Chapter 30 – Blood and Will
“Well, what do we do now?” Vard asked, raising an eyebrow as he turned to face Zull.
“Well,” Zull said as he screwed up his face and thought carefully. “Considering that our plan has worked so far, I recommend we go forward with the next intended step of it, and head to our ultimate destination.”
So saying, Zull walked hastily down the street, Vard struggling to keep up with him as he moved at a pace unusual even for him. Vard, panting as he nearly ran, asked, “do you really think Vyle and Sir Kyr and the others will be entirely unguarded?”
“No,” Zull said as he walked, eyes constantly roving back and forth along the streets. “In fact, I would be highly surprised if they were unguarded. Our opponent has shown himself much more careful and meticulous so far in his planning than either Choler or Phlegm. Rather, I hope that by acting as we have, we’ll have drawn part of his attention elsewhere. Clearly, he can compel others to do what he wants: our only hope to defeat him, then, is to force him to focus on so many things at once, that he makes a fatal error somewhere, something we can exploit.”
Vard drew up to an abrupt halt, forcing a visibly annoyed Zull to do so as well. “Wait a minute. How could you have arrived at the conclusion that he can control people? I thought you said that was impossible with hemomancy!”
“Evidently, I was wrong,” Zull responded. “With everything we know, it’s the most logical answer, and the one that fits with the facts that we have now. Now, there are some limitations on this ability, else he could have simply taken control of the three of us and made us do whatever he desired. We need to find exactly what those limitations are and exploit them.”
Vard nervously ran a hand across his forehead, which, despite the cool of the afternoon was soaked with sweat. “Do you have any suspicions?”
Zull nodded. “But I don’t want to get our hopes up. If I had to guess, while he uses those he controls to chase after Zaphyr, he will be waiting personally to confront us at the destination he wrote to us about. Meeting him in person will give us the chance to learn more, and hopefully find his weaknesses.”
“I suppose so,” Vard said doubtfully. “This is all quite past me. I barely understand even the basic principles of hemomancy, and here you and your sister are, creating blood bindings that let you tell someone’s exact location regardless of distance, while we fight an opponent you claim can control the bodies of others as easily as his own. Sometimes I wonder if I chose to come along out of a genuine desire to help you two, or out of my own stupid, stubborn curiosity.”
“Regardless of why you chose to come with, I’m glad you did, Vard,” Zull said sincerely. “If nothing else, you have cheered my sister and I more times than I can count.”
“Maybe,” Vard grumbled. “But despite my profession, I would hope that I’m worth more than the odd quip here or there.”
“You have done more than enough, Vard,” Zull said. “It’s your apparent weakness that has led our enemies to underestimate you again and again, after all.”
“Thanks, I…suppose,” Vard said reluctantly.
The two of them walked on in silence, making their way through the complicated maze of streets and alleys that was Veb. As they drew further from the sight of the initial attack, the crowds returned to their former level of congestion, slowing down their progress somewhat, though not halting it altogether. Though he kept a careful eye out, Zull saw no one else suspicious. He felt encouraged that his plan was indeed working. So long as his attention is focused on Zaphyr, that means we have a chance to catch him unawares, Zull thought triumphantly. At the back of his mind, he could still sense Zaphyr, who had been running sporadically before stopping a few moments before. Though it had to have been his imagination, Zull felt the briefest twinge of pain in his shoulder and wondered if she had been injured there. Hold on, Zaphyr. Just keep him occupied for a few minutes longer.
They crossed back and forth across so many bridges that Zull started to wonder why everyone in the city didn’t simply buy boats, as it would have surely been a more efficient means of travel throughout Veb’s waterways. Despite the lack of apparent order in the city, however, Vard still guided them unerringly, and they soon reached their destination. They found it to be a large compound, surrounded by walls too high to be easily scaled. The door leading into the compound appeared to have been shattered and hung limply from its single remaining hinge. Besides the door stood a vaguely handsome man of indeterminate age idly inspecting his fingernails. Zull had the nagging feeling that he had seen this man somewhere before but couldn’t place where specifically. Other than the man, Vard, and Zull himself, the street facing their destination was empty.
“Careful,” Vard cautioned as Zull stepped towards the man, but Zull ignored him. He walked until he stood only a few steps before the man, who raised his eyes and stared at Zull with a weary yet amicable enough look.
“Excuse me,” Zull said politely. “Could you tell me who lives in this building?”
The man’s mouth quirked up into the ghost of an ironic smile. “You can drop the act, Zull. You and I both know exactly who dwells here.”
Vard drew up besides Zull, his expression one of icy hostility. “If I may ask, who exactly are you, good Sir?”
“Ah,” the man said, staring at Vard the way someone may inspect a particularly disgusting bug. “The bard. I suppose I should show you some respect, seeing as how you have made it this far, but frankly I cannot bring myself to admire anyone who would waste their life on anything as frivolous as telling tales for others.”
“The bard, skald, tale-teller, or whatever other term you prefer, is a noble profession with a heritage stretching back millennia,” Vard said, clearly incensed. “Unlike yours, which I can only assume is that of the hired killer, the very basest of professions.”
“Perhaps,” the man said, his mouth now stretched in a full, very ironic smile. “But then again, is it not noble to be the very greatest at one’s profession no matter what it may be? I’m sure there are a half dozen bards in this very city whose skill surpasses yours. On the other hand, you would be very, very pressed to find an assassin better than me.”
“You’re him, aren’t you?” Zull asked quietly.
The man gave a slight bow. “Tyer Melanc, at your services. Though not for very long, I suspect.”
“Tyer Melanc?” Vard said doubtfully. “If you are such a legendary assassin, then how do you justify that I’ve never heard of you before?”
“That,” Melanc said with a flourish of his hand. “Is precisely how you know I’m a very, very good assassin.” He turned his indecipherable gaze on Zull, smiling secretively as he did so. “Oh, I know what you and your sister are planning, of course. It’s almost astonishing how easy you are to predict. You want me to focus all my attention on her, while you try to overpower me and save your friends. It won’t work. Another of my thralls is attacking her as we speak, and he is quite skilled with the crossbow, as she is about to discover.” He raised his hand to cover his face and tittered. “Of course, you’ll have to take my word for that. Very foolish of you, to split up as you did.”
“Foolishness can hide greater wisdom, Tyer,” Zull said, while thinking, he doesn’t know about the blood binding. Sangue, for her own reasons, didn’t reveal all our secrets. There’s still a chance.
“Follow me,” Tyer said, gesturing as he stepped through the open door into his compound. “I’ve put quite the work in to preparing for your arrival. Wouldn’t want the show I’ve put together to go to waste.”
Vard and Zull looked at each other for a moment, then, with a fatalistic shrug, they followed him inside. Within, they found themselves in a surprisingly elegant garden, the plants carefully tended to. A gazebo stood in the center of the garden before the large house at the far end of the compound. In front of the gazebo stood a nervous-looking Shaw, who Zull realized must have been the traitor who revealed their location to Melanc, as well as two servants who he did not recognize. Behind Shaw, within the gazebo, stood Argus Vyle, a muzzled Sir Kyr, and Henricks and Velen. To Zull’s surprise, none of them were bound, but instead standing there calmly, their expressions blank. Sangue was nowhere to be seen.
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“Welcome, one and all,” Melanc said. “You all remember Shaw, of course. Shaw’s been working for me for quite a while now.”
“Indeed, I do,” Vard said coldly. “He will pay for his treachery.”
“Yes, Vyle expressed much the same opinion,” Melanc said with a fake frown on his face. “Fortunately for both of you, I do concur, and besides, it will serve as an excellent reminder of what exactly you’re dealing with.”
Shaw turned, eyes wide, to face Melanc. “No,” he whispered. “No, I’ve done everything you’ve asked. You wouldn’t. You can’t.”
“Unfortunately, I can,” Melanc said chidingly. “You should really have been more careful about what you ate and drank, Shaw. Now, slit your throat.”
Eyes wide and visibly struggling, Shaw tried to resist as his hand went to his waist and drew his own knife, then slowly raised the weapon to his throat. He let out a last, gurgling plea for mercy, before his own hand quickly and cleanly cut his throat. As blood spilled across the front of his tunic, Shaw’s eyes rolled back into his head, and he fell at Melanc’s feet.
“Why would you do that?” Vard asked, horrified.
“To demonstrate just exactly what you’re dealing with, friends,” Melanc said serenely. He gestured to a servant standing nearby, then said, “You must understand that what I just made Shaw do, I can make any of your ‘friends’ do with a thought. Now, you must surrender unconditionally to me and give me Gerok’s letter, or I kill them all. I am giving you the choice. Don’t waste it.”
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As she ran down the street, her cat mewling frantically at her, asking for her to stop holding it so tightly, a shocking feeling of déjà vu overcame Zaphyr. It occurred to her that, though she felt like an eternity had passed since then, it had only been a handful of weeks ago that she and her brother had been pursued through the streets of a different city by agents of the Master, for much the same reason they were being chased now. The letter, she thought with a tinge of bitter irony. It always comes back to the letter, doesn’t it? She wondered idly if the man with the crossbow pursuing her was even aware of the existence of the letter, or if he were simply acting under someone else’s orders. Either way, it doesn’t matter. He is trying to stop us from saving Sir Kyr and the others, and I cannot let him succeed.
Even as she ran through the deserted alleyways, she glanced back over her shoulder, and saw just as she had expected the figure of the man with the crossbow still following her, his expression one of stoic determination. He moved with the same stiff, mechanical motions as the assassin in the tailor’s shop had, and indeed, he too seemed strangely dispassionate, almost dead, as if his mind had no connection to the actions of his body. Zull said he thought he knew what was causing these assassins to act like this; he thought they were being controlled, she recalled. But he didn’t say exactly how he thought it was being done. Wish he had; I might have had a chance to disrupt that control.
Spotting a group of people standing ahead of her, apparently unaware of the panic which had recently occurred nearby, Zaphyr shouted at them, “Run! Run for your lives!”
The group, who had been evidently discussing a merchant’s stock of salt, looked up and stared at Zaphyr in astonishment. They swiftly noticed the man chasing her from behind, as well as the crossbow which he held. Even then, it took him raising the weapon to fire at her back for them to react. The group dispersed in an instant, people fleeing in every direction from the killer and his apparent victim. One of them, a pleasant looking young man whom Zaphyr was struck with the odd sense of having met before, dashed past her towards the killer, nearly bumping into her in the process, though she nimbly ducked out of his way. Nearly stumbling as he ran past both her and the assassin, he had soon disappeared both from her sight and mind.
Zaphyr, passing by the merchant’s abandoned cart, slid across the cobblestone street and ducked behind it. She did so just as her pursuer fired his crossbow at the cart, which was loaded with salt and other preservative spices. The quarrel struck a bag of salt, which tore open and spilled out across the ground at Zaphyr’s feet. She hesitated, her cat mewing angrily at her as she clutched it tightly against her chest, before she slowly stood back up and peered over the top of the cart. She saw her hunter standing before her, his crossbow dropped at his feet, discarded as casually as an apple core. Rather than taking the time to reload it, he had drawn a large, gleaming knife, which he held at his side as he stared at her dispassionately.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked him. “What is the Master offering that could be worth murder?”
To her surprise, the assassin responded to her question. “Frankly, I don’t care what the Master does or doesn’t pay me,” he told her, his voice harsh and oddly stilted, as if someone else was speaking through him, as Zull thought. “It was never about the pay.”
“Then why?” she asked.
“The sport,” he said simply. “I heard about how you defeated Zared Choler and Doctor Phlegm. That intrigued me. Anyone capable of besting such powerful foes at your age must be unique indeed. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to battle you myself and see if you were as skilled as I hoped.”
“That’s all this is to you?” she asked bitterly. “A game? A chance to test your skills?”
He brandished the knife before him, evidently preparing to strike her. “In a word? Yes. I have already defeated Sir Kyr. After you, all that will remain is your brother. I especially look forward to besting him.”
“You won’t get the chance,” Zaphyr said, gritting her teeth into a ferocious facsimile of a smile. “I’ll play your game.”
The assassin lurched towards her, knife arm swinging out gouge her arm, but it was easy for Zaphyr to lithely avoid his blow. Compared to some of the other people she had faced, she hardly even considered this assassin a threat. No, it’s whoever is behind him, controlling all of this, she thought. A horrible realization struck her at that moment. He isn’t responsible for this. None of these assassins are. I can’t kill them!
The assassin swung at her again, and Zaphyr realized the inherent difficulty of trying to defeat her opponent without resorting to killing him, especially when he was in turn bent on killing her. He raised his knife above his head, bringing it down, but she ducked beneath his swing, standing so close now he couldn’t properly wield his knife against her. While he was off balance, she reached down and picked up the crossbow from where he had dropped it. Now she brandished it before her like a club. The assassin stopped to stare at her in amazement, then threw back his head and laughed.
“I heard you were a powerful hemomancer, far stronger than your brother,” the assassin said tauntingly. “And yet your weapon of choice is a piece of wood with which you intend to bash me. What a disappointment.”
She swung out, striking him in the side of the head with the crossbow. Raising a hand to ward her off, he took a hesitant step back. She swung again, this time striking his wrist, hitting hard enough to force him to drop the knife to the ground. He bent hastily to pick it up, but she kicked it out of his reach. They both watched as it went skittering down the street, eventually stopping well out of arm’s reach of both. “You aren’t worth the effort it would take to use hemomancy,” she replied.
Snarling, he stood back up and lunged towards her, hands outstretched to grab her by the throat. However, her cat, which had been curled on her shoulder, holding on despite all the movement with her claws, suddenly lashed out and gouged the assassin across one cheek. He grunted in pain, clutching the side of his face. Zaphyr took advantage of his distraction to bring the crossbow down on his forehead, hard enough to splinter the shaft of the weapon and render him a temporarily insensate heap at her feet.
Panting heavily as she tossed the badly damaged crossbow to the side, Zaphyr felt for the briefest of moments the temptation to make sure he couldn’t get up and continue to chase her, but she pushed that murderous instinct as deep into her mind as she possibly could. I’ve already done my work. I need to find my way back to Zull, just like we planned.
She walked past the merchant’s cart, spotting a short distance away between two buildings a crack, just barely wide enough for her to creep through. She heard her pursuer groaning softly as he slowly got back to his feet behind her, and she knew from a quick appraisal that he was too physically large to make it through the narrow passageway. For a brief instant, Zaphyr worried that he might try to recover his crossbow or knife and use them against her, but strangely instead he seemed to simply stand there, bewildered and unmoving, as if unsure what to do and awaiting orders from whatever invisible hand was evidently guiding him. For all the world he looked like a puppet whose strings had been cut. And I thought I couldn’t see anything stranger after the horrors we witnessed Phlegm and Sangue create, Zaphyr thought idly.
She halted besides the passage to see if he would react, but he did not move in the slightest. It was as if he had simply died where he was standing, whatever power motivating his body having abruptly left. Wondering at her abrupt stroke of good luck, Zaphyr inched her way along the rest of the passageway and out into the sunlight on the opposite side of the building. She took a deep breath, relieved at how easy her escape had turned out to be. She glanced at her cat, perched perilously at her shoulder, and couldn’t resist a burst of joyous laughter. Reaching out with her new sense, she confirmed Zull’s location: he was drawing nearer to their ultimate destination and seemed to be moving at a fast pace. She guessed that their gambit had succeeded and Zaphyr had indeed managed to draw their opponent’s attention.
Looks like, just for once, everything is working just as we hoped it would, Zaphyr thought happily. She started to walk down the street, but at an annoyed meow from her cat glanced up idly. She frowned slightly as she someone looking back at her from the roof of a nearby building. They were crouched down, sitting on one knee, holding something that glittered in the light. She narrowed her eyes, wondering what they were doing, before the figure fired the crossbow in their hands. Too late, Zaphyr realized that she was facing a second assassin, and the quarrel struck her, piercing through her shoulder. The force of the blow sent her reeling backwards into the stone wall of a nearby blacksmith, judging by the wooden sign hanging above the door. She looked at the metal bolt emerging from her shoulders, her face pale and contorted with pain. It occurred to her that, perhaps, she had thought the battle over too soon.