The Telastrian Song (26 page)

‘What shall we do with him?’ Soren said, keeping the blade where it was. He noticed the look of relief on dal Lupard’s face, but knew it was premature.

‘There’s only one thing we can do with him, all things considered,’ Giura said.

Soren nodded, and took dal Lupard’s throat out with a flick of his wrist. Soren picked up the diamonds before he and Giura hurried away, as quickly as Soren’s beaten body would allow. Killings were far from rare on the streets of Ostenheim, but they would bring the City Watch eventually. They needed to be long gone before that happened.

G
iura had
to help Soren after only a few paces. ‘Are you all right?

‘Nothing that I can’t cope with,’ Soren said.

‘I’d been wondering where you’d gotten to,’ Giura said, as they continued away from the bodies. ‘How did you end up with dal Lupard?’

‘I’d met him before,’ Soren said, ‘when I was in Venter. He knew about the bounty that Amero put on my head.’

‘And these?’ Giura said, patting the diamond-filled socks in his pockets.

‘I brought them across from Venter with me. They’re supposed to help pay the ransoms on a number of imprisoned nobles who, as it turned out, don’t exist.’

‘You know this money could have helped us.’

‘Not mine to spend,’ Soren said. ‘And that’s all there is to it. Where are we going?’

‘There’s a fellow I know. Dabbles in the illegal arts, but he’s pretty harmless. Something of a healer, and just enough talent to be useful. I’ve let him escape notice as I thought he might come in handy one day.’

G
iura’s practitioner
of the illegal arts was testimony to the fact that his choice of occupation was not a lucrative one. He occupied a one-room apartment at the top of a five story building in Artisans, which was sparsely furnished with low quality furniture. It reminded Giura about the master mage they had faced down in the alley, and the loose ends that remained because of that man’s activities in the city. He wondered how many men and women had received his training. Tasks for another day, but not ones that could be forgotten.

The door opened to reveal a slight, bespectacled man. ‘Come to kill me, Intelligencier?’

‘Not today, Franco. I’ve someone I need you to apply your foul and despicable arts to.’

‘Always glad to be of help to the Grey Tower, sir,’ Franco said, facetiously.

They sat Soren down on a spindly chair. Franco probed Soren’s face and chest gently with long, slender fingers.

‘He’s had a right going over. Let me guess. Fell off his horse?’

‘A mind reader as well as a mage?’ Giura said. ‘You’re becoming too dangerous by far, Franco. Perhaps I’ll have to drag you off to the Tower.’

Franco humphed. ‘Who’d you get to put the pieces together when someone falls from their horse then?’

‘Fair point. Put this one back together for me and I’ll forget about it,’ Giura said.

Franco got to Soren’s ribs, and Soren groaned in pain. Franco held his hand over the tender spot and took a deep breath. Soren could feel his skin tingle gently. Franco could draw the Fount to himself, but only in minuscule quantities; an amount that would barely alter Soren’s experience of the Gift of Grace. He was curious to see what the man could do with it.

He got his answer quickly. In the most unpleasant fashion imaginable, he could feel the fragments of broken rib move within his chest. He stifled a groan as he felt the broken ends connect with each other and an intense, hot sensation where the two met. He found himself hoping that Franco had put them back in the proper order.

With the ribs knitted, Franco held his hands over Soren’s face. Soren felt the characteristic tingling of a manipulation of the Fount, but the first notice he had of its effect was the widening of the narrow, swollen slits from which he had been looking out. He breathed a sigh of relief as the pressure in his face lessened.

Franco kept his hands over Soren’s face until his sight was almost completely unimpeded. The pain was reduced, but far from gone. The fact that his ribs were now back in the correct positions made breathing easier, but it was still extremely uncomfortable.

Franco slumped back onto the ground and looked as though he had aged ten years in as many minutes. ‘I’m afraid that’s all I can do for now. The ribs aren’t fully healed, but they’ve knitted. They’ll need time before they’re as normal. I’ve helped the other injuries along as best I can. If you wish to come back in a few days, after I’ve rested, I’ll be able to advance the healing process once again.’

He looked drowsy and spoke with a slight slur on his words.

‘Thank you, Franco. Once again you’ve justified my decision to leave you free to run amok through the city.’

Franco let out a strained chuckle.

‘Yes, thank you,’ Soren said.

Giura put a small stack of coins on a table beside the door as Franco crawled on his hands and knees toward a sleeping pallet in the corner of the room. Giura beckoned for Soren to join him at the door and leave.

‘
W
e have a plan
,’ Giura said, as he and Soren slowly walked toward Soren’s inn. ‘Austorga has sent word to the Duke that he’s willing to consider advancing further loans if Amero agrees to come to the bank to discuss an arrangement that will ensure the Austorgas’ see their monies returned with interest from the spoils of whatever venture the Duke chooses to use the fresh funds on.’

‘And I’ll kill him at the meeting?’ Soren said. He was walking more easily now, but not without severe discomfort.

‘Yes. Austorga, in consideration of all that’s passed between them, says he’ll only meet with the Duke in the safety of his own office. He has a privy room connected to it, where you can wait. The Duke is to agree to leave his guards outside, in the company of an equal number of bank men, so that neither the Duke nor Austorga need fear the consequences of failure to reach an agreement.’

‘Has the Duke agreed to it yet?’ Soren said. It was the ideal opportunity, but he felt a nagging doubt in his gut that stemmed from the pain in his ribs.

‘No, not yet, but he’s not likely to pass up the offer. He’s been feeding the town criers with gossip and rumours that the attempt on his life was an act of Auracian aggression, that they see the southern marches and towns as being ripe for the picking. It’s starting to build up some support for a war against Auracia. Nothing strong enough to move on, but the sentiment is building and he’ll want to be in enough coin to strike as soon as the opportunity presents itself.’

‘How long do you think it will be before Austorga has his answer?’ Soren was relieved to see his inn come into view as they rounded a bend in the street. He could think of nothing he wanted more in that moment than his bed.

‘Not long. Austorga only sent the message today. I’d not be surprised if he has an answer by sundown tomorrow. We’ll need to be ready as soon as he does. Do you think you’ll be able for it?’

‘You don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be ready. A good night’s sleep will do me wonders.’ Soren didn’t want to elaborate, but he knew the Fount would speed his healing process and in a city as large as Ostenheim where the Fount was so strong he reckoned he would be near recovered by morning. He hoped he would be able to explain it away as Franco’s skill being more than met the eye. His gift was not something he wanted to become common knowledge. ‘I’ll rest up until I hear from you.’

S
oren slept fitfully
, but was already awake when the sky outside his window began to change from inky darkness to the pale blue of dawn. He lay flat on his back and tried to keep his breathing and heart under control. He was not well rested, but the excitement of the task in front of him would be enough to see him through. For the rest, there would be the Gift.

He gently tested the parts of his body that had received the worst injury, and was relieved to find that there was no noticeable pain. He had full movement, without any stiffness, and aside from feeling more tired than he would have liked, he was fit and well.

The bells distant in the campanile on Crossways rang out for seven bells, and it was time to get moving. He dressed quickly and checked his sword and dagger. He had checked both dozens of times during the night, but did so once again, ensuring all the fittings were secure. He never failed to revel in the beauty of the Telastrian steel. Part of him could hardly believe that his door had not been kicked in during the middle of the night, but he would continue as though there was nothing out of order. He checked and double-checked his pocket for the token Giura gave him to identify himself with at the bank, and then left.

Austorgas’ Banking House took pride of place beside the Great Exchange on Crossways. Most buildings in Ostenheim were built from brick, but the great buildings were constructed with cut stone. One did not need to know that Austorgas’ owned the building to be sure of the wealth and power it was there to house; every feature of its façade said more than any letters chiselled into an architrave could.

Soren took the token, a large, flat metal disc engraved with various unintelligible symbols from his pocket as he walked into the bank shortly after its doors opened for the day’s business. His boot heels clacked as he walked across the polished marble floor, the sound echoing in the large, and as yet sparsely populated chamber. There were only a few clerks setting up at their dark wooden counters, and one or two other people there. He felt a fluttering of nerves in his stomach. His mind briefly drifted back to the last time he’d been there, with dal Lupard, but he forced himself to focus.

He looked about to see if there was anyone looking for him as he flipped the token between his fingers in a casual fashion, but one which would allow anyone looking for it to see it. A man standing by a doorway on the left-hand side of the room nodded to Soren. Soren walked over and handed the man the token. He looked at it and then brought Soren through the doorway and deep into the bowels of the building, before finally arriving at a large and sumptuously decorated office.

There was an enormous desk in the centre of the room, a deep chestnut brown. The top was covered with dark green leather, decorated with gold filigree. Austorga was the sole occupant of the room, sitting on the other side of the desk, and the man that guided Soren this far retreated out of the room and closed the door behind him.

‘So. Here you are, the finest swordsman of our times,’ Austorga said.

Soren couldn’t detect any implication behind the statement and almost coughed in stupefaction at the description, but stifled it. Giura had obviously been talking him up during their planning.

‘Where shall I wait?’ Soren said, trying to sound confident, but not arrogant.

‘There is a small room over there.’ Austorga pointed to a doorway decorated to blend into the wall. ‘It’s a water closet, but that is of little import. It will conceal you until I signal you to come out and kill dal Moreno.’ There was contempt in his voice when he spoke of Amero, compounded by his use of Amero’s title prior to becoming duke.

Austorga looked very different than he had on the other occasion Soren had met him. Clothes certainly did make the man, and his presence and appearance exuded authority. He had a thin, grey face that was clean-shaven. His hair was liberally streaked with grey and was shorter than fashionable, swept back across his head with not a single hair out of place. His clothes, though exquisitely tailored from dark blue fabric that must have cost a fortune, were a little too old fashioned to be considered stylish, but everything about him said that he did things his own way and did not give a damn for style or convention.

Soren had been in the presence of many powerful men in his life, a ridiculous fact when he considered that most of it thus far had been spent living in poverty. From the dukes of Ostenheim to the khagans of Shandahar, he had met benevolent leaders, tyrants and despots, and Gian-Cantaro Austorga bore the same air of incontrovertible power. The ordinary looking man he had approached in that small arena was long gone. His eyes were utterly cold and emotionless, devoid of the animated excitement they showed in that venue.

As well as powerful men, Soren had met many dangerous ones—psychopaths and trained killers among them. They tended to have a detached, emotionless quality about them, but none did it quite as well as Austorga. Soren felt as though he was being looked at no differently to a number on a ledger sheet.

‘I have mechanisms in place to assume interim control of the city to ensure my own safety, and as a corollary yours, once dal Moreno is dead. Fail and we will all be on the headsman’s block before the week is out. Do not fail.’ He emphasised each word separately.

‘Dal Moreno will be here shortly. When I feel the time is right, I will signal for my secretary outside. You will be able to hear the bell from the water closet. I cannot emphasise the amount of trust I am placing in you with this matter. Come out, kill him and we will be done with it. Giura assured me you are a professional, which my own investigation into your background confirms. It also revealed the history of your association with dal Moreno. This will not be the time to discuss grievances. When you come out of the water closet, kill him quickly. If you fuck about and still manage to kill him, you will attract my ire and that will mean much the same for you as if you had failed. Am I clear?’

Soren nodded. ‘I don’t have anything to say to him.’

‘Good.’ Austorga gestured to the door.

S
oren went
into what he expected to be a small, and perhaps not particularly pleasant smelling room. His surprise with what he found was unjustified, all things considered. Marble, porcelain and gold abounded, and it was larger than some of the places Soren had lived in over the years. Like the office, there were no windows to let in natural light. That was provided by a number of mage lamps that kept the room perfectly illuminated.

Waiting seemed to be an integral part of the assassination business, at least when it was being done to someone else’s requirements. He didn’t remember there being so much waiting around the last time he had dabbled in the profession, although at that time, there was such a steep learning curve he had little opportunity to allow his mind to wander. Now, all that was needed was a little swordplay, and there was no way to prepare for that in the time that was left.

He sat on the counter containing the washbasin. Only a few minutes went by before he heard the office door being opened and voices. There was no sound of commotion, so it was not the City Watch, or the Intelligenciers arriving to arrest Austorga for treason. Soren would dearly have loved to know what was being said, but he could only hear the muffled sound of conversation.

Soren closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. His heart was racing in anticipation, and his closeness to the moment of reckoning increased his nervous state, as it always did when he had to wait for a big occasion.

It was so much easier to plunge into action without having to sit idly thinking of it beforehand. That brought its own problems though. He took long slow breaths and tried to block the voices of doubt from his head. He grabbed onto anything that distracted him from any thought that increased his anxiety. He could feel his body reach out for the Fount, as it often did in times of stress. It was his body’s natural survival instinct trying to take over, but he had to control it. Like as not he would need the Fount soon enough, but to allow it force itself upon him, rather than to draw on it in the desired and controlled way would be more of a problem than a solution.

At first he thought he was imagining the gentle, tinkling sound of a bell, but as he focussed his attention on the sound, he was sure that he was not. It was time. He paused with his hand over the door handle for a moment, trying to decide between opening it discreetly and slamming it open to greater dramatic effect. There was never a second chance to make a big entrance. He chuckled at the foolishness of the thought.