by RJ Baker
Down corridors where his footsteps were absorbed by thick carpet.
It was difficult for him not to stare. Not to wander wide-eyed and amazed at what he saw there, at what King Rufra had wrought. There were no slaves. There was no one who looked sick or underfed, and the forgetting plague had barely touched this land. In places along the corridors water ran from the walls to collect in bowls, and people drank from them as if it were nothing—and he supposed it was nothing to them. The more he walked and the farther up the castle he went the more sure he became he must be heading in the wrong direction. When he had been given the contract he had given little thought to finding his target, but Maniyadoc was no longhouse or small keep; it was a true castle and large beyond his imagining. He stopped, thought, considered the target and where they were likely to be, and knew what he should do. “Not up, Gadger,” he whispered to himself, “of course not up.”
Down.
Down into the depths. Down into the dark places. Down into the hidden places. That was where he would find his target.
And so he headed down.
Steps, so many steps. More steps than he ever imagined one building could have. The air became colder. The subtle weight of damp on his clothes grew and he became surer this was right. This was where his quarry would be.
When he found himself in a gallery, a low-roofed and dark room held up by hundreds of columns, each one with cracked and chipped stone eyes staring at him—the end of the room hidden by a darkness the torches could not penetrate—he felt sure he had found the place. It simply felt right, and when she had trained him she had said, “Listen to what you feel and it will not send you wrong.”
Knives sliding from sheaths.
He moved more quietly now, slipping off his shoes to aid his silence. Feeling the cold stone against his feet. He hugged the columns, finding darkness and sticking to it.
Did he see something? A flash of white in the corner of his eye?
Be still, boy. Be still and listen.
Nothing.
He moved again. A shiver ran through him as cold and damp air wormed through his ill-fitting disguise.
Laughter.
Was it? Not certain. It sounded very far away, though it could have been someone very near laughing quietly. Or simply an echo from somewhere else in this castle. Surely it was an echo.
A flash of black and white. A skittering, a shuffle of soft shoes on hard stone.
Someone?
No.
A trick of the light. A confluence of shadows. Nothing else. No one knew he was here. No one had seen him. No one had followed him. He was good, the best of hers, or she would not have sent him.
A subtle movement, a breath of air from the wrong direction.
A laugh.
This time the shiver that ran through him was not from the cold. Not from the damp. Someone was here. He took a deep breath.
I have nothing to fear.
I am a sword.
Some servant or guard, that was all. He could deal with them. Even if it was the target, he himself was whole and hearty—he had nothing to fear from a cripple. He moved again, avoiding the light, and he was sure he felt a movement in return, as if some other timed their moves to his. Was it his imagination?
A darkness punctuated by columns of unseeing eyes.
Anyone would be unsettled by this place.
Another dash, another whispering echo. And a corpse. Not a dead body lying on the floor. Nothing so mundane, nothing so normal. A walking corpse that appeared from nowhere. Skeletal face, flashes of arm and leg bone as it limped forward. In each hand it held a blade, and its every movement seemed somehow inhuman, exaggerated.
No.
Breathe.
Not a corpse, but a person, a human. A small person but one nonetheless.
He was no longer scared. A jester, that was all, a fool with knives in their hands, and a fool who would have to die to ease his way. Death he could do. It was what he was for. It was what he did.
He attacked, running toward his adversary, blades out. A running thrust, a move to gut an unarmoured opponent.
But his opponent was not there. The jester vanished, and the air filled with the strangest scent, of honey and herbs, at once beguiling and sickening, like corpse flowers in the thick woods of home.
A cut felt. Pain. The rattle of metal hitting stone as his knife fell from his hands. Blood fountains from where there had been fingers. He didn’t scream, too shocked to scream. The jester stood far across the room from him, and he can see their blades were bloodied. But how?
“Where is the other half of your sorrowing?” The jester’s voice lacked any inflection, like a priest of the dead gods.
“What?” The pain starting now, searing, powerful. But he will not cry like a child.
“They send children, untrained children.” This voice was not the jester’s; it came from the darkness.
“Who did you come for?” The jester’s voice was almost gentle, beguiling.
“An assassin never gives up his secrets.” That had been drilled into him by her at the training school, again and again. The jester laughed.
“Everyone gives up their secrets eventually,” the jester said. And then the figure moved, a blur, a shadow across his vision, and arms were locked around his neck. He could smell the gone-off meat smell of the panstick the jester wore to cover his face, and it choked him, like when he’d tried to eat rotten meat.
“Who are you here for?” was asked again, whispered into his ear, and for the first time ever he thought he understood evil. There was only darkness in that voice, no escape, no pity or mercy.
“An assassin never …”
And pain.
Pain like he’d never known, the junctures of bone and joints being twisted in ways they were never meant to twist, the sharp edge of the blade digging through his skin, and something else, something darker and older and more terrifying. Something that moved along the veins of his body and poured through his blood in a tide of razors. There had been nothing like this in the school. It was nothing like the drownings, the brandings, the beatings, or the hunger. It was worse than anything he had ever imagined.
The voice again.
“Who were you here for?”
“No …”
A fire along his nerves. Like biting lizards chewing on the insides of his skin.
“It can only get worse for you, boy,” said a voice like slime in his ears. “Who were you here for?”
And he couldn’t keep the words in. The pain was so large, so huge and overwhelming, that the words had no room in his mind and they were forced out through the spittle and gasps that occupied his mouth.
“Merela Karn. I came for the traitor, Merela Karn.”
And the knife bit a little deeper, and he relaxed, because the fear of death was not as powerful as the relief he felt at the sudden cessation of pain. As he faded away, life seeping into the ground, he heard voices speaking over him.
“You should not play with them, Girton. It is cruel.”
“No, Master, they tell the truth more quickly when they are scared. It is a kindness.”
A space, a silence. He tried to imagine what it would have been like to feel another touch him for any other reason than to cause him pain.
“There is that, I suppose. There is that.”
As he died, he wondered who she was, this woman whose voice seemed full of care, and then his last sight was her. An old woman, hair streaked with white, struggling to walk, one leg twisted and ruined.
He would have liked to have known her.
She sounded kind.
if you enjoyed
BLOOD OF ASSASSINS
look out for
JADE CITY
Book One of the Green Bone Saga
by
Fonda Lee
Jade is the lifeblood of the island of Kekon. It has been mined, traded, stolen, and killed for—and for centuries, honorable Green Bone warriors like the Kaul family have used it to enhance their magic
al abilities and defend the island from foreign invasion.
Now the war is over and a new generation of Kauls vies for control of Kekon’s bustling capital city. They care about nothing but protecting their own, cornering the jade market, and defending the districts under their protection. Ancient tradition has little place in this rapidly changing nation.
When a powerful new drug emerges that lets anyone—even foreigners—wield jade, the simmering tension between the Kauls and the rival Ayt family erupts into open violence. The outcome of this clan war will determine the fate of all Green Bones—from their grandest patriarch to the lowliest motorcycle runner on the streets—and of Kekon itself.
CHAPTER 1
The Twice Lucky
The two would-be jade thieves sweated in the kitchen of the Twice Lucky restaurant. The windows were open in the dining room, and the onset of evening brought a breeze off the waterfront to cool the diners, but in the kitchen, there were only the two ceiling fans that had been spinning all day to little effect. Summer had barely begun and already the city of Janloon was like a spent lover—sticky and fragrant.
Bero and Sampa were sixteen years old, and after three weeks of planning, they had decided that tonight would change their lives. Bero wore a waiter’s dark pants and a white shirt that clung uncomfortably to his back. His sallow face and chapped lips were stiff from holding in his thoughts. He carried a tray of dirty drink glasses over to the kitchen sink and set it down, then wiped his hands on a dish towel and leaned toward his coconspirator, who was rinsing dishes with the spray hose before stacking them in the drying racks.
“He’s alone now.” Bero kept his voice low.
Sampa glanced up. He was an Abukei teenager—copper-skinned with thick, wiry hair and slightly pudgy cheeks that gave him a faintly cherubic appearance. He blinked rapidly, then turned back to the sink. “I get off my shift in five minutes.”
“We gotta do it now, keke,” said Bero. “Hand it over.”
Sampa dried a hand on the front of his shirt and pulled a small paper envelope from his pocket. He slipped it quickly into Bero’s palm. Bero tucked his hand under his apron, picked up his empty tray, and walked out of the kitchen.
At the bar, he asked the bartender for rum with chili and lime on the rocks—Shon Judonrhu’s preferred drink. Bero carried the drink away, then put down his tray and bent over an empty table by the wall, his back to the dining room floor. As he pretended to wipe down the table with his towel, he emptied the contents of the paper packet into the glass. They fizzed quickly and dissolved in the amber liquid.
He straightened and made his way over to the bar table in the corner. Shon Ju was still sitting by himself, his bulk squeezed onto a small chair. Earlier in the evening, Maik Kehn had been at the table as well, but to Bero’s great relief, he’d left to rejoin his brother in a booth on the other side of the room. Bero set the glass down in front of Shon. “On the house, Shon-jen.”
Shon took the drink, nodding sleepily without looking up. He was a regular at the Twice Lucky and drank heavily. The bald spot in the center of his head was pink under the dining room lights. Bero’s eyes were drawn, irresistibly, farther down, to the three green studs in the man’s left ear.
He walked away before he could be caught staring. It was ridiculous that such a corpulent, aging drunk was a Green Bone. True, Shon had only a little jade on him, but unimpressive as he was, sooner or later someone would take it, along with his life perhaps. And why not me? Bero thought. Why not, indeed. He might only be a dockworker’s bastard who would never have a martial education at Wie Lon Temple School or Kaul Dushuron Academy, but at least he was Kekonese all the way through. He had guts and nerve; he had what it took to be somebody. Jade made you somebody.
He passed the Maik brothers sitting together in a booth with a third young man. Bero slowed a little, just to get a closer look at them. Maik Kehn and Maik Tar—now they were real Green Bones. Sinewy men, their fingers heavy with jade rings, fighting talon knives with jade-inlaid hilts strapped to their waists. They were dressed well: dark, collared shirts and tailored tan jackets, shiny black shoes, billed hats. The Maiks were well-known members of the No Peak clan, which controlled most of the neighborhoods on this side of the city. One of them glanced in Bero’s direction.
Bero turned away quickly, busying himself with clearing dishes. The last thing he wanted was for the Maik brothers to pay any attention to him tonight. He resisted the urge to reach down to check the small-caliber pistol tucked in the pocket of his pants and concealed by his apron. Patience. After tonight, he wouldn’t be in this waiter’s uniform anymore. He wouldn’t have to serve anyone anymore.
Back in the kitchen, Sampa had finished his shift for the evening and was signing out. He looked questioningly at Bero, who nodded that the deed was done. Sampa’s small, white upper teeth popped into view and crushed down on his lower lip. “You really think we can do this?” he whispered.
Bero brought his face near the other boy’s. “Stay cut, keke,” he hissed. “We’re already doing it. No turning back. You’ve got to do your part!”
“I know, keke, I know. I will.” Sampa gave him a hurt and sour look.
“Think of the money,” Bero suggested, and gave him a shove. “Now get going.”
Sampa cast a final nervous glance backward, then pushed out the kitchen door. Bero glared after him, wishing for the hundredth time that he didn’t need such a doughy and insipid partner. But there was no getting around it—only a full-blooded Abukei native, immune to jade, could palm a gem and walk out of a crowded restaurant without giving himself away.
It had taken some convincing to bring Sampa on board. Like many in his tribe, the boy gambled on the river, spending his weekends diving for jade runoff that escaped the mines far upstream. It was dangerous—when glutted with rainfall, the torrent carried away more than a few unfortunate divers, and even if you were lucky and found jade (Sampa had bragged that he’d once found a piece the size of a fist), you might get caught. Spend time in jail if you were lucky, time in the hospital if you weren’t.
It was a loser’s game, Bero had insisted to him. Why fish for raw jade just to sell it to the black market middlemen who carved it up and smuggled it off island, paying you only a fraction of what they sold it for later? A couple of clever, daring fellows like them—they could do better. If you were going to gamble for jade, Bero said, then gamble big. Aftermarket gems, cut and set—that was worth real money.
Bero returned to the dining room and busied himself clearing and setting tables, glancing at the clock every few minutes. He could ditch Sampa later, after he’d gotten what he needed.
“Shon Ju says there’s been trouble in the Armpit,” said Maik Kehn, leaning in to speak discreetly under the blanket of background noise. “A bunch of kids shaking down businesses.”
His younger brother, Maik Tar, reached across the table with his chopsticks to pluck at the plate of crispy squid balls. “What kind of kids are we talking about?”
“Low-level Fingers. Young toughs with no more than a piece or two of jade.”
The third man at the table wore an uncharacteristically pensive frown. “Even the littlest Fingers are clan soldiers. They take orders from their Fists, and Fists from their Horn.” The Armpit district had always been disputed territory, but directly threatening establishments affiliated with the No Peak clan was too bold to be the work of careless hoodlums. “It smells like someone’s pissing on us.”
The Maiks glanced at him, then at each other. “What’s going on, Hilo-jen?” asked Kehn. “You seem out of sorts tonight.”
“Do I?” Kaul Hiloshudon leaned against the wall in the booth and turned his glass of rapidly warming beer, idly wiping off the condensation. “Maybe it’s the heat.”
Kehn motioned to one of the waiters to refill their drinks. The pallid teenager kept his eyes down as he served them. He glanced up at Hilo for a second but didn’t seem to recognize him; few people who hadn’t met Kaul Hiloshudon in per
son expected him to look as young as he did. The Horn of the No Peak clan, second only in authority to his elder brother, often went initially unnoticed in public. Sometimes this galled Hilo; sometimes he found it useful.
“Another strange thing,” said Kehn when the waiter had left. “No one’s seen or heard from Three-Fingered Gee.”
“How’s it possible to lose track of Three-Fingered Gee?” Tar wondered. The black market jade carver was as recognizable for his girth as he was for his deformity.
“Maybe he got out of the business.”
Tar snickered. “Only one way anyone gets out of the jade business.”
A voice spoke up near Hilo’s ear. “Kaul-jen, how are you this evening? Is everything to your satisfaction tonight?” Mr. Une had appeared beside their table and was smiling the anxious, solicitous smile he always reserved for them.
“It’s all excellent, as usual,” Hilo said, arranging his face into the relaxed, lopsided smile that was his more typical expression.
The owner of the Twice Lucky clasped his kitchen-scarred hands together, nodding and smiling his humble thanks. Mr. Une was a man in his sixties, bald and well-padded, and a third-generation restaurateur. His grandfather had founded the venerable old establishment, and his father had kept it running all through the wartime years, and afterward. Like his predecessors, Mr. Une was a loyal Lantern Man in the No Peak clan. Every time Hilo was in, he came around personally to pay his respects. “Please let me know if there is anything else I can have brought out to you,” he insisted.
When the reassured Mr. Une had departed, Hilo grew serious again. “Ask around some more. Find out what happened to Gee.”
“Why do we care about Gee?” Kehn asked, not in an impertinent way, just curious. “Good riddance to him. One less carver sneaking our jade out to weaklings and foreigners.”
“It bothers me, is all.” Hilo sat forward, helping himself to the last crispy squid ball. “Nothing good’s coming, when the dogs start disappearing from the streets.”
