Perfect Shadow: A Night Angel Novella

Perfect Shadow

    A Night Angel Novella
    Brent Weeks
    www.orbitbooks.net
    www.orbitshortfiction.com
    Perfect Shadow
    Chateau Shayon is supposed to be impregnable. I love it when they say that. Crushing a bare rock just offshore with their weight, the chateau’s sheer walls ring the entire island, actually overhanging the waters of Lac Shayon in places.
    This was to be my first kill for hire. It’s good to start with the impossible. Make a name for myself. Enter with a splash.
    I emerged from the water with little more than a ripple. The walls loomed before me, above me. There were no shallows to stand in. In those few places where there once had been, some lord or another had sent masons to chip away rock to a depth of three paces below water. I was naked to the waist, skin smeared with fat and ashes for insulation and invisibility. Clothes would have simply filled with water, slowed me down.
    As it was, I was bleeding from a slash along one cheek and several cuts along my forearms. Defensive wounds. I didn’t want to stay in the water any longer than I had to.
    There were more of those damned things out there.
    But I waited. Clung to the rocks, buffeted by the waves, studying the wall. There were easier ways to do this, of course. The ka’kari could make most anything easy.
    Except those things that it makes damn near impossible.
    ~You don’t want to do this, Acaelus. Murder for hire? You?~
    None of that. That’s not my name. Hasn’t been for a long time.
    The overhang of the walls was lined with machicolations for rocks, murder holes for arrows, and spouts for jellied fire. I could see two sentries above me in mail and wool, chatting, checking the lake from time to time. It was a clear night, lit by a full moon. Not a night that required much vigilance. I saw six other men atop the wall, eight. Far enough away that I shouldn’t have been able to see them in the darkness.
    But darkness welcomes my eyes. It was one way I couldn’t help but use the ka’kari. It forever altered how I see.
    Almost every window of the chateau was shuttered against the cold night breeze. I wasn’t looking for an open window, though. Every window was barred, and every iron bar was in good condition. There were no balconies over the picturesque lake; that would only give grapnels a place to hook. This chateau had been built for defense, and not by fools.
    A simple assassin would fail.
    Only on the third story did the windows of the chateau – again barred with stout iron
    – glow with cheery firelight, shutters thrown open. That would be the great hall, where Baron Rikku was entertaining his vassals. Baron Rikku was a proud man. Proud of his parties. Proud of the fine Sethi wines he served. Proud of his ornaments, his silks, his art.
    Proud of his piety. Proud of seizing this little island chateau from its previous owner.
    Unfortunately, the previous owner of the island hadn’t actually owned the island.
    He’d merely been holding it for another. One who wished to keep her ownership anonymous. One who wasn’t impressed by the baron. One who wouldn’t forgive him for his ignorance, or his theft.
    But that’s what sucks about running an underworld, isn’t it? Tell people what you own, and you invite attacks from those strong enough to challenge you; don’t tell people what you own, and you won’t dissuade those who fear you.
    Right, poor Sa’kagé, you really get the ass-end of life.
    I checked the position of the moon, judging how far it had moved since I’d entered the water on the other side of the lake, some two thousand paces distant. The baron would retire from the party, make love with his wife in her chambers or with one of her ladies or a maid in a side room he kept for the purpose, and then use the lords’ privy before retiring to his own chambers on the top floor.
    Classic defensive weaknesses of any fortification: how shit comes in and how shit goes out. Here, the garderobe overhung the water, so I was able to find the privies by their smell. The chute was narrow, probably as much to minimize how much wind blew up on your nethers as for defense. The chute didn’t start until five paces above the water, and its narrowness meant every surface was slick with effluents. With slimy fresh diarrhea caked over the top of crumbly feces dried and aged into soil, there was no telling where the cracks in the rock were.
    I glanced up, saw that none of the guards were looking, and then something caught my eye behind me: