Women of War

by Alexander Potter

  As they entered, Ree-Lin took one last look around for anyone suspicious. Seeing no one of notice, she touched the largest crystal at the entrance, a symbol of respect to the powers that granted foresight, and escorted Jerio, who also touched the crystal, into the outer entrance of the tent. Once inside, Ree-Lin glanced about to see the child who led them standing at the doorway to the inner room, holding the curtain there as well. She noticed a large bruise on the girl’s right wrist.

  She seems underfed and somehow out of place. I would swear this little one is afraid, but the signs of long-term abuse are not in her eyes, only the telltale markings of subservience and stern discipline.

  The child bowed and stammered out a request, “I w-will n-need to take your staff ... I mean, no weapons are ... the fore-teller does n-not allow ...”

  Ree-Lin could see the child lacked the confidence to ask her to disarm before going into the main room. She knew guests were expected to leave their weapons behind before entering a fore-teller’s tent, but she was loath to give up everything.

  “Of course you may have my staff, as long as you promise to hold it for me and to give it back to me on the way out; I would not want to forget it,” she said with warmth.

  The girl beamed a shy smile, and with visible relief she took the staff.

  Jerio clamped the new empty dagger cuff she was holding to her left arm, the arm not used to hold a weapon, as befitted one who wore it for ornamental purposes. This left both hands free to place on the table for the fore-teller to touch.

  The girl stared at the cuff and said, “That is beautiful. Is ... is it made of gelden?”

  Jerio replied that it was indeed gelden and also showed her the cherly copra design.

  At this, Ree-Lin stepped forward and placed the gelden coins into the child’s hand and nodded. The child thanked Ree-Lin and excused herself to go into the inner tent to see if the fore-teller was ready. As soon as the girl disappeared, Jerio looked at Ree-Lin with a puzzled expression and whispered. “The girl seems frightened.”

  Ree-Lin nodded and made to reply when the child came back and drew aside the heavy curtain to the main entrance. “You m-may come in.”

  The pair entered as the child remained outside, dropping the curtain down behind them. Two taipa lights lit the inner tent with a warm yellow glow. They cast the twenty-foot by twenty-foot room in what normally would have been a comforting hazy glow, but to Ree-Lin it provided insufficient light to assess danger.

  A low table, curved in the shape of a crescent moon, sat in the middle of the room. A cloth brightly decorated with spirals of gold on a multicolor pattern lay across the length of the table but did not extend over the sides. Two cushion seats were placed in front of the table; the fore-teller sat on another cushion on the opposite side. She had long blonde hair in a single braid and a veil of mesh and pearls that covered the lower half of her face. Bright blue eyes, heavily lined in kohl, twinkled as she regarded them. Around her right ear was an intricate lobe coil of striling that gripped the flesh in three places. It was undoubtedly crafted by a skilled artisan, and seemed to be almost a part of her ear itself. She also wore a light gray body garment and robes of light blue with a white spiral pattern. This seemed odd to the Geiko; all the fore-tellers she had known in the past wore dark clothing and did not cover their faces. Ree-Lin looked at the foreteller more closely.

  “Is something wrong?” The teller asked with a raised eyebrow.

  Still ... just because I have seen a few fore-tellers doesn’t mean I have seen them all; they are respected and required to be pacifists. Perhaps I should relax. Ree-Lin thought before answering. “No, nothing is wrong, honorable lady.”

  “Then I bid you both to please sit down,” she answered while gesturing to the cushions in front of her.

  Jerio and Ree-Lin did as they were bid. The fore-teller placed a medium-sized wooden bowl in front of Jerio. She poured fine sea salt from a glass pitcher into it, then added sand from a slate pitcher as well. With a wooden pestle she stirred the two elements together until a swirl was defined on the surface of the mixture. Then she pulled out a small velvet bag, opened it, and asked Jerio to pull out two stones. Jerio placed her right hand in the bag and did so.

  “Now place one stone in each hand and put your hands on each side of the bowl with your palms up,” the veiled woman commanded.

  Jerio did as asked, and the fore-teller reached her own hands out to place them over her open palms. The teller was about to touch Jerio but stopped and made a small gasp. Ree-Lin had been watching the fore-teller’s eyes and saw that she was alarmed at the cuff on Jerio’s arm.

  Jerio seemed puzzled, “What is the matter?”

  “You have on a cuff of metal, a symbol of defensiveness and a desire to not be open to the fates. It is not permitted.”

  Jerio looked at Ree-Lin for guidance, and the Geiko said, “I will hold it for you.”

  Jerio began to take it off while saying, “I apologize, I did not know.”

  The fore-teller answered, “It is forgivable; you are young and do not know the ways of the spirit world. My girl should have informed you.” With that she clapped her hands together and called out, “Misa! Come here!”

  The little girl came in quickly and stood just far enough away from the fore-teller to be out of reach. “Yes, mistress?”

  “Did you inform my guests that they are not to bring metal to the divining table?”

  The child began to tremble. “I, I f-f-forgot, mistress,” she replied, on the verge of tears.

  The scene unfolding displeased Ree-Lin. She noticed that Jerio was blushing and thought that the girl would most likely be punished. “Lady fore-teller, it is my fault that the child did not take our metal. I insisted, as the bodyguard of this young lady, that I be allowed to keep my weapons and cuffs. I also insisted that Jerio be allowed to wear her own cuff. I know that weapons are not allowed on one who is having their fortune told, but I was unaware that metal itself was banned. I humbly apologize,” she said with a small bow of her head. Ree-Lin hoped that she conveyed to the foreteller that while she was accepting blame for something that clearly did not take place, she was also implying that she would not tolerate the punishment of the child, nor the taking of her own weapons, only the removal of Jerio’s cuff.

  The fore-teller frowned as if considering what Ree-Lin had said, then looked again at the small child. “You may return to your post,” she nearly hissed.

  The child turned and left the tent, glancing at Ree-Lin with a frown of bewilderment on the way.

  The fore-teller then waited for Jerio to give her cuff to Ree-Lin. The girl was in the middle of unfastening it when she glanced up at the fore-teller and froze.

  No longer distracted by the little girl, Ree-Lin noticed Jerio’s reaction, and followed her little sister’s gaze, at first seeing nothing that would cause such alarm. However, as she regarded the fore-teller, she saw that the woman’s right ear was now bare.

  Odd, did I miss when she took it off? Was she also delinquent in bringing metal to the divining table? She seems new to the business and is younger than the average foreteller. Her assistant is definitely not experienced. All of the anomalies prickled at the back of Ree-Lin’s mind, telling her that something was wrong.

  Jerio seemed to forget about taking off her cuff and began to rise from her seat, “I have changed my mind, please excu—” she began to say.

  The fore-teller reached forward with one hand and grabbed Jerio’s wrist while reaching into her robe with the other. Ree-Lin started to rise to her feet while pulling her dagger out of her own robe. Jerio froze for a second, her eyes mesmerized by a streak—no, a line of something just under the surface of her skin that snaked down her neck and disappeared under the neckline of her robe.

  “Mitalsa!” she said.

  The Society of Mitalsa! the Geiko thought as she leaped to her feet.

  The select group of well-paid assassins known as the Society of Mitalsa had a unique metallurgical
talent: absorbing metal through their skin without harming themselves and placing it into their victims, poisoning the victim’s bloodstream. An experienced member of the Society could touch the target and be gone by the time the poison began to act.

  The assassin pulled Jerio across the table to her and placed her hand at the girl’s throat. Jerio strained against the grip from her awkward position, face down over the bowl. The Geiko spotted a tendril of gleaming metal creeping along the back of the woman’s hand. She did not know very much about Mitalsans, few people did, but she did know that the poison could only be delivered through the palm of the hand and that the assassin could not keep the poison inside them for long without harming themselves.

  Ree-Lin tensed to dive at the woman to break her hold on Jerio before the striling went into her sister’s skin and killed her.

  “Stop right there, Geiko, I am here for you, not this girl.”

  Ree-Lin did as she was told, keeping her eyes on the hand with the poison.

  “Why do you want me?”

  “You are the one that killed my fellow assassin when he was assigned to eliminate Tardan Ven-shar.”

  Ree-Lin spoke quietly, “The girl has no part in this, then. Let her leave and we will settle this ... honorably.”

  Lady Alima laughed. “Take off all your weapons and metal, and then I will let her go.”

  With the woman’s eyes off her, Jerio punched her right hand into the assassin’s side and slipped out of her grasp. The fake fore-teller wheezed from the blow and tried to grab the escaping girl.

  Ree-Lin dove across the table and grabbed the Mitalsa’s hair as she toppled over from the impact of the Geiko. The action tore off the fore-teller’s veil as she scrambled backward to get away from Ree-Lin. The Geiko held her dagger as she came up from the floor and moved to stab the woman. The assassin countered by leaping forward past the knife, but Ree-Lin spun around and grabbed the woman by her braid again. She yelped at the pull and whirled back, grabbing the arm that was holding her hair. Ree-Lin let go of the hair when she felt a warm tingle from the poison on the woman’s hand. She immediately retreated and used her blade to scrape the area that was now glistening with metal. It bled quickly and Ree-Lin wiped it on her robe and then spun back as the assassin came at her again. She nearly made contact with her dagger but the woman dodged the knife and grabbed for her arm again.

  I cannot let her touch me again!

  Ree-Lin delivered a sound punch to the woman’s side with her free hand and forced her to let go of the momentary contact. The assassin retreated in an instant and stood for a moment facing the Geiko as she caught her breath. Ree-Lin could see the metal tendrils across her bare face and the trail that led to her hands, ready to deliver a fatal touch.

  How long can she hold the poison?

  Ree-Lin could feel a tingle where the assassin had touched her and then, much to her horror, felt her knees buckle. She crumpled to the floor and fought to rise again. She could also feel the old wound on her other arm throb from the combat and she lost the grip on her dagger.

  I could be dead already! Blessed mother of mercy, this is not how I want to die!

  The assassin cursed the Geiko angrily. “Stay still and die or I place your entire house and this whelp under the contract!” she hissed with a gesture toward Jerio.

  The threat was real. This woman was sent to kill the one who killed a fellow assassin before their job was finished. In the code of the assassin’s guild, if a member was killed after the contract was finished, no retribution was needed, but if an assassin of the guild died before completing a job, the guild was honorbound to send out another assassin to finish the job. They were further obliged to kill the one who prevented the first job from being finished. It was a perverted sense of honor, and the threat of placing an entire house under the contract was serious; entire families could be wiped out.

  The Geiko felt her anger rise to a dangerous level. Jerio is my charge and this assassin will die!

  She grabbed a nearby cushion and threw it at the woman, and then drew her bone hairpin and sent that at the woman with a silent curse of warrior outrage. The weapon hit the assassin in the shoulder as she tried to dodge sideways to avoid the cushion. Ree-Lin struggled up and prepared to throw herself onto the assassin, sacrificing herself to save Jerio.

  The woman grimaced at the pain of the sharp hairpin but clenched her teeth and pulled it out. Ree-Lin picked up her knife and tried to scramble away to recover a better position to fight from.

  She could see Jerio standing frozen with fear, beads of sweat pouring down her face.

  Ree-Lin tried to tell her to run but she found she could not utter a word. The Mitalsan smiled an evil smile and advanced on the Geiko.

  At this moment the child Misa entered and gasped. Ree-Lin saw Misa run to where Jerio stood and fall to her knees.

  What? she thought just before she felt an acrid touch on her cheek.

  The assassin had successfully touched her on the face and the poison took immediate effect. Ree-Lin fought for her life. With great effort, she controlled her arm and the Mitalsan screamed as the Geiko stabbed her in the stomach. Ree-Lin let go of the knife when the assassin grabbed her by the wrist.

  Alima’s breath became labored and she let go of her attacker to pull the knife out as she stumbled backward. The woman stood up and pulled the knife hilt from her belly. The blade appeared to have disappeared inside her. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly with her hands over the wound in her stomach. Metal from the dagger began to spill out and enter her hands. She laughed and showed the delirious Geiko her now completely striling-covered hands.

  “Fool, you have no idea of the weapon you have given me,” she said with ice in her voice.

  The Mitalsan laughed and threw the metal from her hands at Ree-Lin, who was horrified to find she was seeing a dozen drops of striling hurtling toward her. Horror turned to desperation as she felt several of the droplets burn her skin and sink into her flesh. Her vision began to cloud, but she could see Jerio behind the assassin and the child Misa coming at her from one side. The child threw the bowl of sand and salt into the assassin’s eyes. The fake fore-teller screamed with pain. Jerio took the cuff she purchased for her sister and clamped it onto the exposed ankle of the assassin.

  No! No! She can use the metal!

  The assassin was frantic to defend herself against her new assailants and to get the cuff off of her leg. She went down to the ground and crashed into the table. Jerio threw one of the tapestries from the wall over the desperate woman and sat on her as she wailed and fought.

  Ree-Lin felt her strength give away and knew she would not survive the poisoning, but felt relief that Jerio was killing the assailant by smothering her. She could hear the muffled screams grow fainter and then felt the cool hands of Misa on her own face as she lost consciousness.

  The Geiko was surprised to find herself waking in the care room of a healers’ home. It was dark outside and she could see a soft light flickering against the ceiling.

  Where is Jerio? she thought, and then spoke the question when she realized she had not asked the question out loud.

  A healer in tan robes leaned over her and spoke quietly, “She is here and safe; I will get her for you.”

  The healer left her view and Ree-Lin felt a moment of relief before her curiosity overwhelmed her.

  What happened? I feel odd, weak but whole. How did I get here? She clenched her hands and feet to confirm and then tried to get up. Tiredness flowed through her and she abandoned the attempt. Jerio then came into her view.

  “You look terrible,” she said as she held her Geiko’s hand.

  Ree-Lin smiled, “You look great.”

  Jerio leaned forward to hug her in a burst of emotion. “Oh Ree-Lin, I was so worried, you have been asleep for three days and Misa was never sure she got all the poison out ...”

  Ree-Lin interrupted her. “Misa? The child in the tent?”

  “Yes ... yes, she told me that he
r mistress, Alima, was vulnerable to gelden. She wanted no metal at the table because when a Mitalsan is actively absorbing metals she cannot control which metals might be melded into an item.”

  The Geiko was confused; this was not something she had heard before.

  Jerio continued, “Misa is skilled in the same metal transforming qualities; she was an apprentice to Alima.”

  “She is a Mitalsan?”

  “She was an apprentice. Alima purchased her from a slaver a few months ago when the child’s skill was discovered. Misa hated Alima, but knows her talents would earn her a death sentence if she ran away.”

  Ree-Lin knew this was true; an apprentice to an assassin would be bound by the code of the assassin’s guild. “Where is she now?”

  “I have her safely under guard at home. I am hoping you will take her on as an apprentice Geiko; her skills in metallurgy include the art to pull the poison out of a victim. She will be very useful if anyone is poisoned in the future.”

  “She took the poison out of me?”

  “Yes, and she told me how Salthi’s cuff would poison Alima. I put it on her and it sank through her skin like the striling earlobe decoration she wore for poison,” she replied with a noticeable tremor in her voice.

  “Jerio, are you okay?” Ree-Lin asked as she squeezed her hand weakly.

  “I will be. Her death must have been extremely painful and I ... I have never killed anyone before,” she replied as tears began to stream down her face.

  The Geiko pulled her little sister closer, “The first time is the hardest; I will not lie to you. It doesn’t get better, but it never feels as bad as the first time.”

  Jerio cried a minute longer and then pulled back. She took a handkerchief out of her sleeve and dabbed away the tears. It took her a minute to compose herself.

  She will be fine, but the innocence will never return. I will have to be sure I am available for all the questions she will ask, Ree-Lin thought.