The King's assassin

‘You can thank your brother for that.’

‘Are you sure?’ Talon reached out. From beneath Berren’s shirt he pulled the chain and the stone that Gelisya had given him on their first voyage to Tethis, back from the slaver camp. Then he let go and put a hand on Berren’s arm. ‘Try to forgive my brother. He’s not himself.’

‘Then who is he?’

Talon didn’t answer. He stared at the chain and the stone hanging loose around Berren’s neck now. ‘Is it really possible? To cut out a piece of someone’s soul and yet leave them to live? Is that really what Kuy did to you when you were with him?’

‘I was never with Kuy. I was in his house once for a few minutes, that was all. The most terrifying minutes I’ll ever know.’ Berren’s eyes glazed over. He could see the web of his soul right then, as clear as he’d seen it in Deephaven when Saffran Kuy had first cut him with the gold-handled knife. He could see the threads snapping, one after the other. Cut, cut, cut. And then he saw himself in Tethis, making the potion to pull Tarn away from whatever demons held him, filled with a knowledge he should never have had. He pushed the stone back under his shirt. ‘Yeh,’ he choked. ‘Yes, he really did that.’

‘Then why did he give it back to you, Berren?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t mean to. Gelisya never seemed that happy to let it go.’

‘She could have taken it while you were in the Pit. She didn’t.’

‘But Kuy wasn’t there then. You’d sent him packing.’

Talon waved another pitcher of beer to their table. ‘After the accident Aimes didn’t move. He didn’t speak. It was like he was dead except his heart was still beating. Like Tarn was when Gelisya gave that to you. Aimes was like that for three days and then suddenly he was better. No one knew why. Sometimes that’s what happens when you get hit on the head. Except Syannis once told me he saw Kuy go into Aimes’ room late at night. After Meridian killed our father and scattered us, Syannis spent three years making sure we were safe. Then he vanished. He went halfway around the world looking for Saffran Kuy. Why? Why would he do that? We had so many other troubles and he left us to look for that bloody necromancer who’d brought us nothing but pain.’ Talon’s voice was slurring and his eyes were closing. ‘And now. . we have to do something.’

Minutes later he was asleep, sprawled across the table. Berren lurched up the stairs. Talon had never been anything less than a friend. But Syannis? He looked inside himself to see whether there were any feelings at all. Eventually he found them, frozen in ice, trapped and caged. No, for Syannis he felt nothing. And nothing that Talon had said made any difference either. So what if Syannis was obsessed with Aimes? None of it would help him get Fasha and his son, would it? None of it would help him keep his promise. And if it didn’t help with that then what use was it? None. The thief-taker had made his own troubles and now he could lie with them and be damned, and that was all fine, and. .

But then unconsciousness picked him up and hurled him into a sea of dreams. He saw himself as Aimes, trapped in a stable full of horses as big as houses, all of them angry and trying to stamp him flat while he desperately scurried out of the way, until one of them finally caught him and squashed him, pressing him down into the ground, ever deeper and ever darker to another place where even the sounds had bright colours running through them. He smelled smoke and incense and fish, and some giant was looming over him with hands that were neither kind nor gentle. He felt them touch his face, felt a sticky, bitter coldness at the back of his throat and a voice whisper in his ear: Fasha, Fasha, Fasha. Then the hands withdrew and clasped a knife between them, Kuy’s knife, and cut him slowly open except there was no pain, no blood, only a numb relief as the tension and the hurt flooded away. Fasha, Fasha, Fasha. The whisper went on, only now the voice had changed; the words were no longer deep and long but high-pitched and childish. The giant hands became small and delicate and he saw that the figure looming over him was Gelisya. She held Kuy’s knife so he could see it, could see himself in the blade as though pressed against a glass. And with him inside it, he saw Fasha too.

I have a piece of both of you now, said Gelisya, and she faded away into a deep and endless void.

The next evening, when Talon had finally sobered up, he told Berren what was really on his mind. ‘I have a new commission,’ he said. ‘For as soon as the company can assemble.’

‘I thought you were going back to Tethis.’

‘Yes. That’s the commission. I’m offering it to myself. I think I might accept it too.’

‘We’re going to fight for Syannis again?’ Berren snorted. ‘No, thanks.’

Talon looked sad. ‘We’re. . we’re going to fight against him.’

Now every part of Berren was suddenly awake and listening. ‘Against him? For whom?’

Talon sighed. ‘I want you to get rid of Aimes. Let him be dead.’

‘You want to get rid of Aimes, let Syannis do it. All he needs is a bit of poison.’

Talon glared and growled. ‘The last thing that Syannis wants to do is kill him. Sun and Moon, you can be a cold fish sometimes. Syannis wants to make him better, always did! He can’t, but that won’t stop him from trying. There are warlocks in Tethis again, Berren. He has it in him to be a good king, but not while Aimes is there, because at every turn the warlocks whisper to him. So I want you to kill Aimes, and I will deal with these warlocks once and for all. He can’t just die, because then Syannis will fall to bits. He has to be killed. Murdered. You could do that. You killed a king for Syannis; you can do it for me. He’ll hate you beyond words, but you can just get on that ship to Deephaven I kept promising all those years ago. He’ll never reach you.’

‘And why in the name of the four gods would I do that? What’s Aimes ever done to me?’

‘You’ll do it for your slave and for your son and for all the gold you have and a sackful more, and because if you don’t do it then I will, and then I cannot be there to make Syannis whole again. Aimes isn’t fit to be a king and never was.’ He shook his head. ‘It has to end, and unless I turn my sword on my own brother, I can think of no other way.’ He looked across at Berren. Half a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t be asking you this, but I don’t know who else might do it.’

‘No, you shouldn’t.’ Berren shook his head. He closed his eyes and pinched his nose.

‘Then say no and let it fall to me and forget that I asked. I’ll not judge you harshly for that. I might even admire you for it.’

Berren looked up again. ‘What you should be doing is the one thing you can’t. You’d make a good king, Prince Talon. Get rid of them all, that’s what you should do.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve nothing against Aimes.’

‘You had nothing against Meridian either.’

‘You’re asking me to murder your brother.’

‘Half-brother.’ Talon spat. ‘And that’s between me and my conscience, and I did tell you that I never liked him. You’re the Bloody Judge, Berren. You’ve become that. Why is Aimes any different to all the other men you’ve killed? This time you could save a few.’

‘Fine. I’ll do it then. For Fasha and for my son, and for all the gold I have and a sackful more. A big sackful.’ And for Tasahre, twisted as it was. Let Syannis feel the same pain.

‘And then you’ll be gone. Vanish. Back to where you came from. Too far away even for my brother to come looking. Because he will.’

‘Like a ghost.’ Casually, Berren smiled and leaned in towards Talon. ‘You never did me any wrong, not yet. But like you said, I’m the Bloody Judge of Tethis now. If you cross me like Syannis did, you’d better kill me, because if you don’t, I will cut my way through every single last one of you.’

‘I have something for you.’ Talon unbuckled his sword belt and passed it across to Berren, sword and all. ‘Take it. I have others.’

Berren looked at Talon’s sword. It was a fine blade, a proper Dominion fencing sword, a little longer than the blades he usually carried, but light, neatly balanced, with a basket hilt of curling coils of metal. ‘Worth a bit, that.’

‘As much as your bondswoman. Probably more. Think of it as part of your payment.’ He closed his eyes. ‘How did it come to this, Berren?’

Berren took the sword and the belt. ‘Killing Aimes isn’t what really needs to be done. But you know that.’

Talon only looked sad. ‘You may be right.’ He shrugged. ‘But I’m not my brother. Either of them.’ He got up