The Assassin's Tale (Isle of Dreams) (2 page)

Stepping
quietly through the front door Mistral found Brothertoft sat alone at the
kitchen table drinking a tankard of the strong sweet cider he brewed. 
Mistral nodded to him and dropped her saddlebag full of rabbits wordlessly on
the table before turning to fetch a sharp knife from the dresser.

‘Good
trip?’  Brothertoft asked, taking a drink of cider.

‘Not bad,’
replied Mistral returning to the table with a knife in her hand.

‘Hunt anything
interesting?’  the old man persisted, watching as Mistral reached into the
bag and pulled out a rabbit.

Mistral
shrugged and began to skin the rabbit with deft strokes, neatly slicing the
hide away from the carcass, ‘Got a sabre-toothed boar, but I ate that – brought
you back some rabbits though,’ she said, indicating towards the bulging bag
with her knife.

‘Elnora could
do with a good stew, she’s a bit under the weather at the moment,’ said
Brothertoft quietly, placing his half-empty tankard back onto the table.

Mistral looked
up briefly, ‘Where is she?’

‘In bed,’ said
Brothertoft shortly, failing to add that Elnora had been there since yesterday
morning.

Mistral nodded
vaguely and returned her attention to the rabbit, beginning to joint it.

Brothertoft
studied her as she worked, realising that the strong, resourceful girl he had
thought of as a daughter had in fact become a stranger to him in recent
times.  Physically she bore none of the traits of any of the Arcane races
but resembled more closely someone with sorcering blood.  She was taller
than the other girls in the village, with long dark hair and eyes so deep brown
that they were almost black.  Her restless, independent nature had left
her friendless; not that this bothered Mistral.  She seemed content with
her own company and was rarely talkative unless it was to describe a
particularly challenging hunt. 

‘Mistral,’
began Brothertoft in another attempt to draw her into a conversation. 
‘You know it’s the winter solstice next week.’

Mistral
grunted and reached into the bag for another rabbit.

‘It’s when
children of sorcering families traditionally begin their training in the
Craft,’ Brothertoft ploughed on. 

Mistral didn’t
respond and the silence was filled by the gentle tearing sound of her skinning
another rabbit. 

‘You – you
don’t think you have the Craft do you?’  Brothertoft asked hopefully.

Mistral looked
up at him and suppressed a sigh, trying to keep the irritation she felt from
showing on her face.  What was Brothertoft going on about?

‘The
Craft?’  Brothertoft repeated encouragingly.  ‘Do you think you might
have it?’

‘No,’ she said
shortly.

‘Have you ever
tried to cast a spell?’  he persisted, looking at her intently with his
watery eyes.

‘No.’

‘I could show
you – If you’d like to try?’

Mistral sighed
again and placed the knife down beside her half-skinned rabbit before fixing
him with a stony glare.

‘Brothertoft,
I do not have the Craft.  Can we drop the subject?  Only I’ve got
three more of these to skin.’

Brothertoft
sighed and gazed into his tankard, turning it gently in his gnarled hands.

‘Elnora says
that when the rest of the village find out you don’t have the Craft they’ll run
you out.’

Mistral
shrugged disinterestedly, she already practically lived in the forests anyway.

‘She wants me
to send you to the Valley of the Ri to train,’ Brothertoft finished quietly.

Mistral looked
at him.  The Valley of the Ri?  She’d heard the village children
discussing it in hushed tones, as though it were something to be afraid of.

‘Have you
heard of it?’  Brothertoft asked, looking at her carefully.

Mistral
shrugged, ‘Village kids tell stories about a place that trains thieves and
assassins –’

Brothertoft
scowled, ‘They do more than that.  The Valley of Ri train hunters, and
trackers too, something you would be a very good at,’ he nodded towards the bag
of rabbits.  

Mistral said
nothing but continued to gaze at him, her dark eyes wide in her expressionless
pale face.

‘The Ri are a
sanctuary for,’ he paused and shot her an almost apologetic look,
‘half-breeds.  They train them as warriors … I think they call them that …
anyway, these warriors provide a valuable service to the Isle,’ he said with a
proud note of defiance in his voice, almost as though he were trying to
convince himself, not Mistral.  ‘And the warriors get paid for the work
they do … Contracts or something they call them –’

Mistral’s eyes
shone as she listened to the old man speak.  Escape from Nevelte? 
Train to be a warrior?  Get paid for hunting and tracking; something she
could do by second nature?  She only had one question –

‘How do I get
there?’

Brothertoft
regarded her for a moment, ‘Is there nothing you want to stay here for?’

Mistral didn’t
even pause to think. 

‘No.’

‘No-one?
 A boy perhaps?’  Brothertoft tried again in a slightly hesitant
voice.

Mistral looked
at him as though he had just suggested she take up ballet dancing, ‘No,’ she
repeated in an icy voice. 

Brothertoft
sighed deeply and reached inside his leather jerkin, bringing out a small
leather purse bulging with coins.

‘I went to
market and sold your skins.  You’ll need money in the Valley,’ he said,
placing the purse onto the table with a dull thud.

Mistral’s eyes
flashed.  The chance to buy some decent knives at last!  The hunting
knife she used was Brothertoft’s old one and had seen better days.

Mistral
reached across and collected the purse of money without comment. 

‘The bear skin
fetched quite a bit,’ Brothertoft said, eyeing the bag of coins
wistfully.  It held more money in it than he saw in a year. 

Mistral
nodded, opening the purse and peering inside curiously before suddenly looking
up sharply, ‘You didn’t sell the wolf pelt did you?  Only I’ll need it for
travelling –’

Brothertoft
shook his head and pointed to the door that lead to the cottage’s two tiny
bedrooms.  A full leather saddlebag lay by the door.

‘Elnora packed
it for you along with the rest of your belongings.’

‘Good,’ said
Mistral, picking up her knife and resuming her task with sudden
enthusiasm.  ‘So how do I get to this Valley then?’

Brothertoft was
silent for a moment and the sound of Mistral skinning rabbits once again filled
the small kitchen.

‘I’ve never
been there … but the Valley is rumoured to lie in the west of the Isle, beyond
The Velvet Forests.’

Mistral
nodded, not looking up from her work, ‘Easy enough.  About two days ride
then,’ she said in a satisfied voice.

Brothertoft
looked up sharply, ‘I think you’d better go on foot Mistral, I can’t afford to
pay for any horse you decide to “borrow”!’

A mutinous
expression flashed across Mistral’s face, she hated to be told what to do,
‘It’s too far to walk,’ she said stubbornly.

‘You’d leave
me and Elnora a thief would you?’  Brothertoft asked angrily.

Mistral glared
at him.  She didn’t give a fig about what people in Nevelte thought of
her, but something in the old man’s expression made her think that this was
important to him. 

‘Fine, I’ll
walk,’ she conceded reluctantly. 

Mistral
finished the last rabbit and swept the skins and viscera into a wooden bucket
then scraped the jointed meat into a large cooking pot.

‘When will you
leave?’  Brothertoft asked quietly. 

‘First light.’
 Mistral said, rising to her feet and carrying the cooking pot over to the
stove.  ‘I’ll leave this to cook – I think I’ll get an early night.’

‘You’ll say goodbye
to Elnora before you leave, won’t you?’

Mistral gave
him a strange look before nodding and walking across to the door that lead to
the bedrooms.  She stooped to collect the packed saddlebag then unlatched
the door and walked through.

Brothertoft watched
the door close behind her, realising sadly that the strange look on her face
had been surprise.  Mistral had already forgotten about Elnora.

Mistral left
in the cold starless light that precedes the dawn.  Stepping quietly out
of the cottage and striding purposefully down the narrow street with her head
full of thoughts of the Valley of the Ri.  She was half-way across the
meadow outside of the village before she realised that she’d left without
saying goodbye to Elnora or Brothertoft.

By the time
she had climbed the short ridge that formed a natural boundary between the
bowl-like valley that Nevelte rested in and The Velvet Forests, Mistral was
beginning to regret her promise not to take a horse for the journey.  It
was going to be a long walk.

After three
days of monotonous walking, broken only by the brief interlude of hunting down
another sabre-toothed boar, Mistral was finally nearing the western side of the
Isle.  The vast mountains of the Western Range loomed before her. 
Distant snow-capped peaks wreathed in cloud sloped down to undulating green and
brown lowlands.  Mistral gazed at them with hands on hips.  Somewhere
in amongst them lay the Valley of the Ri.

Mistral had
passed through a couple of small villages on her journey.  Her tentative
enquiries as to the Valley’s whereabouts had been met with blank looks. 
Whether the ignorance had been feigned or not, Mistral didn’t get the chance to
find out as she was invariably given the cold shoulder and left shortly
after.  Left to trust her instincts, Mistral walked towards the Western
Range, looking closely for any signs of a well-trodden trail to suggest others
travelling this way.  At midday on her fourth day of walking Mistral
struck lucky.  The hard ground had so far revealed little in the way of
tracks to follow, but a brief fall of snow during the night had left a soft
powdery covering and Mistral could see a clear set of hoof prints heading
west.  With a renewed burst of enthusiasm she followed them and was soon
rewarded by the appearance of a definite trail.  She walked on, ignoring
the pain of her blistered feet until a pair of massive stone gateposts loomed
into view.  She paused to study them.  There were two vast wooden
gates hung from each post, but they were open.  Knowing without a shadow
of a doubt that this was the entrance to the Valley of the Ri, Mistral strode
purposely towards them.  Glancing up as she walked between the towering
gateposts, she was surprised to see a face staring intently back at her from a
small lookout platform.  Beside the guard, for that was obviously what he
was, hung a large brass bell, but he made no move to either acknowledge her or
ring the bell.  Mistral dropped her gaze and walked on.  She supposed
it must be plain to him what she had come to the Valley for.

As Mistral
strode through the gates she was abruptly presented with a sloping stony path
that wound down the steep-sided Valley.  Stepping slightly to the edge of
the path and peering over, Mistral experienced a surge of sheer exhilaration as
she looked out over the Valley of the Ri.

From her
elevated position everything in the wide valley appeared in miniature, like a
child’s model.  A small village nestled up against the western side. 
Narrow streets snaked between tightly packed houses.  Smoke rose from the
chimneys, curling up to be lost against the towering backdrop of the Western
Range.  Beside the village Mistral could clearly make out several low
roofed buildings arranged around an open yard; a stableyard.  She felt
automatically for the purse of money around her neck.  She had always
dreamed of owning a decent horse, hopefully the Ri would be able to sell her
one.  Opposite the stableyard was some kind of large open space, light
brown in colour, as though filled with pale earth or sand.  Mistral stared
at it in wonderment until she realised with a burst of excitement that it was a
training area of some sort.  Her eyes moved further along the Valley,
noting with only passing interest a patchwork of farmlands filling the lower
southern end before coming to rest on the strangest building she had ever
seen.  It looked like a castle that had been stretched in the middle and
had four squat circular towers at each corner.  The long middle section
was three storeys high.  The first and third floors had long narrow
windows widely spaced apart, but the second floor had a long row of tiny
iron-grilled windows that glinted in the pale winter sunlight.  Mistral
stared at it, mystified as to what a building like that could be for.   

‘Rather looks
like the architect couldn’t decide between designing a prison or a castle,
doesn’t it?’

Mistral spun
sharply to look at the speaker and did an immediate double-take.

‘We usually
have that effect,’ said the speaker smugly.

Before Mistral
stood two of the most perfect beings she had ever laid eyes on.  They were
tall and slenderly built, with sleek blonde hair.  Their pale skin and
striking emerald green eyes only intensified the strange almost angelic quality
of their flawless faces.  And, as if that wasn’t enough, they were
absolutely identical.

Mistral
blinked and continued to stare in open-mouthed amazement while the speaker
smiled at her.

‘Allow me to
introduce myself, my name is Phantasm, and this is my brother Phantom,’ he said
in a lilting, musical voice and indicated to the mirror-image stood beside him
with an elegant wave of a hand.

‘M-Mistral,’
she finally managed to stutter.

‘Would you
care for us to show you the sights?  Such as they are – my brother and I
have been here for two weeks now waiting for training to begin, and we’ve
explored the Valley quite thoroughly.’  Phantasm continued solicitously.

Mistral
hesitated.  She wasn’t bothered about being given a personal guided tour,
but she was tired after three days walking and would definitely appreciate
being directed to a place where she could find a bed for the night.

‘Is there
somewhere I can stay?’ she asked.

Phantasm
pointed to the strange elongated castle-like building, ‘The dorms are in that
building there, but we can’t take up residence until after Registration next
week.’

Mistral
sighed, reconciling herself to more nights wrapped in her wolf skin.

‘However,
there is a rather fine drinking establishment tastefully named The Cloak and
Dagger.  They have some rooms,’ said Phantasm thoughtfully.

‘The Cloak and
Dagger is both cheap and cheerful,’ agreed his twin brother brightly. 

Mistral looked
at him, it was the first time Phantom had spoken and she was surprised to hear that
his voice was slightly different, lower, with an almost husky quality.

‘In fact, I’ve
heard that rooms at The Cloak and Dagger are on offer at the moment,’ continued
Phantasm with a wide grin.

‘Yes, they’ve
done away with the cheerful, so now it’s just cheap!’  laughed Phantom.

Mistral
couldn’t help smiling, despite the fact that they had obviously been using this
joke on every newcomer to the Valley for the last two weeks. 

They began to
walk along the path together, the twins on either side of her, talking over her
as though she were a net in a tennis tournament. 

‘That’s three
females here to Register for training,’ said Phantom conversationally.

‘Well, two
really.  I wouldn’t like to vouch for Columbine being female,’ said
Phantasm dubiously.

Phantom
laughed, ‘No, she is rather … ambiguous –’

‘Is it unusual
to have female warriors?’  Mistral suddenly asked, interrupting their game
of conversation tennis over her head.

‘Fairly, but
not unheard of – however, three in one year is a touch unusual,’ replied
Phantasm lightly.

A worrying
thought struck Mistral.  Would she be expected to share sleeping quarters
with these two others?

‘These dorms,’
she asked tentatively, ‘how exactly are they laid out?  I mean, is it just
one big room, or are there rooms for each of us?’

‘We don’t all
sleep in cloaks on the floor if that’s what you’re thinking!  It’s two to
a room, or one to a room in your case, providing no other females arrive,’
replied Phantasm.  ‘You see the long building between the four
towers?’  Mistral followed his pointing finger and nodded.  ‘Well,
the third floor is for the Magnate, the four heads of the Ri.  They each
occupy a tower room – apart from Mistress Lightwater.  She has a room in
the Infirmary she runs.  The second floor is our dorms.  Each of
those grilled windows is a room … well more of a cell really,’ he added
grimly.  ‘The ground floor is where the Main Hall, Refectory, Laundry and
Infirmary are, plus a couple of smaller rooms used by the Contracts Officer and
the Training Captain.’

Mistral
listened, fascinated by what Phantasm was telling her.  She hadn’t
imagined such a complex structure.  In her mind’s eye she had envisioned
someone running a training regime, of course, but the size of the organisation
left her slightly awestruck.

‘Who are the
Magnate?’ she asked quickly, taking advantage of a brief pause in the twins’
seemingly relentless flow of information.

Phantom
responded to her question promptly, ‘Well, there’s Master Malachi Nox, but I’m
not sure exactly what he does … Mistress Serenity Lightwater is a Healer and
runs the Infirmary, Master Mycroft Casterton is very knowledgeable on the
Isle’s Law and Council Politics, and there’s Master Leo Sphinx, he’s our
Training Captain.  He also has three Training Lieutenants to oversee our
day to day training.’

‘And of
course, let’s not forget the Divinus,’ added Phantasm softly.

‘I was just
getting to him,’ said Phantom with a slight edge to his voice.

‘Who’s he?’
 Mistral asked curiously.

‘The Head of
the Ri,’ said Phantom quickly, before Phantasm could speak again.  ‘He’s a
Seer, and,’ he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, ‘he’s also
rumoured to be a Necromancer.’

‘He sounds
delightful,’ said Mistral with a shudder.

‘The Divinus
has been a very powerful force in the history of the Isle,’ said Phantasm
loftily.  ‘Although his time is drawing to a close now, I’m afraid. 
He’s quite frail; apparently he rarely comes out of his tower room.  He
just sits up there convening with wraiths and shades day and night.’

‘Now who’s been
listening to too much gossip in The Cloak and Dagger,’ muttered Phantom
scathingly. 

They had
reached the bottom of the steep winding track and were walking along a straight
path that led into the village itself.  Up close, Mistral could see the
houses were all made of the local honey-coloured stone with small square
windows set back behind traditional iron grills.  Shutters pinned open on
either side spoke of the hard winters the Valley saw each year.  As they
walked across the cobbled village square Mistral glanced up at the main street
that rose steeply through the village.  Each house had a shop as its
ground floor selling a variety of strange and wonderful goods.  Her eye
was immediately drawn to the heavy wooden sign hanging over one shop that had the
words “Toothe and Nayle, Official Armourers to the Ri” emblazoned below a faded
painting of a curved sword.  Vowing to go there first thing in the morning
Mistral allowed herself to be steered across the cobbled square towards the
heavy oak door of The Cloak and Dagger.

Inside the
smoky warmth of The Cloak and Dagger Mistral paused to let her eyes to adjust
to the dimly lit tavern.  The low, beamed ceiling and worn wooden floor
gave the room a slightly shabby but comfortable air.  Torches arranged at
infrequent intervals around the stone walls and a steadily burning fire were
the tavern’s only source of light, but that only added to the relaxed
atmosphere.  The twins walked over to the long wooden-topped bar and leant
casually against it until the barman appeared from the back room. 
Scowling and heavy cheeked, he had the permanently flushed colouring of a man
who had spent years drinking as much as he served. 

‘Good day to
you Floris.’  Phantasm smiled at the surly barman who merely grunted and
slung a dirty cloth over his shoulder.

‘Wine?’

‘Please
Floris.  If it’s not too much trouble,’ murmured Phantasm.

Mistral
stifled a smile at the barman’s decidedly unsuitable name but decided from his
grumpy expression that jokes on the subject would not go down well.  She
also noted the heavy looking club hanging from a nail on the wall behind the
bar. 

Whilst the
twins politely enquired about a room for her Mistral leaned back against the
bar and turned her attention to the rest of the room.  There were only
three other occupants in the tavern.  A pair of what were obviously elves
by their lithe build and long fair hair were playing a game of knucklebones and
a heavily cloaked figure sat alone at a table in the darkest corner.

‘Yes,’
murmured Phantom in her ear as he passed her a drink.  ‘You see all sorts
in here – it’s great!’