"Mickey Zucker Reichert - Darkness Comes Together" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reichert Mickey Zucker)

Darkness Comes Together
by Mickey Zucker Reichert

Mickey Zucker Reichert is a pediatrician whose science fiction and fantasy novels include The Legend of
Nightfall, The Unknown Soldier, and several books and trilogies about the Renshai. Her short fiction
has appeared in numerous anthologies, including Battle Magic, Zodiac Fantastic, and Wizard
Fantastic. Her claims to fame: she has performed brain surgery, and her parents really are rocket
scientists.

Darkness smothered the world outside Lord Karthorian's mansion, and the thin crescent of moon drew
scribbly lines along the ramparts. Dressed in tight-fitting browns and blacks, Josafah Rayta's son studied
the layout through the meager light, his sandy hair tucked neatly beneath his hood. In his pocket, his
advance lay swaddled in a cloth pouch to prevent the coins from clinking. The tools of his trade nestled
beside it, including the thinly hammered steel garrote that had become his trademark weapon. Years ago,
it would never have occurred to him to leave identifying marks on his victims; secrecy had always seemed
an assassin's best friend. Then, Nightfall had come.

Within a short time, Nightfall the man had become more legendary than the night-stalking demon from the
nursery rhyme that spawned his name. Rumors claimed his clients only had to whisper their needs to the
night wind, that Nightfall would come if he found their victims worth his effort; but woe be to the man
who wasted Nightfall's time. Reliable sources had reported to the swagsmen and tenders who fronted
Josafah that Nightfall would as soon destroy his hire as his target should he judge the former unworthy.

Josafah flashed a gap-toothed grin to no one. He envied Nightfall his notoriety, longed for the day when
people would speak of him, too, with a humble and terrible reverence. Peasants would shudder at the
mere thought of him. Kings would quail when they saw him, knowing their reigns and their lives had
ended. His fee would grow ten times over, and he would become wealthy enough to retireтАж or to kill for
slights and sports instead of money.

Shaking the thoughts from his mind, Josafah turned his attention fully to the task at hand. Drawing the
familiar iron claws from his bag of tools, he pressed them expertly against his palms and fingertips. Easing
them onto jutting irregularities in the stones or into rare cracks in the mortar, alternately with the wedges
on his shoes, he inched his sinewy body up the stone wall at a slow but steady pace. Reaching the top, he
crouched against the flat stonework to survey and anticipate. Below him lay a wide moat that stretched to
another distant wall. The water appeared an inky green-black in the darkness, too thick for his vision to
penetrate. He had no idea what swam in those brackish, oily-smelling waters, but research suggested
alligators or savage, flesh-eating fish. That fact alone had deterred lesser thieves and assassins.

Josafah secured his climbing claws, then looked toward the next wall. A branch, trunk, or ladder long
enough to reach both walls and support his weight would prove too heavy to maneuver. He considered a
rope but doubted he could toss a grapple that far with any accuracy. Trying would likely result in enough
noise to draw the guards. Securing it would prove difficult as well. Unless he drew it unwaveringly tight,
his weight would bear it down into the moat.

Mumbling curses under his breath, Josafah studied the water and invoked his natal talent. He sensed a
seething mass of potential energy, apparently small fish poised to attack any hapless creature that leaped
or fell into the water. Such an ability, extremely rarely, came to children at birth and made them
desperately vulnerable to sorcerers, who gained their powers through ritualistic slaughter and soul-binding
of the natally gifted. Josafah had never heard of any other having his particular power; but, for all he
knew, they all did. Those born with such abilities hid them for their own safety. Sorcerers usually