Master Assassins

by Robert V. S. Redick

  The door across the hall opens and closes: the women creep down the hall to bathe. Chindilan sits back, shaking his head. “Eshett’s seen more changes than any of us,” he murmurs. “Life as a Parthan, a desert creature, eating cactus pulp and snaring birds and weaving bags out of goat’s wool—those are the sort of things I’ve heard about, anyway. And one day the Tirmassil snatch her up and it’s over, gone. She’s not a person, she’s a whore. Her life revolves around soldiers’ dicks.”

  “I feel terrible,” says Mektu. “I wouldn’t have bought her if I knew we’d be friends later on. I wouldn’t have made her do all those things. Do you think I can explain, Kandri? Do you think she’d listen to me?”

  Kandri shudders at the thought of Mektu’s explanations. “Just apologize,” he says.

  “But I want her to understand.”

  “The past is gone, Mek. Don’t explain.”

  The men fall silent. A gust of wind makes the house crab and creek. Far away across the plain, some animal—dog, jackal, ghoul—cries out a lament.

  “No, that’s not true,” says Chindilan. “The past is never gone. We’re stuck with it, like our fingerprints, our eyestains. Like the shape of our heads.”

  The brothers wait, saying nothing. Their uncle’s voice is strange in the darkness.

  “You get a girl with child, you have to live with that forever. Deny her, and it rips out a part of you. Oh, you may get away with it, as far as the world ever learns. But you’ll feel it inside. The spoiling, the rot.”

  “Uncle,” says Kandri carefully, “are you talking about something in particular?”

  “Why do you ask so many questions?” snaps Chindilan. “Try listening for once. Can you manage that?”

  “I’m listening,” says Kandri, stunned.

  “It’s the same if you harm a girl in some way,” says his uncle, “or if you stand there and watch while harm comes to her. You have to live with your choices. Sometimes your children do also. Sometimes, the whole world.”

  Mektu wakes up screaming. The yatra, the yatra. In his head, in his thoughts, chewing on his memories like a rat. He is shaking violently. Kandri and Chindilan grab hold of him and tell him to breathe. Eshett and Talupéké stumble into the room, blinking and cursing. Mektu stares at them without recognition.

  “I felt it move,” he says. “I felt it wriggle like a worm. And I told it to get out, but it just laughed at me. I ran all over Blind Stream and Sed Hemon and all down the Bittermoon Road. I told it I’d kill myself, that I would run until I fell dead and it would have nothing, no home, it would just blow away on the breeze. It dared me, brother. It just went on laughing the longer I ran. Then suddenly I was at Betali’s place and the smokehouse was right there in front of me and I went in. I slammed the door and started choking but I swore I wouldn’t go out again, that it would have to let me go because I’d rather die than carry it around like a tapeworm, like a tick.”

  “Breathe, Mek,” says Kandri, gripping his shoulders.

  “It thought I was bluffing. It laughed and laughed. But then it looked in the right part of me and knew I wasn’t bluffing, that I really would die. It grabbed at my legs, tried to make me walk out. I fought back, it used pain, nothing ever hurt like that again, not blades or fists or fire, it screamed Get up, walk out, I fought and fought and it bit down and my mind was bleeding GET OUT, GET OUT OF THE SMOKEHOUSE—”

  The last words are a roaring, his voice something torn from him, alien. Kandri pulls his brother against his chest. Mektu gasps like an invalid.

  “I wouldn’t go, Kan. I drank the smoke and tried to die.”

  “It was a dream, Mektu. A dream.”

  Mektu’s body starts to shake. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Fucking coward.”

  “None of that,” says Chindilan softly. “You’re troubled, but it’s not your fault. And it doesn’t make you a coward for one minute, do you hear? In point of fact, you’re one tough son of—”

  In the doorway, a shadow—huge, haggard, armed with a knife. Mektu leaps up, screaming again.

  “What in the sewers of hell?” says Yehita-Chen, pointing with her blade. “Shut him up! He’ll bring every rogue in this country to my door.”

  Kandri embraces his brother again. Is it a dream or a memory he’s been telling? Or the memory of a dream? And what does it matter, finally, if the inner torture is the same?

  “I’ve killed people,” his brother is babbling. “Kandri? You know that? I’ve killed in the Prophet’s name.”

  “I know,” says Kandri. “We both have, Mektu. Now hush.”

  Eshett reaches for Mektu’s hand, and the change that comes over him is almost instant. His chatter stops, and the violent shaking reduces to a twitch. He releases Kandri and leans into the Parthan woman, his face soaked with tears. Over Mektu’s shoulder, Eshett locks eyes with Kandri. And Kandri finds he can’t look away.

  All the next day they lie low, as Stilts insisted. Mektu sleeps fitfully, scratching the flesh around his wound. The others mostly remain in the house, venturing into the yard for short spells only, when they can be sure the road is clear. The old woman wants nothing from them anymore—nothing but a rapid departure. Kandri and Chindilan sharpen their weapons. Eshett cuts a reed in the yard’s boggy corner and fashions a flute, but never once raises the instrument to her lips.

  “It happened, you know,” says Chindilan, breaking hours of silence. “The fool did almost die in that smokehouse, where Betali’s father cured his hams. Lantor found him balled up in a corner, as far from the door as he could get. Stone cold dead by the look of him. But he woke up when your father dragged him into the yard—with a gasp, like he’d been stuck with a pin. Within a day, he was himself again: foolish and patience-testing, that is. Lantor asked us not to talk about it. I never did learn what made the boy go in there.”

  Toward sunset, a dust cloud appears in the east. Through the telescope they discern a group of fourteen riders, flying south like the wind along the edge of the Arig Hills. No one can make out who they are: the light is already failing. Still, Kandri watches them for as long as he can, from the shelter of an upper window. Just before darkness swallows them entirely, he sees them veer in the direction of the city.

  The sight leaves him rattled. We’re hiding in plain sight, he thinks. Jekka’s hell, we’re barely even hiding. How can we and still arrange for passage out of here?

  A fine dinner—lamb, turnips, broad beans, bread—relaxes him somewhat, although they eat by a single candle, with all the curtains drawn. Mektu, barred from the meal by the unknown doctor, watches them with the eyes of a famished dog. The real dog, concerned, watches him.

  “Whatever you’re up to this evening,” says Yehita-Chen, “I hope it takes you far from us, and soon. This is a terrible year to seek refuge in the Lutaral. The whole country is on edge. The rains failed in the hills, and the streams are running dry. There’s fighting to the south, open war to the north, and the Tirmassil stealing children, and ghouls under the wall at night.”

  She tears off a heel of bread, hands shaking in agitation. “Ghouls at the foot of the cliffs, too, and other places they’ve never dared to prowl before. I’ve seen them at dusk, snuffling along the edges of fields. They don’t even wait for proper darkness.”

  “My father used to say that ghouls are like birds before a storm,” says Chindilan. “When something big is coming, they’re on the move before anyone else. Somehow, they know.”

  “Doesn’t the Ursad protect you?” asked Kandri.

  Yehita-Chen looks at him sourly. “The Ursad. He claims as much. It suits his picture of himself as the big man of this country, with his riches and his elephant. But the big men are elsewhere. And the biggest man of all is that woman of yours, that Prophet.” She shakes her head. “Yes, perhaps the ghouls see more than we do.”

  “Ever since we escaped from the camp,” says Kandri, “we’ve heard talk about a Time of Madness.”

  “The Darsunuk,” says Talupéké. “Someone was
wailing about it in the market, and others laughing.”

  “No one should laugh!” snaps the old woman. “I don’t know if the legends are true, but why tempt fate? The Goddess Ang does not rule this world alone. She saves one soul, and her brother Surthang flings another down to hell, where Jekka tends his flames. Yes, we all grew up with stories of the Darsunuk. How those same Gods of Death bring it about to renew their power in Urrath, by leading us to destroy one another. Those who believe say it comes just once in three centuries, and that each time, the ruin is more terrible and the years of recovery longer. And one year, there won’t be any recovery. The Darsunuk will mean the end of the world.

  “Now the priests and astrologers say the Darsunuk has rolled around again. Not all of them, no—but enough to scare the wits out of simple people.”

  “Then what have we been worrying about?” says Mektu. “Those riders aren’t looking for us. They’re just extra patrols, because of all this superstition, and because the ghouls and Tirmassil are getting out of hand.” He looks from face to face, settling at last on Kandri. “I’m right, aren’t I, brother? Whatever’s going on here has nothing to do with us.”

  Kandri draws a deep breath. Mektu’s argument is sensible enough. Why, then, can’t he believe it? Once more in his mind he hears those galloping horses: For you, for you, for you goes their thunder on the road. But is it caution he is feeling, or cowardice? Is he simply unable to believe that one can keep secrets from the Enlightened One, even for a matter of days?

  Yehita-Chen turns to his brother. “Nothing to do with you? Perhaps not, soldier. But doesn’t your Prophet have her own vision of how the world will end?”

  “That’s different,” says Mektu. “That’s Orthodox Revelation. There’s no Time of Madness or Night of Blood.”

  “But there is a time of punishment,” says Kandri, “when the earth vomits up her dead, and the wind strips flesh from the bone.”

  “And the Twin Abominations,” says Chindilan, frowning, “dwell in Urrath once more.”

  Silence around the table. The brothers look at each other. Mektu’s stomach growls so loudly that the dog cocks his head.

  There was no changing Ariqina’s mind: she would go alone to Father Marz. And there was no dispelling the mysterious horror Kandri felt at the prospect.

  “Did you know,” she said when her tears subsided, “that he leads a special prayer service for girls who want rich husbands?”

  “I’ve . . . heard rumors,” said Kandri, scalded with guilt. He had never told her of his bath-house spying with Mektu, the night that started it all.

  “Destiny services,” said Ariqina. “My cousins took me to one, weeks after I arrived. We had to go barefoot on the stone. It was freezing. We wore these little white shifts, nothing else; the mosquitoes bit us through them. And that priest—”

  She stopped, eyes blazing. Kandri and Chindilan dared not speak. At last, shedding silent tears, she leaned forward and brushed Kandri’s lips with her own. Then she turned and walked down the lane to her aunt’s house. She entered, and the men heard the shouting begin. When it was over, they headed for home.

  Just outside Blind Stream they found Mektu, waiting in the road. He studied their faces and seemed to grasp something—or perhaps the absence of something, of candor. Kandri could barely stand to look at him. He remained convinced that Mektu was the snitch, but how could he say so? Ariqina didn’t believe it and had sworn him to silence. How could he accuse Mektu of spreading a story that he, Kandri, had promised never to tell?

  Back in their room, Kandri groped for his pillow, dropped to the floor like a sack of wheat, closed his eyes. Mektu squatted near his head. What the fuck happened to you? Are you ill? Kandri said, Yes, very, I’ve had too much to drink.

  Mektu poked him. Where did Ariqina go? She was there at the party, and then she wasn’t. Did you see her? We were going to talk.

  I couldn’t tell you, said Kandri, truthfully enough.

  But where were you?

  I don’t know, said Kandri. I got lost in the dark.

  Mektu sniffed. Maybe she did too.

  The next day was agony. Kandri felt as if he had indeed spent the whole night drinking. Mektu brooded, snapped at everyone; what Kandri saw in his face was simple guilt. He did not lay eyes on Ariqina.

  Among his places of work that summer was an apricot orchard on the Bittermoon road. The days were blazing hot. The other workers were chatty and kept trying to draw him out with jokes. When a Važek woman has twins, do you know what they call ’em, Kandri? Do you?

  He knew one thing only: that he must be with her. But that was madness; Ari had been perfectly clear. Stay away until I’ve seen him. It was her last request, there in the street before she entered the house to face Father Marz. Whatever lies he makes me speak, about my heart or my sex—I won’t be able to say them if I’m thinking of you.

  You’re going to lie? said Kandri. He’ll invoke the Prophet’s name, Ari. You’ll lie?

  I don’t know! How could I know? Ang’s tears, just leave me alone!

  Kandri was filling his tenth basket of apricots when Mektu appeared. Breathless, sweating, enraged. He demanded to know what was wrong with Ariqina. He had seen her in the market; she had treated him strangely. She would not look him in the eye.

  “I felt terrible. As if I’d done something wrong. Did you say something to her? Something bad about me?”

  They were nose to nose. Kandri felt his promise to Ariqina like a chain on his arm. The arm that wanted to swing at Mektu as hard as he could.

  “Whatever she thinks of you,” he said, “is your own doing, not mine.”

  The air was motionless, the sun a heel pressing down. Only the orchard bees carried on as before, a multitude of tiny fiddlers, tuning.

  Kandri reaches across the old woman’s dining table. In his hand is the vial of black medicine from Stilts.

  “Off to meet our fate,” he says, “or Black Hat Tebassa, anyway. You should go to bed the minute you drink this, Mek.”

  His brother nods. He takes the vial and sets it on the table.

  “Go ahead,” Kandri urges. “All in one gulp, like the doctor ordered.”

  “What’s the matter?” says Mektu. “You don’t trust me? You think I’ll pour it in the yard?”

  Kandri nudges the vial closer. “One gulp,” he repeats.

  “This is insulting,” says Mektu. “You should trust me to drink it. The fact that you don’t trust me makes me not want to drink it. That’s the only reason I might not.”

  Kandri waits.

  “Go on, get out of here,” says Mektu. “You’re not my father, you know.”

  Chindilan sighs, and Talupéké grins her secretive grin. Kandri waits.

  Mektu cracks his knuckles. He opens the vial and brings it close to his mouth, then stoppers it again. It smells, he declares, precisely of piss.

  “You unbearable fool!” blurts Chindilan. “We’re trying to save your life. Pinch your nose and toss it back like a man!”

  “Hell, no,” says Mektu cheerfully.

  A row ensues. Kandri calls him a fucking coward; Mektu points out that none of them have even seen this doctor, that they don’t even have a name, and why is that? Didn’t they ask? Do they expect him just to slurp down any quack’s fermented piss?

  At the height of the cursing, Eshett rises from her chair, and the others fall silent. She leans close to Mektu, and her eyes are deadly.

  “Drink it,” she says.

  Mektu hides his face in his elbow. He taps his foot, squirming. He snatches the bottle and drinks it dry.

  “Glah,” he croaks. “You’ll be sorry when I’m dead.”

  “That’s assuming a lot,” says Chindilan. Then he stiffens, listening. “Devil’s spit, I hear horses. Blow that candle out.”

  Kandri hears them too: six or seven horses, galloping hard. But this time, as they near the farmhouse, the horses slow. The dog growls deep in his belly. The horses move slower, and slower yet, and
finally come to a standstill, snuffling and stamping on the threshold of the yard. The riders begin to murmur among themselves.

  Hands slide to weapons. Yehita-Chen rises and creeps to the sideboard, where she crouches down on swollen knees. Kandri feels a sudden pang for her—this frightened, half-blind creature who has offered them her home. Does she think herself hidden? She might as well have placed a lampshade on her head.

  Then, just as suddenly as they have come, the riders thunder off. The travelers heave sighs of relief. As the old woman rises, she drags something heavy from beneath the sideboard. Kandri starts: the object is a black and battered mace.

  She gestures at Talupéké with the weapon. “Girl,” she says, “you’re my sister-in arms, and my door is always open to you. But I can’t declare war on the whole Orthodox Dominion. If the Prophet learns that I’m harboring deserters, this farm will be a heap of ashes before you can shout fire.”

  “We’ve endangered you,” says Kandri. “I’m sorry, mother. We’ve stayed too long.”

  “Help us for a few more days, Yehita-Chen,” says Talupéké. “These men are heroes, you know.”

  Kandri gives her a long-suffering look. “Don’t deny it,” says Talupéké. “Chindilan told me: you carved up two of the Prophet’s Sons.”

  “They what?” cries Yehita-Chen.

  “You proved they’re just mortals,” the girl continues. “That they bleed and die like the rest of us. And if they do, maybe that she-bitch does as well. She’s no demigod, and one day the whole world will understand that.”

  “I wish I’d done nothing,” says Mektu. “I killed a good man. If I killed him.”

  “I thought I was killing someone else,” says Kandri.

  “And ‘she-bitch,’ is redundant, you know,” Mektu adds.

  Talupéké looks from brother to brother. “You two,” she says, “are the most confusing fuckers I’ve ever been around. And that’s a big fucking accomplishment.”