Read Online The Archon's Assassin by D. P. Prior - Free Book Online

against the base of the door.
    “What are you doing?” Nameless asked.
    “Door’s warded with enough crap to keep an army out, and if I knock, he’ll just pretend he ain’t in.”
    “Knows you well, then, does he?” Though what kinds of connections Shadrak had in the wizard’s quarter didn’t bear thinking about. Just being there made Nameless’s spine tingle and gave him the urge to find the nearest crapper.
    Shadrak stood back and gestured for Nameless to do the same. He slipped a pistol from its holster, then took a black cylinder from one of his belt pouches and screwed it onto the end of the barrel.
    Nameless tensed as Shadrak pulled the trigger, but there was no thunderous boom. Instead, there was a rushing, popping noise. Smoke billowed from the sticky stuff on the door. It fizzed and burned, gave off a muffled blast and a burst of flame. When the smoke cleared, the door hung in ruins, and someone coughed and spluttered from inside.
    “Magwitch, you old tosser,” Shadrak called out. “No magic, got it? Else I’ll string you up by your balls.”
    Nameless bobbed the great helm in a show of respect. “Can’t say fairer than that, laddie.” He always admired a plain-talker.
    Shadrak tested the floor with his boot before stepping inside.
    Nameless hesitated, shook his head, and followed him.
    He couldn’t see a whole lot. Not just because of the helm this time; besides the dusty light from the twin suns spilling through the wreckage of the doorway, the only illumination was a gloamy haze that limned everything in red.
    A man lay on the floor, muttering and moaning. Looked a lot like a scarecrow to Nameless. He was bundled up in a long, dark coat with dozens of red flecks about the collar. No doubt they would’ve been white out in the daylight; probably, they fell like snowflakes from his mussy gray hair whenever he scratched. Say one thing for him, though: he had a beard you could hide a mountain in. Made Nameless want to poke about inside it for a gift, like he and Lucius had done with the sack of secrets Pa brought home every winter-fest. Back in the day.
    The man searched about on the floor until he found his twisted spectacles and jammed them on the bridge of his nose. The instant he blinked his eyes into focus, he gasped and almost choked, then frantically tried to scurry backward on his arse.
    Shadrak grabbed him by the ankle. “Hold still, Magwitch. It’s me.”
    “Oh my gawd, oh my gawd,” Magwitch said. “I ain’t done nothing. I swear it.”
    “Never said you did.”
    “But my door.” Magwitch kicked his ankle free, turned onto his front, and started to crawl like a dog.
    “That’s because you never sodding answer it.”
    “Don’t want no assassins here, thanking you very much,” Magwitch said. “A wizard’s house is his sanctimony.”
    “Eh?” Nameless said.
    Shadrak gave him a wry grin. “You get used to it.” Then to Magwitch, he said, “No one’s gonna harm you. We need your help.”
    Magwitch stopped still and peered back at them through his legs. “And I’ve given it. More times than I care to remonstrate.”
    “I know,” Shadrak said. “And it’s not been forgotten.”
    “Without my wards, Plaguewind and his Dybbuks would have found and killed you long before the Night of the Guilds.”
    “Maybe,” Shadrak said. He stiffened a little at that.
    “He was a stygian, you know. Those nasty cretaceans have demons at their beck and callow.” Magwitch got his legs under him and stood on creaking joints. “So, it would be unjust in the extremities to silence me for what I know, now that the curtain has fallen on your last advocate.”
    “I think he means adversary, laddie,” Nameless whispered.
    If Shadrak heard, he ignored it. “You know about Morrow? About the theater?”
    Magwitch tapped the side of his nose. “Know not to eat cherry pie, too. There’s nothing you can hide from me, Shadrak the Unseemly. I see all. Know all.”
    Shadrak darted forward and