Night guild 2, p.14
Night Guild 2, page 14
They didn’t quite bump right into him, but their eyes skated past him as if he was something insignificant, something they didn’t want to bump into but that did not matter beyond that.
As inconsequential as a lamppost, he thought with grim satisfaction. Raising the power of the shadows again, he walked deeper into the crowd, approaching the burning boat. The ship had sunk bow first, and the back of the boat stuck up at a crazy angle from the water, flames pouring from the gaps in its hull. The fire had spread to the ship that was berthed next to it, and the main attention of the locals was focused on stopping this fire while the vessel was still seaworthy.
Ronan was impressed with the community spirit of this little town. They had mounted a rapid response, and despite the late hour a small army of folk had mobilized to stop the flames from spreading any further.
Small boats full of men were on the water, throwing grappling ropes onto the sunken ship and attempting to pull it away from the others. Other men ran about on the deck of the other ship, putting out the fires and kicking sparks and bits of flaming timber overboard. The captains of both ships were standing on the docks, shouting orders to anyone who would listen, but it seemed that most of the orders were coming from an official in a yellow robe with an image of a ship sewed onto his sleeve.
He must be an official of the docks, Ronan thought. He seems to know what he is doing. I hope they manage to get the fire put out soon. I would not like to think of our adventure causing more damage than was necessary to the good people of the port town.
As he stood there watching the conflagration and the panic on the docks, he let his stealth magic run through him, feeling the healing effect coming into play. His injuries were enough that they would have stopped any normal man in his tracks, but Ronan’s training had made him resistant against such things.
Training or not, he was pleased with how well he’d been able to handle the pain of the burns. It was worth it, he thought, as he stood silent and near-invisible at the center of the whirling mass of people, his hood up, his Night God’s magic knitting the burned flesh of his face back together.
The thought of the caryx’s terrible dead face and burning eyes at the last moment was clear in his mind. He was not sure if he’d ever get the thought out of his head, but it had been worth it. He had destroyed the terrible creature and captured the spirit that drove it, and that was all to the good.
His hand drifted to his equipment belt, and his thumb brushed the solid spot where the crystal was nestled. He thought he felt a bit of warm heat coming off the crystal. Could that be right? Was the spirit trapped in the crystal so active that it could give off heat?
He did not know. He did not know anything about the magic that drove the spirit which had animated the caryx. Guildsman Seth had said it was some kind of necromancy, and from the little that Diana had been able to tell him in the cabin, that sounded accurate.
Necromancy. A corpse driven by a mad, trapped spirit. The desperate attempt to conceal the existence of dragon eggs from the world. All these things came together in the actions of the Silent Brotherhood assassins. Their behavior was clearly so reprehensible that even the head of the Malachite Temple wanted nothing to do with them. He had done everything he possibly could to maintain his distance from them.
The healing magic flowed over Ronan’s face like cool water. The release from the pain of his burns came with a feeling of immense relief. The crowd around him could not see him, despite the fact that he stood in the midst.
The magical maelstrom that he had set up within himself powered his stealth magic, and that stealth magic, by turns, spread out into the rest of him, healing his terrible injuries.
In front of him, the small army of citizens that had mobilized to put out the fires was winning. The ship that had been berthed next door to the Kraken’s Revenge was not too badly damaged.
As Ronan watched, the men in the boats managed to get a grappling hook secure around a solid piece of rail at the back of the burning ship. The hook was fixed to a huge rope, and though the flames licked it, the rope seemed secure—at least for a while.
Working as a team, six little boats all quickly attached other smaller ropes to this massive central line, and then began to pull away from the burning wreck, the men rowing hard and calling out in unison to keep time. For a few moments, all the boats were straining away, and it looked as if the rope might catch fire and break despite its size. But then the huge, unwieldy hunk of burning wreckage began to tip over into the water.
Like a tree being felled, it creaked and groaned and then crashed down into the water of the dock, away from the other ships. The firelight was extinguished in a great hiss of steam as the burning wood plunged under the surface. The impact of the wreck caused a wave that rolled away across the harbor, rocking the little ships, and a great cheer went up from the crowd on the docks. The danger had been eliminated.
Ronan lifted his hand to his face. The flesh there felt smooth and sound, and the pain was gone. Carefully, he let the magical maelstrom that had been powering his magic ease in intensity, withdrawing the shadow power from it as he moved away from the crowd.
There was no need to run his stealth field anymore. In the crowd of people on the docks, one more figure in a black cloak did not raise any eyebrows. Ronan looked around, wondering if Mordon might have found his way into the crowd, but there was no sign of the gray-clad Silent Brotherhood assassin.
The man must still be enjoying the pleasures that were on offer up in the central area of Viam City.
Let him enjoy them for now, Ronan thought, grimly. My guess is that tonight will be his last.
He strode back to the place where he had arranged to meet with Eric and Diana.
They were waiting for him, looking anxious, but obviously working hard to respect his need to be alone for his healing. When they saw him, they both smiled, and Eric raised one hand in greeting. Ronan strode over to meet them.
“All is well?” he asked, briskly, looking from one of them to the other.
Eric grinned broadly, a most unusual expression for him. “Yes, all is well with us,” he said. “But what about you?”
“I am healed,” Ronan said, gesturing to his face. “The Night God has allowed me to use my stealth magic to heal my wounds.”
“Amazing,” Diana breathed. “I have seen the power of healing magic before, of course, but to heal such terrible burns…”
“Were they really so bad?” Ronan asked. “They were very painful, of course, but it did not feel like it was impossible to bear. Using my stealth magic and my shadow maelstrom, I was able to heal them quite quickly.”
Eric and Diana looked at each other, then back at Ronan. “It looked very bad indeed,” Eric said quietly. “I confess that I was not sure if you would be able to heal those injuries yourself. That was a very brave act, getting in close to kill the caryx like that.”
“I had no other choice,” Ronan said, feeling a little uncomfortable under the intensity of his companions’ admiration. “It was the only way I could get close enough to use the crystal which Diana had given me to trap the spirit.”
Ronan gave his companions a wry smile. “I am not sure what we will do with the spirit,” he said, “but hopefully Guildsmen Seth from the Guild of the Dead will be able to give us some guidance on that once we get back to the Night Guild. For now, our priority must be to catch Mordon, the last of the Silent Brotherhood assassins.”
Eric had still not heard in detail what had happened to Ronan during his adventure in the Malachite temple. Now that they had dealt with the caryx, they had an hour or so before dawn, the time that Mordon had agreed to meet the High Vizier’s servant Gelden down at the Broken Pearl inn.
They made their way back up into the city and found a taller building that stood out in the midst of a street of warehouses. Where most of the buildings in Port Fero were one or two storeys tall at most, this building seemed older than the rest and stretched up four storeys, rising above all the others. Ronan and his friends found that the rough stone exterior of the building gave them plenty of opportunities for climbing. Feeling more comfortable up high, they all agreed to wait out the hour up on the roof of this tall building.
Working quickly, they clambered up the side of the building, avoiding any windows from which lights glowed. When they got to the top, they found that the roof was nearly completely flat, and was tiled with red clay tiles much like the ones that were common in the Twelve Isles. These had retained most of the day’s heat, and it was a comfortable space to wait.
The three assassins sat together and shared out some rations from their equipment belts. It had been a while since they had eaten, and the companionable sharing of food was pleasant for them all. Up here, Ronan gave Eric and Diana the details of his adventure in the Malachite temple.
“That phrase,” Eric said, once Ronan had finished his story, “the phrase that the Silent Brotherhood assassin used to identify himself to the High Vizier of the temple. It makes me think of something.”
“Yes,” Ronan said. “I remember. Nitimur in Vetitum. Do you recognize it? Do you know what it means?”
“I don’t know what it means,” Eric said, “but it reminds me of something. Do you remember the dagger and amulet which you took from the assassins when they attacked you after your test?”
“I remember,” Ronan said. “What are you getting at?”
“Both the dagger and the amulet had the letters NIV scratched onto them. The High Vizier of the Malachite temple obviously recognized the phrase as being unique to the Silent Brotherhood. I suspect that NIV stands for Nitimur in Vetitum. Doesn’t that make sense?”
“It does,” Ronan said, nodding slowly. “But it doesn’t tell us anything more about what the phrase actually means.”
“I think I could tell you that,” Diana said quietly.
Eric and Ronan both looked at her. “What do you mean?” Ronan asked.
“I recognize the language,” she said. “It’s an old tongue that has fallen out of use in most places in the world, but the Silent Brothers still use it for their worship. When I was small, the Silent Brotherhood exerted a powerful dominance over the area where I lived. We were forced to learn this old Lithian language, and to read prayers to the God Mala out loud in it.”
“So, do you know what it means?” Ronan asked.
“Nitimur in Vetitum,” she said, considering. “Roughly translated, I think it means pursue that which is forbidden.”
“Pursue that which is forbidden,” Ronan mused. “That is interesting. It may point to the reason why the Malachite High Vizier was unwilling to be associated with the Silent Brotherhood. If the brotherhood’s watchword is the pursuit of that which is forbidden, it would make sense that they would be unpalatable to the more respectable worshippers of the God Mala.”
“It makes sense to me,” Eric said. “When the knights of the temple massacred my village, they certainly appeared to be engaged in the pursuit of that which was forbidden.”
“But what I don’t understand,” Diana said, “is how all this ties in with the dragon eggs. Why is the Silent Brotherhood going to so much effort to gather and conceal the eggs of the dragons? Why does it matter so much to them that new dragons don’t appear in the world?”
“I think we will need a lot more knowledge about their activities, and about the dragons themselves, before we can answer that question,” Ronan said. “In fact, I suspect that we will need to visit the Silent Brotherhood at their home temple before we are able to answer that question.”
“Visit the Silent Brotherhood temple?” Diana said, her face going pale. “I had never considered that we might have to do that. For me, that would mean going back to the place of my birth. I would have to look upon my father’s estate in the hands of the Silent Brotherhood. That would be a hard thing for me to do.”
“And yet,” Eric said quietly, “it is the logical conclusion of our work here. Like Ronan, and myself, you travelled to the Night Guild seeking the skills that would equip you to revenge yourself against the Silent Brotherhood for the murder of your family.”
“That’s right,” Diana said.
“But over time,” Eric continued, “you have given up your desire for revenge, as both Ronan and myself have also done.”
“Yes, I came to understand that private revenge is not what the Night God gives us his power for,” Diana agreed.
“As have I,” Ronan added quietly.
“But it seems to me,” Eric said, “that, as even Guildmaster Tarquin suggested might happen, we have been put on a path that will bring us to the place of revenge anyway. For my part, when my village was massacred I was saved personally by the intervention of the Night God. In that moment, he sent me on the mission to find the Night Guild and gain the powers that would grant me the ability to wreak revenge upon the murderers of my clan. I take the mission of revenge to have been given to me by the Night God himself, and as private revenge taken from my own satisfaction.”
“But Diana and I have not been given such a mission from the Night God,” Ronan said. “I do not believe that my personal revenge is granted to me by the Night God.”
“Not yet, at least,” Eric replied. “But we do not know what will happen yet. I feel in my heart that our mission will lead us to a place where we can take revenge, not necessarily on our own behalf, but perhaps on the behalf of the Night God. Have faith, my friends, the Night God knows what he is about. We will find ourselves in the place that we need to be in time.”
“In my heart, I believe that you are right,” Ronan said, nodding. “But for now we need to focus on the mission at hand. I believe that we are in the right if we eliminate the last of the Silent Brotherhood assassins. Dawn will be coming soon, and it is our job to go and find Mordon at the place where he agreed to meet the servant Gelden of the Malachite temple.”
“You said that he planned to take a bag of gold from the Malachite temple servant first,” Diana said. “Do you think we should wait until they have finished doing the handover?”
“Absolutely,” Ronan said. “If the servant from the Malachite Temple does not meet him, the servant will bring that message back to the High Vizier and it will alert the Vizier to the fact that something is amiss. If we let the handover of the gold take place as planned, then the Vizier will be happy to wash his hands of the whole affair. My only worry is that Mordon will have found out somehow that his ship has been burned, and he might not attend the meeting. But there is nothing we can do right now to avoid that.”
He stood, looking out over the rooftops at the brightening sky. “Let us go and observe the meeting between Mordon and the Malachite temple servant. Once the handover of the gold has taken place, we will eliminate the last of the Silent Brotherhood assassins who infiltrated our home city. Then we can return to the Night Guild and make a report to Guildmaster Tarquin.”
They all agreed on this. After making a quick prayer to the Night God, asking that he watch over their actions and keep them on his path, they clambered down the side of the tall stone building, with the first light of dawn beginning to brighten the eastern sky.
All three assassins activated their stealth fields as they walked through the dark port city streets. The light of dawn was in the sky, but down in the streets it was still dark, and all was quiet.
The drama of the fire had caused the city to wake up during the night, but now things had calmed down again. They passed by the pier where the ship had burned, and saw that there was a team of guardsmen standing guard next to the entrance of the pier, prepared to repel idlers or looters from getting too close. Bits of the hulk of the burnt ship still floated, black and wet on the dark water. It would take the city some time to get rid of that mess.
They walked along until they found the entrance to the inn called the Broken Pearl.
“I’ll take the front,” Ronan said, “and you two take positions on the left and on the right to make sure that he does not escape if something goes wrong.”
“Very well,” Diana and Eric both agreed. They took up their positions, one on either side of the building, blending into the shadows at the corners of the building so quickly and neatly that even Ronan could not tell that they were there unless he looked closely for them.
They were no longer in fear of the mind-fogging powers of the caryx, and so if they needed to they could use their thought transferring technique for communication. Ronan took up a position opposite the inn. The street was dark, and he expected his quarry to be wary, and so he did not rely on his stealth field alone to hide him. Instead, he found a pile of empty wooden crates that were stacked up on the dock, ready to be loaded the next day.
These crates cast a heavy blanket of shadow on the flagstones of the ground, and Ronan crouched in this shadow, using his magic to reach out and gather the shadows all around him, piling them up around himself like stones of a barricade around a fortress.
His magic felt powerful as he built the power up around himself, and his stealth field deepened, becoming more of an invisibility cloak than the usual distraction type of magic that it normally was.
He waited there in silence, keeping an eye on his companions and watching for any movement of his quarry approaching.
Eric and Diana were both tangible presences within Ronan’s mind, and he knew that all he needed to do was to reach along the connection toward either of them if he wanted to send them a thought, but he kept completely silent, and the others did not attempt to send him thoughts either. There was no need to communicate.
They all knew exactly what they were doing.
Gelden, servant of the Malachite temple, arrived first. His tall, stately form emerged stealthily onto the scene from the left. He moved as if he felt some distaste for his task, as if being down here on the docks, away from his usual place in the opulent Malachite Temple, was difficult for him to accept.
