The ornately carved brick tower that Shadow lived inwas easy enough for Cy to break into. In fact, there wasn't even a lock on thedoor. Not wanting to fall prey to over-confidence, the assassin moved throughthe entry hall very carefully, checking every few feet for traps or magicalglyphs. It took him almost an hour to creep slowly down the hall and around thecorner. For all of his caution, there were no traps in the long hallway.
At least I wasn't blown to bits, he thought.
Rounding one corner, he entered a very large, grosslywealthy sitting room. The raider in Cy was in awe. Perhaps Lume should havesent him to simply rob the archwizard. The riches held in this one room couldhave paid for a hundred assassins ten times over. High backed chairs sat aroundornately carved wooden tables. Silver sconces with mage-lit stones in them werestationed around the windows, and jeweled candelabra rested on desks, tables,and windowsills. Leather-bound books sat in hundreds of neat rows, arrayed overseveral dozen large bookshelves lining the walls.
A door swung open on the opposite side of the room. Cycrouched and somersaulted behind one of the high-backed chairs. He pressedhimself close to the furniture and held his breath. Heavy footsteps echoedacross the hardwood floor. Cy clutched his dagger. So much for surprise.
The footsteps got closer then passed the chair. Cyfelt a light breeze pass his cheek, and his vision filled with vivid, swirlingcolors of magenta, yellow, and silver. Theyoung man blinked, trying to clear hishead of the befuddling magic, and the colors passed-but they weren't magic.Cy's vision cleared, and he recognized the hem of a lady's skirts. A youngblonde woman, wearing heavy, embroidered linens and carrying a silver tray hadpassed Cy's hiding place. She walked swiftly past the chair and out into thehall. Her heavy footsteps receded.
Cy stood up, and the door swung open again. Duckinghis head behind the furniture, he was certain he'd been seen. Once again, heavyfootsteps traveled across the floor. Cy dodged behind the chair, rolling acrossthe floor, around a table, to pop up behind whoever had entered the room.Bringing his dagger down in a broad arc, the young assassin stopped cold. Thesame blonde, brightly dressed woman who had just passed, only a moment before,was again standing in the middle of the room, only this time she was carrying alarge silver jug. The woman's skirts rustled as she continued across the floor,unflinching and unfazed by Cy.
The door opened again. Cy spun around, his dagger outin front of him. The blonde woman was coming out into the sitting room for thethird time, but now she had a large box in her hands. Her brilliant blue eyesstared straight ahead as she continued to move toward the young assassin. Twosets of heavy footsteps echoed on the hardwood, one in front and one behind.Shaking his head, certain that he was under magical assault, Cy leaped out ofthe woman's path, landing hard on a plush leather chair and letting it break hisfall as he clattered to the floor.
Spinning around and backing into the corner, Cyscanned the room for any way to escape. Two blonde women-both wearing identicalmagenta, yellow, and silver linen skirts, one carrying a jug, one a box-continuedacross the hardwood floor. Neither seemed the least bit interested in Cy. Theymoved through the room and out into the hallway, intent on carrying their packagesto their final destination. The young man watched them as he stood in thecorner catching his breath.
The door opened again. Two more blonde, brightly dressedwomen-the same woman Cy had seen three times already-entered the sittingroom and proceeded across the hardwood, their footsteps echoing heavily as theycrossed. Cy made no attempt to hide this time, and the women ignored himcompletely. Picking up a book, the young assassin hurled it at one of thewomen. It struck with a thud and fell to the floor. Still, the women ignoredhim.
If they aren't illusions, thought Cy, then they mustbe constructs.
Convinced that he wasn't under a spell, he continuedon his mission.
A set of stairs led down one side of the room. Cycrossed and headed down, avoiding the female golems as he went. The stairwaywas long, and the air grew cooler as he continued down. The old wooden stepswere warped in places, so Cy was careful to transfer all of his weight ontoeach step slowly, so as to avoid creaking. At the bottom, another hallwaycontinued on. A doorway near the end was partly open, and light spilled outinto the hall from the opening. Another of the magenta-skirted women came outof the room and walked down the hall.
Slipping past the unobservant construct, Cy lookedthrough the door. He could see a bed and a night stand in half of a nice, ifmessy, bed chamber. Someone was shuffling around with a drawer and some papersoutside of his field of view. Cy pulled his dagger from his sheath, pressedhimself up against the wall, and waited.
Several moments passed. Sweat started to bead on Cy'sforehead. The shuffling inside the room continued.
A drawer slammed shut, and a figure came into view andsat on the bed. Square jaw, sandy-brown hair, green eyes, small wire-rimmedglasses, and a tell-tale scar on his left cheek-it was Shadow. Though youngerlooking than Cy had expected, the man matched the descriptions Lume had givenhim. The archwizard's attention was focused on a large stack of papers he hadin his hands, and he was making marks on them with a piece of charcoal.
Cy took a deep breath and held it. Raising his dagger up to hisshoulder, he burst into the room, hurling the enchanted blade at Shadow as hedid so. The wizard didn't even look up from his papers. He simply waved hishand, and the dagger stopped in midair. Worse, Cy stood frozen as well, unableto blink or even wipe the ever-increasing sweat from his forehead.
For quite some time, Shadow simply continued to readhis papers. Leafing through them casually as if he didn't have an assassinmagically suspended in his bedroom. Eventually, he finished with his work,straightened the papers, and turned his attention to Cy.
"Aren't you a little young to be anassassin?" he asked.
Cy didn't answer. This had been his firstassassination, so he really didn't know how the industry worked. He supposedhe'd never get the opportunity to find out.
"No matter," reassured the archwizard."Your age isn't important. What is, however, is the fact that you tried tokill me. So?" He looked Cy right in the eye. "What do you suppose weshould do about that?"
Cy tried to spit at the man, to show his indignationand contempt for the wizards who mucked around with the powerful, otherworldlymagic that he felt certain would be the doom of all the world, but he wasstuck. He couldn't move his lips or even his tongue.
"Well?" asked the archwizard. "Aren'tyou going to answer me?"
The man chuckled, then he put his hands on his kneesand stood up from the bed. He plucked the enchanted blade from where it wassuspended in the air.
"Very nice, very nice indeed," he commented."Don't have much use for these sorts of toys." He walked over to achest of drawers and placed the dagger on top of it. "I have a few I keeparound as souvenirs of the assassins who have most interested me, but Igenerally don't like to use them. All that blood and such." Shadow rankledhis nose. "No, magic is much cleaner."
He picked up a wand with a clear stone attached to theend of it by a leather band.
"And," he added, walking back toward Cy,"far more entertaining and punitive. Just think, if I simply poked youwith your blade a few times, sure it would hurt, but in short order you'd die,and the agony you'd feel would be over. With magic-" he brandished thewand-"I can trap you inside this crystal. There you will die slowly asyour predecessors sap your strength and tear at your skin."
He smiled warmly at Cy who was still unable to move.
"The best part, however, is that once you'vedied, your punishment hasn't ended. You will awaken as a shadow, and you'lllive out the rest of eternity as an ethereal creature, unable to affect thesolid world around you. Doesn't that sound far more horrifying?"