The God of Assassins (Wine of the Gods Book 11) Read online

  Damn, damn, damn. Xen grabbed the fallen statue, an old prospector peering through a lens at a rock, and dragged it outside, off the god-stone and into the bushes. And cursing himself, he ran back inside. The other statue was a naked woman. He hauled her out and dumped her on the prospector. "Have fun, while I get myself killed." And searched his mental arsenal for a spell that might work on a god.

  A whole web of spells he'd learned from Nil. I bet Nil never turned a god into a goat. He rolled up a copy, ready to throw. And another. . . . and shields. Remember to put up shields!

  A patter of running footsteps, Grace came flying down the stairs. "They're not here!"

  A build up of magical potential . . .

  "Out, fast! He about to do something." Xen grabbed her.

  "No, wait, there's a door over . . . " He hauled her out the glass door and threw her off the pavement. Dived . . . crashed into brush with magic at his heels. He rolled . . . The glass doors were gone. Just beyond where they had been, a different entrance gleamed in the moonlight.

  Grace scrambled to her feet. "That's Edmund Vice's home."

  "Art hid his museum by bubbling it, and occupying essentially the same space. Damn clever."

  Grace sobbed. "They could have been in there! They could have been!"

  Xen climbed to his feet, rubbing his hip. "Those statues are hard. Shall we open them up?"

  "Oh, yes, yes, yes! They're my friends too! Oh! River's naked!"

  Xen grinned. "I have yet to meet a witch who actually cared. But maybe I ought to unbubble her first, so I'm the only guy to embarrass her?"

  "Oh, no, Simon's her boyfriend, she won't mind him." Grace looked worried. "I'll tell her not to kill you."

  Xen pinched his nose. Grabbed the old prospector and hauled him upright. Peeled off one bubble, two bubbles. "Sheesh, I'm glad he didn't triple bubble me. I'd still be in there."

  "Art only triple bubbles things with 'Artistic Merit.' You looked dumb, sprawled on the floor."

  Xen snickered and peeled the third bubble . . .

  "Holy cats!" The man dropped the rock and spun around. "What the . . . River! River?" He dropped to his knees beside her, his angry gaze shot back to Xen. "What did you do to her?"

  "It was Art." Grace piped up.

  Simon's gaze shot to her, back to the statue, and returned to Xen. "Can you get her . . . back?"

  "I think 'out' is the proper term. But let's aim that spell she's got ready away from all of us." Xen grabbed the statue by the arm and pulled it up.

  Simon grabbed possessively, and supported the statue. "Who are you?"

  He popped the first bubble, the second, and reached for the third. "Xen."

  "Evil!" Mercy snarled. "I should have realized that by the poisonous look of you!"

  Xen turned, shields snapping up, reaching for a spell. Deflected a swarm of magic, threw the goat spell. Tightened his shields, scrambled for fireballs, slice, sleep, spin, stun, watched her shrug off the web of the goat spell, not without effort, but the rest she barely seemed to notice . . . Q's web with the purple bunny spell . . . Mercy staggered, wrenched at the interlocking mesh of spells . . .

  "Free River! Quickly!"

  Xen reached back and ripped the last bubble. Turned back, threw a second web on top of the first . . .

  "Whatever that spell is, throw it on Mercy!" Simon yelled.

  "Healing?" A woman's voice.

  "No, don't! "

  Mercy turned and ran off into the darkness. Still fighting the web.

  Xen gulped. That didn't feel like winning . . ."Umm, I don't want to rush you guys, but I think it's time for me to leave. Want a ride out of here?"

  Grace peered out of the moon shadows of the dense brush and looked around. "Is it safe to come out?"

  "Yeah, but if I were you, I'd sneak home and pretend you don't know what happened." Xen followed the flashes of movement in the moonlight that showed Mercy's position. He kept well back, following at what he thought was a safe distance. Hopefully the horses had hung around where he'd given them grain.

  "No. I won't go back. I'm sixteen, I can decide."

  "I haven't got time to argue. Getting into a fight with a Goddess was not in my plans for the day, and I'm going to run for home."

  The prospector, Simon, still had his arm around the witch, and was pulling her along with him. "So, where are we, where are we going and what is the date?"

  "These are the ruins of New Bombay, and I'm going to go, by stages to a city that I suspect didn't exist when Art captured you. This is the year 1393 post exile."

  Silence behind him. A path branched off to the north, white marble luminous in the deep shadows. He was pretty sure it was the right path. Ahead, Mercy had purple hair, but looked to be shrugging the rest of the spells off as she hobbled out of sight. Xen turned and started running.

  :: Horsie! Get to your saddle, bring the mares. Quick! :: I hope to hell they're broke to ride!

  The horses galloped into the little plaza as he reached the saddle he'd left there. Pulled the hackamore out of the saddlebags, a coil of rope . . . The mares snorted and eyed the tack. No time for delicacy. Xen tossed a calming spell on them. Slid the hackamore onto the closest mare, threw the saddle on her and cinched it.

  "Who's the best rider?" Xen looped the rope over the next mare's neck, over her nose, knotted it, flipped the ends around her neck for reins.

  " . . . know what's going on!" the witch shut up and glared at him. She was now wearing Simon's shirt, which wasn't going to make riding any more comfortable.

  "We're running like hell from Mercy, who wants to kill me. Art had you wrapped in multiple bubble layers that made you look like a bronze statue for probably a thousand years. I will take you to the God of Travelers, the God of War, or the biggest meanest Pyramid of witches currently in existence. Or you can stay. Your choice."

  "Harry!" Grace made a beeline for the saddled mare. Xen boosted her up.

  Simon half lifted the exasperated River up behind her and turned to the mare with the rope hackamore. "What are you going to do for tack?"

  Xen gave him a leg up and turned to Pyrite. "Don't need anything." He vaulted up and reached for the feel, the location . . . and far to the north his eerie canyon and hotspring . . . he reached to touch the others.

  Mercy stepped out, hand raised, fireball on the way.

  Xen triggered the spell.

  The world changed.

  Pyrite shrieked. Reared and spun. Quivered to a halt.

  Xen had pulled as much of the heat of the fireball as he could. He jumped off and poured the energy into the ground.

  Dared to look. Pyrite's shoulder had taken the brunt of the fireball, but it hadn't gone deep.

  :: I shielded! It went right through! :: The horse was white-eyed and shivering.

  "You blocked enough of it." Xen stepped over to the milling mares. "Sorry, I need something out of the saddlebags . . . " The witch slid off, and retreated to Simon. Xen pulled out a bottle of wine.

  :: No! I don't want to be a stupid stallion! ::

  "Horsie, Pyrite. If you don't like it, I'll adjust your hormones. If that's not enough, I'll geld you. But you cannot die here. And we can't wait here, Mercy may have traced us."

  Xen ignored the looks he was getting and pulled the cork. Let Pyrite drink from his hand as he poured. "Better?"

  Pyrite tossed his head and danced.

  The other three were staring.

  "What is that! I could feel dozens of spells." River demanded.

  "About fifty years ago, the Auld Wulf and Lady Gisele got drunk and dared each other to make something to . . . encourage and enable the few remaining witches and wizards to increase their populations. This has every healing spell they ever invented or learned. Fertility aids and an aphrodisiac of frightening strength. And they made it a von neumanns, self replicating."

  "Drunken spell casting is not generally a good idea . . . "

  "Yeah. Py, can you lead the way? I'll bring up the rear, in cas
e we need shields."

  Pyrite started out limping, but he was sound by the time they'd picked their way down to the road. The damaged skin was flaking off, the new skin healthy and . . . bald.

  "It'll grow back later, Horsie." Xen glanced at the others. "They left out 'regrow hair.' Maybe they thought it would take too much protein that was needed for healing."

  There was no sign of Mercy. They hunted down an obscure campsite as the moon set.

  I wonder what time it is in Karista? I feel like I've been awake for days.

  He heated rocks against the chilly night, but didn't start a fire. He had plenty of food bubbled in his saddlebags and handed it out. And pulled out his work out pants. With the drawstring waist, River could at least wear them, however unflattering. "In the morning, I ought to be able to travel us all far enough to get us the rest of the way home."

  Simon eyed him. "So now that we have a bit of time, I'd like a better explanation. Xen?"

  "I am Lieutenant Xen Wolfson of the King's Own Intel division. I was hunting for Art, because of a problem we're currently having that might have been connected with some trouble he made a couple of years ago."

  "King's Own?"

  "King Leano of the Kingdom of the West, which is to say, the western half of North America. How long ago did Art grab you?"

  Simon's arm around River's shoulder tightened. "River disappeared in 2241. Last thing I remember was hiking in 2252."

  Xen choked. "Earth's 'current era,' or 'anno domini?' God, that's just . . . a hundred and thirty some years post exile? Damn. Do you have any idea how the historians are going to swarm you?"

  River frowned. "You said the ruins of New Bombay. What happened?"

  "A comet." Grace jumped in. "Everybody tried to divert it. Mother bubbled me, and all her staff. And then everything with her inside. She put so many layers on she lost a thousand years of time, before some witches broke us out. We were in a place called Scoone for a couple of years. She said everything was too strange, and moved back here. At least she finally let me out long enough to grow up."

  River looked over at Xen. "How many people died?"

  "Millions. There were maybe a hundred thousand survivors. We're back up to around five hundred million, now. We've lost most of the old tech. We depend a lot on subconscious magic use by people without power for a lot of things. Fertilizers and pest control. The magical community is small, but a lot of us are very strong. We . . . do a lot of dimensional things that even the old gods hadn't learned how to do, back when you were . . . active."

  "Dimensional. Like holding bags." Simon eyed his saddlebags.

  "Yep." Xen glanced at Grace. "The children of gods and wizards are the most powerful."

  Xen slept poorly, getting up three times to check Pyrite.

  In the morning, he fed everyone, they mounted up, and he traveled them to the edge of New Tokyo. The ten mile ride through the ruins was quiet, as his time-strays peered around, pointing out things they recognized.

  He tossed a salute to the Captain at the fort, but ushered the others over to the corridor without stopping to talk.

  "And what, pray tell, is that? " Simon looked through the corridor, then back at the wall it was pinned on.

  "A corridor. One of those dimensional phenomena I mentioned. Umm, your horses may be a bit alarmed by the sensations." Xen was riding the "Mom" mare, and Grace was bareback on Pyrite. Mom balked at the strange doorway, then jumped through. He slid around a bit on her bare back as she expressed her displeasure with this strange way of traveling.

  The man minding the far side cursed.

  "You might want to back up a bit, I've got two more inexperienced horses following."

  "There aren't supposed to be horses over there! It's bad for the lawn!" As the next horse jumped through, he grabbed his lightweight table and dragged it away. River at least had a saddle. Simon's horse dumped him. Xen tossed a weak sleep spell on her as she bolted past. She staggered to a halt and swayed uncertainly. Simon climbed to his feet, scrambling out of Pyrite's way as he trotted calmly through.

  They were all looking around, taking in the city.

  "We're on the campus of the King's University. That's the History and Archeology building. Would you like a tour, or we can head straight for Harry's."

  Simon limped over to his mount. "I think I'd like to see something familiar."

  "Right. Well, it involves another corridor, but we can just send the mares through and walk ourselves."

  "That sounds like an excellent idea. In fact," Simon eyed the sleepy mare, "I think I'll start walking now."

  Xen grinned and led them the few blocks to "his" little stable with the corridor to the tavern hidden at the back.

  He rode the very reluctant Mom through. River's horse just snorted. The third mare came through at a run, sans Simon. The man stepped through, cussing again. And Pyrite followed.

  They all recognized the building. Grace bailed out and bolted for the door. Xen stripped the tack off the others and left them loose to follow Pyrite up into the hills. :: They haven't got winter coats, and neither does your shoulder. Bring them back to the barn soon. ::

  " . . . And I said I was sixteen, and that was old enough to choose to leave if I wanted to!" Grace was clinging to Harry, who was clinging back.

  Janic's going to love this report. 'Hi boss, Art wasn't involved with the assassination, but now that I've told him about it, he's probably going to try to take advantage of it.' Well, might as well get it over with.

  "I need to report all of this." Xen bit his lip. "I'll try to come right back. Be careful! Mercy's going to be angry."

  "Yes. I noticed that when she showed up at midnight. She was angry at someone named Xen . . ."

  Flare looked around his shoulder. "And I unwisely said 'Surely you don't mean Xen Wolfson.' She . . . was incandescent with rage, ranting about how she ought to have seen him in his hellspawn's face."

  "I tried to calm her down and aim her at Art. I suggested that Art could have decided Grace would make a good statue." Harry thumped his shoulder. "Anyway. Go report. I'll take it from here."

  Chapter Nine

  Winter 1393, Day 7

  Karista, Kingdom of the West

  "Heading for the Council Hall?"

  Garit looked around and waited for his oldest brother. Rolo looks a little better, today.

  "Yeah. I hate just . . . twiddling my thumbs around here, but . . . I've been told often enough to not interfere. How are you and Amilie holding up?"

  Rolo shook his head. "Five days of hell. We're . . . coping. I was worried about Amalie . . . we were debating when to announce a royal pregnancy when this happened."

  Garit brightened . . . hesitated. Amilie has miscarried four times, that I know of.

  Rolo nodded, catching what was unspoken. "So we'll wait another month, at least. Although I expect rumors are already circulating. You can't hide much from maids and dressmakers."

  "True. If there's anything I can do to help, let me know."

  "Give your thumbs a break?" Rolo actually smiled a bit at that. "Thanks, Garit. Keep an eye on Staven, won't you? I worry that he's pushing himself too hard. Losing Rebo was bad enough . . . I . . . He was my son."

  Garit nodded. "Rebo was young, he would have gotten better with time, we all do . . . If we get the chance. I'll let you know if Staven needs to be hog tied and made to rest."

  ***

  The list of adult candidates was straightforward.

  Staven compared the list propped on a board against the wall of the Council Hall with his own scribbled and barely legible list and frowned. "Wolfson? What's he doing on the list?" He kept his voice down. It was considered good manners on both sides to ignore the observation room. Which fantasy necessitated a lack of noise in the room.

  Garit was the only other Royal present. Two palace secretaries were taking notes. Three guards, inside the room, which was unusual.

  Garit moved closer, kept his voice down too.

  "I
think he's only there because he's older than me. They're all arguing whether they ought to take him off or add all my sisters' sons. Not that they're adults, but Brant's almost fourteen and Wilco's just turned thirteen. They can at least talk to them. And Jek and Monty are nine and six."

  Staven shook his head. "They'd have to add in the Trehems, if they do that. It's still a pretty thin list."

  Garit was shaking his head. "Not Baylor, he's implicated through his mistress. Maybe his older brother. Although they won't actually decide until Rebo's murder is cleared up."

  "The crown will go to Mirk. Unless he bows out, or tries to be Spear to your Crown." Staven tried to sound and look casual.

  Garit grimaced. "I don't want a life behind a desk."

  His voice isn't steady. Is it the circumstances, or is he lying?

  The problem was that the heir to the spear was required by the Charter to be senior to the heir to the crown. Scholars argued whether this was so that the elder would have the moral authority to act as a brake on the enthusiasm of the younger, or to balance the power between them, or so that the King's second bride could be chosen for political connections and support. Which required a first queen lacking powerful connections, so there would be no former in-laws backing a power grab by the older son.

  Leano's main problem, as a newly crowned king, had been a lack of noble in-laws. Falling in love with his first wife had been . . . unwise. Naming a bastard son as his spear heir had had the Council in an uproar. His main strength, in the early years of his reign, had been the public popularity—and solid military support—of his Spear. Rufi was still one of his most notable strengths.

  Rebo and I would have been a disaster.

  Staven looked down at his list. The spear prince and spear heir, destined to be the head of the entire military were absolutely required to be in the military. And Garit is the sole male descendant heir currently serving.

  Apart from me, and I'm not on the list anymore. Hell, I didn't put my name on my own list. So who will replace me? Garit? Then who is younger than him, to be the Crown? That's backwards, choosing the crown heir will determine who the spear heir will be.