The Archon's Assassin (55 page)

What if Aristodeus was wrong, as the Archon believed? What if this was just another trap, a deception of the Demiurgos?

After all, the armor and the gauntlets had been forged by the Cynocephalus, and he was the Demiurgos’s son. And the scarolite helm: had Aristodeus designed it, or had he borrowed from the lore of the homunculi, who now seemed to serve him, as they had once served Sektis Gandaw? Children of the Deceiver, they were. As riddled with deception and betrayal as the Father of Lies himself. But wasn’t Shadrak the same? Isn’t that what Bird had tried to tell him?

His gaze wandered to Bird’s corpse on the floor, eyes no more than burnt-out cavities. Maybe Bird would have known what to do, because he was shogged if he did.

He shouldered the bag rather than fold it and put it in his pocket. Although there was no bulk, no indication of the monstrosity it contained, he wanted it where he could see it.

As to what he was going to do with the skull, he hadn’t thought it through yet. All he knew was he couldn’t leave it here. Last thing they needed was for someone or something to set Blightey free so he could come looking for them.

Galen had his head bowed in prayer beside the rack.

Probably, Shader should have been doing the same, but he was already striding toward Shadrak as if he couldn’t wait to leave this place behind; as if there were nothing here to detain him. His eyes burned with a purpose Shadrak had not seen in them before. Purpose, or anger you’d not want to be on the receiving end of.

Shadrak turned and left the room. He didn’t need to see Nameless armored head to toe. Didn’t need to see his friend lost behind all that eldritch metal.

He heard Rhiannon call out, “You know he sent the wolves, don’t you? Aristodeus sent the wolves.”

“Yes,” Shader said from close on Shadrak’s heels. His voice had the cut of cold steel. “I know.”

A LIFE LIVED TWICE

The Perfect Peak, Aethir

T
he stench of Ludo’s death clung like gall to Shader’s nostrils. Even the astringent air of the Perfect Peak did nothing to assuage it.

Sektis Gandaw’s control chamber, now Aristodeus’s, was somewhere Shader had vowed never to return to, and yet here he was. If it weren’t for the armchair, the footstool, the other assorted pieces of furniture, the china tea set, and the background odor of pipe tobacco, it would have been easy to imagine Gandaw was still alive, still in control, and still a threat to all the worlds.

Aristodeus looked up from his book as Shader entered. Conflicting emotions crossed his face, and for a moment he looked flustered. But that was quickly exchanged for a self-satisfied smirk.

Shader glared as the others trudged into the room behind him and began to find their own spaces in which to grieve. After what they’d witnessed, what they’d been through, proximity to each other brought the threat of cross-infection. It was enough to deal with one’s own tattered emotions, never mind empathizing with someone else’s. They had triumphed, in a way; defeated the Liche Lord. But too much had been lost. Shader’s only wish was that he could have exchanged his childhood teacher for the man he’d loved and respected above all others. That Aristodeus was impaled on a stake in place of Ludo.

Some sixth sense told him Shadrak was watching him, but it wasn’t criticism he saw in the assassin’s eyes. There was no irritability, no anger, and certainly no hint of a threat. If anything had alerted Shader, it was the intensity of the assassin’s guilt. Complicity was written all over his face, even though he’d had no choice. Blightey had controlled his limbs, he’d told them, and no one had contradicted him. They had all experienced the same impotence under the Liche Lord’s theurgy. Shadrak had scrubbed at the bloodstains until his skin was chafed raw, but he still wrung his hands in the shadows beside a bank of screens.

Aristodeus chewed his lip as he studied Shader, then having apparently made up his mind, he approached Nameless and made a show of examining the Liche Lord’s armor.

Rhiannon glanced at Shader, but he looked away. He had no comfort to offer her. No words that would have been genuine.

His eyes found Albert, instead. The poisoner had been waiting for them inside the plane ship, and no one had said a word to him on the journey back to Aethir. He appeared to be watching Shadrak discreetly, all the while fidgeting with discomfort. He looked every bit a man who needed to make his confession, but Shader doubted he was the type.

Galen, the dragoon Shader had beaten in the tournament for the Archon’s sword, cut a forlorn figure. He seemed diminished by Ludo’s death, stooped to half his size. The most he’d done since Verusia was stable Caledon alongside his own horse in a room off the plane ship’s control center.

Aristodeus allowed the tension to build to a pitch, but before its bubble burst, he turned away from Nameless and pivoted on the spot to take everyone in. He said, “I can see this has been hard for you all, and that some of you…” He paused dramatically and drew in a long breath through his nose. “Some of you did not return. At times like this, it is usual to have a debriefing, then a period of mourning, but these things must wait. One more quest. One more, and then Nameless will be free, and we will be that much closer to turning the tables on the enemy.”

“Your enemy,” Rhiannon said. “Not ours.”

Galen grunted.

“Everyone’s,” Aristodeus said. “This is not just about me. The Demiurgos has his claws into everyone in this room. Everyone in all the worlds.”

“Sound familiar?” Rhiannon said. She directed the question across the room at Shader.

“Does to me,” Shadrak said. “Now Sektis shogging Gandaw’s out of the picture, you have to go roll out a new nutjob.”

“To deflect attention from himself,” Rhiannon said. “If you want my opinion, he’s been the problem all along.”

“Well, we don’t,” Aristodeus said. “We are dealing with reality here, not the immature prattle of a—”

“A what?” Rhiannon said. She advanced on him, pressed her face up close. “A breeding cow? Is that what you were going to say?”

She cocked her head at Shader. “Oh, didn’t he tell you, Deacon? Remember what you did to Gaston after I told you what he’d done? Well,”—she stepped away from Aristodeus—“what this shogging pervert did was a whole lot worse. And it affects you, too.”

Dread and confusion took away Shader’s tongue. Not that he’d spoken much since leaving Blightey’s domain. He’d lacked the words. But Gaston… Gaston Rayn had raped Rhiannon. Was she saying that…?

Aristodeus blanched and started to stammer a response.

Shader knew the philosopher well enough to see he was weaving a lie. With a surge of white-hot rage, he strode across the floor between them and grabbed Aristodeus by the front of his toga. The time for tolerance, the time for niceties had passed when Blightey’s flaming skull had streamed from the cottage in Verusia, leaving a dead family in its wake, and Pete. Leaving the thin veneer of Shader’s purity exposed for what it really was, in all its ugliness.

When they came, his words were almost guttural. “What have you done?”

Aristodeus’s eyes met his, unblinking. The philosopher seemed to force himself to relax with a supreme act of will. Without glancing at Rhiannon, he asked her in slow, deliberate words, “Affects him how?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know, you shogger,” Rhiannon said. “Don’t you dare. Not after what you’ve just put us through.”

Galen was watching intently now. So was Shadrak. And Nameless edged closer, following the exchange through the eye-slit of his great helm. Only Albert seemed unaffected. He was making an idle circuit of the control room, studying the consoles and screens.

“It’s the black sword making her act like this,” Aristodeus said to Shader with a roll of his eyes. “I have a nasty feeling about where that thing comes from. Don’t you, Nameless?”

“What I feel about it is beside the point,” Nameless said. “But Shader asked you a question, and I for one would like to hear the answer.”

“And what about my question?” Aristodeus said, though his newfound equanimity was starting to fray. “Affects him how? I asked.”

“Fine,” Rhiannon said. “You want to play it that way, I’ll tell you. You see, your little secret’s out, Baldy.” To Shader, she said, “Saphra’s his. That’s the first thing you should know.”

Shader’s grip slackened on Aristodeus’s toga. “Saphra? But…” He looked at Rhiannon, as if he might find clarity in her face. Instead, he saw only tightly controlled rage.

“No, it wasn’t a soldier,” she said. “Sorry to disappoint. But wait, there’s more. Tell him about the champagne,” she said to Aristodeus. “Go on. What was it, Demon Blue or some shit?”

“Diamant Bleu Cuvée”

“That’s the muck. Tell him where from. What year.”

“1907.”

“Know what that is?” Rhiannon asked Shader. “Ancient calendar, is what. Before the Reckoning.”

Shader shook his head. None of this made any sense. There was something missing. Something he just wasn’t grasping.

“You see,” Rhiannon said. “He travels a lot. Back in time.”

Aristodeus scowled, and his eyes flashed with suppressed violence.

“Not just to fetch champagne from a shipwreck,” Rhiannon said. “He shifts back to change things, to cover up his mistakes and failures. Isn’t that right, Baldy?”

He glared at her and said, “Who told you this? Mephesch? One of the others? Bezaleel?”

“Why don’t you shoot higher?” Rhiannon said. “Like Archon higher.”

At the same time, Shader, Aristodeus, and Shadrak said, “The Archon?”

Galen said, “The Archon told you to protect Ludo.” If it was meant to be an accusation, it didn’t sound like one. The same as Shader, the dragoon was trying to fit all the pieces together.

“She’s working for him,” Shadrak said.

“Hardly,” Rhiannon said. “Just jumping through hoops to get my daughter back.” Then she speared Shader with a look full of pity, pleading, and loathing all mingled together. “Your daughter.”

“No,” Aristodeus said. “Stop right there.”

Shader let go of the philosopher and implored Rhiannon for her meaning. “My daughter?” Was she delusional? He’d never—not even with Lallia that time in Sarum. Not even with Thecla Cawdor. Just the thought of what had happened in the cottage set his guts writhing. But certainly not with Rhiannon. Huntsman had made sure of that, and he’d only been doing the philosopher’s bidding.

“He’s you, Deacon. Don’t you see it?”

“I said enough!” Aristodeus snapped.

Nameless put himself between the philosopher and Rhiannon. Galen edged closer, too. Shadrak circled behind Aristodeus, fingering the daggers in his baldric. Even Albert was listening attentively now.

“Deacon, he’s you,” Rhiannon said again. She reached for his hand, but he snatched it away. “When he failed to stop Sektis Gandaw that first time, he was plunged into the Abyss. From there, he found a way out, a way to use its timelessness or something. I don’t understand it all, but I know enough from what the Archon told me, and the little scraps of information this bald bastard fed me to keep me onside.”

Aristodeus let out a world-weary sigh and said to Shader, “I had hoped it would not be necessary to tell you. This changes everything, puts the future in great jeopardy.”

“He changed the past, Deacon,” Rhiannon said. “His own past. Yours.”

Shader’s head felt ready to explode. He could hear the words, string them together, but they held no meaning. It was as if the world had been turned inside out.

“I traversed my own timeline,” Aristodeus said. “Back to my birth. I took the babe destined to be me and transplanted it from Graecia to Britannia, found new parents, Jarl and Gralia, and the rest you know.”

The transgressors of time
.

Is that why Heredwin had revealed himself to Shader? Because he was a breaker of the natural law? An aberration to be kept an eye on?

Shader staggered with the enormity of what he was hearing. He’d always known there was something. Something about his upbringing, something about the philosopher. The niggling feelings that had plagued him for some time came into sharp focus. Aristodeus had chosen his parents: Jarl the warrior, Gralia the luminary. Had the philosopher deliberately introduced the conflict, the paradox at the heart of Shader’s life? Before he even formulated his next question, Rhiannon answered it.

“So he could wield the Sword of the Archon. So you could. You are the same person.”

“Not entirely,” Aristodeus said.

“You’re right there, laddie,” Nameless said. “Shader is a friend, a man of honor and courage.”

“Precisely,” Aristodeus said. “Unfortunately, the qualities needed to hold that blasted weapon. But the physical qualities, the intellect—in nature if not in nurture—are all my own.”

“And the seed,” Rhiannon said, as if she were swallowing vinegar. This time, she took hold of Shader’s hand, and he was too dazed to resist. “Saphra is yours.”

“Rubbish,” Aristodeus said. “In some loose genetic sense, maybe, but—”

Shader pushed Rhiannon away from him, and in the same motion drew the gladius. Aristodeus backed away, but Shader followed. The philosopher stumbled and dropped into his armchair.

Saphra? Rhiannon’s little girl?
Shader had assumed she was Pete’s daughter, or Sandau’s. Or any one of a hundred soldiers. But Saphra was Aristodeus’s? And Aristodeus was… No, it made no sense. But at the same time, he knew it was true, and it was a truth he needed to cut away like gangrene.

“Deacon,” Aristodeus said. “My boy. You’re not hearing the whole—”

Shader thrust with the sword. Aristodeus squealed, but the blade penetrated the fabric of the armchair beside his head.

“A weapon,” Shader growled to no one in particular. “Give him a weapon.”

“Shog off,” Shadrak said. “I ain’t giving him one of mine. Just stick the scut where he sits.”

“This any good?” Albert said, holding up a cheese-cutter.

“Take mine,” Galen said, drawing his saber and handing it to Aristodeus. If he was hoping the philosopher was going to make up for his humiliating defeat at Shader’s hands in the final of the tournament, he had another thing coming.