[Mkguild] "Burning Time" pt. 3

[Nathan Pfaunmiller]

Part 3...

______________________

<I>November 24, 707 CR</I>



            Thomas walked quickly and resolutely through the halls, making
for his study.  He was still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he walked,
but he did not slow down, even as he took another turn in the hall.  Kyia
apparently either wanted him to be late, or was obliging and giving him some
time so that he could straighten himself before appearing before his
subjects, but it was taking him longer to find the room today.



            Finally, though, he reached the meeting area.  Guards flanked
the door, one at either side, standing straight already as Thomas
approached.  If possible, they stood straighter as they saw him round the
bend, not letting their stances slouch even slightly until the horse lord
had passed through the open door.



            One of the guards closed the door behind him, cutting him off
from the two of them, as well as the personal entourage that always followed
the Duke when he went anywhere.  He had grown used to this happening every
time he entered such a meeting in a rush, so he paid it no mind.



            Oddly, of the people that were normally summoned to counsel the
Duke in these matters, two were present, and neither was the one who had
sent the summons to the meeting.  He was aware that Malisa would be unable
to attend, but at least his military advisors should all be present.  Thomas
looked around again, but Misha and George were the only ones in the room.  They
stood up from their seats around the table as he entered and paid him his
due respect.

            “Where’s Andwyn?” Thomas asked, somewhat out of breath as he
looked between his two head military advisors.  The fox and the jackal
exchanged glances before Misha responded for both of them.



            “I don’t know.  Knowing him, he’ll probably take a few minutes
to show up, probably have a meal and some wine while we wait…”



            The Duke snorted derisively.  He could not at the moment think
of anything to say in the bat’s defense.  He had an odd habit of making even
the simplest of things needlessly complicated.  Being late to a meeting that
he himself called was rarely considered good form.



            Of course, the Duke of Metamor could do little at the moment to
either help or hinder Andwyn’s arrival.  He slumped down into the chair that
was provided for him at the head of the table at the center of the meeting
room, rubbing one side of his face with his hand.



            Andwyn finally did show up, in about as much of a huff as Thomas
had ever seen him in.  As he noticed that all other parties had already
arrived, he was quick to make sure he was the first to speak.



            “My apologies for being late.  It seems Kyia wanted me to
receive a bit of an update in my information before I delivered it to you.  She
had me wandering her halls for several minutes before running into a
messenger who was bringing me updated information.  I assure you, I was not
late by choice.”



            “As long as the information is good, I won’t hold it against
you,” Thomas responded.  He regarded the spy master quietly as he approached
the table.  The bat seemed to be trying to find a proper way to put the
information, which was something that Thomas felt to be totally out of
character for the bat.  He was always calm and decisive, even in the most
dangerous of situations.



            “I believe that there might be a new threat to your security, my
liege,” Andwyn finally said.  “My spies tell me that a man has entered the
city that I have been watching with interest for years, a man best known for
being a prime suspect in the assassinations of no less than five well-known
public figures, and has been publicly convicted of at least three other
assassinations.  His infamy has waned of late, but you may still have heard
of him: Vincent Lois.”



            “I haven’t heard of the man, no,” Thomas responded.  He glanced
over towards Misha and George.  The fox was already looking over at the
scoutmaster, who seemed to be thinking the name over.



            “Vincent Lois…” George mused quietly to himself.  “I believe we
may have crossed paths once or twice.  Let’s see…  If this is the man I
remember, he would be tall, dark hair, always carrying the same pair of
daggers as his only melee weapons.  Would that fit the man you’re talking
about?”



            “Likely the same,” Andwyn agreed, nodding.  “He also has a trio
of scars that run between his eyes, arcing just over his left eye.  I
wouldn’t wonder that you haven’t mentioned it, though; he received those
scars some time after his last assassination of note, probably back… six or
seven years ago now.”



            “So he has not been active lately, then?” Thomas asked, breaking
in before George could speak up again.  “At least that much is good.”



            “Not active as an assassin, true,” Andwyn confirmed.  “However,
he hasn’t exactly let his daggers rust in that time.  Since his latest
assassination, he labeled himself a bounty hunter and started taking jobs
hunting down pests of particular note from the Giantdowns that managed to
slip through our patrols.  He personally led the group, so his blades have
certainly been well used in these few years.”



            “Reckless,” George noted.  “That does sound like the man I knew.
He’s an extremely talented fighter, after his own style.  He’s not a ring
fighter; I know I could beat him in a ring easily, but you’ll never restrict
him that far in a real-life situation.  He’s far too quick, and knows very
well when he’s outmatched.  My prior encounter with him, I was actually
assigned fifty of my employer’s best, and told to wait right outside his
room.  Apparently news had leaked to him of Lois being given a decent amount
to ensure his death.  I carried out my assignment to the letter, but
eventually my employer had to leave his quarters to deal with matters of
state.”



            “He didn’t last long, I assume?” Misha asked.



            “Poison dart to the back of his neck, even though we had formed
a box around him.  Lois must have escaped in the ensuing panic.  Afterwards,
there were only forty-nine left in my group, and we found a body stuffed
into a chest in the armory.  To the best of our knowledge, he had killed one
of them before we began our assignment, taken his uniform, and waited for a
good shot.”



            “And now Lois is here,” Andwyn said, looking towards Thomas.  “What
my spies have told me is that he intends to stay here in Metamor, to settle
here in the Valley.  I am not sure whether or not such is his actual intent,
but recent events make me uneasy about his presence.”



            “He’s an assassin!  The fact that he is present at all should be
ample cause for unease!” Thomas asserted, pounding one hooflike hand on the
table for emphasis.  The nature of his hand made it especially effective;
the echoes took a few moments to die down.



            George was the first to respond.  “As I see it, moving to the
Valley would not be an altogether surprising move for Lois.  As I remember,
he was not too much younger than I am.  If he has not yet reached his
forties, they are not long in the coming.  By this time, regardless of how
well he has taken care of himself, his old wounds will have started weighing
on him.  A man like him is used to gambling with his life; to gamble with
his body is hardly much of a stretch.”



            “We can’t discount his having ulterior motives just because his
alibi is believable, however,” Misha spoke up.  “He might be looking for a
chance to make an attack before the Curse takes him, and then escape beyond
the boundary.  He might even try to carry out any such mission just before
or after the Curse takes him, and then assume a new identity once his form
has changed.”



            Thomas sighed and leaned back in his seat.  He then turned to
Andwyn.  “You said that you had been delayed by Kyia so that you received
updated information before you came here.  What is the nature of that
information?”



            “Lois has been in the keep for a few days now,” Andwyn
explained.  “My men have been observing him to see if he would make any
suspicious moves, until just last night, he left his room through the window
and went running across the rooftops.  My men lost him; Lois is very
accomplished at finding paths, even on so strange a terrain as the roofs of
the lower keep.”



            The Duke sat up straighter.  “He’s been here for a few days?  Why
have you delayed so long in calling a meeting, then?”



            “I think it’s rather obvious,” George cut in before the bat
could say anything.  Thomas saw the smirk at the edge of his muzzle a moment
too late to stop the cutting comment from coming past the scout master’s
muzzle.  “He didn’t think it was necessary to inform you that he invited an
old friend over to stay for a while.”



            Andwyn turned a glare on the jackal, but refrained from
commenting, instead turning back and responding to the question that the
Duke had posed to him.  “Sir, I thought it best not to trouble you with his
presence.  I have had spies assigned to him since long before he entered the
walls.”



            “If he’s anywhere near as dangerous as George suggests, that
isn’t even close to enough,” Thomas insisted.  “If he can penetrate a group
of fifty men to kill a target, he can give your spies the slip without even
thinking about it.  He could have moved against me while your men were still
scrambling back to inform you that he was out running rooftops somewhere.  He
could have gone after Alberta…”



            “Rest assured, my liege, I have my spies set up a watch over her
as soon as they realized that he had escaped our surveillance.  She is
safe.”



            “Then why were you so desperate to call this meeting?  I know
you Andwyn, you have an uncanny knack to be completely unmoved in even some
of the worst circumstances.  You say that you decided not to tell me until
there was a suspicious move.  What move did the man make that made it worth
your while to finally report his presence?”



            “Lois uses the rooftops as vantage points from which to gather
information for his assassinations,” Andwyn offered.  “Few people would dare
try to follow his paths; a false step could be fatal.  Also, few of his
targets are inclined to look up when they believe there is nothing to see.”



            The Duke took a quick glance at the ceiling, but saw nothing out
of place, so settled back to looking at his spy master.



            “At any rate, this assassin is here now,” he said.  “We need to
deal with him somehow.  Any suggestions?”



            “It is not generally our practice to turn people away from the
Keep, especially not so soon after this past winter,” Misha observed, his
tail twitching thoughtfully.  “We need all the additional manpower we can
get.  Lois may be a threat, but if he is in earnest about settling here
permanently, there may be a way to turn his skills to our advantage.”



            “That would be an advantage bought at great personal risk,”
George cautioned.  “Even if he isn’t after you now, he’s never one to give
up an opportunity for action.”



            “Perhaps we could move him somewhere farther away, for
safekeeping as it were,” Andwyn suggested.  “Somewhere without rooftops for
him to escape on…”



            “You don’t suppose an assassin like Lois would know when he was
being shelved?” George snorted incredulously.  “He’d be back at our doorstep
in a heartbeat, demanding reassignment if we were lucky, taking revenge if
not.”



            Thomas sighed and slumped in his chair.  “This is all
wonderfully brilliant.  We have a man in the Keep that might be after my
life, and we can’t send him away because he might decide to kill me, of all
things.  Is there any possible scenario where he might not try to kill
someone?”



            “Unlikely, it is his employment,” George noted.



            “Since it’s pretty well decided that he’s going to be after
someone, we had best be ready,” Misha commented.



            “I’m not going to lock myself away in the face of danger,
especially when we have no idea whether it is real or imagined!” Thomas
insisted.  “There has to be some other way.”



            “As long as you stay in the inner keep, Kyia should be able to
make sure that Lois doesn’t show up,” Andwyn suggested.



            “I can’t restrict myself to just the inner keep, either,” the
Duke insisted, giving the bat a particularly nasty glare.  “There has to be
something more… proactive that we can do to make sure that he doesn’t cause
us any trouble.”



            The four of them sat back for a while.  Misha glanced at George
for a moment, but George just shrugged and went back to his own thoughts.



            Andwyn, as usual, gave very little sign as to whether he was
getting anywhere or not.  Thomas took one glance at him, and then went back
to his own thoughts.  There was just so little that it seemed they had
available to them.  Andwyn and George seemed quite convinced of the man’s
talents.  Beyond trying to find him again and kill him while his back was
turned, there seemed like nothing that they would consider advisable.  If
they didn’t come up with something else soon, he might have to order just
that…



            “Ah…”  Andywn started, then stopped abruptly, glancing around
the table quickly.  His beady eyes didn’t stay in any one place for too
long, but it seemed like he was trying to make sure that he had everyone’s
attention.  Finally, he continued.  “I think I may have happened upon a
possible solution.”



            “Well, spit it out,” George demanded.  “It isn’t like you have
much competition at the moment.”



            Andwyn shot him a dirty look, but turned to Thomas to continue.
“As I see it, our main problem at the moment is that we’re guessing wildly
at why he might be here.  We really don’t know if he has any plans to harm
you at all, so we are forced into a wild circle of possibilities which may
or may not end up affecting what we really need to deal with.  I’d say the
best way to solve our problems is to find out what his motives really are.”



            “That would make things easier, but accomplishing that objective
brings up its own list of problems,” Thomas said.  “What assassin in his
right mind would outright state his intent to kill a monarch if asked?”



            “Given the right circumstances, Lois has done similar things
before,” Andwyn replied.  “He has been known to take the same job for
multiple employers before.  His first assassination of note was accomplished
by much the same method.  The common people of a small city in the Midlands
were being weighed on heavily by their lord, who seemed to have little
better to do with their money than fill his own coffers.  Lois took it upon
himself to organize the protests against the ruler, then took the assignment
to kill the man.  At the same time, however, he used the riots of the
townspeople to convince the lord’s guards that things would be better with
the man gone.  He eventually was able to convince them to hire him to kill
their ruler as well.  All he really had to do was walk straight through the
doors into the throne room and kill the man; by the time he had finished his
sabotage of the ruler, there was no man who would stand for him, and Lois
walked away with two payoffs.”



            Thomas nodded slowly.  “I see.  So, you think we should send
someone to hire Lois against me so we can gauge his reaction?”



            “Not just anyone, sire,” the bat said, smiling a very unsettling
smile.  The rest of the group present drew back slightly, even though two of
them were predators themselves.  “I suggest that I go and perform this task.
Lois is a master of conversation; he finds out what people really want by
carefully directing the path of dialogue wherever he wants.  If we sent
someone else, they would need to be thoroughly proven against Lois’ tactics,
and it would take time to do so.  As spy master, this sort of thing is well
within my skills, and I am willing to take the assignment if you so wish.”



            Thomas was somewhat unsettled by the idea, but he managed to
keep his expressions neutral.  Andwyn had been held at arm’s length for much
of his time as spy master.  Very few people trusted a man who had so many
eyes and ears hidden in the shadows.  Throughout his service, however,
Andwyn had never tried to harm his sovereign.  In several instances, he had
been the first to offer assistance in sticky situations such as this one was
proving to be.  He had never failed where success was possible, and that in
itself brought Thomas some measure of confidence.  Between that fact, and
the fact that the bat’s assessment of the situation had been so accurate,
Thomas felt that the bat was the only one that could be trusted for the
task, reluctant though he was to entirely justify his motives.



            “I see no other acceptable alternative,” the horse lord said at
length.  “I put this matter in your capable hands, Andwyn.”  Thomas quickly
turned his gaze on Misha and George, both of which seemed less than pleased
by the decision.  His meaningful look was all they needed to accept his
reasoning, although neither submitted willingly.  “Bring me whatever
information you find,” Thomas continued towards Andwyn.  “If you see valid
reason to suspect his motives, take him into custody immediately.  Good
luck.”



            “Thank you for your confidence, my liege,” Andwyn said, giving a
nod that was his closest approximation of a bow.  Thomas momentarily winced
at the formal title, but didn’t correct his spy master.  “I will perform my
duty tonight, if all goes well.  If he has not yet returned to his room by
then, I will send men to warn you.”



            Thomas nodded.  “Very well.  With luck, he may have no
intentions on my life.  With slightly more, you won’t give him any
ideas.”  Thomas
looked meaningfully at Andwyn, but the bat didn’t flinch.  “If there is
nothing more to discuss, I suggest that we all return to our
responsibilities.”



            Thomas stood, and the others followed him.  The Duke of Metamor
wasn’t quite certain what his responsibilities would entail for the rest of
the day, but now that this inconvenient business was finished for the
moment, he meant to start it by finally breaking his fast.



                                    *                      *
*                      *

            Lois’ day had been rather bland.  He had gotten himself
reacquainted with the Deaf Mule, but only briefly.  Although the connection
was still present, he had felt too out of place to really settle into a
conversation with any of the inhabitants.  This concerned him; he knew that
he was likely to be cautious after his encounter with the fox in the
library, but it wasn’t just that.  As he sat in a chair off to the side in
the Mule, whenever he spoke, he felt himself trying to direct the flow of
conversation his own way, as he so often did when trying to get as much
information about a possible job as he could.



            This realization had left him in a bit of a funk.  The free
atmosphere of the Deaf Mule had always invited him to be more open, more
free with his speech, but the people with which he had spoken those many
years before were nowhere to be found, and he found that striking up a
conversation in such a familiar venue felt wrong to him now.



            It angered him somewhat, and confused him even more.  His anger
was due to the fact that the that openness of conversation and familiarity
with the tavern’s inhabitants had been one of the things that he had so
missed about the Keep.  That it was now, at least for the moment, lost to
him gave him no end of questions.  Would he ever regain that familiarity?  Was
it even worth his trouble to live in the Keep and suffer its Curse if so
much of what he had called home was lost?  Could he bear to change forms to
stay in a Keep that no longer carried the joy of that time so many years
ago?



            Lois entered his room quietly.  He had come back a little later
than was his custom, more because he had been walking slowly than by design
of any sort.  He lit a lantern just inside the door then carried it to the
table where his journal sat.  It didn’t cast much light, but it would be
enough to write by.



            When he set the lantern down on the table, however, he noted
that there was another lantern there.  He quietly chided himself.  He had
left it there the night before, just before he had gone to the rooftop to
think.  He stood and took the extinguished lantern with him and hung it up
beside the door.



            “Hello, Lois.”



            Lois suppressed the twitch of motion that would have brought him
full circle with both daggers in hand.  His opponent was behind him and had
the tactical advantage provided by surprise and readiness.  If he was a true
threat, he would have made his move without announcing his intentions.



            Sniffing as if in dismissal, Lois turned and moved smoothly over
to the table, eliminating all sign of fear from his steps.  He sat down at
the table, opened his journal, and had his quill pen dipped and held ready
in his hand before he said anything in response.



            “Good evening, to what do I owe the pleasure of a spy in my
room?” Lois asked.



            “To your talents, Lois,” the voice responded.  It was closer;
whoever it was had followed him.



            “To my talents?” Lois responded.  He scratched out the date on
the journal page in front of him, then moved his pen down and took his time
thinking of his first words.  “I have many talents, true, but to which set
do I owe the visit?  My skills as a bounty hunter, scholar, negotiator…”  Lois
shrugged as he came up with an extra to throw in.  “Money lender perhaps?”



            “No, Lois, none of your better advertised employments,” the
person responded.  Lois was reasonably certain that the voice was male now,
although his knowledge of the Keep kept other possibilities in view.  “I am
speaking of your skills as an assassin,” the voice clarified.



            “You have need of an assassin?” Lois asked, raising an eyebrow
even though the person behind him couldn’t see it.  “By the look of things,
you have most of the skills yourself.”



            A strange, chirping chuckle came from behind him.  “My skills
have already run their course,” he stated once he was done laughing.  “In my
current position, using those skills in any manner that might be traceable
might be harmful to what prestige I have managed to build in the Keep.”



            Lois nodded slightly, thinking.  He made it a point to know the
chain of command in most cities, and Metamor was no exception.  He had
managed to eliminate a good many of the upper echelon as possibilities for
who was currently interrogating him.  That had left a good many less
powerful people, far more than Lois could ever hope to weed through, but the
last declaration helped whittle it down just a little more.



            “Not an inconsiderable amount of power, either,” Lois ventured
finally, writing a few more letters on the page in front of him.  He found
his thoughts on paper were somewhat fragmented, but it gave him the
appearance of nonchalance while he tried to identify the lurker.



            “You can understand, then, how I cannot allow my skills to be
used for anything beyond what would seem permissible within my line of
work.”  The person took Lois’ comment in stride, which was not what the
assassin had hoped for, but his comment had been helpful in its own right.



            “So, you look for someone who has just arrived at the Keep for
some reason, and do not resort to using someone already present,” Lois
noted.



            “No one present in the Keep possesses your peculiar genius for
the art, Lois,” the person responded.  “Also, the Curse is a wonderful thing
in the hands of a man like you.  You would not need to run.  Simply strike
before the Curse takes hold and then hide until your form has changed
entirely.  You could assume an entirely new identity at the end of the job,
and no one would be the wiser.”



            “Except, of course, for you.”



            “Such service comes with its benefits.  Even if I did find out
how you had been changed, or where you had gone into hiding, it would profit
me nothing to reveal the truth.”



            “Except, of course, the elimination of the one person who could
finger you as my client, Andwyn,” Lois declared.  He turned in his chair and
locked eyes with the bat, who now stood just a few steps away.  The bat
smirked, seemingly satisfied by Lois’ actions.



            “You never fail to impress, Lois,” the spy chief commented.



            Lois ignored his comment and went back to the question at hand.
“So, you want me to kill someone.  Who?”



            “My lord, the Duke,” Andwyn said, taking some volume from his
voice in case of eavesdroppers.



            Lois snorted and turned back to his page.  “You’re shameless,
Andwyn.  No change from when I was here those many years ago, although
possibly in a body better suited for your shadowy deeds.”



            Andwyn shrugged off the comment.  “I did not come here for a
meeting of the mutual admiration guild,” he noted.  “I’m here on business,
and you of all people should know to respect that by now.”



            Lois nodded, deep in thought.  “Me of all people…” he mumbled.  “If
I didn’t know your methods and motives so well, I would call that a veiled
threat, but I’ve been acquainted with you long enough to know that is as
close as you ever come to removing that veil.”



            Andwyn gave a strange sigh, which seemed to naturally lace
itself with a quiet whistle.  “I want this job done, Lois.  I want a yes or
no answer, not this drawn out nonsense.  It profits neither of us at the
current juncture.”



            Lois nodded, still thinking.  “I’m still curious as to why you
don’t do it yourself, honestly,” he commented.  He turned his head around so
he could read the bat’s body language.  He hoped it was still near enough to
the human version that the signs would remain obvious.  “After all, your
inner circle is still the only ones who know what really happened to Lord
Thomas IV.  A very nice trick, being willing to wait for a slow acting
poison to kill him so that it could be disguised as lengthy illness.”



            Andwyn’s posture changed noticeably.  “I did no such thing!” he
insisted in a hissing voice.



            Lois smiled.  “Check and mate, Andwyn.  Tell me, did the Duke
put you up to this, or did you come up with the idea?”



            “No such thing!  I seek the death of the Duke of Metamor, and I
have come prepared to pay for it.”



            “Andwyn, no one who is truly serious about such a thing would
deny the credit for such a high-profile kill, especially not with the shock
you showed when I suggested it,” Lois answered.  “You seek answers, to know
whether I am here to kill your liege.  Your plan has failed, but I will not
send you back to your master without the things you came for.”



            Andwyn seemed to have deflated a little, but he responded
nonetheless.  “What is it?” he asked after a moment of silence.



            “Tell Lord Thomas that I seek residence here.  Tell him that I
am willing to be placed in prison until the Curse holds me if that will ease
his fears, and tell him that, as soon as the Curse takes me, I wish to swear
myself into his service.”



            Andwyn nodded.  He seemed satisfied enough, but grudgingly so.  As
Lois remained quiet, he started to turn and head for the window to leave.



            “And Andwyn?” Lois called after him.  The bat just looked up at
the man’s smug, smiling face.  “I’ve been retired now for long enough to
know that I don’t want to go back.  You can tell the Duke that too, if you
like.”



            Andwyn nodded, then flapped his wings and disappeared through
the window.



            Lois watched him go in silence before turning to continue his
journal for the day.


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