Master Assassins

by Robert V. S. Redick

  “Then it’s not safe!”

  “Harach, sheathe those claws! It’s perfectly safe if we’re not grinding the rope over the rocks. Go on, there’s shade at the bottom. And there’s no other way.”

  “I can’t,” she insists. “I’m not strong enough. I’m afraid I’ll let go.”

  Kandri all but shoves her over the cliff. She does not let go. She just looks up at him, furious, and descends with surprising ease. From the bottom she flips him a gesture he assumes is obscene. Smiling, he follows her, grimacing at the heat already throbbing from the cliff wall. Once his feet touch the earth, they unbraid the rope and pull the whole length down.

  “Now we’ve done it, boys,” says Chindilan. “No turning back. And no more dawdling. They could be here any time.”

  They stand on a broad shelf of salt-poisoned scree descending gradually into the canyon. The heat is savage, and the glare is far worse. Much of the Yskralem is simply too bright to look at, reflecting the sun like shattered glass. Already his eyes are watering. He calls the others together.

  “Garatajik told the truth,” he says. “We don’t have enough water to walk in this heat, and we couldn’t carry it if we did. We’ll have to move in the darkness and sleep through the days. But heat or no heat, we have to get out of sight. Those—islands, they’ll have shade on the far side. We should make for those before we rest.”

  “What if they lower horses over the cliffs?” asks Mektu.

  Chindilan frowns. “Now, there’s a happy thought. Any more for us?”

  “What if they lower sivkrin and turn them loose on our scent? What if we get lost? What if the Army’s seized the eastern rim? And what if there are cliffs on the other side and we can’t climb out?”

  “The East Rim is not abandoned like this one,” says Eshett. “There are cliffs, but also staircases. People come and go.”

  “So you have made the crossing,” says Chindilan. “Why didn’t you tell us before?”

  Once again, her face closes to their scrutiny. She rounds her shoulders, withdrawing into herself. “Climbing out is not the problem,” she says.

  Sudden movement: the men’s hands jump to their blades. But it is only the shadow of a carrion bird, wheeling silent overhead.

  “Vultures,” says Mektu. “What if there are big ones in this place? I mean the really big ones. So big”—he gestures, conjuring—“so big they’re huge?”

  “You mean Ornaqs,” says Chindilan. “That’s another silly fear. They’re big, but not big enough to threaten us. Your head’s full of the Old Man’s bedtime stories.”

  Mektu looks relieved. Then strangely disappointed. “Anyway,” he mumbles, “we can’t set out before nightfall. They’ll see our tracks.”

  “Jekka’s hell,” says Kandri, “you’re right again.”

  And you, Kandri, are a Gods-damned fool. You won’t last another day with blunders like that.

  “We can’t stay here, either,” says Eshett. “We need somewhere to hide.”

  But there is no such place: they are at the foot of an ancient lighthouse, and for miles around the wastes are laid open. After a brief agony of indecision, they start north, making for a spot some four miles away where the cliff juts out like an elbow. They hug the firmer ground by the foot of the cliff, jumping from rock to rock. They leave no obvious sign of their passage, but it is slow work, and all the while, they are utterly exposed to the cliffs behind.

  The heat grows. They pass in and out of shadow, in and out of the scouring sun. Kandri begins to slip, to miss his jumps. His head is throbbing and his eyes hurt when he blinks. Vague swaths of color invade his vision.

  At last they reach the elbow bend and scurry around it into hiding—and out of the glare. Kandri urges them on a few hundred more yards, to a place where the cliff is more severely undercut, and some large, jagged rocks provide still deeper shade. There at last they stop. Chindilan throws down his pack.

  “I thought we were dead men,” he says. “I swear I could feel their eyes.”

  Mektu turns sharply. He clutches the older man’s arm. “Eyes?” he whispers.

  Still irritable, Chindilan shrugs off his hand. “Yes. Eyes. You’ve heard of ’em, then.”

  “You felt eyes, Uncle? Dead eyes?”

  “Dead? Who said anything about dead? Sit down, you blasted hysteric, you’re not even listening!”

  Mektu’s lips tremble. He bites them. Kandri knows what has spooked his brother: a tiny detail from the ghost stories of their childhood. The gaze of a yatra, studying the living from behind, is said to feel like “the gaze of the dead.” Whatever that could mean. You could always count on Mektu to remember the useless.

  “And why are you such an unholy ass about women?” hisses Chindilan, as if he’s been harboring the question for days.

  “I’m not,” says Mektu. “They just don’t understand me.”

  Chindilan gives a despairing laugh, and even Eshett giggles. Seeing her, Mektu flushes. He turns to Kandri, imploring.

  With tremendous effort, Kandri guides his hand to Mektu’s shoulder. “Sit down and be quiet,” he says. “None of us is carrying a yatra. There are no fucking yatras.”

  Mektu looks as though he expects Kandri to drop dead on the spot. Kandri cuffs him on the cheek: equal parts affection and reprimand.

  “Those islands are still our goal,” he says. “We’ll start walking as soon as darkness falls.”

  They settle into the shadow of the cliff. When Mektu opens his mouth again, Kandri raises a warning finger: Not another word. And yet on that mad run along the base of the cliff, Kandri had, damn it all, felt the same sensation as Chindilan. A watching mind, a scrutiny. Eyes drilling into the back of his skull.

  Kandri cannot sleep: the heat is too fierce, his cuts too inflamed. When he lies down, a black bruise on his forehead starts to throb. He crawls to the cliff wall and props himself against it. After a time, Chindilan comes to sit by his side.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you? Go to sleep, or you’ll be useless tonight.”

  “I will, Uncle. Soon.”

  Chindilan shakes his head, but he stays and talks to Kandri anyway. He says that Garatajik had watched him for months. That the rebel Secondborn had no more than half a dozen men he trusted, and none among the Prophet’s inner circle. His secret fight was in its infancy. One mistake, one instance of misplaced trust, and his campaign would end before the first blow could be struck.

  “Except that you’ve just struck it,” he adds. “Ojulan was the craziest, the most useless of the lot. But he’s sure as hell useful now. He’s a fucking martyr to the faith. And she’ll go back to playing the game she loves best, which is vengeance. Double vengeance, two atrocities in a matter of hours! You and idiot boy over there”—he looks at Mektu with contempt—“have just added years to her life.”

  “Uncle,” says Kandri, “Mektu thought we were prisoners. It was an honest mistake.”

  The smith glares at him. Then he sighs and leans back against the cliff. He says that after Garatajik recruited him, he recalled his promise to the Old Man: to do all in his power to safeguard the boys. “I thought I could get you sent home,” he says. “Not out of the army, but home. There’s a liaison office in the Valley now. You’d need to be promoted to sergeant, but that too was in the works.”

  Kandri turns slowly to face the smith. He can scarcely believe his ears.

  “Until Mektu started jabbering about yatras, that is,” says Chindilan. “I might still have gotten you transferred—you alone, I mean. But there was no hope of sending him anywhere, except jail or a madhouse.”

  Home. The word suddenly so bitter, so very cruel.

  Chindilan bites his thumbnail, gazing out at the white expanse. “It’s a terrible place, the Yskralem,” he says. “We’ll need the Gods’ own luck to pass through it alive. Even if we do, though, we’ll have gained nothing more than a breather. Ang knows we’ll need one by then.”

  “But the Prophet will keep coming,” says Ka
ndri.

  Chindilan nods. “She’ll keep coming. Garatajik spoke the truth. There’s only one place to lose her, boy.”

  “The Great Desert,” says Kandri, “I know.”

  The smith nods again, runs a hand through his hair. Then he gestures with his chin at Mektu. “That arrow could have killed him. It still might, if the wound doesn’t heal clean. We’ll have to keep an eye on it. You can’t trust him to notice.”

  “What do we do if he worsens?”

  “Pray, or find a brilliant doctor. A Xavasindran, maybe. They have tools we’ve never dreamed of. Your father used to say that next to the Xavasindrans, we were savages in skins.”

  “You look the part.”

  Chindilan doesn’t smile. “Do you know why they’re not welcome in Eternity Camp anymore?”

  “I heard they killed someone, bungled a surgery.”

  “That’s a lie,” says Chindilan. “It was just the opposite: they were too good. One of their patients was so delighted with his recovery that he called them ‘miracle workers,’ and his words reached the Prophet’s ears. She couldn’t stand the competition, see? No one is allowed to work miracles but Her Radiance.”

  “Of course,” says Kandri. “But can we afford a Xavasindran?”

  “Afford? They don’t ask for a gham, boy; they’re medical missionaries. Harach, you know nothing of the world.”

  Kandri bristles, although it is a simple statement of fact. They sit in silence for a time. Mektu is snoring. The white wastes shimmer like a dream.

  “Let’s have a look, then,” says the smith at last. He leans over to his pack and tugs out Garatajik’s leather satchel. Propping it on his legs, he frees the buckles and folds back the protective flap. Inside are a jumble of objects wrapped in waxed paper, heavy canvas, or leather tanned to softness of silk, each item tied firmly with string. Chindilan removes a folded parchment envelope. Upon it, in a neat, fussy hand, are two words:

  PACKING LIST

  Chindilan breaks the seal and removes a sheet of linen paper. He spreads it open, and Kandri leans close to read.

  ~ Sixty Gathen sovereigns (value 1 Kasraji true gold apiece)

  ~ Eight Imperial sovereigns (40 k.t.g. apiece)

  ~ Four bloodstone rubies (500 k.t.g. apiece)

  ~ Compact field telescope

  ~ Antivenin for the acuna sidewinder (vial 1a) and the marble scorpion (vial 1b)

  ~ TEMPORARY army eye-stain suppressant (about three one-hour applications. Will cause pain and irritation) (vial 2)

  ~ One antidemonic expectorant pill (enormous, yellow; take with food)

  ~ Two suicide capsules (instantaneous) (vial 3)

  ~ Letter of introduction to Dr. T. R. Fessjamu (waterproofed envelope inside stitched calfskin sleeve. DO NOT LOSE THIS LETTER. Deliver it to Fessjamu’s hand; guard it with the utmost care)

  The men look at each other, stunned, then dive into the satchel.

  “The gems are here,” says Chindilan, “and the coins as well. Two thousand . . . sixty . . . forty times eight . . . Ang’s Tears, he’s given you almost twenty-four hundred true gold!”

  “How much is that in ghams?”

  “Lots, boy! Not a fortune, but enough to get us a long way from the war, if we’re frugal.” He gives Kandri a stern look. “Not a word to your brother.”

  “Hell, no.” Putting gold in Mektu’s hands is like tossing steak to a street dog.

  “Antivenin. Suicide capsules. Everything he names is here. Including this.”

  Chindilan is holding a second envelope, quite different from the first. It is a single piece of rugged leather, folded in half and stitched shut with rawhide. The stitches are almost comically numerous, as though meant to keep out anything humankind or nature might throw at the envelope. Stamped in dark indigo on either side is a small, inscrutable mark:

  Chindilan sets his finger on the mark. “That’s one of his Lordship’s seals. Plain on purpose: nothing you’d stop and think about, unless you were looking for it. The resistance has scores of these little signs. We don’t dare use any one of them too often.” The smith rubs his beard in agitation. “Lord Garatajik was starting to talk about this letter when your brother stabbed him. One item you must treat as priceless, remember?”

  “Of course I remember. It was the last thing he managed to say.”

  “He finished the letter just before we saddled up. His valet was still stitching the envelope when I brought his horse around. And he mentioned it on our ride to Balanjé. ‘I should have dispatched it months ago, smith, and with better couriers,’ he said. ‘Fear stayed me, and later, the net began to close. These fools of yours may be my last chance.’ ‘What’s it’s all about, my Lord?’ I asked. ‘Don’t question me!’ he snapped. ‘Ang forbid that you should ever face my mother’s inquisitors. But if that black day comes, you must be ignorant. Your nephews, too, would best be kept in the dark, but how can I be sure of their commitment unless I tell them the truth? That letter must reach Dr. Fessjamu. If I could trade my life for its certain delivery, I should do without hesitation. My life or theirs, smith—or, for that matter, anyone’s.’ He meant it, Kandri. Lord Garatajik never said a thing he didn’t mean.”

  Madness, free fall. Kandri cannot catch his breath. “What’s in the letter, Uncle?”

  “Weren’t you listening? I have no Gods-damned idea.”

  “Dr. Fessjamu.” Kandri rubs his temples. “Don’t I know that name? Is he one of those foreign doctors?”

  “She. And no, she has nothing to do with the Xavasindrans. She’s from the east, and a person of great influence, I understand. She came to the Valley once, years ago while I was off with the legion. I don’t know where she is today. Garatajik must have planned to tell us.”

  T. R. Fessjamu. Kandri swears under his breath. The mystery will gnaw at him. He slips the letter back into the satchel.

  “His Lordship was damned generous, anyway,” says Chindilan, sealing the buckles, “and we thanked him with a knife in the chest. But do you want to know something funny? Bad as things are, they might have been a whole shit-pillar worse.”

  Kandri turns him a battered grin. “Please,” he says, “tell me how.”

  The smith reclines, hands behind his head. He tells Kandri that a feud has long simmered between Garatajik and the Prophet’s Fourthborn, Etarel. For a long time after the disastrous first assault on the Ghalsúnay, Etarel had lain low, surly and fearful. The Prophet herself had interpreted the defeat as the result of witchcraft, and had blessed Etarel as “Savior of the Legion”—he had, at least, brought half his men limping home. But among the Sons there were whispers: her all-seeing eye was on the Fourthborn. Etarel dared not fail again.

  Over time, he had recovered some of his standing. The Prophet was exceedingly glad of a certain poison he developed that could be released as a smoke; she foresaw a day when the enemy might be killed merely by lighting fires upwind.

  “And then Garatajik returned. And she went mad for him, her long-lost Secondborn. And Etarel too went mad. With jealousy and fear.”

  Beside Garatajik, Etarel looked like what he probably was: a vicious, simple-minded lordling without an original thought in his head. Among the first things Garatajik did was to reveal, quite innocently, that the smoke-weapon Etarel had claimed as his own was in fact an invention of the Važeks—and that they had abandoned it, because the poison broke down swiftly in storage, and killed too many of their own on shifting winds.

  Etarel did have some cunning, however. He grasped his mother’s obsessions far better than Garatajik: the mad understand the mad. Little by little, he had chipped away at her joy in Garatajik’s return. Wasn’t he the only one who never took up a sword for Orthodox Revelation? Did it not harm the family’s image, the solid ram of fear with which it battered its enemies, to have a Son of Heaven who preferred archives to armories, books to daggers and swords? And how did she know what he had really done with those two years? How many secrets had he traded, how many of her plans had he bet
rayed?

  It was a crude campaign, and the Prophet, no stranger to cunning, had surely guessed why Etarel waged it. And yet it had an effect. She began to look at Garatajik differently, to ask more questions, to shuffle his Rasanga guards. She placed a tight watch on his servants, especially those sent on errands beyond the camp. She had not yet guessed that he was her committed enemy. But like Etarel before him, Garatajik felt the weight of her eye.

  “He spent more time in uniform,” says Chindilan. “Started playing the soldier, the proper Son of Heaven game. But he wasn’t a soldier, and it was late to make amends. The resistance he’d built was in danger—not because we stumbled but because Etarel wanted a greater share of the Prophet’s love. And it was getting worse all the time.”

  Now everything would change. Garatajik would be a martyr; doubts would vanish like the dew. And those whom Garatajik had favored would benefit as well. They would hold a place of honor, like the vassals of a murdered saint.

  “He might live, you know,” says Kandri.

  “Yes,” says Chindilan, “wouldn’t that make things interesting?”

  You know nothing of the world. His uncle’s statement is more true than he suspects.

  Kandri and Mektu stayed in school through the eighth primary, but by their fifth year, many subjects ceased to exist. History, geography, politics, the classic Urrathi tales: none of these were taught any longer, save by private tutors. When Kandri asked for such a tutor, his second mother agreed at once. “We have gold enough, Gods be praised,” said Dyakra Hinjuman. “And you’re on fire to learn; any fool could see that. Your lessons won’t be wasted.” But his father, shockingly, refused outright. He fought his wife with rare obstinacy, and eventually prevailed. Kandri was stunned by his unkindness. The memory hurts to this day.

  By sixth year, not only subjects were disappearing from the school. One day the brothers arrived to find the music master gone. A month later, the teacher of rhetoric and civics. The replacements, if they came at all, were invariably priests, brought in from Gathen or Nandipatar. No one explained, or even mentioned the missing instructors. Those who did not vanish had a knack for avoiding certain themes.