City of Hawks gtr-3 Page 4

  The affair was as splendid as Meleena had imagined it would be. Many a handsome young gallant noticed her. Many of the older ones saw her too, and they were more aggressive than the less experienced or less secure younger fellows. Yet she managed to fend them all off while awaiting her chance at Lord Roland-and it finally came. He even danced with her, and they laughed together at his missteps in leading her through the complicated tracery of the pompous rite. “I am hopeless, I fear, dear lady,” he apologized. Meleena quickly blamed her own lack of grace for his blunders, then nearly stumbled and fell over his wrongly placed foot. When he caught her and clutched her close to keep her from injury, and in doing so looked so concerned as to be near comic, Meleena laughed in combined happiness and mirth. That was enough to provoke the nobleman to laughter himself, and the remainder of the night, which she spent almost entirely in his company, was a dream come true.

  “May I call on you tomorrow. Lady Meleena?” Lord Roland asked at the close of the evening.

  “Yes, m’lord. It will be my pleasure,” she replied then, consciously appreciating that just days before she had received her first stipend and taken more suitable quarters pending the arrival of her orphaned infant cousin.

  “Just off the Street of Silks, you said?”

  “Your lordship has a good memory. It is the house at the very end of Vertwall Close, just off the middle of that very street you named.”

  “I shall call in the afternoon, then. Perhaps we can stroll the Gardens?”

  “We shall see. Lord Roland, when the time comes.” She had overheard enough of such banter to know precisely how to reply.

  Despite the damp chill of the night air, she insisted that the curtains of the litter be left open on her way home. Meleena needed the cold air to clear her head of wine and calm her dizzying state of excitement. Every time she thought hard about what had occurred this night, it made her head swim-and, at other times, it positively ached with sadness and sympathy when she thought of Ermantrude and the poor little waif she was soon to become foster mother to. It occurred to her, during one of these musings, that she had never been told the infant’s name. But as soon as she realized that, it ceased to concern her. No doubt Wanno, or someone he had designated to deliver the babe, would tell her what to call her newfound child. By the time the bearers had carried her up the Processional, along the Street of Silks, and to her own apartment in Vertwall Close, Meleena was cold to the bone and weary too, but still floating on a cloud of joy.

  Lambent eyes watched Meleena as she climbed stiffly from the chair and entered her apartment.

  They were slit-pupiled and red, the evil eyes of a monster not of this world. As the door closed behind her, the fiery orbs became disembodied and floated upward. Where they had been was empty space, and neither the porters nor the guardsman noticed anything as they trudged wearily away.

  The attendants had not been gone many minutes before a pair of black-garbed figures entered the close. Silent, no more noticeable than shadows in the darkness, the two men took up stations a short distance from Meleena’s residence, and the evil eyes of the nether-plane watcher seemed to narrow in pleasure at the sight of the pair.

  “Up, lazy wench,” Meleena said cheerily when she found the servant girl fast asleep before the embers of the fire. “You must help me undress, for I am utterly exhausted!”

  Despite her sleepy state, the serving girl detected her mistress’ mood immediately. “You look radiant, m’lady, and your voice is filled with happiness.”

  Meleena stopped and smiled at the thin girl. “Thank you. It was a nice evening. Now I must rest, for I am tired, and my head throbs so when I try to think that it makes me dizzy! Be a dear and hasten me to my bed.”

  Clad in a warm nightdress and ready for sleep, Meleena was just about to dismiss the girl from her bedchamber when a sudden gust of wind shook the house. The shutters rattled, timbers creaked, and the wind howled and groaned and shrieked in chimney, eaves, and cracks. Both women were frightened by the onslaught. Then the wind suddenly entered the chamber in full force, and all the candles in the room were instantly snuffed out.

  “My lady?” The servant girl’s voice was small and thin, but its tone was nearly hysterical.

  “I’m fine, girl,” Meleena managed to quaver from where she sat nervously on the edge of the bed. “Light a candle, quickly now.” The wind had let up somewhat, the sounds had lessened in intensity, and through the darkness she thought she heard a baby crying.

  “The shutters blew open, ma’m. I’ll close and latch them first, for if I don’t the wind is likely to come again and put out whatever I light.”

  “Well, hurry then,” Meleena said urgently. She was beginning to feel terrible now. The gladness and exhilaration that had filled her was being replaced by an awful feeling of foreboding and a malaise that sickened her to the core. “I must lie down quickly.”

  The girl trod carefully around the room, the sound of her passage occasionally punctuated by the banging of shutters-and then, finally, the scratch of steel on flint. A tiny flame blossomed into warm light as it climbed eagerly down the wick to consume the tallow below.

  “Look!” The servant’s tone was one of amazement, with a tinge of happiness.

  Meleena turned toward the sound, and saw what had prompted it. There, a few feet away from her on the floor, in a tangled bundle of wrappings and a sigil-embroidered shawl, was a tiny baby. Its little arms were waving helplessly, and its legs were kicking as it let out a wail of distress. “This can’t be,” Meleena managed to say weakly. She had expected an infant to arrive, but not like this…

  More than shock was affecting her now. Waves of sickness and excruciating pain were sweeping over her body. Nevertheless, she tried to reach the infant and see what was wrong. The instinctive desire was not strong enough, and blackness claimed her just after she got to her feet, before she could accomplish more than a single small step. She collapsed back across her bed.

  The two black-clad watchers outside had heard a keening wind but noticed nothing else, for they were staying at a safe distance to avoid being detected. They were uneasy but remained still, eyes upon the house. Above the steeply angled rooftop of the building, however, another sentinel reacted quite differently. The slit pupils of the thing’s eyes widened as the roaring gust of air came sweeping toward it. Whatever the thing was, it gathered in upon itself, lambent eyes turning into mere slivers as the wind howled past and down. Then the thing expanded and followed. As the rush of wind shot off into the night, the fiery-eyed creature floated slowly down to where light glimmered from the cracks in the shutters covering a window.

  “There, there, little one,” the servant girl crooned as she picked up and held the infant that had so suddenly appeared in her mistress’ bedchamber. “I am here to protect you. It’s all right now.”

  A splintering crash brought another wail from the baby. The shutters of the high window broke inward as if struck by a giant hammer. The servant girl’s eyes grew round with terror, for in the gaping space where the shutters had been a moment before she saw a terrible visage, a thing barely discernible, with shadowy fangs and burning orbs that fixed her evilly. Without thinking, the thin girl dropped the infant on the bed so that it lay next to her unconscious mistress. Then the girl stood so that she was between the tiny baby and the awful thing at the window.

  A fiendish laugh issued from the near-invisible monster that hovered there, a sound both mocking and anticipatory. It was followed by a hissing sound, a billowing, and then the thing was inside the chamber, slowly taking shape-bloated, reddish-black, ugly, with a mouth larger than the span of the thin girl’s shoulders. As the monstrosity formed, the girl shrank back but did not panic. Instead, she reached inside the neck of her smock and drew forth a silver object that hung from a leather thong. Without hesitation, she tugged, and a portion of the object came free. From the cylinder she had extracted, she shook out a spray of liquid. The stuff splattered over the creature with the huge mo
uth and the burning eyes, and wherever it touched the thing, flesh steamed and hissed and became insubstantial once again.

  The thing voiced a nearly inaudible scream when the tiny shower hit it. Its evil eyes shut tight, and its great maw snapped open and shut convulsively as it shrieked its pain and agony. There was but a small amount of the liquid, though, just the single splattering. The monster recovered and reshaped itself once more. Now its eyes were more wicked than before, and it relished the way this confrontation would end.

  Then, through the intervening space, the silver cylinder flew. The monster saw it and tried to avoid the missile. But, not fully corporeal yet, it was too slow. The silver tube struck the thing squarely in its leering face, and the malign visage contorted in agony at that blow. When it opened its eyes again, only the right one glowed with the evil fire of the nether planes; the left was a blank, black space.

  The liquid and the cylinder were gone now. The thin girl stood unmoving. She had no more defenses against the creature. Strong, sinuous arms with taloned fingers reached out. Before she could move to avoid their grasp, or even utter a scream of fear, those fingers were upon her and tearing. A gout of red spurted forth, and the thin girl’s head sailed across the room while her lifeless body toppled to the floor in gory testimony to the rage of the. thing that she had dared to oppose. With fury and disdain, the creature picked up the body and flung it into a dark corner. Then, moving its talons greedily, the monstrous thing turned to where Meleena lay unconscious with the now-silent babe next to her. Despite the pain that continued to assail it, the creature gave voice to glee as its single remaining eye saw the pair. Its long arms stretched forth, ignoring the woman… intent on the child.

  “Yeeeraagh!” The cry came from the thing, and it was very substantial this time, for the monster was fully formed now. The rusty-black body was being buffeted, the leathery folds of its gross, misshapen body were torn and rent, its bulk spun and wrenched by unknown forces it could not control or combat. The one-eyed thing tried to react, did its best to fight off the attack and reach the baby, for its ultimate duty was to rend the infant into shreds.

  But a spinning circle of bodies kept the thing from its goal. Shapes that moved in blinding speed, forms that were blurred but held weapons that sliced and gashed the thing mercilessly, were always before it. It could not remain still, let alone advance upon its intended victim. The monstrous beast was spun and turned, driven backward, and all the while slashed and torn. In moments the battle, such as it was, was over. The nether-plane thing rotted and decomposed into a slime, which itself vaporized. One burning eyeball rolled, flickered, and went out. Where it had been there was a charred mark on the floor, nothing more.

  The awful sounds of the struggle awakened many of the other residents of the area. But even before the first of the neighbors’ lamps were sputtering alight, the two dark-clad men were racing toward the house. They arrived at the door to Meleena’s dwelling, kicked it in, and entered with drawn swords.

  “I don’t see no gods-blasted brat!”

  “Ain’t even the bitch here,” his companion said, peering under the bed.

  “Somebody was here, fer sure,” the other one remarked, noticing and pointing to a pool of blood on the floor.

  “The window?”

  “Only if they had wings, pal. No couple of wenches could get out that way with a squawling brat in tow.”

  They looked blankly at each other. Then they heard sounds from below. “Looks like we’d better take off. We’re already In it deep… What in the hells are we going to report about this?”

  “Bugger it! Let’s get moving. It ain’t our fault if the misbegotten daemon they sent screwed things up… or didn’t. All we were supposed to do is watch the entrance and kill ’em if they tried to get out that way.”

  Still bantering back and forth, the two men slid over the window sill and away into the darkness. The climb down was easy for them, and the two were already away when the first head poked into the room to discover what the matter was all about. Save for the gory mark and the mutilated body of the girl that was discovered in a dark corner, the mystery had no clues, and those who were interested could only speculate about what had occurred.

  Chapter 4

  The lightless temple, the place where vile and degenerate and wholly evil folk came to pay homage to Nerull, was still and dark that night. Since that condition was usual for the place, no passerby who dared to look would have noticed anything out of the ordinary. But no one passed by anyway-not after dark. This place was shunned by all who walked abroad after nightfall. Even the humans and humanoids who considered themselves among the “faithful” normally stayed well away after sundown, for they were afraid of being sacrificed to the evil deity they professed to venerate.

  But every rule has an exception. Tonight there was a stream of traffic to and from the place. Rushlights flickered and cressets flamed deep within the cursed place. In the maze of passageways and rooms below the temple, there was certainly life and light.

  Colvetis Pol eyed the two figures who stood before him. “That is the sum total of your report?” The maroon-robed cleric put the question forth as if he were disgusted at having to ask.

  “Both apprentice and babe were blasted by the crazy old fart of a mage. Took care of our work, so to speak,” Alburt added with a conspiratorial wink. He didn’t fear this silly priest, and he was intent on letting Colvetis Pol know that.

  “And you, Slono Spotless? Have you nothing to add?”

  The smaller assassin wasn’t as cocky as his mate. After all, clerics were spell-weavers, too. They had unnatural powers, and their sort was never to be trusted-or taken lightly. Slono wrinkled his brow, thinking hard. “Nope,” he finally said. “Jus’ like Alby tol’ ya, we checked out everything real careful. Only took us a couple of minutes. Wanno was stone dead, that asshole apprentice of his gone to flinders, and the kid blasted too. We buggered outta there quick as ferrets and come right here to tell you.”

  “And now we want our coin,” Alburt added to his comrade’s statement. “The job’s all done, and you owe us another fifty orbs.”

  “Is that so…?” Colvetis Pol asked, allowing the query to trail off as if it weren’t really a question at all. “You saw the child blasted and came here right away to tell me, is that right?” The words were like little darts aimed at the two assassins.

  “Well, we sort-”

  “Shut yer yap, Spotty!” Alburt glared at the smaller man, then turned to face the priest with a belligerent expression plainly written on his flat, hard-lined face. “We did as we said, and that’s that. Both the mage and the kid are dead, as contracted for. Now hand over our gold, or else.”

  The cleric’s robes rustled as he made a small gesture. An arras covering the far wall swayed, and several men emerged from the area that the hanging screened from view. Alburt and Slono Spotless were shaken at this, for among these arrivals was the master of their guild. “You heard their own words,” the great priest of Nerull said flatly. “Your servants are quite unreliable.”

  The chief of all assassins in Greyhawk was pale. His pallor was partly due to rage, partly fear, and the combination was evident to any observer. “I heard, Lord Pol, and I will make amends.”

  “Not to me,” the priest said with a sly smile.

  The master of killers looked sideways at a cloaked figure beside him, involuntarily moving away from it as he did so. “No, Lord Pol…” he murmured.

  Now Alburt was becoming more than uneasy. No longer belligerent, the big assassin was close to panic. “Wait! I was only covering for Spotty. It wuz him who futtered up things, and that’s so. The stupid little bastard blundered right into the geezer’s runes, and-”

  “Rot yer tongue, you big bag o’ shit!” Slono was not going to go down without a fight. “You were the top dagger, Alby, an’ you tol’ me to go and orf the kid whilst you was checking things out. You took all the loot, too!” The last accusation was the most damning one the lit
tle assassin could think of.

  A hollow, rasping voice came from the cloaked figure, cutting through the air inside the stone vault where the scene was transpiring. “How long was it after the infant vanished before you came back here?”

  “Maybe a half hour,” Alburt stammered out, but almost at the same time Slono also spoke.

  “About an hour or so,” the smaller man blurted.

  The raspy voice sounded again. “Was it a half hour or more than that?”

  “Longer… I guess,” the big assassin admitted, with a murderous look at Slono.

  “So,” the strange voice choked out. The figure lurched suddenly, and then, without seeming to traverse the intervening distance, it was standing before the two assassins. Hands covered with rotting flesh shot out of enveloping sleeves and clamped firmly upon the two heads. Alburt was held by the forehead, Slono Spotless atop his pate. “For your actions I give you my special blessing,” the figure said. Then it seemed to convulse again and was suddenly standing back where it had been before. Both Alburt and Slono stood dumb. Then they began trembling as if with the ague.

  “No… please…” Alburt whimpered. Then a fit of coughing wracked his big frame and he was unable to speak further.

  “Had you reported at once, as you should have,” the sallow-skinned priest of evil said slowly, making certain each word got through to the two assassins, “none of this would have happened to you. I-we-could have known what device was used to remove the child from our ken, and the matter would be a simple one to correct.”

  “Dispose of those two carefully, priest,” the hooded figure said in its sickness-tinged voice. “Their infestation is one which could be spread to many weakling humans.”