Master Assassins

by Robert V. S. Redick

  Shocked, Kandri could only nod. Mektu studied him another moment, as though reconsidering a gift. Then he nodded and smiled broadly. Kandri smiled back, suddenly aware that Mektu wanted to share his secret. Whatever it was, he was tired of guarding it alone.

  They passed two houses, then dropped to hands and knees and crept, with infinite care, into the brush. A third house slipped by. Then Mektu stopped. Beside him was a narrow path through the foliage, right to the aqueduct’s edge. He motioned for Kandri to look.

  They were behind the fourth house, large and rather shabby, with few windows and a back garden in need of a trim. The wall about this garden was ten feet high and crowned with broken glass. Solid brick, it ran alongside the vastly larger wall of the aqueduct. The alley between them was some four feet wide.

  Kandri glanced at his brother, lost. But Mektu was searching the weeds. A moment later, he placed a rope in Kandri’s hand. Thick, wet, grimy. Mektu gave a sharp tug: one end of the rope was tied fast to something deep in the brush. Kandri ran his hands along the rope: it was knotted at intervals. Mektu took it back from him and fed it down the aqueduct’s side, into the narrow alley between the walls. He descended, bare feet gripping the knots. When he beckoned, Kandri followed. He was afraid of making some noise, enraging Mektu, ruining his life. But seconds later, his feet met the ground.

  The alley was weed-choked and damp. In one direction, it simply dead-ended; in the other, it ran some twenty feet and cornered left. Mektu put a finger to his lips. They crept to the corner and turned.

  Now they were between two private gardens, and the ground at their feet was smooth stone. Thirty feet ahead was another dead end. Mektu led him forward, urgently now, and Kandri felt suddenly ridiculous. What were they doing here? What if they were discovered, mincing around puddles on tiptoe, two clowns pretending to be thieves?

  A smell of woodsmoke met his nostrils. Then he saw that the last six feet of wall on the left-hand side were made not of stone but of wood: broad planks covering what must once have been a passage into the shabby garden. Mektu touched the planks with his fingertips, like something cherished. He tugged Kandri to his side.

  There were small gaps between the planks, but Kandri could see nothing through them but darkness. His brother grinned and cupped his hands around Kandri’s ear.

  “Now we wait,” he whispered.

  Kandri looked at him, and shrugged: What for?

  Another whisper: “It may be a long wait. Maybe until morning. But you’ll thank me when it happens. You’ll see.”

  So they crouched and waited. It rained a little, and Kandri grew wretchedly cold. It was then that he made the acquaintance of a doubt that would needle him for years. What if his father had kept them apart out of kindness? What if Mektu was simply mad?

  Of course, there was no escape tonight: Kandri had given his word. He squatted, freezing, and even held his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. The night was endless. Bells tolled, dogs barked and fell silent, fat toads hopped in the alley with a sound like flung mud. After a while, Mektu put his arm around Kandri’s shoulder and they huddled together, cold as toads themselves.

  “I didn’t mean it,” whispered Mektu. “You’re my brother and I’ll always take care of you.”

  “Thanks,” whispered Kandri uncertainly.

  “I was only nine when the yatra came. I thought it would kill me, Kan. In fact, it promised to kill me.”

  “What’s a yatra?”

  “Ask me in the daytime. The point is, I’m sorry. I’m ashamed of myself. Just remember I’m on your side no matter what.”

  He hugged Kandri tighter, and Kandri hugged him back, nervous but glad. Then voices sounded from behind the wooden wall, and Mektu looked up with a predator’s eyes.

  The voices were female. An old woman’s rasp, followed by the low, lilting voices of two young women or girls. They were hushed, as though trying not to wake others in the house. Soft footfalls. Jangling keys.

  A door creaked, and yellow lamplight blazed through the cracks in the wall. It slashed across the brothers’ faces, and for an instant, Kandri felt utterly exposed. But they were quite safe, for the cracks were extremely narrow. Too narrow to look through at all, unless you pressed your eye to one of them. Which was, of course, exactly what they did.

  Beyond the wall was a bath chamber. It was much like the outdoor chamber in their own house: wooden bench, smooth flagstones, a bamboo door that could be latched from the inside. And of course a raised water tank, with a horizontal pipe some seven feet off the ground, ending in a spigot. But there was something odd about this tank. A long iron box was built into its base, with a heavy door and small holes along the side. From a few of these holes smoke was drifting. A firebox, thought Kandri, astonished. Hot water, for bathing! Why don’t we have one of those? Papa could build it with his eyes shut.

  An ancient woman with a white nest of hair stood in the chamber, raising a lamp above her head. A servant, Kandri guessed, and none too happy about the hour as she struggled to hook the lamp over a nail on the wall. Succeeding at last, she hobbled from the chamber and returned with an armload of firewood. She opened the door of the firebox, poked and grumbled at the coals, and shoved a great quantity of wood inside. The flame leaped, and the old woman’s face became visible, thin and crevassed like a wooden puppet. Then she slammed the door and walked out.

  Soon, the other voices came again, murmuring and laughing. The door reopened, and two young women in heavy cloaks stepped into the chamber, carrying folded towels. They were dark and slender, with great gleaming eyes; and their cheeks and foreheads were nearly identical: sisters, Kandri thought.

  They were older than the boys: one eighteen or nineteen, the other a few years her senior. They were recalling someone’s antics, mimicking a ponderous male voice, covering their mouths when they laughed.

  Moral correction!

  He spilled the wine on my arm.

  Did you see him? Did you see his face?

  When they removed their cloaks, they were naked. Kandri felt as though he’d been flung into the sea. Breasts, actual breasts, and bellies, and four buttocks, and dark, mysterious hair! The younger sister sat down on the bench and drew her feet up and she was barely two feet away. The older sister raised her hand to the spigot. A fall of water, a puff of steam on the flagstones. She plunged into the water and gasped with pleasure, and Kandri thought he would weep. His face was flushed. His penis was larger and needier than ever before in his life, peeking like a bald infant above his pants.

  The younger sister rose and shook out her braid, and black locks cascaded to her thighs. Stepping to the bamboo door, she called softly, Aren’t you coming, dear? From the house came a muffled Yes! The younger sister turned back to the older: Get out, you greedy thing. Save a little for Ari and me.

  They traded places. The older sister wound a towel about her head, then put her cloak on wet and left the chamber. The younger sister talked to herself as she bathed. When she finished, she moved nearer and dried so exquisitely between her legs that Kandri found himself communing with the Gods. If he moved or breathed or blinked, he would explode; his ejaculation would be accompanied by drums and trumpets that would wake the neighborhood, the village, the Valley, but the Gods kept him silent and he praised them, praised this holy bathing place, praised his dear brother and the invention of thighs and nipples and other beauties for which he had no name, and the Gods told him his life would be unbearable in its sweetness, and they scalded him in arms of living gold.

  The woman put on her cloak. Kandri fell from the stars. When he caught his breath, he saw that a third figure had entered the chamber. She was still robed and her back was turned, but he thought she was younger, perhaps just a year or two older than the boys themselves. Like the old woman, she was reaching for the lamp.

  What is it? said the one who had sent Kandri to heaven.

  A moth, said the new girl, standing on her toes. It’s going to burn to death on the glass.


  Let it burn! Oh, don’t—

  The girl blew. The lamp went out. The older girl whined in protest, but the newcomer said, Don’t be silly, there’s light enough. She pushed open the bamboo door, and the older girl padded carefully toward the house.

  My cousin Ari, savior of moths.

  What if they feel pain? asked the new girl.

  She undressed, but they could not really see her. Mektu wrung his hands in frustration. The girl was a flaw in the darkness, a tease of movement, a trick of the eye. And sounds. Kandri heard her small gasps, heard the water break and change against her body as she moved. And soon, too soon, the closing of the spigot, the slap of her feet on the stones, a sudden creak as she sat down on the bench.

  There came a thump, which Kandri felt more than heard. She had flung herself back against the wall—against the very board to which his cheek was pressed. And in the same instant burst into tears.

  Mektu gripped his shoulder: Don’t move an inch! But the girl did not sense their presence. She wept a long time, hidden from her family, hidden from the world. Kandri still could not see her face; that first night, he never did. But he felt the storm of her misery, the board trembling slightly with each pitch of her shoulders, and the water trickling from her body passed under the wall and wet his feet.

  Then it was over. The girl stopped crying and felt her way into the house. The boys retreated, shadows among shadows, and no one was ever aware of them, not even the uncle’s dog.

  Back in their room, Mektu was triumphant. “When they bathe at sunrise, you can see everything,” he said. “But the old aunt goes first, and she’s horrible, you want to scream. Oh, Gods, Kandri, we have to plan something, if I don’t talk to her I’ll die—not the aunt, I mean the sister with the braids, Ang have mercy, I must be the first man ever to see her naked, that counts for something, I’m going to write her a poem. Do you think you can put a dick in a poem?”

  Kandri was only half-listening. Visions of naked flesh still danced before his eyes, but his thoughts were with the youngest girl. “What do you think she was crying about?” he asked.

  “That one?” Mektu shrugged, pulling on his nightshirt. “How should I know? Girls cry. Maybe someone told her fortune and she didn’t like what she heard.”

  “At the party?”

  Mektu looked at him. Then he buried his face in a pillow and laughed. “You oaf,” he wheezed. “Those are the Nawhal sisters. They don’t go to parties. They were coming from the temple. From a destiny service.”

  Kandri’s face was blank.

  “Don’t you know anything?” says Mektu. “Twice a year, the holy farts in Chegemmon make their daughters sit up all night praying for rich husbands—that’s the ‘destiny’ they’re after. The priest, Father Marz, will stay up too, if you pay him enough. He’s a creepy old lizard, that Marz. He chants and tells the girls about married life and douses them in rice powder and cloves. That was Marz they were laughing about: moral correction, he says that a lot. Papa hates him, you know.”

  Kandri sank to his place on the floor. “But that last girl. She’s not old enough for a husband.”

  “Old enough for you, though,” said Mektu with a wink.

  Kandri flushed, dropped his eyes. But after a moment, he gave Mektu a nervous smile. “Yes,” he said. “I like her. I wish I knew why she was crying.”

  “I’ll introduce you,” said his brother, magnanimous. “But don’t get your hopes up. She must be seventeen.”

  “I couldn’t see her.”

  “Neither could I—that fucking moth! But I know all about that girl. Betali’s sister made friends with her at school.”

  Mektu yawned enormously, snuggling down into his bed. “Her parents abandoned her in Nandipatar. She lived on the streets for years. She went hungry, she begged. Then an old nurse took her in and they lived together in a shack behind the hospital. The nurse tried to bring her parents before the law, to get some money for the girl’s education. But the parents picked up and left for the Cotton Towns, in the dead of night.”

  “That’s strange,” said Kandri.

  “Strange and bad,” said Mektu. “Kids die on those streets. But the Nawhals are all right. When the nurse died, someone sent them a message, and the old lady went to Nandipatar herself. And they’re well off, too. That girl’s problems are over.”

  “It didn’t sound that way,” said Kandri.

  Mektu shrugged again. “They say she’s clever. I wish we could see in the dark, like foxes. Her name is Ariqina, I think.”

  An urgent hand on his shoulder. Kandri wakes, bolts upright, strikes his head on the ceiling of the cave. He curses; she hisses her sympathy. He starts to lie down again.

  “Don’t,” she warns. “Get up, come outside. The men out there are leaving. We have to decide what to do.”

  He rolls over. From the cave mouth, a weak gray glow. “Devil’s ass, it’s after sunset!” he cries. “Why did you let me sleep so long?”

  “You looked tired.”

  Kandri squirms out of the cave. The others, still and low among the rocks, are peering east into the twilight. Chindilan points, and Kandri sees them, just to the left of the big island. Once again, they carry no torches. They are moving north with good speed.

  “We almost missed the bastards,” says Chindilan. “If they’d waited another ten minutes, we’d have never seen them at all.”

  “Still no idea who they are?” says Kandri.

  “None,” says the smith, “but at least we have a head count. Twelve of ’em out there.”

  “They move like gradhynds, like distance walkers,” says Eshett. “And they are heading away from us. That’s good. I do not wish to meet them.”

  “Damned right, darling,” says Mektu. “I’m sure who they are. That’s a Wolfpack.”

  Kandri gazes up at the sky. “The minute it’s fully dark, we go,” he says. “We should reach the next island by moonrise, and maybe get farther than that. Let’s just hope they’re alone.”

  “No landmarks after that next island,” says Chindilan. “How do you plan to keep east?”

  “By the stars, Uncle,” says Kandri.

  “You know your stars that well?”

  Kandri nods. “The Old Man,” he says, and Chindilan’s mouth spreads in a smile.

  “You should have heard Kandri complain when he dragged us out to stargaze in the cold,” says Mektu. “‘How could anyone get lost in this country, Dad? Uphill is the mountain. Downhill is the sea.’”

  “And he said you wouldn’t live in the Sataapre forever, I suppose?”

  The brothers look at each other, and Mektu bites his lips. In fact, the Old Man had said that the Sataapre, like any place, would find a way to kill a dreamer or a fool. His eyes had fallen on Mektu as he spoke. But it was not Mektu who had nearly proved the truth of the statement.

  “We should hurry,” says Kandri.

  They lace their boots, pass a faska around. Kandri watches their horselike drinking and feels a tightness in his chest. They have lost a night and he is leading them on. Into what pain, none can guess. But he knows that every mile they walk could be a mile they will have to retrace, defeated, sick and feeble with thirst. And that soon enough, they will cross that invisible line beyond which no return will be possible.

  In the near-darkness, an object catches his eye. He picks it up: a long, heavy wooden brush topped with wiry pig bristles. “What the hell is this?’ he demands.

  “That?” growls Chindilan. “Why, that’s a long-handled camel brush, of course. Because every fucking fugitive needs a long-handled camel brush. Or so your brother tried to tell me, when I went through our packs and took inventory.”

  “I didn’t know it was there,” says Mektu. “The bush kits were so well packed. I didn’t want to pull everything out.”

  Chindilan points to a mound of objects near their packs. “Boot spurs, for instance—don’t pull them out. Hoof picks—you’ll miss ’em if they’re gone.” He starts to kick at the pile. “Rid
ing crop. Leather punch. A spare saddle pad.”

  Kandri is stunned. “We just ran with all that?”

  Mektu hides his face in his elbow.

  “And see here, the best of the lot,” says Chindilan. “A jar of tablets. What kind of tablets? Fucking salt.”

  They bury the useless gear and smooth the ground above the hole. Then they set out. It is now so dark that they can see little more than the black outline of the island against the stars. As they draw closer, more and more stars vanish behind the looming cliffs. Great irregular boulders ring the island like forgotten toys.

  But there are more than boulders, he sees now. Strange walls surround the island, knobby and misshapen, like hedges abandoned for decades. Some have crumbled to knee height; others rise ten or twenty feet above their heads. Only by probing with his fingers does Kandri realize what they have found.

  “Coral,” he says, awestruck. “This island had a reef about it.”

  Mektu laughs, incredulous, but the smith’s voice is low with amazement. “Feel those sharp edges. Kandri’s right; a reef’s exactly what we’ve wandered into. Jeshar, it must have been beautiful here.”

  “What is a reef?” asks Eshett.

  They move gingerly into the once-living maze, passing through gaps torn by boulders, now and then scaling the sharp coral walls to check their position. Kandri glances at Mektu. Does he remember those fishing excursions, with their cousins by the sea? The dark curve of dolphins breaching? Schools of lindfish turning the waves to sudden gold?

  “Jekka’s hell, look up there,” says Chindilan, pointing.

  To Kandri’s amazement, there are buildings atop the island, framed darkly against the stars. “Didn’t you know?” says Eshett. “People lived here, Chiloto people. There were fishing towns, temples. And older things—towers, fortresses—from the days of the Empire.”

  “I wish you trusted us, Eshett,” says Mektu. “I wish you’d say why you know so much about—”

  He stops dead. His head goes up and he sniffs. “Don’t you smell that?” he says.