Elegy for a Lost Star Read Free Page B

ridiculous evil god that never existed happened here?”
    An ugly light came into the giant Sergeant’s amber eyes.
    â€œBirthday party got a little out o’ hand, sir,” he said, his voice sharp with sarcasm. “So sorry. Won’t ’appen again.” As the cords in the king’s neck tightened, Grunthor tossed the cart aside. “You might want ta pose that question to that ’arpy glassmaker you brought in ’ere to build the tower windows. Oh, no, wait! Can’t do that.”
    The king’s eyes narrowed in rage that was tempered with panic. “Why not?”
    The Sergeant crouched down and grasped another massive rock, lifted, and heaved it angrily into the dray sled.
    â€œBecause Oi cut the bitch’s head off ’er shoulders,” he snarled as the small boulder bounced against the earthen floor with a resounding thud. “Then Oi tossed it in a crate and shipped it back to the
assassin’s guild
in Yarim, from whence she had come in the first place.” He watched without sympathy as the fury in his sovereign’s eyes muted into realization. “ ’At’s right, sir, the artisan you ’ired in Sorbold to build yer bloody glass tower turned out to be the mother of all assassins, the mistress of the Raven’s Guild.” He wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist and indicated the destruction around him. “This was the lit’le present she left just for you. We’re findin’ all sorts of other traps, lots o’ nice surprises—”
    â€œThe Child?” Achmed demanded, sounding as if he were strangling.
    Grunthor exhaled deeply. “Safe, for now,” he said more calmly, the latent anger in his voice gone. “Oi combed every inch of the tunnel down to ’er chamber; appears that it was broached, but only a few feet of it. The assassin didn’t ’ave time to get down there, by sheer bleedin’ luck. But if Oi was you, sir, Oi’d be careful not to insult any ridic’lous gods that never existed, as they apparently been watchin’ yer back in a major way.”
    â€œNow there’s a terrifying thought.” Achmed crossed the broken hallway and stopped before the thinning pile of rubble. “How?”
    â€œPicric acid. Apparently she ’ad it shipped in from the guild while you were gone. In a liquid state it’s stable, but explodes when it dries. She ’ad it annealed into the glass of the dome; kept a wooden cover over it ta keep the sun off. But Shaene and Rhur—both dead, by the by—pulled the cover; the sun ’it it square on, the ’eat dried the enamel, and—well, you can see the rest.” The Sergeant ran the toe of his enormous boot through the grit of the floor.“Except the Sickness—lots o’ dysentery and a lot of Bolg bleedin’ out their eyes. That seemed to come with it.”
    Without a word the Firbolg king turned and left the scene of the destruction.
    â€œOh, by the way sir,” called Grunthor as Achmed disappeared around the corner, “welcome ’ome.”
    T he tunnel down to the chamber of the Sleeping Child began in Achmed’s bedchamber, its entrance secreted in a trapped chest at the foot of his bed. It took him only a moment to ascertain that each of the guardian traps, deadly locks he had set himself, had been serially disarmed, their triggers sprung with an expertise he had not witnessed since his own assassin training at the hands of an undisputed master a lifetime before.
    â€œHrekin,”
he swore again.
    Grunthor exhaled. “Aye, well, at least she was a master. Oi remember back in the old land when the thieves’ guild kept sending their trainees after ya for a while. Remember that, sir? That was just plain senseless carnage, it was. Not even really useful as target practice for you.”
    Achmed said nothing, but rose from the chest and traced the path around his chambers,