Myth-Told Tales

Her opponent countered both her moves. He leaped back to avoid the knife, then closing with her inside the arc of her second dagger. Tananda retreated and riposted. He countered. Her right-hand dagger went flying. She and the defender ended up tangled in one another's arms, grappling for the remaining knife. The big, hairy hand felt its way down her arm to her back and up to her face. It stopped, as if in surprise.

"Little Sister!" a big, hearty voice boomed.

"Big Brother!" Tananda cried, recognizing both the voice and the scent of the fur.

The siblings stopped wrestling. Tananda squeezed her Troll brother until the air was knocked out of him then looked up at him. "What are you doing here?"

Chumley patted his chest, trying to get his breath back.

"I presume, my dear sister, that I am engaged in a counterpoint to what you intend to do here. Or do I fail to recognize the knot in the scarf around your neck?"

Tananda sighed and sat down on the step. "No, you're right. I've been hired to assassinate your friend."

His big furry brow lowered. The usually even-tempered Troll looked angry.

"Why? Why take the contract? Cordu is an old friend of mine, if not of yours."

She noticed a torch on the wall and lit it with a lick of magik force.

"Read the contract before you get upset, Brother," Tananda said, handing it over.

The brow lifted at clause three. "And she signed it?"

"She didn't even read it through. But it'll hold up before the Guildmaster, and that's all I care about. Mums would get so upset if the Guild punishers came looking for me. She might get blood on that new Djinni carpet she just had put in."

Chumley shivered. Their mother was a force to be reckoned with.

"So, what are you going to do?"

"Well," Tananda said. "I would say at this point, what are we going to do? He's your friend."

"Come and talk with him, Little Sister," Chumley said, wrapping her in a fond fraternal arm. "I think you will find what he has to say most interesting."

"I was a fool," Cordu said, pacing up and back in his own bedchamber. This room, Tananda noted with an eye toward interior decorating, was much more a male's idea of a cozy hideaway. The heads of animals stared glassily at her. Three very large, red-scaled hunting beasts lay asleep in front of a crackling fire. A suit of armor stood beside the doorway, holding a tray containing a square, cut-crystal whiskey decanter and a clutch of glasses. Cordu, rather a good-looking male of the Nobish type, poured out beverages for each of them. He held up his own glass in salute. Tananda surreptitiously used a thread of magik to test her own whiskey for poison. Chumley noticed her movement.

"Tsk tsk," he said.

"Sorry," she said. "I'm on duty."

"I understand," Cordu sighed. "I am glad that you are willing to talk to me. Rennie won't."

Chumley poured himself another glass of whiskey. "Casting my mind backward, Cordu, I seem to recall that you and Renimbi cared for one another."

"We do—I mean, did. We have been best friends all our lives. That is why I thought she would understand— the mistake I made. I had no idea that she would go so far in her displeasure as to hire an assassin. Truthfully, it's not entirely my fault. Her father and I... well, it is all a misunderstanding. I know he has always wanted to join our two realms. Perhaps you know that they were one country, three hundred years ago."

Tananda and Chumley shook their heads.

"My studies of your history are more of the first and last," Chumley said. "The ancient origins of your people, and most recent, social studies, if you like. So many dimensions, so little time."

Cordu found a map in the bookshelf that sat underneath the arched window and unrolled it to show them.

"The arrangement makes sense, for our mutual prosperity and defense. This part of the continent is one big river valley, best defended at its mountain passes on the circumference. My father and I had discussed it with our ministers and found it to be workable, so I went to the Tue-Khan with a diplomatic proposal. We would write a treaty that left our realms each under separate thrones, but as one with an open border to allow easy movement. I stressed that our peoples were of one blood, as close as kin could be. He got the idea into his head that I must marry Renimbi to seal the arrangement. And, well, there was a lot to drink. And, well ... I didn't really read the document that he shoved underneath my nose early the next morning."

"Why would the Tue-Khan even do such a thing?" Tananda asked.