he used against her without the slightest remorse. To do so did not trouble his conscience: such was his right as Khan. More than that, it was his duty as Prince of the Khorasan empire. He’d risked the dangerous ride from Black Aura to the Eagle’s Nest in order to fulfill that duty. Darya’s desire to see him again was the least of his concerns.
The man who now addressed him remained a mystery to Rukh. He was dressed in a shapeless brown robe belted at the waist, with a hood that covered most of his face. A lantern burning in the limestone chamber illuminated his jaw and the bleak white line of his smile. He was known simply as the Assassin, and he might have been thirty or sixty. Rukh had never seen the Assassin without his hood.
He’d yielded the throne in the chamber to the Black Khan as soon as Rukh had arrived. The Assassin wasn’t one for the accoutrements of power; in this way, as in so many others, he was markedly different from the Khan—a difference that Rukh had never bothered to examine. It was enough that the Assassin was his, as loyal in his own way as Arsalan, the commander of the Black Khan’s army. He stowed the scroll inside the medallion at his collar, giving the man his attention without rising from his chair. It was for the Assassin to make an obeisance.
The man in the robe didn’t hesitate. He bowed low, hovering over the Black Khan’s onyx ring without kissing it. “Excellency,” he said again, “my fortress is yours.”
The Black Khan’s men advanced a step to either side of the throne. The commander of his army always rode at his side, and now he moved closer to the Assassin, who backed away from him, a smooth smile edging his lips.
“Hasbah,” Rukh greeted him. “Does the Eagle’s Nest stand ready to aid me at this hour?”
The Assassin nodded. In all his transactions with Rukh, he’d made only one request in return: that the Black Khan should never attempt to determine his true identity. The name he permitted the Khan to use in the presence of others was a cipher, giving nothing away of his origins. It was a reasonable price to pay for the skills of a man who would execute on command any of the Black Khan’s enemies.
The Assassin beckoned Rukh to a window that overlooked the valley below. Both men ignored the boy trussed up and gagged at the foot of the Black Khan’s seat. He whimpered behind his gag. The Black Khan nudged him aside with his leather boot.
“What do you see, Excellency?”
Rukh studied the valley in the moonlight that washed the glade. The Assassin had made some improvements. The climb to the top of the mountain formed a natural barricade against invaders, but Hasbah had taken steps to camouflage his position. The stone quarried up the path was the same smooth limestone of the fortress, indistinguishable from the landscape below.
Rukh strolled to another of the chamber’s windows, this one facing the river behind the fortress, a second natural barrier. Hasbah had terraced the fertile plains below, growing and storing his own crops to prepare the fortress against a siege. The storerooms that wound down into the mountain’s subterranean channels could have rivaled those of the capital at Ashfall.
“The Eagle’s Nest is an impressive fiefdom. Do you govern the north from here?”
The Assassin’s answering smile was bland, as if to say there were no borders that could contain him. “Up to a point,” he said.
“As long as you remember that you do not command the West.”
The Assassin raised two gloved hands in protest. The arms of his robe fell back, the strange black gloves that rose to his elbows fastened by the silvery laces of a fabric that seemed too insubstantial to hold them together. The laces were another of the Assassin’s peculiarities.
“Command does not interest me,” Hasbah answered.
“But power does.”
Hasbah nodded. “The power of words.”
One of the Assassin’s servants held up a lantern and swept its light around the chamber. Rows of shelves had been carved into the limestone walls, each holding a selection of manuscripts inside a film of the same insubstantial fabric that laced the Assassin’s gloves.
The uppermost shelf held a new treasure bound with the same gossamer material. There was a note of anticipation in the Assassin’s voice. “Twice now I have brought it to you.”
“Your trap was well laid,” the Black Khan agreed. “It was boldly done.”
The Assassin preened at the Black Khan’s praise. “I could have rid you of the First Oralist once the deed was accomplished.”
At his words, the trussed-up boy whimpered.
“Be silent, boy,” Rukh said, not unkindly. “I haven’t harmed a hair of her head.” He shook his head at Hasbah. “She’s more powerful than you suspect, old friend.” He gave an elegant shrug. “And I’ve no wish to attract the wrath of one such as the Silver Mage.”
The Assassin’s posture conveyed his surprise. “I could have dispatched him as well, Excellency.” A note of doubt crept into his voice. “You are the Dark Mage. The Mages are natural allies, your magics are closely bound.”
A reasonable interpretation of folklore, though not necessarily true at present.
What was true was that the Assassin knew too much about his affairs. Rukh suspected him of intelligence-gathering. The Assassin must have missed, though, that when the Conference of the Mages had last been held at Ashfall, it was Rukh’s half-brother Darius who’d acted as the Dark Mage. It was a birthright the brothers shared, though Rukh himself had had no luxury to study or awaken those powers. Nor would he humble himself before the other Mages. He’d attempted a rapprochement with the High Companion of Hira—Ilea, the Golden Mage. But she’d met those advances with scorn. He wouldn’t belittle himself again. Now that he had the Bloodprint in his hands, the others would bow to him. A small smile curled the edges of his lips: how little they knew of his schemes.
What he needed was to make his way to Ashfall. With that in mind, he’d come to the Eagle’s Nest to seek the help of the Assassin. The Talisman had cut off the road to his capital, under the thrall of the One-Eyed Preacher, whose animus against the written word had become the law of the land: an ignorance the Talisman sought to extend across Khorasan, under their bloodstained flag. The Talisman were marching on his capital to burn his scriptorium down. They would take the women of his city and sell them to the north as slaves. Unless he found a weapon to wield against them—and he fiercely believed that the Bloodprint was that means.
Now with the Bloodprint under his protection, he needed a safe route home. He also needed men—men who would relish taking the heads of those Talisman commanders who sought to bring his city to ruin.
The Assassin had those men in legions.
Hasbah snapped his fingers. Servants scurried to do his bidding. A carved table was brought into the chamber, numerous dishes arranged on its surface. Sherbet was poured into golden goblets. The Assassin himself placed a chair for the Black Khan at the head of the table.
Rukh nodded at the boy. One of the servants moved to undo the boy’s gag. The Black Khan passed him a goblet and a plate. “Your name is Wafa, yes? Prove your loyalty, then. You will dine, then I and my men.” His eyes sought out the Assassin beneath his hooded robe. “And when the boy has tasted my food, you will tell me what you seek in exchange, old friend. Currency, coin, or women? Whatever you ask shall be given, but I must reach Ashfall before the Talisman
