Assassin’s Fate

Two days in port. Two days in which to find a way off the ship and out of Dwalia’s custody. Six days to win Vindeliar over to my cause. If he fled with me, and kept us both hidden, what chance would Dwalia have of finding us? I knew that luring him from his ‘path’ would be like luring a wild bird from a berry bush. The wrong words might frighten him off completely. I would have to be very careful. I put myself on a strict schedule. For three days I would court his friendship. Only on the fourth would I begin to persuade him to help me.

Kerf hunched beside of me, his shoulders bowed against the rain, his face nearly blank with Vindeliar’s overlay of servitude. I felt sorry for him. He looked like a once-proud stallion hitched to a dung cart. At night, when he stripped for sleep, I noticed the slackening of the muscles in his arms and chest. Under Vindeliar’s sway, he moved less and less like a warrior and more like a servant. Much more of this, and he would lose his usefulness as a protector. I wondered if Dwalia saw that.

On the other side of me, Vindeliar slumped. He had an odd face: sometimes boyish and at other times the face of a disappointed old man. It had fallen into dismal folds today as he stared at the waves. ‘So far from home,’ he said woefully.

‘Tell me of our destination, brother.’ Being asked to speak always flattered him. I had become the avid listener, never correcting or silencing him. ‘What will it be like when we arrive there?’

‘Oh,’ he breathed out long, as if he did not know where to begin. ‘It depends on where we land. We may dock in deep water, on the other side of the island. We may land in Sisal or perhaps Crupton. Dwalia will be known there. I hope for a night in a comfortable inn and a good meal. Lamb with mint, perhaps. I like lamb. And a warm, dry room.’ He paused as if already savouring those simple pleasures. ‘She may hire a carriage to take us to Clerres. I hope she does not want to ride there on horseback. A horse’s back has never fitted my bottom well.’

I nodded sympathetically.

‘And we will go to Clerres. Perhaps we may dock there … It will depend on what sort of a ship we can find. It will be full summer when we arrive. Hot for you, little northern thing that you are. Nice for me. I will welcome the sun baking the aches out of my joints. Clerres gleams white on a sunny day. Some of it is built of ancient bone, and other parts are white stone.’

‘Bone? That sounds frightening.’

‘Does it? Not to me. Worked bone can be lovely. When we get there, we will wait for low tide to bare the causeway and then cross to our island sanctuary. Surely you have heard of it! The tops of the watchtowers are shaped like the skulls of ancient monsters. At night, the torches inside make the eyes gleam with orange light and they appear to be looking out in all directions. It is imposing and powerful.’ He stopped and scratched his wet cheek. Rain dripped from his chin. Then he leaned closer and lowered his voice to impart an important secret to me. ‘The furniture in the four towers is made from dragon’s bones! Symphe has a set of drinking cups carved from dragon’s teeth and lined with silver! They are very old, passed down from Symphe to Symphe, through the generations.’

‘Symphe to Symphe?’

He lifted his pale brows. ‘The woman in the North Tower is always called Symphe. How can you not know these things? I was taught them when I was very young. Clerres is the heart of the world, and the heartbeat of the world must always be steady.’ This last he said as if repeating an adage known the world over.

‘Until you took me, I knew nothing of the Servants or Clerres.’ It was not quite a lie. I had read a tiny bit about them in my father’s papers, but not enough to prepare me for what I now endured.

‘Perhaps it is because you are so young,’ Vindeliar replied thoughtfully. He gave me a pitying look.

I shook my head. My hair was now long enough to go to curls in the rain and droplets flew from it. ‘I don’t think they are as famed as you believe them to be. Kerf, had you heard of Clerres before the Servants hired you?’

He turned slowly toward me, blue eyes widening in slow consternation like a puzzled cow.

‘Hush,’ Vindeliar warned me. ‘Don’t ask him questions!’