A vast meeting hall before me, one that had been built before magic and its sorcerers cursed us with the sourings, in a time when people had plenty and great advances were made. The room was four, maybe five times the height of a man, and the black stone walls had been plastered and painted white. In many places the plaster was flaking and yellowed, and no doubt the huge and colourful tapestries that gently rippled in an errant breeze covered more damage. The weak sun of yearsage streamed in through crystal windows set high in the walls, trapping dust, which drifted slowly in the sunlight like insects caught in honey. I felt like an actor in a theatre.
My master and I often travelled as jesters as they are welcomed by the lowest and the highest of the land. Tradition has it a jester does not speak to those who are their betters, so they are often forgotten about and a jester can move unremarked upon through a castle or village. At the same time a jester is a status symbol, and my master’s Death’s Jester is famous and she, as a jester rather than an assassin, is highly sought after. I have considerable talent myself. My clubbed foot makes me a second-level jester—a clown of deformity—but despite being one of the mage-bent, my foot twisted by the sickness wrought by sorcerers on the land, I understand wordplay and I tumble almost as well as any other. There are very few things in my life as joyous as bringing joy and my dreams are often of the theatre, of letting go of the hand of Xus, the god of death, and walking out to entertain upon the boards and receive the appreciative hand of the crowd.
But in my dreams I do not wear a noose around my neck or play to a grim-faced audience of two—one my master, bound to a chair. The other a woman of similar age but dressed finely in flowing jerkins and gold-threaded trews who holds my master at swordpoint. Both are illuminated by a shaft of light and utterly still like players before the opening of their performance. I wondered if this had been done on purpose. If so there could be no doubt our captors had a flare for the dramatic.
“Aydor,” said the woman, her voice husky as if she were aroused, “make sure the rope is tight around the boy’s neck, or Merela may not believe I am serious.” The noose around my neck snaked shut and the air in the room thickened. “Good boy,” she said.
Aydor’s foul breath enveloped me as he whispered in my ear.
“You’ll regret that kiss you gave me when you’re begging for air, mage-bent. No one treats me like a woman; I’m the king-in-waiting.”
The woman turned and tore off my master’s mask. “So, Merela Karn—” she walked around my master’s chair “—who did you come here to kill?”
There was silence then. A long silence. The sort of silence used to underline the drama in the bad theatre pieces that were performed at Festival, the great travelling trade caravan that toured the Tired Lands. This was a bad thing for me as a cripple. A fast rule of poor Tired Lands drama is that the hero’s well-meaning cripple friend dies as early as possible in the first act. This gives the hero a reason to continue; it provides them with some impetus. I had never taken the common hack playwrights’ work personally until I stood on a stage with a noose around my neck.
“You know me, Merela,” said the woman. “You know you cannot lie about your trade. So spare your apprentice some pain. Tell me who you came to kill.”
My master said nothing.
“I am the queen now, Merela. Adran Mennix, queen of the whole of Maniyadoc and the Long Tides. You know that; you helped put me on my throne. Aren’t you proud of that?” She walked around my master, who ignored her, staring fixedly forward. “Do we not have some bond, Merela? Does our past not tie us together?” She knelt, putting a hand on my master’s leg.
My master said nothing and the queen remained kneeling, searching her face, then straightened. When she spoke again there was a yearning note in her voice.
“Is there nothing there, Merela? Not even in in your code of murder, that says we are bonded?”
My master said nothing.
“Very well, you were always stubborn. Let’s see if we can find something you do care about,” said the queen. “Aydor, pull on the rope.”
“Wait.” My master spoke in nothing more than a whisper but it filled the entire room. It was a skill she had taught me in my tenth year, a way of speaking from the bottom of your stomach rather than your throat that fills your blood with energetic fizzing and a room with sound. The queen, at that moment gesturing towards me, gave an imperious smile and let her hand drop. Aydor, who I had decided must be her son as there was a definite resemblance, gave the rope a spiteful tug that had me standing on my tiptoes to avoid choking. I was desperate to hear what was being said by this woman who called herself a queen. My master had always been tight-lipped about her past, and now it turned out she knew one of the most powerful women in the Tired Lands, Queen Adran Mennix of Maniyadoc. If I was about to die then I would at least try to die with my curiosity sated.
“Very well, Merela, I will wait upon you again,” said the queen with a mocking bow. “I hope you understand what an honour that is now.”
“We were invited here, Queen Adran,” said my master, “invited to meet a contact in the castle, and they would tell us our target.”
“You came, to my castle, to kill. Even though we were friends once?”
“Yes, I came because we were friends. Once.”
“And do you know who brought you here?”
“We both know that.”
“Do we?” said Adran.
“Of course we do. You brought us here.”
Once again the dramatic silence. Though I knew my master was right because she is always right. I also knew that I had been the only person in the room in the dark about this as Aydor let the tension on the rope slacken slightly in surprise at being found out.
“And,” said the queen quietly, “what makes you think that?”
“A night-soil drain designed as a trap. The insistence on our coming through the night soil gate when we all know the blessed keep them watched. And lastly, and most obviously, that I was asked for by my full name.”
“Is that so strange?”
“Yes, the number of people who know my real name and what I do can be counted on the fingers of one hand.” She looked up then, a big smile on her face. I do not like that smile. It generally bodes nothing good. “All of them are in this room.”
The rope creaked, tightening around my neck as Queen Adran stared at my master. Then the queen laughed. She had a beautiful laugh, a chiming girlish laugh that was full of life and pleasure.
“Sharp as ever, Merela. I knew I was right to bring you here.”
“And you, Adran, are as willing to make things needlessly complex as ever. You could have asked to see me.”
“You would not have come, Merela. Not for what I want.”
“And that is?”
“Your advice. Your help.”
“Why?” My master tipped her head to one side. She seemed genuinely confused.
“My son.”
“Son?” My master raised an eyebrow. “I thought you only ever wanted daughters?” I felt Aydor’s muscles twitch through the tension of the rope.
“What was it you always said, Merela? We work with what we have?” The noose tightened another notch. “Nonetheless, I love my son and someone in the court wishes to assassinate him.” She nodded at Aydor, a man with breath only a mother could love.
“Of course they do,” said my master, and the rope around my neck tightened again, forcing sweat out of my pores.
“Then you know about this? For sure?” Adran—all angles and worry.
I am an assassin, Adran—”