Night guild 2, p.10
Night Guild 2, page 10
There was a rustling noise as the assassin stood, and Ronan decided now was his time to leave.
The temptation to stay around for a while and see if the High Vizier had anything to say to his servant was strong. The Vizier had a good relationship with his servant, and he might confide some useful information that Ronan could use. But if he slipped out now, Ronan had a good chance of following Mordon back to his base on the docks, which should lead him to the other Silent Brotherhood assassins.
That was more valuable than anything else he might learn here. With that thought, he moved silently across the room and slipped back out of the open window.
Moving back to the outer wall was not difficult. He crossed the moat and then crouched on the top of the wall, looking down at the scene below him. The guard had been doubled. Soldiers stood on the watch below him, and to the left and right others moved back and forth, all looking much more awake than before.
Diana’s distraction has put them back on the alert, he thought. How am I going to get out unseen?
Ronan lay flat on the wall, the better to remain unnoticed. Silently cursing the delay, he watched the movements of the guards from above. More soldiers had been added to the guard, and these seemed to be more professional and better equipped than the ones he had seen previously. They stood looking out at the park, their eyes scanning the crowds and the trees, weapons in hands.
A little ways off, two men stood talking in low voices. Ronan slipped along the wall, staying as flat as possible until he was above them and could hear their conversation.
“It’s those rebels,” one was saying to the other. “That’s why we redoubled the guard. One of them detonated some kind of smoke bomb near the gates but ran away before we could catch him.”
The other man cursed in a low voice. “They think they’ve got all the answers to the city’s problems,” he said, “but they don’t know how to make their case properly. So, instead, they resort to stunts like this, threatening Mala’s acolytes and scaring the civilians like the cowards they are.”
“Aye,” the first guard said. “But we’ll not let them get away with it again. If anyone tries anything funny, we’ll catch him this time.”
Evidently, more was going on in Viam City than Ronan knew. Some folk were dissatisfied with the way things were being done in the city, and the blame for Diana’s distraction had been placed at their feet. The guards finding someone else to blame for the incident should divert any suspicion of the true cause, but the doubling of the guard was more than a little inconvenient.
Ronan frowned, wondering if he could use this difficulty as an opportunity to try some new magic. He looked around. Shadows waited everywhere, cast by the bright lamps that lined the park and by the flickering torches that the guards carried. Perhaps he could make something of that.
He concentrated, relaxed his muscles, and carefully allowed his mind to flow into the half-trance that he had found to be the best place for tuning into the magical currents of the world around him. Shadows were his strongest connection with magic, and the top of this wall, he realized suddenly, was a very good place from which to do magic.
He had learned early on in his training that liminal places—those places where one thing ended, and another began—were the places where magic was strongest. As he slipped into the trance and suddenly felt the steady awareness of the Night God. Ronan smiled. His deity was watching him, and Ronan could feel his approval.
In your name, he said silently to the Night God, I seek out this new magic.
He reached for the shadows that the guards’ torches cast on the white wall behind them. His palms tingled, and power flowed into him, making him feel suddenly strong and vital. He felt that he could leap out over the guards and outrun them if he wanted to, and he considered it. The magic felt strong, and even if he fell badly he would be able to use the healing magic of the Night God to fix himself.
Sternly, he pulled his excitement under control. The flow of power felt intoxicating, but an assassin had to be able to manage that feeling and remain clear-headed within it. He controlled his breathing, all the while drawing more and more power into himself from the shadows.
Below, the guards were laughing now, making up elaborate punishments that they’d like to inflict on the insolent rebels. Ronan began to draw the shadows up against the wall behind the men, bringing them together and compressing them with his will, as if he were bundling up paper with his hands. The shadows condensed, and as they did so he drew more shadow from the base of the wall, from the trees, from the darkness of the moat behind him, from every dark nook and cranny.
Feeling his heart begin to race, and his blood thundering in his head as the intoxicating power of the magic flowed through him stronger than ever, Ronan pushed the shadows together and formed them into a shape—the shape of a man.
He had formed the shadows into the shape of a short and stocky man, very unlike Ronan himself. With a flash of inspiration, Ronan drew on his stealth field and sent that stealth field magic out and into the shadow figure.
It worked. Both the guards cried out and gave chase as the shadow figure fled in the direction of the crowd of civilians at the gate.
“The rebels!” one of the guards shouted. “It’s one of the rebels! He was trying to get into the temple complex!”
Moving quickly, Ronan fixed his grappling hook on the edge of the wall. With his thumb, he slipped the auto-release mechanism that would allow him to pull the grapple off the wall when he had climbed down. Then, he unspooled the rope and slid down it to the ground, his black leather gloves heating up with the friction as he descended.
The ingeniously-designed folding grappling hook was made in such a way that when the auto-release mechanism was engaged a sharp jerk on the rope would cause the hinged prongs to unlock, allowing the grapple to fall from where it had been fixed. Obviously, one had to use this function with care because a sharp jerk on the rope at the wrong time could cause the grappling hook to come undone prematurely.
Though well-practiced at this maneuver, Ronan chose to slide down to the ground in safety before jerking the strong, thin line and feeling the satisfying click of the grappling hook coming loose. A moment later, the hook landed in his hand, the auto-release disengaged and ready for the grapple’s next use. Ronan quickly wrapped the rope around one hand as he moved off toward the trees.
His stealth field felt immensely powerful as he jogged across the grass. The power of the shadows moved through it with speed and intensity, whirling inside him like a spinning pool of magic. He glanced to the left and to the right to make sure that nobody else was following him, but he did not have to worry. All of the guards had put their focus into chasing the phantom he had created.
Fierce satisfaction lit up his heart as he thought about what he had just done. His application of the magic from the stealth field to the shadow man he had created worked. The guards, expecting to see rebels, had seen the shadow man as what they had expected. Has anyone ever done this before? What is this entirely new kind of Magic that he had discovered?
The idea that the different magics of the Night Guild could be combined in this way was incredibly exciting. Despite the high-pressure mission that he was on, Ronan still was aware that he was a relatively low level assassin, and that the Night Guild powers he had were only a part of what was possible.
He could heal himself, but could he perhaps combine that with the shadow power in some way to project healing across a distance? He could increase the power of his stealth field by drawing on the power of shadows; could he perhaps increase the power of somebody else’s magic in a similar way? And what about the power of faces?
This last was the most exciting of all. Early on in his career, Ronan had become aware that the very high level members of the guild had access to magic that was known as the Power of Infinite Faces. Ronan and his friends had the power to steal one face at a time, mimicking the appearance of another person for as long as they could maintain the delicate spell. Did this ability to combine the different magic powers of the Night Guild hold the key to unlocking the Power of Infinite Faces?
Ronan reached the trees where he stashed his rope, grappling hook, and belt as he pressed himself against a tree. The light of the lamps that lit the whole park did not reach him here, and he reached out with his magic and drew the shadows closer around himself, concealing himself in a cloak of impenetrable darkness.
From this vantage point, he gazed out into the park. He still had a connection to the shadow figure he had created, but his control of it wavered now that it moved some distance from him. The guards had surrounded it, and they were closing in, spears lowered to attack.
Ronan worked on instinct, his goal to disperse the shadow figure, if he could. He had no way of knowing if it would work. Using the magical connection, he pushed into the creature, explored its makeup.
At that moment, he suddenly understood what was going on. He had thought of the shadow man as a single entity, even some kind of actual being with thoughts, feelings, and cohesion. But that had been a mistake for it was none of those things. Rather, the shadow figure was simply a collection of shadows Ronan had pulled together and compressed into one space and then moved around like a puppet with his will.
All of the appearance of sentience that the figure held came only from the stealth field. Ronan experienced a strange twist in his perception as he realized that the power of his stealth field had deceived even his own eyes. He had expected to see a shadow man, a distinct entity that he had created, and so he did.
The key to the dissolution of the illusion he had created existed in his hand. He dispersed the shadows that he had used to create the illusion, and the shadow man vanished like smoke in the wind.
The guards cried out in surprise and alarm. “Beware the magic of the rebel traitors!” they shouted. “The rebels have discovered some foul spell to use against us! The rebel fighter has vanished!”
That’s probably my cue to get out of here, Ronan thought, and immediately moved away from the trees and from the chaos at the front gate. He dispersed the shadows that he had collected around his body and, instead, relied on his stealth field to hide his appearance from any observers.
An immense amount of power still moved through the stealth field, more than he would normally use. He could tell that it was increasing the power of the magic to a much higher level than normal. The people he passed did not see him at all. Usually, the stealth field made people see the person who they expected to see when they looked at him. It did not turn the user truly invisible.
This time, however, it felt as if he were actually invisible. After one civilian nearly bumped right into him, Ronan knew he needed to reduce the impact of his magic a little. His instinct told him that using that much power for too long was not a good idea, though at that moment he could not have specifically defined why that was the case.
Having never used that level of power before, Ronan found reducing the level was somewhat difficult, but after a moment, he found that he could tap into the maelstrom of magic that he had created within his stealth field in much the same way as he tapped into the power of the shadows themselves.
Still striding along the lamp lit park road, and keeping an eye on his surroundings, he felt his way into the magical maelstrom overpowering his stealth field. He then understood why it was not a good idea, and also how to reduce the level of power being used.
The magic was like a fire that was feeling itself. He had set up a magical whirlpool that fed off its own power, and in so doing sent out more power into the stealth field. But this made the stealth field itself grow under the pressure of the magical energy being pushed into it. The stealth field channeled a great deal of magical power, but not an unlimited amount, or for an unlimited length of time.
He reached for the magical whirlpool and plunged into it. For a moment, the sensation was overwhelming, but then he got control of it. Like a man instinctively taming a frightened or overexcited animal, Ronan used the power of his own presence to ease the rushing flow of magic. Then, as the flow became less wild and frantic, he drew it out of the stealth field and into his own body.
From there, he was on solid ground again. One of the first things Ronan had learned at the Night Guild was that he could push the tingling shadow power that gathered in his palms out to his fingertips. Now, as he felt the immense power that he had stored in the stealth field rushing into his own body, he let it flow down through his arms, passed his wrists, and out from his fingertips.
Like smoke being flowing from the cracks in a stove, the collected shadow power left his fingertips and dispersed into the world around him.
As his fingers bled the last of the shadow energy, Ronan broke into a jog, heading toward the statue of the soldier to meet Diana. He kept his eyes open, looking for Mordon in the crowd while also staying aware of any guards who might take more of an interest in him then he would like.
But he saw neither guards nor his target, and as he jogged on toward the statue, he began to wonder if he was too late.
At least if I have lost him, we have a plan B, he thought. Eric is on the docks and will almost certainly have found something of value there.
Still, he would have preferred to track down the quarry himself. As he approached the statue, he saw Diana standing a little way away from it. She scanned the crowd, looking agitated.
“Hey,” he said to her as he got close. “What’s going on?”
“The Silent Brotherhood assassin we were following,” she said, pointing down the road and away from the park. “He just passed. I can see him.”
Ronan looked to where she pointed. Sure enough, over the heads of the crowd, he could see the distinctive gray hood of the Silent Brotherhood assassin.
He and Diana looked at each other, nodded once, and set off in pursuit.
Chapter 7
Now that he had achieved his mission, it seemed that Mordon felt more able to relax. He did not hurry, but wandered through the edges of the park, where the grass and trees gave way to a respectable area of upmarket residential buildings.
Ronan and Diana followed him at a distance, and as they did so Ronan filled Diana in about the adventure he’d had. She chuckled and shook her head when he told her about arriving almost entirely by chance at the suite of rooms owned by the High Visier himself.
“Luck,” she said.
“It was not!” Ronan replied, pretending to be offended. “It was a perfectly reasonable deduction—the Silent Brotherhood man wanted to keep his visit discreet, so he would go straight to the head honcho himself, the High Vizier, and he would of course be housed in the best rooms in the place.”
“But to come upon him just as he was about to receive the visitor, that was good luck.”
“Perhaps,” Ronan said, suddenly becoming serious. “Or perhaps it was not luck…perhaps it was the hand of the Night God?”
“You think that likely?” she asked with interest.
Mordon walked slowly through the crowd, apparently just looking up at the buildings and enjoying the spectacle of the impressive architecture; they had no trouble keeping their watch on him from a distance.
“I felt him, Diana,” Ronan said. “I felt his presence and his approval when I was leaving. I…did something, at the end, a new kind of magic I’ve never done before.”
She looked at him, her eyebrows raised. “What new magic?” she asked eagerly.
As they kept their eyes on Mordon, who continued to move slowly through the wide, busy streets, Ronan attempted to explain just what had happened as he’d been escaping from the great temple complex.
“It was amazing, like a whole new way of doing magic,” he said. “I was able to combine the spells I knew in original and exciting ways. It felt like the natural progression from what we’ve been taught—in fact, it felt so natural and obvious that I couldn’t believe I’d never thought of it before…”
A sudden uncomfortable thought gripped him. “You don’t think,” he said slowly, “that perhaps I shouldn’t tell you about it?”
“Why on earth not?” she asked, seeming a little offended.
“Just because so much of our teaching has been based on not being told things, but rather on working them out for ourselves.”
Diana shook her head, looking certain of her answer even before she spoke.
Mordon turned a corner into a tree where there were several late-opening restaurants, their well-dressed patrons sipping drinks and nibbling delicacies at elegant tables beneath covered awnings outside the warmly-lit windows. It was clear that Viam was, like central Trentum, a city where there was plenty on offer at night for merry-makers.
“I think,” Diana said as they walked through the busy restaurant quarter while continuing to follow Mordon, “that the philosophy of not asking questions and working things out for ourselves is all well and good when we’re within the safety of the Guildhouse, but out here in the field it’s a different story. At least that’s how I see it. Out here we’re a team, and we’re on a mission. Anything we can help each other with, if we want to share it, well…I just think it feels right to do so.”
Ronan nodded. “I’m glad you think so. I guess you’re right. We’re not in training any more, we’re learning on the job, and we need to look out for each other and share our knowledge and information if we’re going to get ahead!”
“Exactly, and in that case…wait, what’s he doing? Look!”
Diana grabbed Ronan’s arm. He stopped suddenly to look where she pointed. Mordon had stopped outside a house and was talking with a very large, dark-skinned guard in a leather jerkin with steel rings on the chest and a short sword on his belt. The big man was looking down on Mordon, his expression serious. Though the Silent Brotherhood man stood taller than any native Twelve Islander, the big guard dwarfed him both in height and girth. But then the guard nodded with a smile and winked at Mordon as the gray-clad man slipped a coin from his pocket and passed it discreetly to the guard.
