"And this will be your office." The voice seeped in as the door opened, letting two sets of shadows tumble into the room. "We're still in the process of resetting it after the last guy left, so if you find anything, let us know and we'll forward it to him." There was a jingle as keys were handed over. "But he cleaned it out pretty thoroughly so I doubt there's anything left." One of the shadows pulled into a blunted point, almost shy. "And, ah, welcome aboard, I guess."
The bland voice receded, taking its negative space with it. The other shadow stretched inside, became solid. A click later and it was vaporized as light wallpapered the room, revealing a slim man standing in the doorway, casually cradling a set of keys in one hand and staring into the room thoughtfully.
"Well, Joe," Brown said, shaking his head a little as he closed the door quietly behind him, "welcome to your new profession." He regarded the room carefully, studying the contents of it with a practiced eye for detail. Most of the shelves were bare, although tiny rectangles of dust spoke to where books had once lined them. The room lay humming with a certain residue of a greatness departed, a sense that something massive had once occupied this space. The top of the desk was clear, the only remaining item was a slip that might have once come from a fortune cookie that said in its tiny way, What you write down will not be erased.
"Okay." It came out as a sigh. Brown stopped at the edge of the desk, letting his fingers drum on it with nervous energy. Then suddenly he whipped around the corner of it, dropping into the chair and lacing his hands behind his head while he leaned back. He stared up at the ceiling with half-closed eyes, muttering, "Change of pace was all I asked for. A little work closer to home, I said." He went to put his feet up on the desk and halfway through the motion decided against it and merely swung himself forward, resting his elbows on the desk. Head in his hands, he said, "So what do I get . . . undercover work. Joy. And a vaguely defined mission, until I blow something up and then the parameters become sharply defined. Oh well." He shifted in his chair, folding his hands together. "Might as well make the best of it." Glancing around the office, he regarded the empty walls and the slight echo all his movements created. "First step is to decorate this place. What'd they say happened to the last guy? He . . . retired? I think that was it. He certainly was thorough in getting everything out."
He leaned to the side and started to jiggle the drawer handles. "Though I wonder if he left any notes to the next guy or . . ."
The bottom drawer jerked open and suddenly Brown's face was flooded with a bright shimmering light. "Hello," he breathed, squinting against the unexpected brightness.
He reached down deep into the drawer. The light flared and expanded as he lifted the source of it, hefting it in his palm to eye level. Once his eyes adjusted to the gleam, he could see that was an exquisitely crafted skull made of crystal. The light didn't come from inside the skull but from the material itself, lacking heat but still possessing fire, seething into a slow burn.
"Someone here has some interesting habits," Brown murmured, taking the skull in both hands and placing it gently on the desk. It regarded him eyelessly and he swore he felt a tingle of static shock when he broke contact with it. "I doubt you bought this at the local Franklin Mint-"
There was no warning.
With a thud the knife plunged into his shoulder, knocking him back against the wall and nearly out of the chair. Brown gritted his teeth to keep from crying out, his hand automatically going for the blade embedded in his skin. "You son of a-"
"Don't bother struggling." The sibilant voice hissed from the cornered dark. Hadn't it been bright in here a second before? There was a burning beginning at the contact point, slowly starting to spread down his arm and into his chest. "That will only make the poison work faster."
"Seriously?" With a grunt Brown tore the knife out of his shoulder, feeling his shirt starting to soak with the blood. If the burning hit his spine it would travel straight to his head and it'd be all over. For a little while anyway. Where the hell is he? His eyes were scanning the room but there was no sign of anyone. Gripping the knife tightly, and sliding off the chair while doing his best to ignore the agony in his shoulder. A whisper of movement to his left caught his attention and he threw himself against the desk, displacing the skull in the process and hearing the hiss of a blade cutting air right where his head had been. "You people sure have a weird welcoming committee." The skull's light was pressing against the edge of his vision, catching his attention almost against his will. He swore there was whispering, a radio turned down too low.
"Jest all your want, scribe." The voice was the sound of being drowned in your sleep. "They say your stamina is legendary, so I had the Apothecaries of the Kraniv Valley concoct a potion from the despair of lost children orphaned by the whim of a dragon."
Dragon? I hope that's metaphorical. The man was still nowhere to be seen, his footsteps little more than faint depressions of sound. Brown slid the skull toward himself, figuring it was best to keep it close. As he did, the arc of light shifted and suddenly a shadow fell across Brown diagonally, near and on the desk. One that hadn't been there before, emerging from a corner without a light source. Wait a second. Wait. He shifted his weight from one foot to another, poised.
The empty space near him quickened, preparing. Before the next strike could come down, Brown suddenly spun away from the desk, shifting backwards toward the door in a defensive stance. "I have to confess, I'm a little bit disappointed. You go through all this trouble to try and kill me . . ." he thrust the skull out before him, so that it flared into a spotlight, the brightness going broad.
The man jerked back a step, scant feet from Brown. Now revealed, he squinted in surprise, holding out a hand to shield his eyes from the skull's light.
". . . and you don't even bother introducing yourself?" Brown finished with a grin. He shrugged comically, tossing the skull from one hand to the other, ignoring the growing weakness in his arm. "Come on, buddy. Who taught you manners?"
The assassin swayed, gauging the situation, his lanky frame rippling as if insubstantial. The light gave him a harsh cast, a sunburn he had failed to peel away from. Lips pulled back from fine, small teeth, tentatively sharpened, and carrying nothing resembling mirth. His body bent as if bowing, somewhere east of mockery and his voice had taken on the inexorably seeping of dead water across a frozen pond.
"My work is my only introduction," the assassin sighed, and then he went from there to there, inches from Brown and with a knife produced from a sleeve pocket. Slashing down even as Brown dove across the room, the point of it still tearing a thin red line on his forearm, forcing Brown to stumble in the midst of his evasion and landing painfully on one knee while his numbed arm let go of the skull. It rolled out of reach under the desk and the assassin slipped behind curtained shadows again. "It is my signature and my scar, a fingerprint unmatched by any whorl."
"Well, pardon me if I don't ask for your autograph," Brown quipped, scrambling behind the desk and clutching his arm. Blood was running from it freely, staining the spaces between his fingers and refusing to clot. Of all the times I decide to go out unarmed."But a lot of things scarier than you have tried to kill me." He swore under his breath as he used his good arm to yank a drawer open, praying that someone had left anything behind he could use. "Some of them have even succeeded and I'm still here. So what does that tell you?"
"They said you would boast." The assassin sounded bored at the prospect. "They said your bravado and confidence was unmatched, that your unswerving faith in yourself was your greatest weapon." Brown yanked out a handful of Post-It Notes, fanning them as if expecting razors to fall out. When that didn't happen, he made a face and tossed them to the side, continuing to rummage through the drawer. "I didn't expect to even find you here, believing you wouldn't be so foolish." The air shivered a split second before the dagger came, Brown throwing himself to the floor as it whistled over his head. His reflexes were dulled, every action passing through a toll barrier before he could enact it. "But I suppose your reputation as a gambler had to be earned somehow, hm?" Floor tiles creaked from every angle. The light from the skull crept out from underneath the desk as like honey poured from a lantern. "Still, you are not facing a table of your peers now. And I am not one to be bluffed."
Oh no? Brown was watching the edge of the skull's light carefully, seeing flickers of movement peeking into the aura. Without turning he reached behind him into the drawer, feeling for the object he needed. Come on, I thought I saw it before. A shadow reached for him slowly, a flash frozen solar prominence. "Well, I'm not really one for games I can't win, myself." His fingers closed around a small solid object, but he kept his face still to avoid grinning.
"Then this is one you should not have started, little scribe." The inrush of air was the only warning as Brown heaved himself over the desk, his head swimming as the room rotated impossibly, a trail of blood left behind in his wake. "You should not have brought yourself to the Scrivener's attention."
With one hand he managed to work the cap off even as a thin wire wrapped itself around his throat, the force of the weights attached to either end sending him reeling back against the door. They stuck into the wall, pinning him in place even as the wire cut into his skin. Nearby he could hear the assassin's breathing, like clouds approaching on the coldest day, grinding quietly against a grayed out sky. Breathing suddenly became quite the effort.
"He tolerated you while you toiled in this office day in and day out with a stamina and skill far beyond what he expected, while you became a leader of men, while you excelled and prevailed. But he can no longer allow it." Brown kept the object secreted in his palm, even as black dots began to swim across his vision. He could feel the cold trickle of blood running down his neck and pooling in the pocket of his collarbone. "With all you've done, to embark on this next endeavor would make you truly dangerous. A line has to be drawn. Has been drawn. All that remains . . ." there was the slither of sharp on sharp. ". . . is the cutting."
"That's . . . great . . ." Brown croaked, fingers plucking at the wire, already growing slick and slippery with his own blood. ". . . but you . . . forgot one . . . thing . . ."
It was enough to make the assassin pause for just a moment. "Oh?"
Ignoring the burning pain, Brown flicked his arm toward the assassin, letting the contents of the small bottle fly. "It's not . . . gambling if . . . some hands always . . . trump . . . the house ." The thick liquid took flight between them and spread out, birds shaped as arrows, as a smothering missile.
The White-Out hit the assassin directly in the face, the fluid painting an invisible surface and suddenly a blinded ghost was reeling about the room, smeared fingerprints forming in the hardening liquid as his intangible hands attempted to get it off.
With a choked grimace, Brown reached behind and yanked the prong holding the wire into the wall, feeling the string pull itself out of his skin where it had become embedded. Always trumps the house? Lord, I get cheesy under pressure. Still wobbly, he surged forward, doing his best to press the advantage.
He wasn't fast enough. "Is that your best?" The blob of whiteness bobbed and a sharpness suddenly struck Brown square in the stomach, a shooting pain that he felt in the back of his throat. Unable to even cry out, he fell down to his knees, all the edges going blurry, the light coming out from under the desk taking on a roaring quality, the gate to an afterworld unbound. He was not going to die here. He refused to. But they didn't have a quorum and the votes were turning against him.
Too near came the smell of a reflection in stagnant water. "It's funny," the assassin said gently, almost in disappointed wonder, "they said the man I would find in this office would be formidable. But you're not formidable, are you?"
A hand grasped Brown by the throat, forcing him to stare up into the white smear's faceless mask. "My mother u-used to . . . say I was," he gasped, willing his arms to move and do something.
"You're just a man. That's all." Offhand and sad and resolute. "That's all you were." His grip tightened and Brown swore he heard air molecules split in two. "I'm sorry. But I was told to make this hurt as much as possible."
The air was turning into a distant roaring tunnel that he was hurtling down in the wrong direction when the sides of it were split with a terrible thudding crack. He was free, just like that, gravity finding him again and slamming him chin first into the floor. A black square assaulted his vision and he knew nothing for maybe a second, perhaps longer.
The world broke back in already in progress. "-is not the one you seek," a new voice was saying, boisterous and booming and alive. "It's the right office, but that one is not here. And you need to leave, Tayson. With or without your limbs broken, it matters not to me."
"You overstep your bounds, scribe." It should have been comical coming from a floating blob, but it somehow managed to stay menacing. Brown's vision was clearing and he could see the newcomer now. Tall and broad, with his dark black hair long and swept back, he radiated the type of energy that could keep one in place forever despite all forces, or knock down every obstacles in its path when launched. He was holding a staff firmly in two hands. And he was grinning broadly.
"And I apparently overestimated your intelligence!" the man laughed. "Did you think you could just walk in and find him. That it would be that simple? He who once roamed these halls with a swaggering authority that stepped aside for no man? Who took every word said and wrote it down with the precision of a chisel and the flair of an acrobat? That man you thought you would be able to find and slay? I never took you for a fool, Tayson."
"Where is he?" Tayson hissed, sliding forward. Brown was beginning to feel part of a play that nobody had handed him a script to. "I once extracted the secret birth names of the Yonavarian Monks. Never written down, they are memorized by a single man who tears out his vocal cords. When I was finished, his eyes were screaming but my answer came in a whisper. You will not be a problem."
"Funny," the scribe said, the staff suddenly flicking out like a flexible reed, "I was going to say the same thing about you." A file cabinet rattled as something heavy fell against it. The scribe was already moving, the staff held out with two hands before him. "They've been keeping you in that prison for too long, with no one else to talk to but yourself you start to get convinced of your own great-"
The air was compressed with a whisked snarl and the staff suddenly flew from the scribe's hands, rolling and spilling on the floor away from him and toward Brown. At some point this needs to stop being nuts, he thought, reaching for the staff and inwardly screaming for his body to heal faster. The poison was roaring through him, fevers and shivers alternating in a strange war. The original wound was seething like a fresh impact crater.
"If solitude is my excuse for delusion then what is yours?" the assassin sneered, stepping to the side and letting the scribe slide past him The darkness glinted and twisted. "Or are you simply going to boast me to death?" His motion, caught in his own invisibility, sent the scribe reeling backwards, into the desk, on top and over it with a crashing clatter.
Pressing his advantage the assassin came forward while the scribe dropped out of sight. "I don't need you alive to extract what I need," he said coldly. His footsteps were the whisper of an avalanche made of razors. "The Scrivener would be quite interested to see what shapes he can bend your spirit into before you eventually talk. Perhaps when he's finished he'll gift you with oblivion." Both of them seemed to have forgotten about Brown, which at the moment he was quite okay with, caught up in his own problems.
"You think I'm helpless?" the scribe's voice boomed from behind the desk. Deftly, the assassin leapt up onto the top of it, the desk barely shuddering under his weight. The blob of White-Out crept along, not making a sound. "You forget that as a scribe, the only weapon I truly need are the words that are my mainstay . . ."
"Fool," Tayson whispered, even as Brown tried to crawl to where he thought the man was, to try to stall him. But every muscle screamed, the poison fighting against his regeneration. What the hell is he doing, that guy's is going to get the drop on-
Underneath the desk the light was suddenly extinguished . . .
. . . only to reappear anew a moment later when the scribe roared up from behind the furniture, the brightness blanketing the assassin and throwing him into sharpened contrast, revealing him gracefully crouched on the desk, a curved dagger clutched in his head. But at the scribe's motion he leaned back involuntarily, making his final mistake.
With the ease of a man claiming a new country, the scribe plunged the pen directly into Tayson's eye, burying it nearly to the cap. The assassin dropped the dagger as his hands jerked spasmodically toward the wound. For a second it seemed he might reach it and yank the pen out but in mid-motion he froze and slowly toppled backwards off the desk, nearly landing on top of Brown in the process.
". . . although I am not adverse to using the tools of my trade," the scribe finished with a laugh, leaning over the desk and looking down dispassionately. The skull was held securely in his other hand and in his presence he seemed slightly taller and broader, nearly gaining another dimension. He turned his attention to Brown, who was using the desk to lever himself to his feet.
"You lasted longer than most against the master assassin," the scribe commented, reaching out a hand to help him up. "That is no small feat."
"Yeah," Brown replied, absently rubbing his arm. The wound was much smaller now, already closing. "I don't like it when people are trying to kill me. Who would have thought?" Flexing his hand to make sure all the feeling was restored, he added, "Now, maybe this isn't any of my business but I'd still like to know what the hell just happened here."
The scribe just laughed. "Merely another episode in a long war, my friend. One that tests the hardiest of us and coddles none. To persist in this requires a mettle that few possess." He eyed Brown somewhat admiringly. "You may be a candidate for such a campaign, if you so desired."
"That's, ah, all right. I get into enough wars without looking for trouble," Brown said. He tapped the body of the assassin with the toe of his boot. "But this guy thought I was someone else."
"Yes." The scribe's eyes were darting somewhat sadly around the room. "This used to be his center but he has gone-"
"Gone where?" a new voice quietly raged. The corner of the room folded, a pale pair of pinpricks appearing where eyes might have lurked. "Can you tell me that, Odan?"
This time when the scribe laughed the walls seemed to shake. "Oh, the puppeteer dares to push aside his strings and make an appearance?" He gave a mocking bow. "Moultrance, you flatter us." Then, just as suddenly, his eyes turned hard. "But you are wasting your time, Scrivener. He is gone from this place, he is not here."
The pinpricks seemed to blaze a little brighter. "That much is clear. It's the where that I'm interested in."
"It matters not. He has left the guild, after putting in more years of service than you and I combined in all our years of warring." Quite deliberately, he started to pick up the pieces of his staff, which had somehow broken when it hit the floor. The skull was tucked into the crook of his arm, acting like a seated star, although its light didn't touch the corner. "He has served faithfully and acted truly. He was a leader and soldier and most of all, a friend."
"Don't be foolish. There is no leaving."
Odan swept one arm out to indicate the room. "Look around you, Moultrance. Look. Do you feel any sense of him, any trace? No, because he is gone from this place, to new endeavors and new challenges, to places that we cannot travel to, zones beyond your reach." He bowed his head a little, his gaze losing none of its steel. "Let this go, for once. He did more than his share. It was time. He did all he can here, he has to venture on to new successes. You know this." A thin smile came over his face, sharply contrasted in the skull's piercing light. "Besides, he'd never truly abandon us. He finds you too amusing."
The corner rustled in its way and Moultrance made a noise that sounded close to a skewed cough. "Very well, Odan. I'll grant him this departure. But I will not wish him luck. His place is with us."
"His place is where he wills. And he hardly needs any luck from you." He waved a hand dismissively, "Now go." The grin could barely be held back. "And give the Feline my love. Preferably in that spot she likes. I believe you know which one it is." A finger indicated exactly how that would be accomplished.
Moultrance merely made a disgusted sound and soon after the lights of his eyes faded out. There was a long silence after he was gone, broken by Odan gathering up the last of the pieces of his staff, humming an old song as he went.
Brown watched him until he could keep quiet no longer. "I'm going to hate sounding like a broken record but . . . what was that all about?"
"A book being closed, but not finished," Odan replied, engrossed in his own efforts. "You're lucky I came here when I did, sir. I was only here to collect a piece of his life that had been left behind, a favor for a dear friend who has shown me nothing but kindness over the years." He held the skull up, regarding it as if they were twins. "Now we can all move on to greater things."
He tucked the skull inside his robe, its light immediately sheathed. The room went that much darker. Odan tapped his staff, now somehow reassembled, against the floor lightly and said to Brown, "I wish you nothing but the best of luck occupying this office. There's much history here. If you prove yourself to be but a tenth of the man that once strived here, you will rise far above you peers."
Odan turned toward the door. "And now, I must depart. After the thrill of battle, a man finds himself with energy for . . . other appetites that must be whetted. And the secretary downstairs looked to be a feast." He threw his head back and laughed and was still laughing even after he exited the room, his chuckling echoing far down the corridor, threatening to never fade completely.
Brown stared in that direction for what felt like a long time. Then, in a carefully precise motion, he reached inside his jacket and took out a small communicator device. He pressed a few buttons and held it up to his ear.
"General? Joe here . . . no, I'm fine," he rotated his shoulder experimentally, managing to keep the wince out of his voice, "but about this assignment . . . I'd like to request a transfer . . .
". . . why? Let's just say that there's a lot more to this court reporting than we all thought, it seems . . ."
Send your comments on this story to the author:
