The Ghalian Code: Space Assassins 3 Page 4

  “Yes, indeed. You told me a great deal, in fact,” he said, closing the box and setting it aside. “Marvelous things, these elixirs. Why, when used by expert hands, they get people to admit to pretty much anything. And believe me, these are expert hands.”

  To her credit, Oxalla remained silent. Many would have blurted out a great many things in a panic, but she remained tight-lipped as she assessed her situation, given the ever-increasing information she was gleaning from her captor.

  “So, if I’ve told you all you wanted to know, why am I still being held? A ransom? If so, you know my accounts are more than good for it.”

  “Yes, you are a woman of significant wealth.”

  “And power.”

  “Yet here you are.”

  “For now. But know this. When we are done with your little game, I will have my people hunt you to the ends of the galaxy and make you pay for what you have done.”

  Hozark grinned. “I do not doubt it. Though women in your current position do not normally make threats as you do.”

  “I am no ordinary woman.”

  “Apparently.”

  Oxalla’s eyes narrowed. There was something odd about this man. About this whole situation. What her captor’s endgame was, she couldn’t quite put her finger on. But she was a shrewd woman, and one of considerable skill in the ways of subterfuge and deceit. Soon enough she would know his weakness. And when she did, she would exploit it to the fullest.

  “You obviously know who I am,” she said, relaxing her posture further, as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

  All the better to mess with the man’s head. Oh yes, she would get the better of him yet.

  “And if you know who I am, then you also know who I am affiliated with. Who I work for.”

  “Yes, I do. And about that, it was really quite fascinating what you had to say about more than a few of them. Most interesting, truly. I mean, the Council of Twenty does have its share of difficult members, no doubt. But Visla Ravik? Really, Denna Slahn, you can do better than that.”

  Despite her best efforts, her cheeks flushed a slightly darker shade of green.

  “It was a purely transactional arrangement. And nothing you can use to blackmail me, or him, for that matter. He required a team of smelters, and I provided them to him. End of story.”

  “And yet, there is more to that tale.”

  “You may choose to believe so, but you’re grasping at straws.”

  “Straws like your secret friend? Your dear Maktan?” he replied. “I must admit, I was surprised to learn he was involved in your machinations.”

  She blanched, her cheeks going pale at the name. Oh yes, there was definitely something going on with the visla. But even in her legitimate shock, she remained tight-lipped. Though it seemed almost to be out of fear rather than cocky avoidance.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He knew she was lying, of course. But her reaction alone was confirmation enough.

  “Please. Lying does not suit a woman of your stature. And we both know that Maktan is neck-deep in this.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she repeated, that look of concern deepening behind her scornful glare.

  Hozark spent the next half hour carefully toying with his captive. Hinting at associations, trying to get her to reveal more about Maktan’s role in all of this. Between him, Visla Ravik, and the late Visla Torund, that made up a considerable chunk of the Council of Twenty’s more powerful vislas.

  They had been creating weapons, yes, she knew. And Torund had been working closely with Ravik, spearheading the efforts. But Maktan? No matter how he tried, she was not any more forthcoming, and the clock had run out.

  He had been hired for a job, and, unfortunately, he only had so much time for these games. But at least they had been somewhat productive.

  Hozark rose from his seat, collected her empty cup and the little box of colorful vials, and stepped out into the corridor, casting a powerful spell behind him, sealing the room tight with a magical barrier, though it was one that allowed sound to pass through the opening.

  “So, was that really the best you’ve got?” she asked with a cocky grin, rising and striding to the seemingly open doorway.

  She knew the spell was in place to prevent her escape, but that wouldn’t stop her from making her point, and she stood tall, confident, and stark naked before her captor, her every cell shouting out her defiance.

  He had captured her, yes, and perhaps gleaned some information. But she still had secrets, and eventually, she would have her revenge.

  “Alas, our time is up,” Hozark replied.

  Oxalla laughed, her contempt for the man she still saw as her inferior clear on her face. She was Oxalla Slahn, fixer for the Council of Twenty. A great many owed her favors of no small measure. And when she was finally free, this little man would pay for his trespass.

  “Oh, you pathetic creature. All of that effort, and for what? A little sack of coin, which might seem substantial to you, but is no more than pocket change to my people. And once it is paid, there will be no escaping my wrath.”

  The man on the other side of the barrier simply stared at her, saying nothing. She smiled, sure her words were hitting home. And she meant to make good on her threats in no uncertain terms. And from what he’d seen in their short time together, he knew it too.

  “So, how much, then?” she asked with a haughty grin. “What ridiculously insignificant amount of coin will you be asking for me?”

  A tiny smile creased Hozark’s lips.

  “Oh, my dear woman. I was not hired to ransom you.”

  A single word triggered the spell opening the far door in her chamber.

  The door that opened out into space.

  The look of utter shock as she realized what was happening was gone as fast as she was, sucked out of the opening into the freezing void. Hozark sealed the door once more.

  She would die relatively quickly, nude as she was. The cold would likely claim her before the forces of the vacuum, though some species were more tolerant of it than others.

  He could have made her end less unpleasant, had he desired. As a master assassin, he possessed countless means to do so. But this woman was a malevolent blight, and one well deserving of the nature of her demise.

  He had been hired to end her, and so he had. But, sometimes, meting out a little bit of justice in the act was a pleasant perk of his job.

  Hozark hummed to himself as he tucked the little box containing the harmless vials of colorful cleaning solutions into a storage bin, pleased at how well the ersatz potions had served their purpose.

  Then, with the satisfaction of a job well done, he headed for command to set the course to his next destination.

  Chapter Seven

  Xymotz was a particularly dangerous place to visit.

  It wasn’t because of the residents, though, although they were most certainly an extremely rough and hardy bunch. But given the unique nature of the difficult access to the deadly world’s lone city, and the unlikeliness of any making a clean escape if they did anything particularly bad on the surface, people tended to behave themselves.

  The thing about Xymotz was that it wasn’t a normal planet. Not by any stretch. It was a gas giant. One that had failed to condense into a sun. It might not have made it all the way to solar status, but not for lack of trying. And the intense pressure and heat at its core had coalesced a ball of elements and given it a small, dense world at the center of the swirling gasses.

  Of course, visiting the world meant near instant death for any who were foolish enough to attempt to land on its surface. If the storming mists didn’t tear you apart on approach, the heat would melt you and your craft into molten slag.

  And if you somehow survived both of those, the gravitational pressure would crush you to a fraction of your size once you passed the halfway mark to the core.

  It was a deathtrap. And that was why it was a perfect place for a r
ather quiet little hidey-hole for those in need of a safe harbor in tumultuous times.

  Centuries upon centuries of magic had been laid upon the place, cast by powerful users little by little, pulling the magic force of the gaseous world’s mists into the mix, using them to help reinforce the spells.

  It took ages, but a narrow conduit to the surface was eventually formed. A slim funnel of safe space leading to the solid ground below. It was there that additional spells were quickly put in place to buttress the tenuous connection the corridor had made with the surface. And from there, an ever-strengthening shell of protective magic was set in place, within which the small settlement of outcasts and runaways took root.

  It was here that the legendary swordsmith Master Orkut had taken refuge, having not so much faked his own death, as merely allowed that rumor to stick.

  In reality, he was trying to stay far from the notice of the Council of Twenty. Not just for his own safety, but for the safety of his family, for he was one of the very few living who could craft a vespus blade.

  It was he who had made Hozark’s glowing blue sword, the vespus imbued with a great power when wielded in the hands of a Ghalian master. The weapon could cause much damage in even a layman’s possession, but in the hands of a Ghalian, it could not only cut, but also store, channel, and redirect the power the assassins had stolen from their victims.

  And now he was in hiding, protecting his family with his absence. His son, it seemed, possessed his father’s rare gift, and Orkut wanted to do all he could to afford him a life free of risk of the Council ever coming after him. And part of that meant going far, far away.

  It was there with Orkut that Demelza had returned, once again setting to work helping the bladesmith as she had before, slowly earning credit and goodwill toward his making her a sword of her own. Not a vespus blade, mind you, but a weapon crafted by his hand nonetheless.

  She had performed more than admirably during her time spent working with Master Hozark, and the amount of distress they had caused the Council had pleased the swordsmith greatly. As such, in addition to merely gaining further respect from the man, his willingness to set to work at the forge on her behalf was clearly increasing.

  Of course, her partnership with Hozark had been at Orkut’s demand in the first place. Part of the price she would have to pay should she wish to acquire one of his creations, just as it was likewise a requirement forced upon Master Hozark as the final price for his vespus blade.

  The thing was, Wampeh Ghalian always worked alone. But this unlikely partnership had wound up becoming a very effective arrangement. And with Hozark’s trusted pilot friend, Uzabud, and his new copilot, Laskar, they had accomplished what none of them might have individually.

  But for now, she was back with the old swordsmith, doing his bidding, and helping in any way he needed. But there was not much that actually needed doing, most days, and with all of that time to kill, and on an incredibly remote world, no less, he decided to take her under his wing in a sense and train her.

  Not in mere swordplay, which she was quite skilled at, but in the art of recognizing and adapting her style to the actual design of blades themselves. Their shape and function. Strengths and weaknesses. How to best use an individual blade’s shape and style against its wielder.

  No matter how good anyone might be, all trained in swordplay in a way that focused on the user’s skill. But he was showing her not how to best the wielder of a weapon, but how to defeat the blade itself.

  Two-handed, one-handed, thick or thin, all of them behaved differently, yet predictably, no matter how skilled the user might be. And he was going to teach her those weaknesses to her benefit.

  “Better,” the old man said, appraising Demelza’s form as she moved through a series of combatives.

  “Good enough to best Samara?” she asked.

  She’d been training harder than ever since she had fought Hozark’s former lover to a standstill. Well, not quite a standstill, but she’d survived longer than just about anyone ever had, and word of that had impressed Master Orkut. But that only went so far.

  “Oh, my dear Demelza,” he said with a laugh. “I know you managed to survive against her, and even held your own for a rather significant amount of time. But ready to beat her? Not by a long shot.”

  “No?” Demelza asked, deflating slightly.

  “No. But remember, she is one of the best your order has ever seen. Now, put down your weapon and take these,” he said, handing her two cups of water.

  “Thank you, Master Orkut, but I am not thirsty.”

  “I did not think you were,” he replied with a curious smirk. “Hold the cups. Arms out. And don’t spill a drop. I will be back soon.”

  With that, he left her alone in the training space.

  “Holding cups of water?” she grumbled. “What sort of training is this? I am a Wampeh Ghalian.”

  But she obeyed the man, holding the cups out with extended arms, not thinking much of the task at first. By the time he returned, however, her arms were on fire, shaking from the effort to keep so small a weight aloft. But Demelza did not budge, forcing the energy within her to flow through her arms as well as her torso, locking her arms in place.

  Master Orkut took one of the cups from her hands and downed it in a gulp. “Drink.”

  Demelza’s arm trembled as she tried to bring the cup to her lips, her arms not wanting to do her bidding any longer. But she managed, and after draining the cup, looked to the swordsmith.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  “Well, well. You may have some potential yet,” he said with a chuckle. “Come along. I’m sure I can find you something to do.”

  Chapter Eight

  The next morning, the assassin woke on her cot feeling worse than she had in years. Not since her early days of labor in the order’s training house as she worked her way to full Ghalian status had her muscles ached so.

  And Master Orkut had achieved all of that with little more than cups of water and a few other seemingly benign activities.

  She had been with him for only a few weeks at this point, but having completed his initial grunt work, the training she had undertaken when that list of tasks had run out was surprisingly brutal.

  Demelza pushed herself up, propping herself on her elbow then slipping her feet to the floor. She rolled her neck with a loud crack.

  “Oh, that is not pleasant,” she mused quietly as she began the daily practice of loosening her body at first light.

  Her shoulders felt as though they were made of rocks. Broken rocks that had been pieced back together with a heavy, binding cement. And connected to them were a pair of arms as sore as she’d ever felt them. Exhausted, like the time she had clung to the side of an emmik’s estate’s stone wall for two hours before slipping inside and completing her contract.

  Her back was strong, though, and the aches and pains, while unpleasant, were not the harm-causing variety. Demelza rose on sturdy legs and immediately dropped into a series of squats and press ups, forcing the blood to flow into her knotted flesh, restoring its flexibility and spring.

  She was still a young woman, and the pains from the rigors of training would melt from her soon enough. To be replaced with fresh ones, no doubt, but still. Five minutes later, her pre-work routine was completed, and she slipped into her loose training attire.

  Demelza was a thick woman, but not from lack of hard work or indulging in a life of luxury. She was a skilled assassin, and despite her curvaceous appearance, she could move with the speed and grace of a dancer. And dance she did. Often, in fact. It was one of her favorite infiltration disguises, the bronze-skinned gypsy-like woman of dance and frolic.

  Of course, it was magic that colored her pale white skin that way, and carefully selected spells and clothes that rounded out the disguise. But the dancing was all her. One simply could not fake the ability, nor the nimble step that a true dancer possessed.

  But this was not an assassination, and she would most certainl
y not be dancing today.

  “All right, then,” she said, stepping out of her chambers and picking up the two empty buckets already waiting at her door. “Time to begin.”

  The route to the magically replenished well on Xymotz was an easy one, and she ran it quickly, her arms held out to the sides, an empty bucket in each of them, as Orkut had instructed her when she first started his tasks.

  Because of the hot, dense nature of the unlikely colony in the center of the gas giant, there was no precipitation, nor any naturally occurring water of any kind. But enough of the requisite magic to produce it did live in the swirling clouds, and it was from there that the residents had cast generations of spells, pulling and condensing it from the mist.

  The well was more of a storage pit, in that regard. A place to deposit overflow from what they had drawn into the large cistern feeding the city. And it was there that Demelza would dip her buckets, filling them to the top before carrying them back to the training area with outstretched arms. By the time she got there, the stiffness of the morning had been washed away by the fresh hell of newly aching shoulders.

  And then the day’s work truly began.

  A variety of swords lay out for her use. Each one different in length, heft, and design. Some were designed for heavy, brutal combat by brutish men. Others were fine and sharp, devices for precise slaughter with a delicate touch. And others still covered every type of violence in between.

  Training with a master bladesmith afforded her quite a selection, indeed.

  Her task with them, however, was an unusual one. Master Orkut had her cut wood. Where he even acquired the wood on a planet with no vegetation beyond the crops the settlers had forced the soil to accept was anyone’s guess. Likely something he’d traded an arriving ship for, but why, no one knew.

  It wasn’t for the cooking fires, nor for the flames fueling his forge. Magical fire did not require wood to burn, and the spells to ignite and sustain them were both minimal in the power required, and one of the earliest things youngsters learned when they received their first konuses.