Weapon of Flesh (28 page)

“Yes, Grandfather,” she said, retrieving another towel from the bin and attending to the few flecks of blood that Lad could not reach.

“Oh, and as for you, Boy.  This is your new home.  Don’t damage anything and stay here until I bid you leave.  Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Good.”  The Grandfather and his valet left the room without another word.

Two burly guards came in and lifted the lifeless form of the half-elf.  Lad watched them go as he finished with the towel and dropped it on the floor.  As Mya picked it up and deposited it in an empty barrel, he took a moment to inspect his prison.

The room was a dome of mortared stone, perhaps a hundred fifty feet across and a third that high at the center.  From wall to wall, and suspended from a large portion of the ceiling, the place was crowded with devices, most of which Lad had never seen before.  Having just been strapped down to one of them, however, he quickly realized that the purpose of all of this equipment was to restrain and cause pain to people.  What reason someone would have to do that was still beyond his ken, but he had a deep knot in the pit of his stomach when he looked at these machines and imagined them in use.  He was beginning to understand what Wiggen had meant by evil, and he did not like it at all.

“Here.”

He turned to see that Mya had retrieved some clothing from a shelf next to the bin.  He inspected her, his mind sorting through a hundred ways that he could kill her in an instant, none of which the magic that controlled his body would allow.  Her eyes flicked over him quickly whenever she could not avoid looking at him, as if he made her nervous.

“Put these on.”  She put a dark pair of trousers and a similarly hued tunic on the pallet.

“Why?”  Lad stood staring at her, commanding her attention.  If making her uncomfortable was his only weapon, he would wield it.  “What difference if a slave wears clothing or not.  Or if another slave sees one without clothes.”

“I am not a slave,” she said dangerously.  Lad watched carefully as her face flushed with color and her nostrils dilated with every breath.  His taunt had scored.

“You may not think you are a slave, Mya, but you are as much bound by the Grandfather’s commands as I.”  He smiled, letting her see that her discomfort amused him.  “At least I
know
what I am.”

“I am a hunter!” she spat, taking a half step and glaring into his luminous eyes, her discomfort transforming to rage.  “I
work
for the Grandfather.  You are a weapon, one of flesh, but a weapon and nothing more.  You were
made
to be a slave, and that is what you are.”

“What we are made to be is not always what we become.”  He let his voice soften with that, wondering what other emotions he could provoke from her.

“You were told to put these on.”  She snatched up the clothes and thrust them at him, her eyes hard as flint.

“No, you were told to see that I was dressed.”  Lad made no move to take the clothing.  “I must obey my master, but not
you
.”

“Refusing to obey me will get you nowhere, Lad.  If you don’t put the clothing on, I will simply tell the Grandfather that you refused, and he will order you to do so.”  She held out the clothing once again.  “It would not be wise to antagonize him.  He could make you do things that you would not enjoy.”

Lad’s thoughts immediately centered upon Wiggen and Forbish, and he saw in Mya’s eyes that she knew what he was thinking.  She could easily tell the Grandfather that he cared for the innkeeper and his daughter.  The result would be predictable and, as she had said, something he would not enjoy.

“If you are not his slave, Mya,” Lad asked, taking the clothes and slipping into the dark trousers, “why do you stay here?”  He drew the drawstring tight and reached for the tunic.  The material of both garments was smooth and slick to the touch; he had never felt its like.  “Clearly, you don’t enjoy following his orders.”

“I do my job.”  She turned and walked to another cabinet and began putting things onto a tray.  “Whether I enjoy it or not doesn’t matter.”

“Why not?”  He slipped into the tunic as she turned back with a tray full of food.

“Because I’m bound by my contract.”  She placed the tray upon the pallet.  It bore two large pieces of dried meat, a bowl of porridge and an apple.  “Eat.”

“Then you are a slave.”  He picked up one piece of meat and bit off a mouthful.

“No, I’m indentured.  There’s a difference.”

“What is indentured?”

“It means that I have an agreement with the Grandfather to serve him until I am fully trained.”  She watched him eat for a few bites.

“Who decides when you are fully trained?”

“The Grandfather.”

He watched her face and smiled.

“But that doesn’t mean I’m a slave!”

“You and I are more the same than we are different, Mya.”

“No, we aren’t.”  Her eyes had grown hard again and her hand had drifted to her dagger’s hilt.  He ignored her threatening posture.

“Both of us will escape the Grandfather the same way.”  He sampled the porridge.  It was sweetened with fruit and sugar.  It was nowhere near as good as Forbish’s porridge.

“You will never escape the Grandfather, Lad.  Not unless you are --”  Her eyes flared with anger and she whirled away, storming toward the door without looking back.

“Not unless I am killed,” he said before the door slammed.  Lad stopped eating and let the false smile fade from his mouth, wondering if his taunt would prove all-too-accurate in the end.

 Chapter
XVII

H
igh upon the Bluff, amid the opulent estates and townhouses of the neighborhood known as Duke’s Court, a shadow moved across a sliver of moonlight.  It moved without sound, without a scuff of boot or creak of leather, flickering from darkness to darkness like a wraith.  It moved with such stealth that one of the many patrolling Royal Guard walked within two feet of it without knowing.  Never had ignorance saved a life with such certainty.

Lad watched the guard until the noisy fellow disappeared around a corner, then he listened.  When the sound of the man’s footsteps faded away, he moved to the spot Mya had told him to seek.  Here, just like she had said, the stone was rough and the two walls were set against one another at a sufficiently acute angle to allow easier climbing.  He listened for a moment to make sure the next guard was not near, and then scaled the two adjoining walls like a spider climbing a cellar door.

At the top there was nowhere to go; the edge of the roof was adorned with a decorative crenellation that would not support his weight, though how Mya had learned this, he had no idea.  He was forced by the magic to follow her instructions, so he didn’t even consider testing her information.  The nearest window was fifteen feet away.  Lad remained perfectly still, hands and toes gripping the stone easily, his breathing steady and silent.

The second guard passed without looking up.

When the man was gone, Lad leapt without the slightest hesitation, aiming for the stone sill below the window.  It did not occur to him that if Mya’s information was slightly off, and the sill didn’t support his weight, he would fall fifty feet to the cobbled street.  He had been told to accept her instructions, and though his mind was still free, the magic would not allow him to disobey.

His outstretched fingers snatched the window’s narrow ledge and gripped it like a vise, his legs dangling freely.  The stone showed no sign of giving way.  He easily chinned himself up and contorted into a braced position in the window’s frame, leaving his hands free to work.  The window was just as Mya had described it: two bronze-framed panels made up from small panes of thick leaded glass.  It was made to be opened inward and was secured with a simple turn latch.  The hooked pick that had been secreted in the collar of Lad’s dark shirt slipped through the crack and lifted the latch without a sound.  He pushed gently, listening with every ounce of concentration he could muster for the faintest squeak.

The near-silent grating of the old bronze hinges might have gone unnoticed even to an astute observer, but to Lad the sound was deafening.  He had been ordered to be silent, and obey he must, so with the window only a hand’s width open, he stopped.  He could hear rhythmic breathing from those within the darkened chamber, and could easily discern the two sleeping shapes, but he could not reach them through the partially opened window.

Well
, he thought,
I cannot just sit here forever!  The magic compels me, but it restrains me, so
...  An idea came to him finally, though whether from some magical compulsion or his own agile mind, he knew not.  He had a single weapon that he had been instructed to use for a single purpose, but that did not preclude his using it for other purposes.

He slipped the slim stiletto from its sheath and placed the tip through the minute crack onto one of the offending hinges.  Then he slipped his finger slowly down the razor edge, letting his blood slide down the blade in thick droplets onto the squeaky bronze. 
Blood is a poor lubricant, but when none other is available it makes metal slide against metal more easily
, the memory said in his mind, as if his old instructor were perched invisibly over his shoulder.  After treating each hinge similarly, he sheathed the blade and carefully pushed the window.  His ears still caught the faintest of noises, but he knew that no other human could have heard it.

He slipped through the open portal like black water poured from a pitcher and lay upon the floor of the chamber, a shadow amid darkness.

He remained still for some time, ensuring that both of the people in the bed were indeed sleeping peacefully.  When he was sure, he stood and looked upon his unwary victim.  Regret, sorrow and remorse were not part of him, but Wiggen’s words rang in his mind as he retrieved the stiletto from its sheath and moved to the side of the bed.  He knew she had told him the truth: what he was about to do was evil.  He did not want to be evil, but the magic made him comply.  He stood for a moment and looked down at the face of the one he was going to kill, and he felt a tension in his stomach that he knew was his friendship for Wiggen telling him that what he was doing was wrong.  There was something akin to pain in that feeling, for he knew he was betraying that friendship, even though it was not of his own volition.

With a single lightning stroke, he thrust the blade into its intended sheath.  Lad left it there as he had been instructed.  He also took the ribbon-bound parchment from inside his shirt and placed it where he’d been told.  He then turned to go, his grim task complete.

But then Lad stopped.

His appointed task was finished; his only remaining orders were to return directly to the Grandfather’s keep without being detected.  There was no compulsion to hurry, so the magic that bound him left only a vague desire to return to the Grandfather’s estate
sometime
that evening.  He was free to act within the bounds of those orders, and decided to exercise that small spark of freedom.

He returned to the bedside, remembering something Wiggen had said to him once.  He then did something that he knew might put his life at risk in the future, but he had not been instructed
not
to do this specific thing, so the magic had no compulsion over him.

When he was finished, he turned to go, closing the window behind him with the same care he had used while breaking in.  He perched on the window’s sill for several long breaths, listening and timing the passage of the guard patrols.  When everything was quiet, he simply stepped off the sill into fifty feet of empty air.  There were three more windows between the one he’d left and the street, and he used each to slow his descent.  With no more noise than a leaf falling from a tree, he landed in a crouch.  He stepped into the shadows and listened carefully again, before becoming one with the darkness that had enveloped him.