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  DAYBREAK ON NEWEDEN

  Night-quiet, the two assassins advanced—like shadows unseen in the overlying murk and as deadly as the wind-spiders of the western tundra. Just ahead, Gunnar, the contracted victim, ran, ignoring the pain that constricted his chest and stabbed in his lungs. He ducked instinctively as the Khaelian-made dagger creased him in a burning line from shoulder to mid-back, then slipped and fell in the rank mud at his feet.

  The Hoorka assassins stood over him. Gunnar lay face down in the mud, and they knew he was waiting for the cold violation of steel to pierce his body. But relays warned them that morning had touched the Dawnrock with delicate fingers. It would be so easy to kill Gunnar despite the Hoorka code. No one was there to see . . .

  Strong hands helped Gunnar to his feet, grunting with the man’s limp weight.

  “Our admiration, Gunnar. Your life is your own once more,” the Hoorka said in a voice that masked his bitterness. “You may go with the light.”

  ASSASSINS’

  DAWN

  SLOW FALL TO DAWN

  DANCE OF THE HAG

  A QUIET OF STONE

  STEPHEN LEIGH

  SLOW FALL TO DAWN copyright © 1981 by Stephen Leigh.

  DANCE OF THE HAG copyright © 1983 by Stephen Leigh.

  A QUIET OF STONE copyright © 1984 by Stephen Leigh.

  Introduction copyright © 2013 by Stephen Leigh.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover art by Paul Young.

  Cover design by G-Force Design.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 1622.

  ISBN 978-1-101-62000-7

  DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyrights Page

  Introduction

  SLOW FALL TO DAWN

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  DANCE OF THE HAG

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  A QUIET OF STONE

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Introduction

  THIS UNIVERSE ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH;

  I’M MAKING ANOTHER ONE

  Way back (and at this point in my life, believe me, “way back” is the correct terminology) when I was first starting to devour adult science fiction, I became fascinated by the fabulous, intricate fictional universes created by the writers of the time: Asimov’s “Foundation” stories, the “Mars” tales of Ray Bradbury, the ambiguously-linked future of many of the Heinlein novels, James Blish’s “Cities in Flight” novels, E.E. Smith’s “Lensman” series, and so on. When I eventually started writing my own fiction, those examples were still in my head, and so I created my own universe sandbox in which to play.

  Now, I have to say that there’s a significant issue with writing fiction set in some far-off future: no writer’s ever going to be able to predict the technology of the far future, especially given the rapid increase in technological innovation. We’re destined (almost always) to fall short of technological advances, and probably miss badly no matter how much we push the envelope. The technologies of our fictional future usually end up being invented long before that time arrives, or we totally miss new technologies that will arise after we wrote the story. At the time I’d read those Asimovian, Bradburian, and Heinleinian stories, I was already a few decades past when they’d been originally written and the technologies in those books had nearly all—except for the magical hyperdrive—been invented in the meantime, or been surpassed. Often, the technology of those universes was laughably outdated.

  After all, if someone in the 1400s tried to imagine the technology of today, it’s extremely unlikely that he or she would accurately predict or describe the world all of us inhabit. No matter what we like to think, humans aren’t good at predicting what a world two or three or four centuries further along might be like. Heck, we’re not really good at predicting what a world ten years from now will look like. Fiction written in the 1950s generally reflects 1950s sensibilities. Just watch the classic movie “Forbidden Planet” if you want to witness that—a spaceship from 22nd century Earth crewed by an exclusively white, exclusively male crew? The same applies to 1960s fiction, and 1970s, and 1980s, and so on. You see the time in which the stories were written echoed subtly in the background.

  Unless . . . My “clever strategy” to avoid this problem was to postulate a total collapse of civilization, followed by a genuine “dark age” where most technology was lost (and lost in erratic fashion)—thus providing a convenient, built-in excuse for me when the reader’s technology inevitably caught up with what I wrote in the Alliance stories. “Sure, the technology’s outdated even now,” I could tell my future reader. “Yes, I know that we already have superior technology, and it’s only twenty years past when I initially wrote the story, but you see, there was this collapse, and that’s why their technology is still behind ours . . .”

  The “dark age” would explain the relatively small technological leaps from “now” to “then.” Mind you, my “now” was the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s for the Alliance stories, and looking at those stories several decades later . . . well, just as with the old tales I’d read Way Back Then, technology has indeed already passed by my imagined future ones, and I can see where I entirely missed certain advances.

  So you see, dear reader, before you read this book, I want to tell you that there was this collapse . . .

  Remember that, and forgive the paltry limits of my imagination. One of the statements I often make to my writing classes, when talking about science fiction, is that the genre really isn’t about the future. It’s actually about the present—the present of the time in which the story was written—with the author holding up a funhouse mirror to the world he or she knows and thinking “What if this went on . . . ?” The imagined future is our reflection in that warped mirror, showing us a “present” stretched and taffy-pulled into a future.

  Science fiction tells us far more about how we were at the time of the story than about any future generation.

  Now that you have my excuse, let’s get back to the history
of the stories I wrote for the Alliance universe. Many of the first stories I wrote in that universe never sold—for good reason; I was still learning the craft. Mind you, I thought those newbie efforts were tremendous and I couldn’t understand how the editors could be so blind as not to see the incredible genius of them. But . . . now when I scan the crumpled, mail-worn manuscripts lingering forlornly in their folders in my file cabinet, I can see why they never sold.

  They sucked.

  But I persevered through the barrage of rejection slips and even managed to learn a bit about the craft in the process, and eventually started selling a few of the tales, the majority of them still set in what I called the “Alliance” universe. In the end, I placed several short stories in that alternate history in the various magazines and anthologies.

  And three novels, as well—and those three novels are what you’re holding in your hand right now. Here’s how the first one, SLOW FALL TO DAWN, came about . . .

  Around 1976 or so, I read an article about the Hashshashin, an early band of assassins, which started me thinking about the concept of “ethical assassins”—murderers who would attempt an assassination, but would for philosophical reasons permit the victim a small chance of survival. I started putting together a world (yes, in the Alliance universe, which was nothing if not flexible) with these “ethical assassins,” which I was calling the “Hoorka.” I suddenly realized, as I starting planning and writing this tale, that this wasn’t going to be a short story or novelette, but a full-fledged novel.

  Characters and sub-plots and complications. Oh, my!

  Honestly, I rather rapidly became lost in the book. One thing writing short stories hadn’t prepared me for was how complicated novels are, how long they take to write, how difficult it is to hold the details in your head, and the amount of persistence and dedication required to complete them . . .

  I panicked. Instead of finishing what I’d started, I eviscerated the book. I retained only the basic shell of the story and produced a novelette called “In Darkness Waiting.” I sent the story (still bleeding from the massive surgery) to Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, and Gardner Dozois, who was the Assistant Editor there at the time, liked it enough to send me revision notes and a promise to look at the story again once I’d revised it. I made changes and sent it back, and Gardner (or George Scithers, who was editor at the time) bought it. It appeared in the October 1977 issue. (If you’re curious, it’s reprinted in my ebook short story collection A RAIN OF PEBBLES, along with most of the other Alliance Universe stories)

  I continued to write and occasionally sell short stories for the next few years, but I was realizing that if I ever wanted to have any shot at actually making writing a substantial part of my income, I had to overcome my trepidation and write novels.

  Being the eminently lazy sort, I thought: “Why not start with the novel you’ve already planned out?” I’d been smart enough—which is honestly a rarity—not to actually trash the notes I’d made. I began to reconstruct the novel, gluing back onto the skeleton of “In Darkness Waiting” all the material and ideas I’d trimmed away, rewriting the story from the beginning.

  Early in 1980 I had a pile of paper that somewhat resembled a novel, which I titled SLOW FALL TO DAWN. I also had no idea how to market the thing to agents. Here’s where networking (of the pre–Facebook, Twitter, and LiveJournal variety, using letters and phone calls) came in.

  Denise and I had begun attending the regional SF cons as well as the occasional Worldcon or big East Coast gathering. I’d met quite a few writers—most of them farther along in their career than me—and become good friends with some. I contacted a select few, asking if they knew of an agent they’d recommend I contact. George RR Martin suggested a relatively new agent he’d met, and was kind enough to say he’d send her a personal recommendation.

  Just as good networking can lead to a “real” job, good networking can also lead to work in your writing career. People do tend to help other people whom they know and like.

  I will point out before someone brings out the old cliché that “You see! It’s all just about who you know!” that networking only works to a point. Getting an introduction to someone via a friend might crack open a door you thought locked, but your fiction still has to do the heavy lifting—and that’s far more important. You can sell a novel without networking if it’s well-written and compelling; you can’t sell a poorly-written novel no matter how fantastic a network you have.

  Fast-forward a few months. . . . The agent, after reading the novel, had agreed to represent me. At the time, I was running a bi-weekly RPG game—mostly AD&D but with lots of rule changes we’d made on our own. During the middle of one of our games late in 1980, the phone rang and Denise answered. She passed the phone over to me. ”It’s your agent,” she said. She gave me an eyebrow-raised look as I took the phone.

  “I have good news,” the voice on the other end said. “Bantam’s made an offer on your book . . .” I don’t remember much of the rest of the night, except that I recall it involved more beer than usual and that I happily allowed the characters in the RPG to get away with far too much mayhem and treasure. Everyone went up a level or two.

  I had sold my first book!

  It did pretty well, too: had some good reviews, and Locus named it one of the Top Ten First Novels, and sales were good enough that my editor at Bantam wanted more books.

  I realized that I wanted to follow the character arc of Gyll, my protagonist, through the rest of his story. I wanted to see what would happen if I took my ethical assassins and moved them off this peculiar little world of theirs and out into the greater Alliance.

  Those speculations would lead to the sequel DANCE OF THE HAG as well as the concluding novel A QUIET OF STONE, the other two books that make up the omnibus edition you’re holding.

  Over the years, I’ve often wished I could get these books back into print. Now, thanks to Sheila Gilbert and the other good folks at DAW Books, that wish has become a reality.

  I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I enjoyed writing it!

  SLOW FALL TO DAWN

  for DENISE—

  she knows why,

  but still enjoys being told

  Chapter 1

  PAUSE. And shiveringly inhale. The two Hoorka-kin gathered air for their complaining lungs. It had been a long run for Aldhelm and Sartas, far too long. Sweat varnished the skin under their nightcloaks, and their legs were cramped and sore. Still, the quarry was just ahead, and they could allow themselves only the briefest rest. Night-quiet, the two assassins advanced like shadows unseen in overlying murk; as deadly as the wind-spiders of the western tundra.

  In but seventeen minutes, the photoreceptors on the dawnrock would signal Underasgard’s dawn and the end of their hunt. They ran, the Hoorka.

  Aldhelm signaled Sartas to a halt in the comforting darkness cast by a high porch. Somewhere just ahead, Gunnar—the contracted victim—was enmeshed in the thick metal pilings that held the houses above the early rains and the cold flood that inevitably followed. These were the tenements of Sterka, the most temporary sector of a city that had not been meant by its founders to survive more than half a century and was now well into its second hundred years. Wooden beams lent support to the time – and rust-weakened pillars of metal. Decay, an odor formed of river mud and rust, filled their nostrils. Aldhelm fought the inclination to cough in the fetid air.

  It hadn’t been an easy or lucky night for them.

  • • •

  The apprentices had done their work admirably. With six hours still to pass before the Underasgard dawn terminated the contract, Aldhelm and Sartas had taken up the trail within meters of Gunnar. They’d pursued him down the Street of Ravines, scenting an easy kill and an early night; the Thane would be pleased, for this was politically an important assassination. The street was deserted, the only light coming from hoverlamps spaced at long intervals, and Gunnar was already winded. But as the Hoorka reached for their dagge
rs, Gunnar suddenly lifted his head, cast a frightened yet oddly hopeful look behind him, and ducked into a cross street to his left. A moment later, the two Hoorka heard the sound that had caused Gunnar’s optimism—the low-moaning chant of the Dead, a lassari sect. The Dead were the disenfranchised, the most depressed of the unguilded: the lassari. Their balm was ignorance, their unity hopelessness. Those of the Dead did nothing save to march and chant their melancholy mantras, accompanied by the scent of burning incense and finding catharsis in the act of marching. Their indifference to reality was legendary; the Dead paid no attention to pedestrians in their path, ignored the occasional assaults on peripheral members of their processions, and failed to notice their own members who would swoon and fall from exhaustion. They considered their lives already ended. Why should any lagging pain from the life they considered finished bother them? They marched to meet Hag Death, and took her foul embrace as they would that of a lover.

  The Dead entered the Street of Ravines from the right of the cross street, and made a slow, agonizing turn toward the Hoorka. There were perhaps thirty of them, eyes closed as they chanted, their bodies—wrapped in simple cloth robes—filling the narrow street. Cursing, the Hoorka fought to make a passage through the press. The fuming censers filled their nostrils with acrid fumes, and around them the expressionless faces moved in the sibilant chanting, ignoring the Hoorka who pushed and shoved the unresisting Dead from their path. Aldhelm raised an open hand—the Dead One on his left was a young woman who looked as if she might have once been pretty—and pushed her away from him. Her eyes opened briefly, though she didn’t look at him, and then she resumed her chanting, stumbling as she regained her balance.

  And abruptly, they were through. The procession of Dead, unruffled, continued down the street, their chant echoing from the buildings to either side. Gunnar had disappeared. The Hoorka ran down the cross street, searching the alleyways that led off from the street. Dame Fate rewarded their diligence. Aldhelm motioned to Sartas, beckoning. He gave inward thanks to She of the Five Limbs for her favor, and moved into a narrow, dingy alley.