemed to be considering something, then she nodded. «Your skills are required, Rallick Nom. Accompany me. He blinked, then, as she strode towards the garden at the rear of the house, he followed.