"Well," and Darian was glad he found his voice, "It seems as if you have the advantage, since I know next to nothing about you."
"But," the assassin continued, "if only they knew the man behind the show. An obsessed individual selling his services to the very underbelly that infests Harcourt. He will acquire anything they desire. . . for a price, of course. And it is price that drives him, the lust for gold to add to his ever amassing wealth. At what point is enough actually enough? Gold has become his God, and he is all the more ugly for it."
The blood boiled in Darian's ears and he felt the flush wash across his face, but the assassin held the advantage here and they both knew it. He kept quiet.
"So, you know what I am, who you are, and we both realize why I am here. The bard, Simon, where did you help him run off to?"
"I don't know what you are-"
"Don't feed me that hog-swallow, Mr.Coisin. You are the only one capable of arranging safe passage out of this city, even beneath the Blackguard's eyes. And do you not think they realize that? How long until they come knocking? I can help you, Mr.Coisin, but only if you help me first."
Darian sighed. The assassin spoke the truth. He was starting to regret ever agreeing to the bard's ideas. "Go to Yaeren, you'll find the path you seek there." The merchant was suddenly so very weary of it all. "They took a ship going Avalene knows where."
The smile was evident beneath the mask and the eyes took a dangerous twinkle as the man stood and bowed. "Thank you."
The man started toward the window, but Darian stopped him. "Wait, you said you could help me?"
The man stood for a moment, his back to Darian, before responding. "Ah yes, I did, didn't I?" In a blur of motion the assassin whipped around and Darian felt a thud. He looked blankly down at what he recognized as a hilt protruding stubbornly from his chest.
It didn't really hurt as he always assumed it would, though a chill began to creep its way up his extremities. As he turned to look at the man, everything seemed to be moving slower. It seemed that an eternity had passed before the two of them locked stares. "Wh-wh. . . " It frustrated him that his mouth wasn't obeying. At some point he must have stood as well, but he didn't remember doing so.
"Why? Is that the question your mouth fails to ask? A simple answer: there is no safer place than death for you, Mr. Coisin. I am doing this city a service by lancing a festering wound." Either the assassin moved impossibly quick, or Darian just fell impossibly slow, but the man caught Darian as his knees crumbled beneath him and eased the merchant to the chair.
They stared at each other, eyes inches apart, and the last thing Darian could remember as life seeped from his body was that he overlooked how cold the assassin's eyes were, how the only promise they held was death for those who got in his way. What a fool he had been to even begin to hope that it would end any other way.
The assassin watched the man's eyes grow dimmer, taking the same satisfaction that he always did with a job well done. The throw had been clean, precise. Not that he ever did anything but clean and precise. He had gotten what he had come for, and managed to sever the link that the Blackguards would need to track him. Most importantly, he had a trail.
Now all that was left was to find those wizards and make them pay. He fingered the still tender burn along the left side of his face, hidden by the mask. No doubt it would leave a vivid scar, a physical reminder of what these people had taken from him. He had turned his back on his organization, meaning the rest of his life was merely a formality.
His hand tightened around the hilt and pulled, the sickening, yet familiar, plop of a blade being yanked from a corpse filling the quiet room. He wiped it clean on the man's shirt and sheathed it on the belt along his waist. After a moment of thought, he grabbed the box of sweet weed and threw it on the man's lap. It was delicious in its irony and it appealed to him.
Who said you couldn't take it with you?
Chapter 21
His mouth was dry. A fact that was unnerving, considering the rest of him had adapted the uncomfortable feeling that can only be acquired when soaked while wearing clothing not designed to be wet. Things bunched where they shouldn't, the stiffened fabric threatened to chaff, and generally it was all just rather unpleasant.
The waves were lapping gently at his body, prodding Marcius to open his eyes, insisting that he take into account his situation. He just didn't want to move because that would force him back to reality, and he clung to his line of reasoning with tenacity that surprised him. He did his best to ignore it, but his traitorous mind was now fully awake and refused to remain idle.
His thoughts wandered. The important question was where was he exactly? Well, he was certainly not on the boat that was for sure. He remembered falling off, but the rest of it was a haze, a dream of impossibility that danced out of recollection. With a groan and considerable effort, he pried his eyes open. The light was a stark bright intrusion, but eventually, after several agonizing moments, things came into focus.
Lots of sand and the sting of crusted salt greeted him. He tried to move his head but immediately regretted the decision as a thousand and one minor hurts announced their presence. His head throbbed dully and nausea forced him to abandon that train of thought, at least temporarily. He wasn't sure how long he spent trying to keep his mind focused and the bile from his throat, but eventually the sickness passed and he managed to push himself to an upright position. A quick inspection of the back of his head left his hand with traces of blood, but it felt mostly crusted over. He must have hit something when he fell.
A narrow strip of beach had become his landing area, bordered closely by a thick forest. The sun was beginning to set, and in doing so, it bathed the entire area with a soft orange glow that was simply breathtaking. Every movement in the ocean was accentuated with the broken colors of the spectrum. The gentle breeze carried with it a scent that Marcius just couldn't identify, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. He passed a bit of time just appreciating the sight, before the chill forced him to once again pay attention to his situation.
The area was beautiful, that much he could attest to. But as he looked around, a feeling of hopelessness set in. He was all alone with no clue as to where to start getting everything sorted. At the thought, he started to realize just how true that was. The feeling of two beings sharing one body had disappeared from him, and the discovery set him to panic. Where was his familiar?
Faerill! He projected his thoughts with as much strength as his mind could muster, but despite trying over and over again, nothing answered him from the cold black void. There was no reassuring touch of another consciousness. No wisecrack about panicking. Nothing but the telltale beating of his own heart and the emptiness of losing something you never expected to do without.
It was all too much for him. This was the culmination of his choices .He wished he had never taken the journey. Everything was gone. His father was no longer the man he once was, Antaigne was dead, his ability to do magic, the one passion and goal that kept him going despite it all, had been stolen from him. Faerill was also gone, and to top it off, he was in the middle of nowhere, without even the faintest clue of what to do or where to go.
The first tear had fallen before he realized he was crying. They weren't the soft tears of losing a loved one. It wasn't the false tears of imagined loss. It was an expression of pure frustration. He sobbed against the injustice of it all. Marcius poured all the events of the past weeks out and cried and cried. Eventually they worked themselves down to just dry heaves, every one tightening his stomach up painfully. He curled up tighter.
Darkness had fallen but Marcius didn't care. He didn't want to live. Let the coldness of the night steal the last thing he had left to give. It didn't matter. So he just sat there in a stupor, taking a detached sense of pleasure as the icy chill began to slowly creep its way up his extremities.
As if to prove him wrong, a light winked on in the distance, further down the beach. It bobbed this way and that, like a lost firefly, and Marcius's addled mind entertained several notions of what could it be. Perhaps it was some magical creature, a faerie or wisp. He had heard of such creatures showing themselves to people about to die. Or maybe it was some ancient fel creature that stalked the woods, reaping the living and it had come for him?
The fancies disappeared as he recognized the gentle sway of the light and Marcius laughed bitterly to himself at the irony of everything. It was a lantern, projecting light out of a windowed hooded end, but he could also see the vague humanoid shapes that held it forth. What were the chances of such a thing in the middle of nowhere? He thought about crying out for help, but he just didn't have the heart to do so. Everything was gone, and he didn't know if these people, if they were people, were even the type to help him.
He didn't even want help.
Still, fate mocked him and the light drifted ever closer. Marcius could hear voices, disjointed by distance and the sound of lapping waves.
"-never going to find a spot!" the voice was rough, but weary.
"-orry about it. I just don't want to be near the woods," another voice, placating and with bit more warmth, responded.
Marcius battled internally about whether to reveal himself. They were closer now, enough that he could make out that three of them traveled together, and he wondered what business they could have in the middle of nowhere. His hands were frozen, and his eyelids were getting so heavy. It would be so easy just to close them and let darkness take over. . .