He had been in the Fortress for almost a day before he managed to find Tandellin. The youth’s barracks was nowhere near the areas Valder found himself frequenting; but once he had taken care of the minimal necessities of settling in, he took the time to track down his former bunkmate.
Tandellin had been permanently posted to the Fortress as part of the garrison; he stood a watch on the ramparts for six hours a day and was on call as a messenger and errand boy for six more. Calls came frequently. Still, he was able to find time for a quiet drink and conversation with Valder in a seldom-used storeroom on the evening of the day following Valder’s arrival.
When they had exchanged a few polite phrases, Valder asked, “How are things going? Still running errands for that wizard?”
“Sharassin? No.”
The answer seemed uncharacteristically brief. “What happened?” Valder asked.
Tandellin grinned crookedly. “If you must know, she found out where I had been spending some of my time when I was off duty and she wasn’t. She didn’t take it well. Just as well; she was transferred out a few days ago, anyway.”
Valder grinned back. “So where were you spending that time — or wasn’t it always the same place?”
“Oh, it was the same place all right. Her name is Sarai of the Green Eyes.”
Valder waited, but Tandellin did not continue. “What’s this?” he asked. “No description? No suggestion that I really must meet her? Could there be something special about Sarai of the Green Eyes?”
Tandellin’s grin turned sheepish. “Maybe there is.”
“Ah, well, congratulations, my boy, if it’s true.” Valder was genuinely pleased. He was a great believer in love and marriage, or so he had always said — though he had, as yet, no particular inclination in that direction for himself. It delighted him to see Tandellin showing signs of settling down, giving up the wildness of youth. The world needed more quietly settled people, he was convinced, something to provide stability and offset the chaos of the eternal war.
That thought brought to mind his own part in the war, systematically trying to produce chaos among the enemy by killing the men who kept order. He wondered whether any northerners were attempting similar missions in Ethshar. If so, they did not appear to be very successful, since the approximate whereabouts of the commanders, Azrad, Gor, Terrek, and Anaran, were common knowledge, yet no assassins had killed any of them.
Given a choice, Valder decided, he would much have preferred to be maintaining order in Ethshar, rather than creating chaos in the Empire — but since acquiring Wirikidor he had had no choice. Wirikidor was very much an agent of chaos, it seemed, and his superiors would not allow him to keep the blade sheathed and ignore it, as he wanted to. Some time soon, when they had found a target worthy of him, he would once again be sent out to wield Wirikidor. That took a great deal of the pleasure out of life in the Fortress.
It was three days after his arrival that Captain Dumery’s secretary found him and led him to his first briefing.
That first mission went well; he was able to kill the enemy general they had chosen quickly and without killing anyone else. That brought his total to eighteen.
The next, three days later, was disastrous; Valder managed his part well enough, but it was a joint mission, involving himself, a wizard who provided magical transportation, and a cocky young thief, and the thief botched his part. Valder and the wizard made it back alive, though the wizard had a long scar to show for it and Wirikidor’s total was up to twenty-five, which did not include the intended target.
Twenty-five down, seventy-five to go — or seventy-three or seventy-seven. Valder almost began looking forward to his next task; if he kept on using Wirikidor at that rate, he would be forced to give up assassination in a matter of months. Dumery could not order him to draw the sword once the possibility of it turning on him became imminent. He would still be a soldier, but no longer an assassin; he could leave Wirikidor safely in its scabbard and fight with more ordinary weapons.
He had been resting up from that errand for a day or so when he was summoned, not to Captain Dumery’s little office, but to meet General Gor himself. With some trepidation, he went.
Gor of the Rocks was of medium height, but heavy, broad at shoulder and hip, with thick black hair and beard. He stood with his feet planted well apart, as if bracing himself, and wore the standard brown tunic and green kilt of the Ethsharitic army, his badges of rank hung in a bunch on a chain around his neck.
“Valder, is it?” he said.
“Yes, sir,” Valder answered.
“From now on you take orders from me and nobody else; not Captain Dumery, not Kelder, not Azrad or Anaran or Terrek. You understand that? If I want you, I’ll send for you, but you take your orders for where to go and what to do when you’re outside this fortress from me and me alone. I don’t want you wasted on any more messes like that last one Dumery thought up. You did well enough — brought back Cardel, and the gods all know we need every wizard we can get at this point — but you shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Wasted seven out of a hundred!”
“Yes, sir,” Valder said with calm resignation.
“Good. You’re getting your food and pay on time?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. This war is finally getting somewhere, Valder, and we need all the help we can get, even swords with curses put on them by deranged hermits we can’t find, if they can be useful. You may not like what you’re doing, and I wouldn’t blame you. It’s not exactly glorious, sneaking in and killing people with an unbeatable magic sword — more like butchery than soldering, in a way. Still, remember, it’s useful. You’re doing something that may turn out to be essential.”
“Yes, sir.” He admired Gor’s estimate of his own thoughts and attempt to answer them. He did not agree with it; his objections were not rational but emotional and had nothing to do with glory or its lack. Still, the general was at least trying to help him accept his role, which was more personal attention than he had expected.
“Good luck, then. I’ll send someone when I need you.”
Valder nodded, bowed, and withdrew.
He was somewhat overwhelmed by General Gor, who had managed to cover everything essential within three minutes, including his little speech of encouragement. On consideration, though, assassination was not so much like butchery as like burglary, save that, rather than jewelry, Valder stole lives.
With Wirikidor’s talents and habits, it did seem very much like stealing.
It was ten days after that that Gor sent for him and gave him another assignment.
This one was planned very neatly and went off smoothly. That, Valder discovered, was to be the standard in his work for Gor. The general did not plan the assassinations himself, but he did review the plans and modify or reject them, if they were in any way flawed or incomplete.
From then on, it was a rare and difficult mission when Wirikidor was drawn more than once. The missions came less often, but seemed more important. Valder disposed of the Empire’s minister of transportation, assorted generals, and even a prince, as well as unidentified targets. Assignments came, on the average, one every three six-nights.
In between, he was free to roam the Fortress, spending Tandellin’s off-duty hours drinking and gaming with his old friend and spending most of the rest of the time either with women or alone in his bed, staring unhappily at the ceiling.
Winter came and went, and Valder continued his duties ever more reluctantly. The count of his victims mounted. He was horrified, after one exceptionally complex errand involving three related targets he took to be the entire family of a northern nobleman, to realize that he was no longer absolutely sure what the correct count was.
Occasionally, one of his brief liaisons developed into something more; the first was with a girl named Hinda, a few years younger than himself, who stayed in his room for almost a month before finding a more cheerful companion. She was followed by someone who called herself Alir; Valder suspected that that was not her real name, though the only reason for his suspicion was her excessively romantic nature. She seemed to be convinced that Valder was doing something very exciting and glorious whenever he was out of the Fortress; she finally departed when, even in bed, he refused to say just what it was that he did for General Gor.
He acquired friends of both sexes as well as lovers, though none were especially close. He grew to like Sarai of the Green Eyes, a vivacious girl of eighteen or so, and was glad when Tandellin included her in their
