A Practical Guide to Evil

Chapter Book 6 17: Felonious

“Crimes against a crown are treason, crimes by a crown are a reign.”

– Dread Emperor Reprobate the First

And then we were two.

Part of me might have been more comfortable keeping Adjutant at my side instead of Archer, but it’d be a mistake: she was the one who knew her way around this place and the Named within it.

“We need to make an escape,” I said.

“Like we used to say in Refuge,” Indrani cheerfully told me, “the best kind of invisibility is killing all the witnesses.”

She was probably messing with me, but then that did sound like something Ranger might say.

“We can’t kill anyone,” I told her.

“That sounds like a terrible plan,” Archer complained.

“But we’re probably going to have to fight,” I frankly added.

“I never doubted you for a moment,” she assured me.

This was hauntingly familiar, I mused, although we weren’t in a tunnel surrounded by dead drow with the entire invading army of the Kingdom Under behind us. We must have been skulking through the labyrinthine stacks for almost eighty heartbeats now, but I kept us going what I – probably mistakenly – believed to be west. It was, at the very least, vaguely leftwards.

“The thing is,” I said, “neither the Black Queen nor the Archer can fight any of these fine heroes coming to foil the plots afoot.”

If the Mirror Knight saw me flee a room filled with dead bodies while leaving an unconscious old man Named behind then there really would be no talking him into the possibility that might not, in fact, trying to undo my own life’s work and doom Calernia because of my inherent dastardliness. Fucking heroes, I uncharitably thought.

“I get it,” Indrani said, with enthusiasm that surprised me. “So we, like, put on masks and we’re these mysterious villainesses of cryptic intent. I will be the Peerless Beauty, whose legendary good looks eclipse the sun itself-”

“So we’re going to pretend we’re dead bodies,” I interrupted with great relish.

See, when I’d known Archer for only a few months I might have been tempted to chide her for joking around when this was a rather deadly situation, all things considered, and one that could have drastic consequences for the entire continent. Except that now I knew her well enough to know that, while she did very much enjoy being mocking even rapidly approaching doom, she did these kinds of things for a reason. The back and forth was calming me, I was not above admitting, and back when I’d been made of smoke and mirrors it’d been one of the few things that had me feeling human for a bit. I knew this, she knew I knew this, and I doubted either of us would ever admit it out loud. That did not mean in the slightest that I did not thoroughly enjoy shutting every door on her metaphorical fingers that I could.

“Cat,” she said, sounding betrayed.

“Revenants, to be exact,” I blithely continued. “My glamour hasn’t gotten all that better since it stopped being that and became Night instead, but it should still fool anyone without eyes out of the ordinary.”

“Which they’ll have,” Archer noted.

We tread around the messy pile of books left by a shelf that’d collapsed, and I grunted in agreement. This would be the Mirror Knight’s band, and with the amount of heroes there were in this place he’d be able to draw the most useful talents from a rather large lineup he was even halfway clever. And even if he wasn’t, he should still end up with at least one hero of extraordinary perception: mages and mystics tended to have a trick or two to see to that, given the nature of the threats and villains they were born to face.

“Which is why I’ll need you to take them out of the fight before they can catch on,” I said. “We’ll be springing an ambush.”

“We’re good, but not that good,” Archer said. “Not if we’re staying quiet.”

“If we’re taking a swing at a band of five on war footing, maybe even with Hakram backing them up, then no we’re not,” I replied. “So we’re not going to do that.”

Indrani peered at me for a moment, then smugly smirked.

“We’re going to set something on fire, aren’t we?”

I coughed.

“It’s not the only thing we’re going to do,” I defended. “It’s just, you know, a part-”

“A part that is on fire,” Archer sagely continued. “A fire hat you set. You monster.”

“Hey,” I weakly replied. “I wouldn’t keep using it if didn’t work all the time. It’s not like I have a preference for it, it’s just that so many things out there are flammable.”

“Inflammable,” Indrani haughtily corrected.

“Fuck off,” I retorted, “Akua already pulled this bit on me, flammable is right.”

“You’re taking language lessons from a ghost, and I’m the dubious one?” she replied without missing a beat.

Even as the latest bit of back and forth was spoken, we reached what I was fairly sure to be the western wall of the Miscellaneous Stacks. We weren’t quite at the back of the great room, but we ought to be pretty deep in by my understanding. And far enough from the Doddering Sage that he shouldn’t be at risk of being hurt before one of the heroes rescued him – and he wouldn’t be forgotten about, either, not with Hakram joining them. The Mirror Knight was actually the reason I considered setting a fire here to be a valid tactic when I did not yet know if the gas that’d been released had killed the custodians or simply put them asleep. A more… nuanced Named might have been tempted to make the hard decision of sacrificing the people for the chase, but though Christophe was a stubborn ass with half the wits one of those should have, that was simply not his nature. He did not seem himself as someone who’d make that choice, so he wouldn’t, and as the leader of his band he’d give the order to start with a rescue. Sure as providence, we’d probably run into one or more of the heroes and whoever had good eyes was near certain to be of that lot.

But it wouldn’t be a band of five, which meant Archer and I would have a lot more leeway to deal with them without tipping our hands.

“Fresh faces first,” I said, slowing to a stop.

“Revenants, huh,” Indrani mused. “So you want to slap the Dead King’s name on this?”

“They won’t necessarily buy that,” I noted, “but at this point I’m not trying to convince them of something so much as trying to convince them they don’t know anything.”

“Lies and violence,” Archer fondly said.

At least there wasn’t anyone there to here, I grudgingly thought. One of these days, though, she’d say that in front of some chronicler and it’d be written down and it would all be downhill from there. If those ended up being taken as the words of House Foundling, I was going do drown her in a vat of ink.

“For you I’m thinking the Black Sickle,” I said. “Word is Tariq torched his ass good a few months back after catching him sneaking around near Sommont, but he was never actually confirmed destroyed.”

And the Revenant in question had, while being somewhat taller than Indrani from what I could remember, used a pair of eerie dark sickles as his weapons of choice. That much I couldn’t replicate but while Archer didn’t have her bow and even if she did using it would be a dead giveaway, she’d most definitely have knives.

“Do you have any other blades than your-” I started, before closing my mouth.

Of course she did, she was Archer. She had enough blades on her that half the time I got her undressed her actual clothes made as much noise hitting the floor as her mail.

“Stupid question,” I finished, “I withdraw it. Just don’t use the longknives.”

They were not her signature and odds were none of the Mirror Knight’s band would have ever seen Archer fight regardless, but it was a risk when Indrani had brought her band into the Arsenal: those knew her arms well, and half of them were heroes. I cast her a searching look, wondering what best to anchor the working on.

“You mind if I use your scarf for this?” I asked.

“Don’t,” she said. “The coat would do, right?”

Considering she wasn’t wearing her mail at the moment it was the part of her most likely to be hit – and I couldn’t be sure a good enough hit with Light wouldn’t break my illusion – but that scarf was one of the material possessions she cared about so I didn’t insist.

“Belt would be better,” I said, shaking my head.

She conceded with a nod. As for my face, I did actually have an idea that had the potential to get Christophe running in the wrong direction with a great deal of certainty.

“You’ve seen the Wicked Enchanter, right?” I asked.

“Alive?” Indrani replied. “No. But I did get a good look at his still-warm corpse.”

“That might be even better, actually,” I mused. “Mind letting me have a look at the memory?”

“Go ahead,” she shrugged, leaning forward.

I put a hand against her temple and reached for the Night, letting it flow through me and ever so gently into her. I closed my eyes, sunk into the darkness.

“Think of it,” I softly asked.

A moment later she did, with vivid sharpness, and I saw what she saw. The Enchanter had looked rather young, to my surprise. Perhaps in his mid-twenties, though for a villain such appearances didn’t necessarily speak much to the truth of their age. Tanned, dark-haired, athletically fit and actually rather handsome he was not the emaciated and sinister figure I’d somehow imagined he would be. But upon closer look, his handsomeness was a little too neat. Too symmetrical, and somewhat unnatural for it. Not unlike the Exiled Prince’s had been, all those years go. Name vanity, I thought with disdain. The gruesome axe wound that’d split him open from the bottom left of his neck to his belly button had spilled blood and guts all over what looked like it might have been a nicely-tailored set of green tunic and trousers with silver linings, the kind of thing a minor Proceran highborn or a wealthy merchant would wear more than a villain.

“Did he use any tools?” I quietly pressed.

An intricate casting rod appeared in my mind, stained with blood and bitten into by a blade. To my distaste, it appeared to have been sculpted in longer homage to the ceremonial baton that Cordelia Hasenbach used on some formal occasions. Her was sculpted as a bundle of twigs tied together by a string, though, while the Wicked Enchanter’s casting rod was instead a knot of snakes eating each other and encircled by chains. I remembered when he’d been brought into the Terms, I’d read the report, and it had mentioned that he was middling conjurer but skilled in ‘domination magics’. From the beginning he’d been noted as a potential problem, though also as being something of a coward and so unlikely to misbehave if kept an eye on.

“Thanks,” I said, withdrawing the Night back into me.

Keeping the image firmly in mind, I laid a hand against my belt and felt the cool touch of Night wash over my skin. I reached again and tightened my fingers around my staff – which would give away my identity in moments, if it kept looking like itself – but the Night struggled to sink in.

“None of that, now,” I muttered. “I did not snatch you from that tree so I’d get mouthed off to.”

As if reluctantly, somehow giving off the impression of ill-grace, the resistance ceased and I was left to hold the illusion of the dead villain’s casting rod. It wasn’t an exact fit, as my staff had been longer, but it’d serve. I wasted no time in laying a hand on Indrani’s belt, ignoring the suggestive eyebrow-wagging it earned me. Night seeped into the leather, and as I watched Archer was replaced by a slender figure in ragged robes and a hood that revealed only dark skin and a mouth sown shut. Her knives I didn’t change, since it’d frankly be more trouble than it was worth to try and make them look like sickles. I exhaled and gathered Night into me once more time, as I could no longer afford delays: the moment I’d begun using Night, I would have tipped off the heroes as to our presence. I traced a finger against the wood stacks closest to me, leaving behind a trail of flame – natural, not of Night. Blackflame would be a dead giveaway, but it also meant I couldn’t outright throw fire around. I dipped a thick leather-bound book into the growing flames and tossed it at Archer, who caught it without missing a beat.

“Spread it around some,” I ordered. “We need a proper blaze.”

“Gotcha,” she nodded, then cocked her head to the side. “And after?”

“Hit and run,” I said. “I trust you to set up your ambush.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said, airily waving my words away.

She didn’t fool me even a little: Indrani was a little pleased as the spoken acknowledgement of something we’d both known to be true, and not putting all that much of an effort into hiding it. It had been some time since we last fought side by side, I mused, that was true. But her duties would have kept her sharp and working with her on the field had always come easy. I saw no reason why that should have changed in the last two years.

“Don’t keep me waiting,” I smiled, waving her off.

She was gone in a moment, silent as a ghost, and I sighed as I cast a look at the fire springing up to my side. Burning books, damn me: I might as well be burning silver, miscellaneous stacks or not. Still I picked up a heavy tome from the opposite stack and fed it to the flames long enough for it to catch before putting some spring to my step. It’d be quicker with Night, but it’d also risk giving away where I currently was. Another three sources on top of what Archer cooked up ought to do the trick without putting anyone in too much danger, I mused. By the time I’d gone down another two shelves and started a fresh blaze on the other side, a shout of dismay in the distance told me the game was properly afoot.

“Now,” I muttered as I hastened my steps and started another fire, “you split up.”

Hakram ought to have run into them by now, and if that’d ended up in brawl, I would have heard it. Which meant that in the best case they would be tacitly accepting him as an ally, and in the worst they’d be considering him an enemy best brought with them to keep an eye until he could be counted on to cackle and reveal the depths his perfidy in a surprisingly informative speech. I’d considered villains who actually indulged in monologues to be complete idiots, when I started out, and my father had encouraged that perception. Not without reason. I had a lot more sympathy for villains who indulged now that I’d spent a few years around heroes, though. Some days you just wanted to rub their utter fucking idiocy in their faces, like forcing a dog to look at its vomit.

That, uh, burst of opinion aside, Hakram would be sure to mention the Doddering Sage’s presence if it wasn’t brought up. That meant at least one of the five, headed straight for the unconscious Named. Adjutant wouldn’t go along, since that’d carry the risk of the Sage waking up and recognizing him, so that left a group of five. There should be one, maybe to who took care of the custodians – be they corpses or unconscious, and actually I now that I thought about it I should be able to answer that question right now. Was it worth revealing my position for? Yes, I decided, absent-mindedly starting another fire as I kept walking forward. If only so that I could more accurately predict how the heroes moved. Sinking into Night, I reached out for the nearest corpse to raise and found nothing that would serve. Good, all alive then. That meant I could definitely count on at least one hero going off to save them rather than coming after me, bringing them down to a peak of four. Most likely three, though, I mused. Less likely to have accidental casualties that way. Which meant the real question was whether or not Hakram would be one of the three. Time to draw them in close and find out, I reckoned.

I tossed the book into stacks to my right and kept moving without bothering to check if it’d started another blaze or not. By now, when standing at the right angle between some stacks I could see the smoke from where Archer had started fires of her own. Not the flames themselves, given that the ceiling was low the vision obscure and I might, possibly, not be the tallest person alive. The smoke would serve well enough, though, since it told me where she’d headed. Apparently while I’d been headed in a straight line south, she’d gone south-east and been messy about fostering flame: it didn’t give a trajectory to follow, not like I had with my straightforward march down. Now, if the opposition was made of fools they’d follow the burning arrow I was lighting for them and wait for me at the bottom. But they weren’t fools, or this war would have killed them by now. Well, they weren’t fools in this particular way, more like, I mentally corrected.

They’d have to send someone there, but the Mirror Knight would be headed into the burning mess Archer had just made. Which meant it was also where I needed to go. It was possible, in theory, that the person who’d be waiting for me at the end of the line I’d drawn in fire would be Hakram, and so I’d be free to just put him through a few shelves and get out while leaving him plausible deniability. In practice, I was the opposition and facing a band of five so it was the eyes that’d be waiting for me there – but close enough to come quick when the scuffle started elsewhere, just in time to stumble onto the scene and unmask me. That sounded like a bad thing, at first glance, but it wasn’t. It meant I could dictate the location, make-up and tempo of that encounter. If I couldn’t scrap together a win with that on my side, I might as well just slit my wrists and join up with Keter.

A sharp turn to the right saw me heading towards Archer’s devouring blaze with a song stuck in my throat. The smoke and heat were licking at my sides, and still I hummed out the tune and words.

“Run the hounds, rides the hunter

His spear in hand, banner aflutter.”

It was an old one, this one, though not so old as Here They Come Again or Red The Flowers. It’d come later, when the struggle against Proceran occupation had begun turning in the favour of Callowan partisans – but not yet so much that the cities were in their hands again, and so there’d been a need to be circumspect where princes’ men might be listening.

“Charging that way, this one baying

Trampling the paths, again raging.”

Before me, a bonfire of wood and parchment roared. Loud enough it was almost deafening, which meant I wouldn’t be able to call on my sharpened senses. But neither would the opposition, and I was the one with something to hide. The smoke would help mitigate visibility, and it was something I’d be able to wield to great use, considering the functional goal here was escape and not actually winning the fight. The heat itself was no great trouble to me, though I felt it rather more keenly than I would have with the Mantle of Woe on my back. I picked out, after a moment to consider, exactly where I was to be ‘caught’ by the heroes. Further in, between two tall racks already touched by flame but not yet consumed. Enough fire and smoke ahead and behind that I would be half-veiled, but not so much that I would choke. One, two, three times did I lay my hand and only then counted myself satisfied.

On a whim, I snatched up a book from the shelves and smiled when I read the title, written in Chantant: The Life and Lies of Monsieur Montfailli, A Monk No Longer. Suitably absurd, I decided, for what was about to unfold. One, two, three times did I lay my hand and seed Night, only then counting myself satisfied. I was ready to begin.

They came for me through the smoke, two of them, even as the refrain of the song caught up with me at last.

“But we know, oh we know,

That in the woods, the fox is king

Yes we know, oh we know

That in the woods, the fox is king.”

Alistair the Fox was the closest thing to a trickster-king my home had ever had to boast of, though at times he’d been little more than a bold bandit in good armour. The Mirror Knight advanced with his sword already in hand, silver shield up and living up to the Name. He wore no helm, and his hair was pressed close to his brow by sweat. At his side was the Blade of Mercy, whose hand snapped out as soon as he saw me to clasp the handle of his greatsword and slide it out of the leather straps on his back.

“Who are you?” the Mirror Knight snarled. “Why did you do this?”

The book in my hands I snapped shut, turning to face them entirely and watching both their faces pale when they saw the grisly wound that’d killed the Wicked Enchanter. I’d never heard the man speak, of course. Neither had Indrani, so I couldn’t even attempt to imitate his voice. But then, it wasn’t necessarily the Enchanter himself I was pretending to be, was it? The Dead King I was a passing hand at impersonating, from all those lovely little talks he and I kept having at the edge of the world.

“Late again, Mirror Knight,” I said. “Do you not tire of always needing better Chosen to take you by the hand?”

“We’ll stop you, monster,” the Blade of Mercy said, voice shaking. “I don’t know what pact you’ve made with the Black Queen, but-”

Oh, come on. Really, now I was conspiring with the damned Dead King to sabotage the same Arsenal I’d shelled out gold to help build? At some point these assholes were going to have to explain to me exactly what my plot was supposed to be here.

“- it won’t be enough,” the Mirror Knight grimly said, sword rising higher. “Powerful you may be, but your vessel was not. Even the King of Death cannot grow the dead.”

“With men such as you,” I said, tone contemptuous, “why would I need to?”

First touch, and it would be the most subtle. Just a palm I’d pressed against the back of the stacks to my left, seeding the slightest bit of Night. And as I gestured my veiled staff, I ripped it right out. There was a crack, which was enough to have the Mirror Knight shooting forward at impressive speed for a man in plate while Light engulfed the Blade of Mercy’s weapon. The Night hadn’t been much, really the barest of seedlings, but then the wood was already burning and breaking down. It was more than enough. The entire set of shelves collapsed, spewing out debris and burning books in a flood even as the Mirror Knight passed. Wouldn’t do anything to actually hurt the man, of course. He was the closest thing the Heavens had been able to rustle up to a fortress on legs. But then his strength came from resistance, not, necessarily physical power, and that meant he was still a human-shaped thing of human weight and subject to the same sort of creational forces that would affect these. The point of breaking the shelves had not been hurting him, it’d been blinding him.

I took a single, measured step to the left.

The Mirror Knight burst out of the fire and debris, still under the impression I was right in front of him, but now he was a man in plate running blindly and very much intent on stabbing me with his sword. If I’d swung at him with even my full power in the Night, I honestly doubted I’d be able to crack that shining shield of his. But that wasn’t my game, not here and tonight. The second touch I’d laid was running my fingers across a stretch of about one foot and a half on the ground, against the warm stone, making the oiliest residue of Night that I could. So the Mirror Knight slipped, shouting, and stumbled forward and past me with a precise slap of my staff against the back of his armour I tipped him all the way into falling into a pack of shelves already on fire. Now that left the other pest, arguably the most dangerous of the two in the current circumstances – one hit in the wrong place from that sword of his and the illusion making me look like the Enchanter was gone.

“Keeper,” the Blade shouted, “it’s the Dead King, he’s overpowering us!”

The Maddened Keeper, huh? Not who I would have guessed. That might get real tricky if I wasn’t careful. The Blade of Mercy was not content with merely calling for reinforcements, naturally. A little more careful than the Mirror Knight, he sliced through a library stack and then caught the side of it with the flat of his sword, tossing it towards me with a mighty heave. It was a beautiful display of dexterity and skill, the sort no human without a Name would really be able to replicate. It was also a showman’s attack, so obvious in the coming I would hesitate to call that anticipating. And actually, with a little bit of movement. I took one step back to call his aim where I wanted it at the right moment in the swing, then two swifter steps to the right. The Mirror Knight, freshly back on his feet, ate fresh wooden debris right in the face. As for the Blade, who’d followed-up the toss with a dash forward, I almost sighed.

He was moving too quickly, his large and heavy sword dragging behind him. It was sloppy swordsmanship, the mark of a boy who relied on his Name for the kill instead of proper footwork and technique. I’d indulge him with a lesson on how a projectile should actually be used in a fight between Named, out of the goodness of my heart. I leaned forward, waiting until he’d closed distance, and the book I still held in my free hand was tossed at his face. Light flashed over his skin, some sort of protection, but it wouldn’t help: the Night within the book I’d already called on, and the detonation of heat looked close enough to a fireball that it ought to pass. More importantly the flames that went out were not, strictly speaking, magic or Night. Just regular fire, against which Light was no protection. Flame and debris went into the boy’s eyes even as I cast half a glance behind me, adjusted my angle as I took two steps forward and with the side of my staff struck at the Blade’s side. I didn’t hurt his momentum, just redirected it.

The Blade of Mercy tumbled into the risen Mirror Knight, and the two tumbled back into the fire.

It should be about time for the Maddened Keeper to show up, which was good as I was running out of petty tricks. I began to walk away, hearing the roar of power behind me as the heroes extricated themselves from the mess in a fury. The flames had spread, while we skirmished, so it was unpleasant to the ear to sharpen my hearing but no less necessary. Footsteps could hardly be discerned, but hardly was enough. By the time the heroes were – more cautiously than before – headed towards me once more, I ended the sharpening and waited for what had been arranged to take its course once more. My steps slowed, just as a flickering silhouetted passed the edge of soot-touched stacks with a glinting knife in hand and struck out – missing, for I’d ceased to advance the side of the stacks blocked the deeper angle of the blow. It wasn’t the knife that worried me, though, even if it was a Named wielding it. The Maddened Keeper’s eyes would be a lot more dangerous to me than her blade right now.

Fortunately, I still had a card up my sleeve.

The long-haired Named withdrew her hand lightning-quick and took half a step into the alley where I stood, prompting shouts of triumph from the Proceran Named behind me, but those were short-lived. With calculated brutality, Archer leapt down from the top of the stacks and her boots tore into the side of the Maddened Keeper’s face. The slender woman fell, taken utterly by surprise, and Archer leaned over after landing on her torso to make two quick cuts with her knives. She didn’t cut the eyes themselves, as there might be complications in healing that, but instead just above them. The blood would drip down and blind her, but just to be sure Indrani smeared what was already flowing into the to the Keeper’s hoarse shout of pain. I turned, cast a disdainful look at the Proceran heroes who were frozen with fear and anger.

“Take care of the rabble,” I told Archer. “They cannot be allowed to interfere with what we came for.”

Indrani, still hidden as the Black Sickle, did not nod. Revenants were sometimes capable of such things, but the Sickle had not been. I’d pitched my voice just loud enough that the Mirror Knight and his companion should be able to hear me, and watched them from the corner of my eye. That’s right, I thought as Christophe’s gaze narrowed, you overheard me saying too much in my utter contempt for you lot. Now figure out that I’m here for something properly nefarious, like turning the Doddering Sage into a Revenant or somesuch.

“He’s here for Hakram Deadhand,” the Mirror Knight said. “Blade, run to him. The Dead King’s trying to frame us for murdering the Black Queen’s second.”

That… was not what I would have gotten from that, but Hells I’d take it. Even odds he still thought the Black Queen was conspiring with ‘me’, though. Well, I got what I’d come for. Now I just had to follow the most honoured of villainous traditions and turn a clear pair of heels to this situation. Archer would delay them for a bit and slip out, there weren’t any of them here who were her rivals in those arts. I just needed to make a sufficiently clean break, which without using Night might be… ah, this would do. I turned a corner around shelves already merrily burning and, discreetly hit it pretty hard with my staff.

It collapsed, and as the fire flooded my back I legged my way out of there.

Right, onto the next part of this. I needed to steal a dead body, then see someone about having a chat with it.