MISERICORDE by Karl Edward Wagner The close chamber smelled of stale flowers and staler love. Tamaslei shook the agate phial petulantly, found it drained of her favorite scent. Crossing her bedchamber with longlimbed strides, she ripped aside a silken curtain and tossed the phial through the window. She drew a deep breath. Chill mountain air puckered her bare nipples. Distantly the phial smashed against stone. "I will not love a coward," she said to the night. Upon her bed, Josin stirred uneasily. The agate phial of scented oil had been another of his gifts. He had given it to her the night before he had killed her previous lover. "I would do whatever you wish. You know that." "Do I?" Tamaslei laughed derisively and considered her reflection in the dressing-table mirror. Her glossy black hair hung in tangled masses. She flung its coils back across her white shoulders and gathered them at her nape with a goldchased cord. Tamaslei studied her eyes, as her strong fingers crushed belladonna berries against an onyx mortar. Josin arose anxiously. He stood behind her, hiding his sudden detumescence from the mirror. "What you ask is death." "What I ask is danger. A risk. Surely no man would hide his face and creep away on his belly at a simple request from his lady?" "You ask -- you demand," Josin lowered his voice as he glanced at the opened window, "that I steal the ducal crown of Harnsterm from the Vareishei clan." "They stole it easily enough when milord Lonal was fool enough to lead an expedition against them." "Stripping a coronet from a dead man's bloody gate is a bloody different game from stealing it from an outlaw stronghold." "You always said you were the cleverest thief of all Chrosanthe." Tamaslei discovered an errant eyelash, pitilessly plucked it. "And so I am,"Josin reassured her. "It's only a dingy old fortress," Tamaslei pressured him, "an uncouth band of robbers." "Who have held these mountains under their command since the assassination of King Janisavion ten years ago," Josin reminded her. "Who wears the coronet might well claim rulership of Harnsterm," Tamaslei mused. "Our lamented duke was slain without direct heir. It will be years before Chrosanthe has exhausted all plots and deposed all pretenders. What the people want now is power -- rather, the assurance of power, the symbols of power. I need not remind you that my own family is one of our city's oldest, for all our fall from grace during these recent civil troubles. "With the ducal crown -- and an alliance with the man bold enough to wrest if from these mountain bandits..." Tamaslei applied scent to the vale of her breasts. "The Vareishei guard their stolen treasures well." "And you say that you are a thief." "I say that I am your lover." "And I say that I will not love a coward." Josin shrugged his capable shoulders. His mustache made a sad smile into the mirror. He had climbed this far. Dare he climb farther still? He was the best. Of thieves. Of lovers. Of ambitious adventurers. Of all this he was certain. Against the Vareishei? No man had ever won out. "You shall have this coronet," Josin promised. "And you shall have my love." It was a fortnight later. Two ravens had been cawing at her window. Tamaslei at last awoke. She climbed from her cold bed. Upon her window ledge rested a shriveled lump of muscle. She knew it for her lover's heart even before she learned that his head stood atop a pole just beyond the walls of Harnsterm. . It was then that she sought out Kane. I. FOUR NAMES IN BLOOD "I am told," Tamaslei said to the half-blind lamplighter, "that for a certain amount of gold one may procure the fulfillment of her most fanciful wishes, here in the back streets of Harnsterm." The lamplighter trimmed the wick and applied his flame. Closing the lozenge-shaped pane, he stepped down from his footstool and hefted his can of oil. He stank of oil and soot, and it seemed that a chance spark might set the old man and his tattered garments ablaze. "There are many wishes." "My wish is to speak with a certain man. His name is Kane." "Dead. Dead, so I have heard. Dead, these many years." Tamaslei counted gold coins from one palm to another. Josin had once told her that the old lamplighter knew more of the affairs of Harnsterm's underworld than did its denizens. "But then," said the lamplighter, flipping back his eyepatch to gloat upon the roll of gold pieces, "I might know someone who might know where Kane might be found . . ." Tamaslei permitted a gold piece to drip from her fingers. It rolled into a pile of horse dung beside the old man's filthy boots. "When I have spoken with Kane in my chambers in the Tameiral Mansion," she said, nodding toward the decaying district where Harnsterm's wealth once dwelt, "you shall have five golden companions to clink against this one." The lamplighter grubbed for the coin as she turned away. "If you live past that tete-a-tete," he mumbled to his beard. Tamaslei tossed her cloak to a maid and entered her private chambers. She considered the muck that smeared her boots and decided that a bath might remove the stench of the streets from her nostrils. First, though, a drink to calm her unease. Crossing to the decanter of brandy upon the sideboard, Tamaslei started to pour for herself -- some indication of the urgency of her need -- when she noticed that one of the matched set of crystal goblets was missing. In vexation, she glanced about the chamber, already preparing, a tonguelashing for the servant who had not cleansed and replaced the goblet -- and a worse sort of lashing if it had been broken. The goblet, intact and only just now emptied, was held in a hand that almost engulfed it. Tamaslei splashed brandy onto the sideboard, staring openmouthed at the man who watched her from the shadows of her chamber. He was huge -- it seemed incredible that she hadn't noticed him instantly upon entering he room until she thought of how beasts of prey seem to merge with their surroundings. He was dressed entirely in black, from his high boots and leather trousers to his close-fitting leather jacket. As he leaned against the wall, a sword hilt protruded above his right shoulder, showing a complex filigree against the dark panels. A closely trimmed red beard softened the planes of a brutal face, but the cold blue eyes that studied her from the shadow made Tamaslei choke back the outcry that, shuddered in her throat, "Shall I pour?" suggested Kane. Regaining her composure, Tamaslei promised herself to take pains with the servant who had failed to inform her of Kane's presence. "You came here quickly." "Bad news travels quickly." Kane measured brandy into their goblets. Close to her, his size was even more forbidding, which made the polished grace of his movements all the more sinister. "You are Kane." Tamaslei's inflection was not questioning. "Josin spoke of you to me. He called you his friend." "A man of great promise -- and, one would have thought, of keener judgment than to attempt to steal from the Vareishei clan. I drink to a comrade departed." "And I, to a lover." Tamaslei briefly touched her lips to her goblet. "I imagine you will have guessed why I have summoned you here." Above the rim of his goblet, Kane's eyes were watchful. "Josm told me that you were the best, the very best. He said that just as he was greatest of thieves because he stole for the thrill of it, so were you greatest of assassins because you killed men for the sport." "And for a price," Kane reminded her. "They say that for ten marks of gold one may purchase a life from you -- the life of anyone." Kane set aside his goblet. Tamaslei looked into his eyes, and no other answer was needed. "I wish to purchase a life," she said. "Four lives." She unclasped a key from the belt of her gown and unlocked the iron-bound door of a massive oaken aumbry. From within she withdrew a pair of leather almoners. Carrying one in either hand, she deposited, them upon the side-board. Returning to the aumbry, she placed two more heavy purses beside the first pair. The decanter and crystal goblets vibrated in elfin cries to the sullen clink of gold coins. "Each purse contains ten marks in golden coins. For each purse, I demand a life. When four lives are taken, these four purses shall be yours." Her smile challenged him. "Or would you think to take them from me now?" "I did not come here to steal," Kane told her. "Because even assassins have their code -- and their pride -- just as thieves like Josin do." "Certain rules of the game are essential," Kane replied. "Otherwise it isn't a game. For the true adept, wealth is not the object. If I am offered a fee to perform a certain assignment, I will not accept that fee until I have accomplished it. Taking a fee by force -- or accepting an assignment without the certainty that it will be carried out would be pointless, a bore." "Then you will accept this assignment?" "I am bored with the ordinary, and already this problem has surpassed the ordinary. It remains for you to tell me the names of the four lives you desire, and the problem shall be solved." "Josin once told me that a certain etiquette is involved," Tamaslei said. "I, too, believe in doing things correctly." She thrust her hand into her boot-top and unsheathed a thin-bladed dagger. Setting its point to her thumb, Tamaslei drew a bright rivulet of blood. Using the dagger as a pen, she wrote a name in blood upon each leather almoner. Wenvor. Ostervor Sitilvon. Puriali. "The Vareishei clan." Kane's face showed interest. "The Vareishei clan." Tamaslei's eyes were as pitiless as Kane's. "They ...
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