Songweaver's Awakening

Chapter 24 - Tuco

Tuco awoke in a cold sweat.  His first instinct was to spring out of bed with the knife beneath his pillow in his hand.  His hand was clutched around the knife, fingers digging into his palm, before he realized where he was.  Pillow.  His hand was beneath his pillow.  He was in a bed, in the dark, in the palace of Farahd, First Seat of Hajinn and his closest friend.  He was not in the bogs of Senadasi, nor was he in the mines.  There were no men sleeping next to him, ready to kill him for a scrap of food or clothing.  Tuco loosened his grip on the knife, feeling the impressions the bone handle had left on his palm.  There would be men outside, patrolling the hallways.  He himself had seen to that, after the first assassination attempt on Farahd.  He was safe here, safer than he had ever been in his life.

His eyes adjusted to the darkness.  Still dark, he registered in his mind.  Tuco frowned.  His sheets lay flat above him, whispering against his skin when he moved.  What could have caused him to wake up?  His fingers closed about the knife again as he pricked his ears.  Nothing.

Tuco slipped out of bed.  The floor was cold beneath his bare feet.  The two windows in his room were shuttered against the night breeze.  Narrow beams of light crept into the room through the wooden slats, making a pattern of parallel lines on the stone.  He made his way across his bedroom to his desk.  A long, loose robe was thrown over the back of the chair.  Tuco wrapped it around himself, and, fumbling on the ground, he found a belt to fasten about his waist.  He left the buttons undone.  He moved quickly now, his urgency increasing as he became more awake.  Something had disturbed his sleep.  He wasn't prone to nightmares.

The white cotton settled over his skin.  He could see clearly what he looked like in his mind's eye—a middle-aged man in a baggy white nightgown, knife tucked into a belt cinched about his waist.  Ridiculous.

It's not the time.  He stuffed his feet into the nearest pair of slippers and headed to the door.

The hallway was lit with scattered oil lamps clinging to the walls.  He'd never noticed, all those times he'd stumbled, half-asleep, down the hall to relieve himself exactly how eerie it looked.  For a moment, the only sound he could hear was his own breathing.  A flash of movement to his right made him turn his head.  Something—a foot, perhaps—disappeared around the corner.  Tuco blinked.  Am I awake?

The sound of heavy footsteps came from the other end of the hall.  Reflexively, he stepped back into his doorway and rested his hand on the hilt of his knife.  The man ran toward him, making no effort to be silent.  As he ran beneath a lamp, Tuco caught a glimpse of red and gold.  He let his hand fall back to his side and stepped back into the hall.

The guard skidded to a stop in front of Tuco.

“Tuco?  Sir?  Is that you?”

“Yes, it's me.”  He began to feel a little irritable.  “What's happening?”

“Someone's inside the palace.”

Tuco didn't need to ask to know it was someone who wasn't meant to be there.  The knife at his belt felt suddenly inadequate.  “How?”

“They came in through a window.”

“No,” Tuco shook his head.  “Impossible.  The shutters are bronze and two inches thick.”

“Not those windows, sir.  They came in through one of the courtyard windows.  Removed a few slats and slid right in.  The man in the room must have been a light sleeper.  He screamed, once.  We found him with his throat cut.”

This is what woke me, Tuco thought to himself.  “Farahd.”  Whoever it was, they could only have one target.  Forgetting for a moment how he was dressed, Tuco ran down the hall, the guard close behind him.