The Sword-Edged blonde

TWENTY-FIVE

The smell of incense surged over me the moment the door opened. I slipped in and closed it behind me, wincing at the hinges’ faint protest in the silence. Then I looked around.

The dim light came from a dozen small candles on a tiny altar. It reminded me of the little girl praying in the mines below Poy Sippi. The place was filled with bizarre objects, some displayed on tables and shelves, some propped against the walls. Each had a vaguely equine theme, although there were as many winged stallions and unicorns as there were depictions of everyday horses. Some, I suspected, were parts of actual animals, preserved in all the arcane ways people use to hang on to the dead.

I methodically scanned the room. The Dwarf was so small he could have found a dozen easy hiding places in the flickering shadows. I saw no sign of him, so I walked over to the altar. I wondered what sort of things he would offer to his apparent horse deity.

I should’ve known. The central icon was a horse skull impaled by a golden spike. Vicious spur wheels covered in dried horse blood marked the four cardinal directions. A riding crop lay where a ceremonial knife normally rested. The Dwarf’s hatred of horses extended even to his religion. Hell, apparently it was his religion.

As I stood by the altar, the door creaked open behind me. I froze. The polished side of a ceremonial bowl reflected a squat, furry shape about waist high. It had a peaked head, wide shoulders and long arms.

I had a knife up my sleeve, probably my easiest weapon to draw in a hurry. But I didn’t. I slowly turned, careful not to make any abrupt motions. Whatever this creature was, I didn’t want to startle it.

The light was too dim to make out any details, but the general shape was unmistakable. It was an ape, standing very still just outside the door. I could hear its breathing in the silence. I didn’t know much about these animals, so I had no idea whether I should be quiet, make noise, bluff an attack or fall to the ground and cover my head. So I just stood there.

A long moment passed. Then the ape shuffled forward into the room. I may not have been an expert on gorillas and such, but I’d seen a lot of animals move, and this was all wrong. I crossed my arms and said, “Very funny.”

The Dwarf laughed. The costume allowed most of his face to peek through, so I saw his big smile. “I couldn’t help it, I love wearing this thing. People never worry about what the monkey might hear.” He pulled back the furry hood and bent his head far to the side so his hands could smooth down his hair.

In the candlelight, he looked younger than he had from a distance. His features seemed normal, even friendly. I knew better. He said, “Tried having a suit like this built to give me normal human proportions, but the technology just isn’t there yet. I have to settle for a chimp. It’s actually more useful than you might think.”

“So you wear it around the house a lot?”

“Nah. I just put it on to light the candles. My hands aren’t really good with fire.” I heard the slight squeak of wires and cables as the fake hands closed around a taper, lit it from one of the burning candles and then touched the flame to some others that had gone out.

“So, here you are in my house,” he continued. “You trespassed onto my property and, if you got this far, killed two of my friends outside. I’m guessing that you’re not here collecting for charity.”

“I only killed one of your friends. And I can really only take half the credit for that.”

He waved one of the monkey-suit arms dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. Canino was useful, but they all go quick eventually. There’ll be another one along.” Apparently satisfied with the number of lit candles, he snuffed the taper and wriggled out of the costume. Its framework kept it upright, so he resembled a molting insect. He wore a tunic cut to his odd proportions. I recalled Epona Gray’s description of the damage she’d wrought on the unfortunate sailor Andrew Reese: I snapped every bone in his arms and legs, then pushed them up into his torso. I twisted him into human jetsam, Eddie, and cast him back to the sea. This man certainly looked as if such a thing had happened to him. “Who knows? Maybe even you. Need a job?”

“I prefer being self-employed.”

He shrugged. The gesture made his whole body wobble. “Then I can assume you’re here on business?”

“Yeah.”

I watched his every move. I sensed he was dangerous far out of proportion to his appearance. “Buying or selling?” he asked.

“Neither.”

“What else is there?”

“Insurance. I’m taking out a policy on a friend’s life.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re a smart guy to get this far. Don’t turn stupid by threatening me. You think I’d be able to live here all alone if I didn’t know how to protect myself?”

“I’m sure you can. I’m no slouch myself. I took out Stan Carnahan once, too.”

It was small, but I saw the muscles in his cheek tremble as he clenched his teeth. “Who?”

“Let’s move this along. Once upon a time, you washed up on an island and, like most sailors, behaved very badly to the lady who lived there. Bad luck for you that she turned out to be a goddess. She made you into what you are now, and I’m betting you’ve been waiting for your chance to get her back for it ever since. You knew she’d reappear somehow, somewhere, so you kept your eyes and ears open. Maybe that was the whole reason you developed this underground criminal network of yours. You eventually caught wind of her little experiment in the Ogachic Mountains, and paid a bad man a lot of money to insinuate himself into the group. Then you sent a nice girl named Cathy to deliver your little ‘gotcha’ present. And you did get them, all of them, including the goddess who let herself be human enough to die.”

In the candlelight, his expression changed from amusement through anger until, at last, he seemed about to cry. “How do you know all this?” he asked, his voice raspy with emotion.

“Because I was there, too, on the night it happened. And I made sure your bad man didn’t walk away.”

“But she died, didn’t she?” he whispered. “She did die?”

I nodded.

He sighed with relief. “For a minute I thought… well, it doesn’t matter. She died.”

I shook my head a little. “You’re a freak in more ways than one. One lethal revenge wasn’t enough for you. Because the lady really was a goddess, she showed up again, as the queen of Arentia. You weren’t going to trust proxies like Stan Carnahan this time, so you wangled an invitation to a state function in Arentia City. I know how it works, with enough money and a couple of connections it wouldn’t have been too hard. Canino was the actual guest, though; he took you along in your monkey suit.” Blond man with the ugly chimpanzee, Vogel had written in his report. “When the queen left the banquet, you slipped away after her. You confronted her somewhere between the main hall and the nursery.” You’re right, though, it couldn’t possibly take that long, Rhiannon had said. “But after all that time, all that effort, she didn’t even remember you, did she? She saw the same thing I do right now: some little, pathetic monster. That must have pissed you off no end.”

I could imagine his rage, confronting the woman he believed had done this to him and having his grand moment of revenge spoiled by her amnesiac blankness. He swallowed hard, and his eyes grew shiny. “I just wanted her to kill me,” he said softly. “I thought that when she died before, I would, too. But I didn’t.”

“Sure. You had a ‘plan B,’ though,” I continued. “You drugged her and got her loopy enough to let you into the nursery. You took her baby out hidden in the suit; you probably doped him up a little as well, just to keep him quiet. You took advantage of what was at hand in the castle to set up the murder scene, and used the meat and bones of one of your pet monkeys as the final touch. Then you disposed of the baby until Rhiannon decided she remembered you. But that never happened, and never will.”

He shook his head, and it dislodged one tear down his cheek. “I’m no baby killer,” he said.

“I never said you killed him.” Andrew was a decent man, with a kind heart and the ability to feel love, Epona had said. “I know exactly where you left him. You see, I can count to six, even when someone says it’s five.”

“Then why haven’t you told the bitch?” he snapped petulantly. He sounded for all the world like a teenager caught out past curfew. “I’m sure she’d be just delighted to know her brat wasn’t really murdered.”

“I will. Once I take out that insurance.”

He laughed chillingly, shook his head, then suddenly his eyes opened wide. He snapped his fingers and stared at me. “Wait. I know who you are. Yeah. King Philip’s childhood friend, let me think… LaCrosse. Edward, the current Baron LaCrosse.”

This bothered me a lot more than I let on. How the hell could he know that?

His demeanor changed almost at once, and his smile grew vicious. “I know a fair bit about you, too. Golden boy gone bad, as I recall. You let a bunch of trail raiders rape and murder the princess of Arentia.”

I tried to minimize it. “Old news.”

“To some, maybe. But a fellow like you doesn’t get over something like that, ever.” He waddled toward me, and the candlelight illuminated his cold, malevolent grin. All trace of the hurt victim had vanished. “When you’re built like me, you learn pretty quickly that the only thing stronger than muscle or steel is information. And I know something about that day I just bet you never told anyone.”

I barely got out the words, “Nothing to do with this.”

He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “You’re more responsible for the death of the late Princess Janet than you ever let on. See, there were over a dozen thugs involved that day, and by the time they were finally chased down, a couple of them had left and been replaced by new men. One of those veterans ended up working for me, and he told me a very interesting story.”

This couldn’t be true. The Arentian army had hunted down and slaughtered all of the ones I hadn’t killed. It was in the news broadsheets. I’d read about it myself. I even identified some of the bodies.

“He said they were riding down the road minding their own business, on their way to a job in Hefron and not even out to cause any trouble, when they passed the spot where you and the princess were picnicking by a lake. One of his buddies made a pretty rude comment about the young lady.”

Like black bile boiling through a thin crust, that afternoon came back to me. I felt the glorious sunshine, smelled the flowers, saw Janet’s tears of happiness when she accepted my proposal of marriage. Then they rode past.

I’d do her from behind, the big bearded guy said loud enough for me to hear, and the rest of them laughed.

“You got all irate about it and acted like you were some hotshot,” the Dwarf continued.

I’d jumped to my feet and yelled, Hey! You apologize to the lady!

“They intended to ride on, assuming you were some local farm boy showing off for his girlfriend. But you wouldn’t let it go.”

Eddie, forget about it, Janet had said. It’s no big deal. Don’t let it ruin the whole day.

“You hopped the fence and drew your sword.”

Eddie! she’d yelled, more annoyed than frightened. Stop acting like an idiot!

“You challenged the guy who’d made the remark to a duel, right there on the spot.”

Fancy sword you got, the bearded guy said, and took a lazy swipe at me with his own weapon, intending to just smack me with the flat of his blade. But I parried it, and stabbed him in the heart. The entire fight took seconds.

“And when you killed him, that’s when the rest of them got pissed off.”

Holy shit, he’s dead! a greasy little guy had exclaimed, bending over the fallen man. Then he looked at me. You son of a bitch, he was just goofin’ around!

“You were tougher than they thought, and you took down a bunch of them before they finally got you under control. By then everyone was freaking out, and they took it all out on your girlfriend. They made you watch, too, then thought they’d killed you. But they were wrong.”

Shit, she’s dead, one of them had said, rising from Janet’s body, his groin covered in her blood. Then so’s this asshole, another one replied, and drove his sword into me. He missed my heart but got my lung, and I felt like I was burning alive inside my chest. Janet’s eyes were open, and one of the men nudged her head with his boot so that it lolled to the side and stared at me. I gagged on my own blood and felt it run down my chin.

“When they found you, they called you a hero, didn’t they? But you always knew better.”

The Dwarf’s words grew distant, even though he was three feet away. My heart was so loud I could barely think.

He was right, and I’d spent the intervening years rewriting the story in my own head just so I could make it through each day. We’d both been victims, I’d fought heroically, and I left Arentia from my own deep-seated nobility, not… not my utter shame at the truth. This was the darkest thing in my soul, and this minute monster had just dragged it into the candlelight of his own little sanctuary.

“And you think solving this great crime will make it up to her brother, don’t you? That’s the whole reason you’ve done this.” He laughed. “And you called me a freak.”

I’d been prepared for anything, I thought, but not this. The room seemed impossibly small and hot now, and my breath came in shallow, rapid bursts. My chest tightened painfully, especially around the old sword scar. I’d spent so long holding all this inside, keeping it hidden, that I had no idea how to let it out. It logjammed in my throat, choking me.

But luckily, my professional reflexes weren’t emotionally involved. When the Dwarf aimed his tiny, probably poisoned stiletto at me, my arm reacted before I even knew it. I palmed the knife in my sleeve and stepped aside, avoiding his blow and striking my own right in the little bozo’s heart. As I spun, I drew my sword and slammed my back into the door, ready to defend myself, although I knew I’d dealt him a lethal blow.

The Dwarf wobbled a little, then regained his balance. He looked down curiously at the knife stuck in his chest. A trickle of blood oozed out around it. “Hmph,” he said, wincing. “You are quicker than you look.”

I stared and didn’t move. My knife was stuck in his heart. I’d felt it strike home; no bone or hidden armor had deflected it. He should be dead, or at least seriously inconvenienced. But it seemed no more urgent than a mosquito bite.

He looked up at me, amused by my shock. “Come on, you know what she did to me. She wouldn’t let me die. That means no one can kill me. That’s why I went to see her in Arentia.”

Then something occurred to him. With a grin of comprehension, he said, “My God, you never really believed her until this moment, did you?” He threw back his head and positively cackled. “That’s great!”

“What the fuck are you?” I said. My voice sounded weak and raw.

He sang, “I’m Andrew Reese, and I’m broken to pieces.” He laughed again. “You think that’s hard to believe? How’s this: that time I spent on her island?”

He stepped closer and looked into my eyes. “That was five hundred years ago.”