Valor and Violence

Elizabeth hurried through the dark alleyways of Salazaar, back to the Guild House. It seemed the City Guard had learned from their mistake last time they went after the Guild; they were leaving the safe houses and subterranean gathering places alone, but their street patrols had tripled since she had last been here.

She had almost been discovered twice. Her! The greatest assassin in the world! The Master’s profits would probably have taken a hit from this crackdown, which meant he would be in an even worse mood than usual when she reported her failure.

She cursed herself. Why had she been so foolish? She had wasted precious time toying with the bloody marines when she should have killed them all, searched the bodies and taken the artefact immediately. She had an excuse prepared, but she didn’t like the odds he would buy it. Or that he would even care. The Master was not known for mercy or a charitable disposition.

The infernal whispers started up. She screwed her eyes shut, balling her hands into fists and forcing them against her temples, as though she could crush the voices out.

Failure.

He’s going to kill you.

You should kill him first.

You should kill yourself.

The voices overlapped, competing to drown each other out. Arguing with each other as to what they should make her do. She wanted to run, to scream, to curl up and cry. But she didn’t. She sat, closed her eyes, and willed the voices to shut up. They were getting stronger, but she was still the master of her own mind. With effort, she silenced them, one by one. The voice pushing the murder of the Master was the last to go.

She hesitated when she arrived at the entrance to the Guild House, checking no one else was around, before drawing the key from a pouch on her belt, unlocking the door and slipping inside. Once through, she closed her eyes and quested out with her hearing, listening for any movement outside. When she was doubly satisfied no one had followed her, she hurried down the spiral staircase to the meeting room.

She moved automatically, evading the traps and pitfalls by muscle memory as she fought a losing battle in her mind to maintain her composure. The whispers were coming back. She couldn’t hear them, not yet, but she could sense them on the edges of her perception. It was stupid; she was probably just anthropomorphising the phenomenon, but she swore there was a, presence, behind them. Soon enough, she found herself in the meeting room, feeling a few unkind words away from a breakdown. Which was bad, because she could expect a lot worse than words.

“Master? I’ve returned,” she called into the darkness, beads of nervous sweat tracing a line down her spine. After a few tense moments, the Guild Master replied from somewhere deeper in the hideout.

“Just in the interrogation room, my dear.”

Elizabeth obediently turned down one of the adjoining hallways, passing the holding cells, until she reached a heavy, reinforced oaken door. She grasped the thick ring pull and strained until, with great effort and an ominous grinding, the door shifted open to reveal a horrific scene.

The whispers exploded into roars.

One of the men from the Salazaar ambush party, Eheron, she believed he was called, hung face down from the ceiling suspended by meat hooks piercing his back. He moaned pitifully as she entered the room, and she could tell he was past the point of screaming.

She could practically see the flame of life dying in his eyes as the Guild Master sawed and cut and snapped bone, the torturer unphased by the smell of the room; coppery blood, rot, and shit. Elizabeth had seen some messy scenes before, magical exploding balls made for messy kills after all, but even she couldn’t handle this. She doubled over and violently expelled the contents of her stomach onto the floor. The voices in her mind laughed, united for the first time.

“Now, now, my child, there’s no need for that,” the Guild Master admonished gently, without bothering to turn from his work. “Surely you have seen worse than this?”

“Not… not quite,” she replied, wiping her mouth on her sleeve and looking up with watery eyes. She inadvertently met Eheron’s gaze; pitiful. Begging. The bile rose in her throat again. Glancing away, she fought the urge to run, or break down and cry, or puke again. She railed against the voices to distract herself, but they weren’t going as easily now.

“He tried to escape the city,” the Guild Master said, gesturing to Eheron with a scalpel as though it were a professor’s pointer at a university lecture hall. “I was so… disappointed in my child here, that he would so readily abandon his family after one little misstep.” He paused to deliberate over a tray of metal instruments. Some were large and blunt, like enlarged meat tenderisers. Others were small and razor sharp, like the scalpel. Others were wickedly serrated, like miniature versions of a wood saw. All were caked in blood.

“How… oh, gods… how long has he been up there?” Elizabeth asked, her voice choking up at the sights and smells of the room and the baying in her head. Every instinct in her body screamed at her to run, run, and never look back. But that was how he had ended up there, wasn’t it? There was no escaping the Guild Master.

“Oh, now that’s an interesting question. Agent Eheron, how long have you been up there can you recall?” he asked the dying man, gripping his chin in a bloody hand and staring into his eyes. Eheron said nothing, but new tears tracked down his grimy, blood-soaked cheeks.

“Hmmm, no help here, I’m afraid, child. If I were to guess, I would say about three days.”

Three days? How is he still alive?

Elizabeth subconsciously took a step back towards the doorway. “Why?”

“Why what, my darling?”

“Why have him up there, like that, for three days?”

The Guild Master finally turned to look at Elizabeth, his face hidden beneath the cowl of his hood. “Because, child, if I let such a blatant lapse in discipline go unpunished, then others will follow suit. I cannot let him affect our family in such a way, my darling girl.”

“How many others know he is here?” Elizabeth asked. She had met a few agents on her way here, none had mentioned this unfortunate’s fate, which was odd. Ordinarily this would be the talk of the town, so to speak.

“No one,” the Master replied as he turned back to his ‘work’. “But that hardly matters, does it? They expect I would punish him accordingly, and so I must. But he is just one unruly child, and ultimately inconsequential. What I am far more interested in, my dear Eliza, is why you don’t have the artefact?”

Elizabeth noticed movement out of the corner of her eye, and a figure wearing the robes of a Pyris Arch Mage stepped out of the shadows.

“You have failed again, Guild Master? What is it I’m paying you for?” he yelled.

Elizabeth cringed, expecting the Master to gut him there and then, but instead he just replied, his voice calm and unemotional.

“The recovery and delivery of the artefact, and optional removal of High Mage Ahud,” the Guild Master replied, ignoring the rhetorical nature of the question, while the defector whined and gurgled.

“You assured me this would go smoothly,” the Pyrian said through gritted teeth. “And the removal of Ahud was not optional.”

“Wasn’t it? Oh dear, I must have misread the contract. Regardless, I am quite positive you will be content with our results once we deliver the artefact. At any rate, the more pressing question at the moment remains; Elizabeth, where is the artefact?”

He knew. Somehow, he knew she had failed, and Elizabeth’s blood ran cold as she realised Eheron had been captured, and literally put on display, for her. That man had been tortured down here, alone and unknown to anyone else for three days, all so the Master could send her a message about failure. Fresh sweat broke out on her brow. Knowing the Guild Master would notice such an obvious tell, she decided her only hope of survival was honesty.

“I failed, my Master,” she said, throwing herself to her knees in front of him. She realised suddenly that the voices had stopped, as though even they were waiting to see how this would play out. “I was careless. I failed to take the artefact from its guardians before reinforcements arrived, and I am so, so, sorry,” she finished, watching her tear drops land in the dust, waiting for him to scream or attack, or more likely the sensation of a razor-sharp blade sliding into her neck. She screwed her eyes shut, imagining being dragged, screaming, by her hair and tossed on a hook beside Eheron.

Instead, he just sighed and knelt in front of her, gently taking her face in his gloved hand and tenderly wiping away her tears with his thumb. She tried not to shudder as she felt the smear of blood it left on her face.

“I am the one who is sorry, my darling child. I should have known you were not ready for this task alone.”

Elizabeth felt her heart hammer in her chest, and the faintest ray of hope lit her mind.

“But just as I did with Agent Eheron here, I cannot allow failures to go unpunished.”

The light was quickly snuffed out. “No…” she sobbed. “Please.”

“Hush, my child, hush. Do not be afraid. You returned. You did the right thing, and so I will give you another chance. To right, what you have done wrong.”

“Yes! Please! I will not fail again, I swear it!”

“Oh, I know you will not, Eliza. I will ensure it. Xh’elen, Gh’elen,” he called out as two hooded figures entered the room behind her.

“These are my disciples. They have learned my ways and mastered my arts. They will go with you this time and ensure your success. Or at least, I certainly hope so. I would hate so much to have to put you up beside Agent Eheron.”

Elizabeth nearly fainted. She was being given a second chance, but she knew exactly what was waiting for her if she failed again. She assessed her new companions out of the corner of her eye. No doubt they were there to prevent her from fleeing as much as aid in her mission. They were both tall and lean, almost skeletal, their robes hanging loose from their frail frames.

“Walk with me, my dear,” the Guild Master said as he stood. “High Mage Politis, would you care to spend any time with Eheron here?”

The High Mage sniffed and shook his head. “Not my type.”

“Very well. You two, I am done with this one,” he finished, casually waving towards the man on the hooks as he strode out of the room. Elizabeth scrambled to follow as they made their way to the Master’s private quarters. As they arrived at the doorway, she went to open it for him, but was stopped by a gesture.

“I would recommend you do not touch that, Eliza,” he said lightly, before tracing an arcane pattern on the wooden door’s surface. When the gesture was complete, the door glowed a slight shade of blue and swung open to reveal an austere bedroom beyond.

“Your door is trapped?”

“Indeed, my dear Eliza, a freezing enchantment to kill and preserve anyone who thought to go snooping through my quarters,” he smiled. “Previously, I favoured a flame enchantment, but then, when it was actually needed, it destroyed the entire Guild House, along with the people trying to force their way in. And, regrettably, our agents defending it,” he added as an afterthought. “It was most inconvenient. But I assure you, it is perfectly safe now. Please, come in.”

Elizabeth crept into the room, eyes darting from shadow to shadow, looking for any sign of danger. Even though the Guild Master had more or less told her she wasn’t to die yet, her instincts hadn’t quietened and here, in his sanctum, her gut was screaming at her to run louder than ever. The Master glided past her and settled into the chair at his desk, regarding her silently for several long seconds.

“Tell me what happened.”

Elizabeth licked her lips, her mouth feeling dry as a desert.

“The Emrinthians took the bait, just like you expected them to. They sent an entire raiding fleet with our Umbral mage aboard. The Calandorians split their forces to feign weakness, but it turned out to be a trap. The High Mage destroyed the fleet as they approached the Naval ship, and they didn’t send enough raiders ashore to handle the Calandorian elites. They slaughtered both groups of raiders in relatively short order.”

As always, the Master’s face was obscured by the shadow from his hood, but the way he shifted his weight showed surprise at the revelation. The Calandorians had evidently exceeded his expectations.

“I engaged the shore party and defeated them, hoping to retrieve the artefact and escape quickly, however before I could search them, the rest of the marines arrived with the High Mage and forced my retreat. I made my way immediately back here to rearm and plan my next attempt.”

Elizabeth held her breath as she finished, staring intently at the patch of ground between her feet. The Guild Master sat in silence, though she could feel his eyes boring into her like a lance.

“It seems I underestimated them. I had assumed something had gone wrong with the Emrinthian support. I never would have believed a single ship could destroy an entire fleet.”

“The High Mage was decisive in the sea battle, I believe, while our man was killed by the apprentice and her attack dog.”

“Interesting. This was an unfortunate miscalculation, one I will not make again.” He paused, deep in thought for a moment, then shrugged. “They are currently en route to the archaeological dig in Marduk where the artefact was first recovered. You are to kill them all, and destroy all trace of the expedition.”

He said it so flippantly, like he was sending her to the markets for milk. Never mind, it was an impossible task that was guaranteed to see her dead, either at the hands of the Calandorians, or the thousand ravenous beasts living in the swampy shithole.

“Master, with respect, I cannot possibly defeat them alone.”

“But you aren’t alone, my dear. You have my disciples.”

“I will still be heavily outnumbered. Three against close to a hundred, plus a pair of mages and a guardsman. You’ve trained me well, but I can’t fight an army, Master.”

“My darling, have you so little faith in me? You will find my disciples more than capable of balancing the odds. Indeed, there are few places in this world where their magic is as devastating as it is in Marduk.”

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. There was, once again, something he was keeping from her. “And what magic is that, Master?”

“Oh, I can’t possibly tell you! It would ruin the surprise!” he exclaimed with a laugh before his voice once again turned serious.

“Lead them to Marduk, my child. Bring me my artefact. Then we can put all the unfortunate business of today behind us.” He stopped talking for a moment and sighed, shaking his head. “You know I love you, right my dear? I treasure you more than anything else in this world.”

“And I, you, Master,” she replied, her voice small.

“Please succeed this time. I don’t want to have to hurt you, Eliza. But if you fail that’s exactly what you will make me do.”

“I will not fail you again,” she said, gritting her teeth as fresh tears poured silently down her face.

“Please, my darling. I’m begging you.”

He stood, crossed the room, and wrapped her in a hug, then released his hold and ushered her out the door. As soon as it was closed, Elizabeth made for the exit, desperate to get out of the Guildhouse and into the nearest alehouse. The whispers were starting again, and she fully intended to drown them in booze.