Swords & Dark Magic - By Jonathan Strahan Page 0,186

your secretive martial brotherhood. Your people have a nasty reputation of finding and killing those who kill your own, even those of us well practiced in the dark arts.”

“I’m no longer associated with that society. I was forced to leave them under less than honorable circumstances. Kill me and I suspect the only reason they’d even think of hunting you down would be to thank you.” I always correct those who believe me to still be a part of the Waterhouse Brotherhood. Always. They’re more fanatic about hunting down those who pretend association with them than they are about those who kill one of their members.

“An odd moment for full candor,” Roe said. He paced, circling just out of sword reach, avoiding the bloodstain on the floor, which had already begun to grow tacky. Roe’s slippers whispered against the tiles. He was careful to keep his wary eyes on me. Though he might be willing to be friends, we weren’t there yet.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I can’t accept your offer anyway. Tywar and Jonar were friends. I have an obligation to try to avenge them.”

“They were thugs. Refined men owe nothing to such animals.”

“Nevertheless.”

“You won’t succeed. Nor will you survive this house. I’ve constructed so many wonderful snares, subtle and deadly. You’ve already met my Golems Decapitant. They’re just to ensure the mouse stays inside the trap.”

“I thought they were Ulmore’s creations.”

“Hardly. My master is great in power, but lacking in art. He wields his power strictly in the old ways, like a blunt instrument. That monstrous thing growling and groaning downstairs is one of his creatures, summoned up from one of the many hells where the old gods were thrown down. I created the other protections, constantly improving and refining them. That’s another reason why your two companions were invited to do their thieving here. My work needs frequent testing.”

“So it wasn’t all a selfless urge to better serve your adopted hometown.”

“Try one of the doors,” he said. “They all lead to freedom—eventually. But first you’ll have to get through my gauntlet. Survive the wire hounds and you’ll have to face the Shades Perilous, and perhaps then the fragrance room, or the black pattern, or—well, I’ve written a number of elegant murder stories, each one a variation on a central theme.”

“Care to tell me which door leads to which trap?”

“All to each. Choosing a specific door just changes the order in which you encounter them.”

“And how were you planning to let me get out alive?”

“By accompanying you. They won’t activate if I’m present.”

“Then I should bring you with me, shouldn’t I?” For the most part, swordplay in our world is a matter of closing with an opponent and hacking at him with the broad edge of a heavy blade. Roe was still safely outside the range of that sort of business. But at the Waterhouse, we’d learned a different kind of bladework, with improved weaponry. In a single motion, I drew my long, thin, and flexible waterblade from its sheath and thrust it, point-forward, in a deep lunge that more than doubled the effective range of a sword. Roe was taken entirely by surprise. My blade plunged deep into his chest. Several inches of its tip passed out the other side.

For a second, he just stood there, looking down at the sword stuck through him, a mild look of wonder on his face. Then he crumpled, lifeless, to the floor.

I put a foot in his gut, pulled my blade out from him, and wiped it off on his robes before sheathing it. With both hands free again, I picked up his corpse and hoisted it over one shoulder.

“I hope the protection of your company still works when you’re dead.”

I picked a door more or less at random and started towards it. Before I’d gone a dozen steps, I felt myself losing my grip on Roe’s body. It was rapidly growing lighter, and falling apart. I dropped the thing back on the floor and watched it turn to dust before my eyes. Then the dust turned into smaller specks that blew about for a bit, before disappearing entirely. Laughter echoed throughout the chamber.

“I withdraw my offer of release,” the voice said, coming from everywhere, or nowhere. It was unmistakably Roe’s voice. “You’ll just have to win your own way out. I doubt you’ll make it. No one ever has before. But I hope you do. Oddly, I’ve come to like you in our short acquaintance, and I’d enjoy continuing