Unfinished Story Chapter Eleven

Author’s Note: at first I was planning two sequels to Halfbreed. But then I decided I pretty much hated the story. Or at least the non-uniqueness of it…

Traveler

Chapter One

A Society of Wolves/ Jump Start

The only thing she really wanted in the world was to get out of the limelight her mother, and therefore she, had been forced into after the Revolution of Carhain. The sister of a king could not hope for any less. But the niece might somehow be able to crawl out from under the weight of such celebrity and begin her own life. True, her life was really an offshoot of her mother’s, but Viahlin was positive she could make her own mark on the world she dwelt in. The world of spies that she’d been raised in. Daily intrigue was just routine for her, whereas it would shock some of those beautiful flowers of the royal houses.

The royal houses had indeed popped right back onto the scene after the revolution, as if they had simply been bidding their time for the moment where they could once more get back to their pointless existence.

Viahlin had been raised on such small expeditions as insinuating her way into one such house. Because once the great evil had been put down, and that one huge trouble gotten rid of forever, the little annoyances that inevitably haunted such a rich power in the world appeared once more. The sister of the king, Rune Hythharen Dareska, had told her daughter that it would have been naive and ignorant to think anything else would have happened. It was the way the world worked.

So Viahlin’s--Ahlin for short--upbringing had been very cynical and disillusioned. She preferred that to the sheltered life she would have led as a princess. Not that she’d ever had a choice in that matter.

She’d seen this country grow from a dark, evil place to one that was on its way to being prosperous in just twenty years. If another country had been so deeply pulled into a rut, which wasn’t the correct term but would do for now, and such a fall of the economy, Ahlin doubted they’d have made such a comeback. But Carhain had more than its usual share of magic, and what was magic for if not to make these kinds of things easier to deal with?

Ahlin had been fair short-changed in that department. Her mother, though she didn’t use it often, had more power than most of the elves, and was certainly the most powerful sorceress, or whatever one would call it, in the modern world. Ahlin had nearly none of that, most likely diluted by the strong normality that coursed through her father’s veins. Most of the time she couldn’t care less. But sometimes she wished she could just make a task disappear. The only power she had was connected with her job. She could easily convince someone that they couldn’t see her, and she could make herself invisible in that she was simply overlooked. She had better hearing than most humans could claim, and probably many elves as well. Still, that all seemed to ordinary when she was reminded of everything her mother had done, what with overthrowing a tyrant who held so much power that the elves had feared him too much to oppose him.

She shrugged in irritation as these thoughts filtered through her mind. Her heavy braid was tucked into the black cap that settled over her brow and lent her a far darker look than she would normally have. The table she was seated at was heavy and the top was scarred with the presence of many a rowdy customer. It was just like every real bar, a real bar being one where the gentry didn’t enter just to have a little fun and experience the life of the peasants. Those were more common than one would think, but they didn’t last very long.

As soon as she paid and stepped outside of the threshold, a dark shape swooped in on her, so quickly that she almost didn’t duck in time to keep her head securely on her shoulders. In response, she threw herself off of the sagging porch, tucking herself into a ball when she hit the ground, and rolling. One foot was barely securely planted when the attacker leapt at her once more. She caught the outstretched arm and spun, flinging the figure to the dirt, where it kicked up.

The person in black dug somewhere inside the folds of the cloak and emerged with another dagger. Now they shifted their stance and dipped the points down to the ground, circling within the perimeters of the light of the street lanterns. The rippling clothing made it hard to tell what the person’s next move would be, but Ahlin was able to catch the heel of the boot that they swung towards towards her midsection. She twisted the foot and hefted the weight, grunting a little and hurling the person against the wall of the tavern, where they fell to their hands a knees, wheezing and trying to get air.

Ahlin waisted no time, drawing her own dagger, which she had neglected to do during the fight, and pricking her assailant’s throat, gripping the hair now revealed from the fallen hood and wrenching back the head.

The thin, almost wraith-like girl hissed a strange curse and struggled to throw Ahlin off, but Ahlin was having none of it. No wonder she’d been able to toss this girl like a sack of flour. She couldn’t weigh much more than one.

“Who sent you?” she demanded, banging the girl’s head against the brick when she only growled.

“It doesn’t matter if I die,” the girl finally said, her voice contorted with some strange, harsh accent. “There will be others.”

Ahlin shrugged. “Alright.” She clapped her hand to the girl’s forehead, exposing more of the translucent white throat, and slid the edge along it. The strange girl slumped forward, and Ahlin wiped the blood off on the cloak, crouching down and glancing around. There was no undue attention, but it certainly wasn’t wise to hang around a mysterious dead body.

Well, apparently the lovely Duchess of Yorn had heard of her coming. That should answer the question about whether or not she had spies in the Seat. Not that anyone had ever had any doubts, but proof would be nice when one was talking about bringing about the downfall of one of the most prestigious Houses, who ruled the duchy of Yorn, which took up roughly one fourth of Etherna, and the next contender for the throne, should all of Dareska blood perish--again. That kind of purge wasn’t something that any of the royal family wanted to become a constant sort of thing.

Which was why Ahlin had been sent into the godsforsaken outreaches of Yorn, in search of some kind of evidence against the blasted woman. And whether Ahlin appreciated the logistics or not, a dead Nishian was not clear-cut evidence, even if that Nishian had been trained in the Third Circle. These towns weren’t exactly the cream of the crop when it came to providing some type of reason for their existence, but they were full of people who would have information. And information was what she needed at the moment.

She broke into a shambling sort of walk designed to put people off guard. Walking with a purpose would never do in such a place. If you knew where you were going, you had to have some kind of importance to someone. That was all anyone needed to slit a person’s throat or kidnap them and accidentally slit a person’s throat, on the off chance that some kind of payday would be produced. Murderers were never the cleverest humans, but here, they were sure as hell dangerous in their stupidity. For instance, the average killer would have no understanding of the amount of air a captive with the bag on his head would need. More people were killed when murderers branched off into more lucrative professions and by accident than when they were wandering around with death on their minds, and the intent to smother said person.

Kidnapping never ended well for either party, the kidnapper or the kidnapee. Ahlin had been taught by the best, and he’d given her all the straight facts, whether her mother liked it or not. But then, her uncle’s assassin had never been given to worrying about people’s reactions. Which was why, as a young girl, Ahlin had idolized Atrius.

Atrius had been amazingly young when he’d gone into service for the king of Carhain. At the age of seventeen, he’d been more skilled in espionage and she, as the tiny, six year old daughter of the king’s sister, had gone to following him around like a puppy. He’d probably only started teaching her his craft to get her off his back. But she’d learned everything the man knew. And now she was putting them to use in the real world.

Ahlin sidestepped her way through the shadow the wall to her back threw, and came out into a street light, pausing as if lost, and then continuing through the alley on the other side of the street.

She’d always been good at being bait.

The inn where she was staying was actually in the opposite direction, but it was definitely more advisable for a person laying a “false trail”, as it were, to go elsewhere than their actual haven. Leading the murderer following you directly to your front door was just stupid, and Ahlin had never been stupid. A little brash, a little deaf when it came to advice and orders, but never stupid.

She pulled the black cap lower over her brow and tugged her shirt sleeves a little further up on her arm, giving her hands free range of whatever movement she might wish to make in a sudden manner. Her mind was already calculating the exact amount of energy and movement it would take the draw the assorted knives and daggers from under her shirt and from within the shadows of her pants. These particular pants had been made special for her, with all kinds of built-in folds that could hide a variety of objects.

From the way she moved, and the way she was dressed, nobody would ever suspect she was what she was, and that was her biggest advantage. Most other assassins and spies had a way of moving that couldn’t help but shout “Gee! Spy! Murderer for Hire!”. It was a built in kind of thing that alerted anyone with a trained eye to discern exactly what kind of business they were in. Even her mother had the rolling gait of a warrior, and nowadays all she did was stay home and play with her youngest or delegate responsibility inside the king’s network of spies. Rune had taken more often now to just wanting to be around her son, who had just turned nine and was at a dangerous age in the Seat.

At that age, Ahlin had already known three places to kill a man without breaking a sweat. Rune had made it quite clear that James was to be kept far away from that kind of life. Ahlin was far from a disappointment, but also far from working at the ideal job, at least in her mother’s eyes. Her father was an altogether different matter.

She stopped stock still and listened hard, her breathing hardly discernable from the normal sounds of night. She heard the scuff of a boot on rough ground and instantly slumped back against the wall, putting her hand to her head in an ostentatious show of pain. Or nausea, or just blurred vision from one too many drinks. A clever person wouldn’t be fooled in the slightest.

But this person obviously wasn’t in control of any abnormal cleverness, because he came flying at her, knife already out, and yelling as if to scare her out of her skin.

She caught him around the throat with one hand and shoved him to the ground, slamming her elbow down into his nose to keep him still for a moment, then throwing him over onto his stomach. She pulled one arm painfully behind his back and pressed her knee into the small. He unleashed a painful groan before she leaned in harder.

“So, such a lovely night for a stroll down a dark alley,” she said conversationally, knowing the line wasn’t the best beginning to a bout of witty repartee, but also increasingly annoyed with the amount of flying dark forms that had come her way. “I’ll only ask this once. Are you alone?”

The man mumbled an assent into the gravel, his voice high pitched and panicky.

“Alright. And I’ll only ask this once. Are you well versed in all that goes on in these parts?”

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Ahlin leaned back in her bed and flopped her arms out, staring surlily at the cracked ceiling. Without realizing it, she began computing the number of wooden boards, then she shook her head in frustrated irritation. That had to be some word on the streets, didn’t there? One did not form some giant conspiracy in the bad streets of the many Yornan towns without alerting somebody important in the world of underground--or not so underground--crime. There was always someone who knew.

She tugged her cap off and tossed it onto the bedside table, where it plopped and seemed to deflate. She gazed at it a few moments, then blinked and went back to contemplating the ceiling.

There really isn’t much to ceilings, she soon discovered. Sighing, she shifted her head on the hard pillow and tried to fall asleep. After a few minutes of still being blindingly awake, she sat up and decided to record everything she’d discovered insofar. Rummaging through the pack that she’d left close-to-hand, she tugged out a scroll, unrolled it, and set it across the bed in front of her. She took out her quill and ink and began to scratch in the information. All that was on the page as yet was:

-something I shouldn’t know:

0-something to do with the Lions, and the Nishians

0-the Lions have been a showing a lot of activity in the past few months

0-3rd Circle Nishians/Whatever it is, they’re keeping it very quiet

0-Duchess knows I’m here--she’s got spies in the Seat

Writing down things, she’d been taught, was the number one faux pas when it came to the espionage business, but she’d always thought better when there were things down on parchment. Besides, there was no one alive who could break her code. One thing she’d always been the best at was gathering information. She might have been slow at the killing without remorse, but she knew how to go about things.

She stared at the scroll as the ink dried, and groaned, rubbing her tired eyes and then rolling the parchment back up. She tied it tightly, then dropped it back into the back with a thunk.

She should have more, was all she could think. Atrius could squeeze water from a rock when it came to information, and she’d learned from him. She should have more.

She fell back and closed her eyes, doing what she didn’t often do now and making her brain shut down into sleep mode. There had always been that little touch of magic that she’d honed as a child. Her abilities showed up in many tiny, everyday things. Right now she wished that she had a bit more when it came to sensing what was on the air.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

The road was nearly empty when she set out. There were a few wagons who were either late or very early, but she didn’t glance up; she just kept trudging on, watching the ground, and the dirt she kicked up instead of the scenery around her. Ahlin could smell the forest, and she could smell the plains. She didn’t feel the need to look up and confirm such things.

Her dark clothes would draw in what warmth there was, but there wasn’t much of it. She shook her arms, her sleeves falling further down, and she tucked her cold fingers into the cloth with a groan. Why can’t conspiracies occur in the summer, she grumbled mentally. As she often did, she tugged her cap further down over her brow. The one thing she hadn’t been trained out of her was the tendency to hide her face. That had been so deeply instilled in her as a teenager unfairly given the burden of having to grow into her beauty that nothing Atrius had taught her could have overridden that. Her features had been rather oddly assorted, and though her teacher had mentioned nothing, she would constantly, for some reason, hide her face from him. It was nothing of vanity. It was just that she was like the black sheep. Both of her parents were gorgeous in their own right. Her father, if he hadn’t been a murderer, would have had to fight off the ladies. But when their features had been put together, it was if someone had taken all their worst features and tossed them onto their daughter.

Oh, Ahlin had certainly made a comeback from that unfortunate accident, or perhaps funny little joke, of fate of her younger years. She’d grown into her crooked nose, and she’d grown into those big eyes, and that huge mouth. The nose had been the worst part. Having gotten into a fight with a boy her age when she was about eleven, Ahlin had been cursed with having to bear the nose that hadn’t set quite right. She supposed that she’d looked somewhat like a fish as a teenager, what with her gaping mouth and, as she’d seen them, bulging eyes. Fortunately, those features had not grown while her body had caught up.

She reached up and yanked it lower, shifting the pack she’d slung over her shoulder. Eventually, she’d have to settle down in one of the bigger cities and insinuate herself into the criminal element. The other towns most certainly hadn’t been right for that, but in a few days, she’d be passing through Cron, and it was the biggest, and had the most shady, despicable creatures roaming its streets. They wouldn’t notice one more until it was too late. Besides, she’d be able to have some fun. She loved living with no laws, which was something else she’d picked up from her mentor. She certainly didn’t enjoy killing...at least, she didn’t go out with that purpose in mind. But was stealing was fun, and it had been a while since she had done so.

Once she’d made a name for herself, which shouldn’t take more than a month, she’d be able to ask to be taken to Able, Cyke’s counterpart here in Etherna. Only the best of thieves could be taken to him, because thieves were the riffraff of the criminal world. It was like the representative of the mongrels coming before a society of wolves. She winced at that analogy, then shrugged.

Anyone who saw her now would probably think her mental balance was a little iffy. She was inclined to agree with them, if it came to that.

Ahlin began to feel the warmth of the sun as it rose up on the horizon and gave a little sigh of satisfaction when her clothes began to warm on her cold flesh. The near freezing cold of the night slowly began to seep away, and she breathed into her hands, trying to warm them further. She walked a little quicker to get the blood flowing, then ground to a halt when she felt the shift in the air. For a split-second, she had no idea what it was. Then she heard it.

From a ways into the woods there came the ringing of metal on metal, and without thinking it through, like normal travelers who had the habit of saving their own skins would do, she dove into the underbrush, running as quickly as she could. When she came nearer to the sounds, she slowed close to a halt, displaying more caution now that the sounds were closer. The leaves didn’t even rustle as she brushed through. Her feet unconsciously found every centimeter where her passage would make no sound, and within seconds she was at the edge of a clearing that couldn’t be seen from a three feet radius in any direction until the person was right upon it.

What she saw prevented from her from barging in. Some kind of guard was merely inches away from where she was standing. Between one breath and the next, she had vanished from the human eye. She hadn’t moved at all.

In the center of the clearing, two men were fighting their way around a circle created of swords. Frowning, she leaned forward a little, careful not to breath to deeply lest she alert this rock of a man. He hadn’t wavered at all in his stiff stance, she noted. With a grunt, the shorter man in the circle turned aside a thrust from the taller. The shorter man, despite being built like a bull and having a rather competent grip on his weapon, seemed to be the weaker of the two. The tall one, in addition to the lean build and long reach, had two things to his advantage that the other man hadn’t seemed to notice.

For one, while the short one was definitely a fighter, the tall one was a killer. Ahlin could tell that from where she stood, from they way he swung the sword, and from the way he was obviously circling the other, and toying with him. She’d bet her eyes that the tall one could’ve killed the shorter man long before. The second thing was that he had a hidden dagger down the back of his shirt, and there was no sweat staining the outline. The shorter man was sweating profusely, lagging a little in the blocking and parrying.

He seemed to enjoy stabbing, which wasn’t good, and meant he was more used to fencing. Despite herself, Ahlin found herself being drawn into the small battle.

She wasn’t surprised in the least when the short man’s sword flew away. But she was surprised when the tall man drew back his sword and plunged it into the man’s chest. Though she didn’t gasp or gape or doing anything so predictable, she did decided that this was, perhaps, no sparring ring.

A movement from the opposite edge of the clearing immediately drew her eyes. She didn’t quite understand why she hadn’t seen the woman to begin with. Her forest green cloak may have hidden her from being sighted at first, but the almost iridescent blue that billowed around her in the form of a cape should have had Ahlin’s eyes instantly locking on. It was that that made Ahlin suspect precisely who the woman was. Or rather, what the woman wasn’t. For starters, that woman was no ordinary human.

“Excellent, my little warrior. I admit that you had me worried when you didn’t go straight for he kill, but you recovered my admiration with a flourish,” the woman spoke. The voice was soft, but it rang around the clearing. Ahlin tried to look closer, but she felt a tiny suggestion about the woman that she wasn’t really that. Some kind of magic was trying to creep into Ahlin’s mind and tell her that this woman wasn’t there. It was a suggestion to look away.

But Ahlin wasn’t daughter of the most powerful people in Carhain in just looks. So she shoved those aggravating little hints out of her mind and concentrated on the proceedings. She had found far more here than she might have suspected in the beginning.

“Well, Mistress, you always tell us to draw out the pain,” the man answered, his voice a rasp on the air. He appeared to be completely under the lady’s control. There was no resentment in his tone, as what Ahlin thought a man would have felt at being called “my little warrior”. But her assassin’s eyes caught the tiny outward signs of tension in the way the man now stood. The fist he made was no a clue in itself, but the way he held it slightly out of view of his mistress, and the way the fist shook, told her that there was something more than met the eye.

“Ah, yes. I did, didn’t I? Well, I’m sure the men will think twice before betraying me or my Duchess ever again.” The woman then looked across the clearing, and Ahlin could have sworn the woman was looking straight at her. But then the woman spoke, and it was clear she wasn’t seeing the spy. “And I’m sure that you, Mr. Shawns, will see to it that the word is spread? Though, of course, I condemn such spiteful gossip.” Her eyes were cold. So much colder than brown could possibly be. And as Ahlin watched every inch of the woman’s body, it was like her nails were forming into claws. Ahlin blinked, and they were normal.

The yards of sweeping snow white hair couldn’t be normal. To be sure, it was common enough on the elderly. But this woman’s skin was porcelain, without one wrinkle to be seen. Most likely the result of the common practice of taking tiny doses of arsenic, the skin was flawless, but so very, very pale.

At the woman’s words, the guard right next to Ahlin stood even straighter, if that was possible, and saluted, as if it were an automatic reaction to his name.

“Yes, Mistress Sanille. Of course, Mistress.”

The woman nodded, satisfied, and turned back to the forest line. “Jan, my staff.” Out of the gloom that was very out of place in the now bright sunlight, a figure in a brown cloak materialized, holding an ornate, and slightly ostentatious, wooden staff inlaid with silver and gold that crawled out of the top and curled around a sapphire blue stone. Even from here, Ahlin could see something flickering withing the translucent depths. “Now, Rathe, my faithful little warrior, let us see what you make of this.” And with a somewhat dramatic wave of her hand, which Ahlin knew was completely unnecessary, two more figures formed out of twisting tendrils of golden shadows in the center of the circle.

Rathe’s relaxed grip on the long sword shifted, and he took a careful step back, planting his feet solidly.

Unaware of doing so, Ahlin shifted her feet as well, and the guard instantly twisted his head around. As a result, the sorceress’s head snapped up, and her eyes narrowed. Then it seemed as if the very warmth in the air was being sucked out. Ahlin figured it was no time for stealth and took off.

Luckily, she thought with a grimace, cursing herself for moving, the elephant chasing after me is far louder. A few years ago, such panic might have had her invisibility flickering in and out of being. But now it was so much a part of her that she maintained the illusion even while pounding her way through the twisting brambles and trees. She heard the guard falling back, but didn’t dare slow down in the belief that she was home free. She was no fool. If the servant had fallen back, it meant that the master was home.